TerraCycle US’s Regulated Waste recycling business continued to experience financial losses last year, but they weren’t as bad as the year before.
TerraCycle US specializes in recycling difficult-to-recycle products and packaging, mostly plastic. Its Regulated Waste division collects electronics, batteries, bulbs and other materials via mail-in and bulk shipping. TerraCycle routes the materials to partner companies for recycling.
The company last fall worked with partner Clean Earth to launch a mail-in electronics recycling program serving businesses.
According to its recently released 2021 financial report, the Trenton, N.J.-based company’s Regulated Waste division reported $5.7 million in net sales last year, down 6% from the year before. Its income (before taxes) was a loss of $109,000, which was better than the prior year, when it reported a loss of $373,000.
In its annual report, the company pointed to the continuing financial impacts of office closures and reduced economic activity because of the pandemic. But it noted that offices started reopening last year, resulting in better results for the Regulated Waste division than the year before, and it foresees further improvement going forward.
Overall, TerraCycle US reported net sales of $33.5 million in 2021, up 36% over net sales in 2020. The company’s income (before income taxes) was $7.5 million, up 89% from the prior year.
The numbers were driven by TerraCycle’s Sponsored Waste and Zero Waste Boxes programs, through which brand owners pay TerraCycle to run mail-in recycling programs for their products and individual consumers or companies buy postage-paid boxes recycling boxes for specific categories of materials. The company’s Material Sales division, which earns revenue from selling recycled materials and products (mostly plastics), experienced a drop in sales revenue and a much worse income loss last year than the year before.
(TerraCycle US is a subsidiary of global company TerraCycle, Inc. The financial statements apply only to TerraCycle US. They were disclosed because the company sold stock to the public.)
