About this episode

Tom Szaky discusses how he built TerraCycle, a $100 million business focused on recycling and circular supply chain design.

What if the $2.6 trillion in materials the world throws away every year is not a waste problem, but a supply chain design problem? What if there was a way to capture that value and build a 9 figure empire? In the Season 3 premiere, Sheri Hinish sits down with Tom Szaky, the founder and CEO of TerraCycle , a company operating in 20 countries that has recycled over 8 billion items the traditional waste system refused to touch. Tom dropped out of Princeton to build a business around garbage. Twenty-five years later, TerraCycle generates nearly $100 million in annual revenue and just announced a Reg A $75 million investment offering to scale its operations further. In this episode, Tom breaks down why 95% of products have no viable recycling pathway (and why it has nothing to do with technology), why everything is getting less recyclable over time as products get cheaper, how Loop cracked the code on reusable packaging in France while it stalled in the US, and why waste is the least innovative industry in the world, making it the biggest blue ocean for entrepreneurs. Sheri and Tom share insights on frameworks for circular supply chain design, extended producer responsibility, and the…

People in this episode

Host: Sheri Hinish

Guest: Tom Szaky

Topics covered

• circular supply chain
• recycling
• waste management
• sustainability
• entrepreneurship
• supply chain design

Keywords

• TerraCycle
• recycling
• circular economy
• supply chain
• waste
• entrepreneurship
• sustainability
• packaging
• producer responsibility

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: TerraCycle

Places: Princeton, France, US

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