You know that feeling after a worm takes a huge dump? Awesome!

Actually, let’s talk about many many worms pooping lots of little bits to make a product called, “Worm Poop.” Disgusting? Look for it at your Home Depot!

TerraCycle is a young company started by two Princeton dropouts, Co-founders Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer, one of whom, while visiting a friend, found his collection of worms making compost in a plastic container in his kitchen (after a night of drinking). Fascinated at his friend’s method of getting soil for some “plants in his basement,” (watch the video!), he began thinking of a way to make a company that could make and market composted organic waste for gardening.

Fast forward a few years. After spending lots of their own money and trying to make this work, the fledgling company had survived and forged ahead by entering and winning business contests. They won many, but one offered the company, that then had about $500 in its account, $1 Million!

Oh, the ease with which we can stop off at a home improvement store or nursery for plants that have been growing for weeks or months and transplant them very quickly to our backyard gardens. While you won’t hear from us that this is bad for the environment, there is a cheaper way to do this and that is better for the environment.

Needed supplies:

1. Starter containers
2. Seeds
3. Soil

Before you send your plastic yogurt, butter, and sour cream containers off for recycling, make sure you have forty or fifty clean and stored for springtime starter plants. Drill or poke holes for drainage in the bottom.

Looking to make your indoor environment cleaner? Sure, you can use greener household detergents and cosmetics. You can use greener paints with lower or no volatile organic compound (VOC) output. But there will always be toxins in your air from the outdoors, everyday products, your carpet, paint, cosmetics, leather treatments, etc.

To help your home to have cleaner, less toxic air: buy some houseplants. In addition to beautifying your home, houseplants reduce levels of toxic elements in your air, because like humans, they respire air and in turn remove some toxins.

We have all seen the calls to “eat local,” and with food costs skyrocketing, there’s one more reason to do a little gardening. But, costs aside, eating locally grown foods is better for the environment chiefly because less energy was spent shipping it to your table.

We will delve further into the locavore (or, to some, “localvore,”) movement another time, but suffice it to say that eating locally grown foods improves your envirohuman impact and provides consumers with fresher foods, too!