All shades of green: Eco-friendly businesses featuring RecycleMatch in the Houston Business Journal

HOUSTON, TX /  Houston Business Journal / April 16, 2010

A Match Made in Trash Heaven - RecycleMatch co-founder Chad Farrell describes his Web-based green startup as “the E-Harmony for trash.”

Founded in 2009, RecycleMatch pairs businesses looking to offload waste to companies who can use the material for their business.

For example, one deal involved a company replacing 1,000 glass panels in downtown Houston. Instead of paying to dispose of all that recyclable material, they posted their trash on RecycleMatch. Then, a prospective buyer who could make use of the waste was matched with the company. In this case, Farrell says, the glass found its way into raw material for countertops — and out of the landfill.

In another case, RecycleMatch arranged the sale of used vinyl highway billboard coverings to a company that turned them into designer handbags.

Everybody wins when companies team up to use materiels efficiently, says Farrell. Many times companies must pay for the proper disposable of construction waste or other commercial trash, but his company can help turn an expense into a revenue stream, or at least let them break even.

For its service, the Web site takes a percentage of the money the company saves by selling the waste.

Farrell got the concept after talking about the costs involved with disposing of waste with his co-founder and sister-in-law, Brooke Betts Farrell, who was working at a public relations firm on an account for Houston-based Waste Management Corp. at the time.

“We had a lot of discussion over the years at family dinners,” says Farrell. “When we really started to study the issue, I couldn’t believe how much companies were paying to put waste into landfills.”

RecycleMatch is still young, but Farrell says the company is aiming high with a target customer base of Fortune 500 companies. It currently has 50 companies selling products and more than 500 registered buyers.

Read the entire article here at the Houston Business Journal