We write about this subject because we are often asked, “What is the next big thing?” Well, one needs only to be aware of the megatrends of our time to identify the business opportunities that are already demonstrating themselves.

China Won’t Take It Any More

In January 2018, China virtually stopped taking American recyclable materials. They complained that the cardboard and certain plastics that they were looking for were mixed with too much trash to make separation and recycling feasible. Mitch Hedlund, of the nonprofit organization Recycle Across America, says, “Recycling has been dysfunctional for a long time. But not many people really noticed when China was our dumping ground.”

Now, without a buyer, recycling costs are skyrocketing, more of it ends up in the landfills, and the pressure is on municipal governments to raise taxes to cover the increased costs and find better solutions. Some cities have actually taken to incinerators. Even though the heat can be used to produce electricity, residents are concerned about air pollution. Incineration is not a long term solution.

No Level Playing Field

More pressure is being applied to the source, the producers of especially CPG products. Up until now, they have not had to pay the cost of disposing of or recycling their own product packaging. Their argument is basically two pronged:

First, they argue that the consumer may say they want sustainable alternatives, but only a small percentage will actually pay for them. We think this is changing especially in the light of the most recent Nielsen reports on the subject. If cities begin to raise taxes to cover the costs of disposing of the increased waste, won’t the consumer be paying more for their products anyway?

Second, they argue that they can’t compete with producers that produce and sell non-sustainable packaging. As much as industry hates more government controls, it appears to be the only thing that will level the playing field. What if it was illegal to use disposable packaging? What if producers were legally required to use returnable, reusable, or biodegradable packaging instead?

Confusion

There is also a debate about what is “sustainable” or “recyclable.” If a recycling waste company simply moves the waste offshore, is it really being recycled? What if the only recycler in town decides to raise their rates significantly? Several cities are already subsidizing recyclers. Also, in the case of most plastics, if the plastic is turned into fibers that are reused for clothing, for instance, what happens to the fibers after their useful life? Does the micro plastic residue become even more of a problem? Now that China will no longer be taking our recyclables, suddenly it’s our problem to dispose of them, reduce them, or find a better use for them.

“One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure”

This is a problem that’s not going away. In fact, it’s just getting worse. The obvious business opportunity here is to solve this problem.

We often write about entrepreneurs who are addressing these issues and getting ahead of the curve. As Bonnie says, “If you want to change the world, put a buck on it!” In other words, go into business with a solution that’s just plain cheaper than the costs of continuing to pursue an unsustainable course.

TerraCycle is a great example of how to profit from solving part of this problem. They are approaching it from the source. They will be producing a comprehensive, reusable packaging system that will be used by major brands. TerraCycle’s packaging will begin to be seen in the market this year. If your garbage bill was going sky high, wouldn’t you favor purchases that came in non-garbage producing packages?

Synova as another profitable solution. They approach the problem at the other end, at refuse facility. Instead of burial or incineration, they gasify both bio and plastic waste through a proprietary process and use the gas to produce power. The production of power offsets the costs and the waste is eliminated!

Like these pioneers, we hope this article inspires and encourages young entrepreneurs to start businesses that address all aspects of this problem, from packaging materials, to distribution, to collection, to reuse and power production. The latest thing? It’s sitting in your garbage can!

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post Is Recycling Proving to be Too Onerous and Expensive? appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Certainly, the concept of turning biowaste into energy has been around for a while. But what about the biggest culprit, plastic? What if you could put bio and petrochemical waste in one end and get electricity out of the other?

We like to say, “If you really want to change the world, put a buck on it!” In other words, make it profitable to improve the world. Synova Power offers a practical, working solution to the world’s garbage crisis. Their power plants remove the inert glass, metal and rock from the garbage, and then uses the remaining bio and plastic waste to produce gas which powers turbines to produce electricity. This has been tried before but it was unsuccessful due to the asphalt-like tar residue build-up which is inherent in waste or tar gasification. It quickly gummed up the turbines and made them inoperable.

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur 

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post Garbage In, Energy Out: Synova Power Turns Waste Into Electricity appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Today, the weekly trashing of Dolores Park is an unfortunate example of misplaced user entitlement caused in part by the Park Department itself. Every day, park users bring in food and beverages and discard the containers as if it is the park’s responsibility to provide comprehensive garbage service. And why? Because the park provides garbage receptacles. But there are never enough and it overflows throughout the park. When parks provide garbage collection services it gives users permission to leave their waste behind. Trash pick-up was manageable in the past when there was a much smaller attendance, but usage, especially in urban parks like Dolores Park, has skyrocketed over the years.

So what to do? Add more garbage bins? Maybe teach people to use special recycle bins? Both of these solutions avoid the real issue. Park users have been programmed over the years to walk in with their single use containers and walk out without them. The thinking goes something like this, “Someone else will pick it up. It provides jobs. I pay my taxes and I deserve to have my parks serviced no matter how impractical or how expensive that may be. They put a receptacle there, and they’ve always picked up the garbage in the past.”

Regional, State and Federal parks with no back country trash receptacles have a simple message at the trailheads, “Pack out what you pack in!” This policy has been whole heartedly accepted by most hikers, and many feel it’s their duty to pick up and pack out any discarded trash they see on the trail. Why should this be different in urban parks that are coming under increased population and budgetary pressure?

Instead of increasing the number of trash receptacles, why not reduce them and put up a sign on the ones that are left that says, “Please take out what you brought in! Do your part to save your park budget for maintenance, repairs and beautification.”

This approach has been used successfully in several parks across the country. It does not just help keep the parks clean, but it focuses public attention on disposable food and beverage containers by asking park users be responsible for taking them out as well as bringing them in.

We can no longer afford to say, “Bring in your garbage and leave it here.” We have already been successful in training people to take their own bags to the grocery store. So training them to take their own garbage home is not out of the question. But it’s got to be started by the parks themselves with good signage that appeals to people’s sense of community.

If park advocates and volunteers were to start an education process to make users aware of this accelerating situation, would the park users change their ways and take “ownership” of these precious lands made available to them? If children were taught to be responsible for the land around them that they use, how long might it take to reverse this alarming trend?

Let’s apply the decades old “Pack it in. Pack it out!” backpacker’s creed to all park users.

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post Park Users Should Take Out What They Take In  appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.