Kiwi company flush with success

It's wise to sanitise: Terracyclic managing director David Andrews with the disposal bins which have been successful worldwide.

Relevant offers

A New Zealand company is cleaning up in 40,000 toilets around the world thanks to an innovative hygiene product.

Auckland-based Terracyclic has invented a tampon disposal bin which has been installed in women's toilets at such diverse locations as London's Underground railway stations, the Toronto Zoo and Penn State University in the US.

Terracyclic is owned by managing director David Andrews and four co-directors who also own Powder Room Services, a company which services washroom equipment such as soap dispensers, urinal sanitisers and automatic air fresheners.

Andrews said most sanitary disposal bins were bulky, making them difficult to clean around, and needed to be regularly collected and transported to a facility where they were emptied and cleaned, before being sent to their next location, with the contents generally going to a sanitary landfill.

All of that work made the washroom servicing contracts expensive, but the Terracyclic system removed several steps from the process, greatly reducing the cost.

Its bins contained a plastic cartridge, a type of tough plastic bag with a special head which kept the contents secure. Instead of having to remove the whole bin and have it emptied and cleaned, cleaners simply removed the sealed cartridge and replaced it with another one.

The entire cartridge was made from biodegradable plastic and was sent straight to a sanitary landfill.

Because the units were wall-mounted they were easier to clean around and left more room in their cubicles, Andrews said.

After initially selling the product on the domestic market to Powder Room's clients, the company decided to test the export waters and exhibited the system at the world's largest cleaning products fair, in Amsterdam.

A chance meeting with a staff member at NZ Trade & Enterprise made them aware the company could apply for market development grants, which have provided up to $50,000 a year towards the cost of attending trade fairs, which Andrews said were the firm's main marketing method.

He said the company had found a unique niche in the market and export growth had been exponential. Sales in the first half of this year equalled sales for all last year and the list of countries where the units were installed included Australia, UK, US, Austria, Norway, Greece, Ireland and Canada.

Depending on how much it was used, each unit needed to have its cartridge replaced between once every few days and once a month.

Andrews wouldn't give sales figures, but with 40,000 units so far installed, Terracyclic would be exporting between 40,000 and 200,000 cartridges a month.

Diversification could increase sales further. Terracyclic was recently approached by a US casino chain to see if the system could be adapted to dispose of adult nappies, which some casino customers wore so they didn't have to leave their gaming machines to go to the toilet. This created a disposal problem for the casino.

Andrews said the company was working on a solution.