Have I got a deal for you!
For sale cheap — actually, free — are 500 VHS tapes on cutting and layering men’s hair, “Classic Men’s Hair Cutting Series #1 Tapering and Layering,” wrapped in clear plastic with a box case.
Or perhaps you’re in the market for shredded wood waste from construction and demolition sites. Bring your checkbook and a big truck: 500 tons a month of wood waste sells for $15 per ton.
Big crowd coming for dinner? Maybe you can use 1,400 pounds a month of waste cooking oil, with a few scraps of French fries and won-tons mixed in, priced to go at $0.005 per pound.
These were among the offerings this week on RecycleMatch, a Houston-based startup that has built an online marketplace designed to connect buyers and sellers of waste. The company’s promise is “Delivering the Future of Zero Waste.” It’s a great concept, another step toward — not just reducing waste — but eliminating the very idea of waste.
When I first heard of about RecycleMatch, I thought the idea of building what I think of as an eBay for garbage had a lot of potential. So did Brooke Farrell, who started the company at the end of 2009 with her brother-in-law, Chad Farrell.
Turns out we were both wrong.
So, as I learned this week when I talked with Brooke, RecycleMatch is more or less trashing its original business model. It’s turning away from its online marketplace and turning into an enterprise software company, aimed at big customers who want to reduce their waste — and realize the value hidden in it. The company’s purpose remains the same, Brooke told me, but the business model is new.
“The companies that had the best materials and the most materials really weren’t comfortable with the old model,” Brooke said.
Source: GreenBiz.com
By Marc Gunther