Poop Your Way to Profits

Their mothers would be proud: two New York City entrepreneurs (Brookynites specifically) are taking that old adage, "Waste not, want not," to new levels by converting waste into useful products that, in one case, help people reduce their landfill contributions and, in the other case, help third-world villages prosper.

They've become social entrepreneurs, that is, people who do good while doing well.

Vandra Thorburn is a late-blooming, prize-winning entrepreneur who realized that urban folks don't much like carting bags of rotting food waste down to their local farmers market for composting. Yes, some of them were willing to put up with, as she says, "the drama of fruit flies and smells." But dropping off the waste was about as far as they would go. 

The farmers market in Brooklyn had 500 people dropping off rotting garbage but few who would cart the stuff to a compost pile then turn and tend the pile. So Thorburn found a method of reusing food waste, even meat and dairy waste, that was not smelly, did not attract rodents, and enriches the soil. 

Vokashi was born.

Thorburn sells and services 5-gallon buckets in which food waste can be fermented using a tried-and-true Japanese method. Once a month, she'll pick up your bucket of waste, take it to a community garden or public space, and bury it. No muss, no smell, and very rich soil. The trench can be re-used in six weeks. 

Her business model includes an initial deposit on the bucket and the bran to start fermentation, then $40 per month for pick-up unless your neighbor has a bucket, too, in which case it's $25 each. For that, you escape fruit flies, odor, and the ignominy of carrying rotting food around. And you significantly lessen your contribution to the landfill.

She's building the customer base; now she needs gardens and public spaces to bury the fermented waste. 

Dr. Karl Wald, a bored biochemist on a global walk-about, fell in love with elephants. Who'd have guessed his future lay with pachyderms after all those years of college? But the objects of his affections were being killed off by Sri Lankan farmers because those big-footed animals wreck havoc on agricultural endeavors. 

Wald's solution was to find a way to make elephants a source of income, thus protecting them while giving Sri Lankans a cottage industry with a global market. The elephant's value was in their waste. Elephants eat a lot of leaves. Their excrement has a lot of cellulose. Guess what paper is made of? Processed cellulose! The elephants do the processing for Mr. Ellie Pooh Paper, now sold in shops around the world. The product is suitable for offset printing, letter press, and can be embossed.

Wald runs his business out of a warehouse in Brooklyn although the manufacture of the paper is done in Sri Lanka (thus adhering to another adage: the real wealth is in manufacturing the product, not in harvesting so you help impoverished areas more if manufacture in situ). In Sri Lanka, 200 to 250 artisans design and create paper products in fair trade collectives.

Wald's business plan does not include domesticating or capturing the elephants. They run free. 

Besides saying "aha!" instead of an "ugh," when faced with waste, both business owners run sustainable, green, socially responsible organizations that consider people, planet and profit.

Which just goes to show: Old sayings can lead to unexpected careers.