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Fertilizer business sprouts from worm waste

TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky plans to sell his product in Home Depots and Wal-Marts nationwide this year.

TRENTON, N.J. - Tom Szaky is wearing what he calls his "greed hat," turning worm excrement into profit.

The 23-year-old Princeton dropout set out to be a smart entrepreneur, not an environmental hero. His growing business is built on organic fertilizer made from worm feces, then bottled in recycled plastic bottles.

The company, TerraCycle, markets plant fertilizer created by "vermicomposting" - harvesting worm excrement. It sells the product in 20-ounce plastic soft drink bottles, many gathered by schoolchildren. It employs 10 people in a warehouse in economically depressed Trenton.

Those business choices were born not of idealism but to maximize efficiency and keep costs down.

"We're in Trenton because the rent is very cheap and labor is abundant," said Szaky (pronounced SAH-kee). "The decisions were made by wearing the greed hat ... but ironically we're doing the right thing."

TerraCycle Plant Food has sold for about $7 since early 2004 in organic groceries and independent garden shops, and in 2004 began appearing on shelves in Wal-Marts across Canada and Home Depots there and in New Jersey. Sales for 2005 were expected to reach about $500,000, and Szaky hopes to triple that this year with a planned launch in Home Depots and Wal-Marts nationwide.

There, where most Americans buy gardening goods, TerraCycle will go up against powerhouse Miracle-Gro.

"We don't want to be just be an organic plant food sold in little organic stores," he said. "We want to compete on their playing field."

Born in Hungary, Szaky moved with his physician parents to Toronto at age 9. He entered Princeton to study behavioral psychology and economics in 2001.

While visiting a friend in Montreal that fall, Szaky was intrigued by the success his plant-loving pal was having with homemade fertilizer generated by a box of compost and some worms. "It wasn't an environmental thing. It was "Wow, this is a cool business model,"' Szaky said.

The company took up residence at Rutgers University's EcoComplex, an environmental research facility run in partnership with Burlington County Landfill near Bordentown, about 12 miles south of Trenton. While a TerraCycle researcher there is tweaking specialized formulations for orchids and African violets, the company buys worm waste from suppliers and focuses on packaging and marketing.

[Last modified January 3, 2006, 01:57:16]