Sound like a twisted fourth-grade boy’s concoction for messing with his sister? Not quite. Rather, it is TerraCycle’s formula for success in the growing, if messy, organic fertilizer business.

Sales of organic products, especially food, have surged of late. But the National Gardening Association estimates just 5 percent of the $8.5 billion U.S. fertilizer and insecticide industry is all-natural, with uncertainty about what “organic” means muddying the picture, according to experts.

“Everybody and his cousin wants to go green these days, and in my view, it’s about time,” said gardening association research director Bruce Butterfield, citing a national survey conducted by Harris Interactive for his group. The study found surging interest in organic gardening out of sync with actual use of all-natural fertilizers. “If I had to grade homeowners on how environmentally responsible they are [gardening and landscaping], they failed.”

That may be changing, with market researchers Freedonia Group estimating 10 percent annual growth for the organic fertilizer market, twice the projected growth for all lawn and garden goods.

With its unique reused packaging, pervasive product placement and rapid growth, TerraCycle is among several companies aiming to make a positive environmental impact—and a buck.

“We’re not doing this to save the environment,” said co-founder and CEO Tom Szaky, 25, a Hungarian-born, Canadian-bred Princeton drop-out whose company was recently recognized as having a “net zero” negative impact by the nonprofit environmental group, Zerofootprint. “We’re doing this to show you can make a lot of money while helping save the environment.”

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