trashd.com

I wrote this as a satirical monologue for a producer who was looking for pieces on money and the economy. As it turned out, it didn’t really fit his needs and works better as a prose piece than as theater. Without anyplace really to use it, I am posting it here.

(January 3 – New York) For Immediate Release.

Trashd.com — the leader in user-sourced waste management services, today announced completion of a $50 million round of equity financing. Lead investors in this round included Triangle Banking, BFD Investure, and SexPistols Capital Venture Fund. CEO and Founder, Skipper Bright said, “We’re introducing new products and services that aim to disrupt the moribund Waste Management Industry — simultaneously empowering consumers and thousands of waste removal contractors to improve service, maximize repurposing of refuse and returning to the market millions of dollars worth of value.”

Using its proprietary application for iPhone and Android, Trashd.com matches refuse suppliers with independent refuse reclamation consultants for the collection, sorting and sanitary removal of home and commercial trash. Home users simply take a photo of their filled trash or recycling bins with their phones and their information including geo-location, types of trash available, potential salvageable materials, both organic and inorganic, is sent to an appropriate refuse reclamation consultant. Items of particular value are pre-identified in the photo the user has uploaded using our patented visual search algorithm. Payment is completed via credit card and the refuse reclamation consultants deliver their content to a Trashd.com processing center where they are compensated, including bonuses for high-value reclamations including rare-metals, convertible textiles and consumables appropriate for the secondary market. Trashd.com provides an efficient alternative to costly and burdensome municipal services where they remain, and outperforms legacy waste management companies in the private sector. For additional information contact Bethany Horowitz, Senior VP for Marketing, Bethany@trashd.com.

(April 3 – New York) For Immediate Release

Trashd.com, the makers of the leading user-sourced waste removal app, reported a quarterly revenue earnings increase of 120% over the previous quarter and 600% over prior year. Over the past three months it has become one of the most downloaded apps online and been the subject of major articles in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times Style and Business Sections, Wired, Mashable and Lifehacker. Founder and CEO Skipper Bright commented, “We’re proud to be generating revenue approaching IPO levels so early in our product rollout. We plan to enter 50 more markets in the next quarter and another 100 by year’s end. The only thing holding us back are those unfortunate cities and municipalities, where lawmakers in the pocket of established Waste Management Companies and labor unions are using health and safety regulations as an excuse to block consumers from our services and lock-out our Trashd.com owner/operators from earning a living. These government-sponsored monopolies are patently un-American, and stifle the innovation and free markets that have made this country great. Nevertheless, we look forward to resolving our differences and making Trashed.com available wherever people are creating garbage.” For more information, contact Senior VP for Marketing, Bethany@trashed.com

(July 7 – New York) For Immediate Release

Trashd.com – the #1 free download on the iTunes app store – deeply regrets that one of its refuse reclamation consultants perished yesterday in an unfortunate accident that could be neither foreseen nor avoided. It was just one of those things. Heatstroke. All consultants are advised on proper hydration as part of their 20-minute online video orientation, particularly when scavenging on the scrap pile. While we of course are deeply saddened by this incident, we firmly reject accusations that we are in anyway responsible for the fact that the consultant in question was a minor — that he asserted the opposite in the online consultant registration form clears us from any culpability or liability. Furthermore, we categorically reject the claim being made by some muckraking publications, that we turn a blind-eye to child labor. To prove so, we will be donating $1 for every Trashd.com pickup in August to the UNICEF to combat child labor in developing countries, up to $100,000. For more information on this exciting initiative contact Bethany Horowitz, Senior VP for Marketing, Bethany@trashd.com

(October 3 – New York) For Immediate Release

Trashd.com – now operating in 120 markets on three continents, surpassed $845 million in revenue last quarter. More than half-a-million customers have used our services and tens of thousands of refuse reclamation consultants have earned money to support their families, supplement their incomes or pay their tuitions. While the amount of money paid to our consultants is not publicly available information, we wish to dispel the misconception that it is below minimum wage – although technically, because the Trashd.com app allows for tipping, there’s no reason why it couldn’t be. Also, we want to emphasize that while there have been isolated incidents where contractors have used their Trashd.com duties as an opportunity to case residences for later home invasions, we rigorously background check each consultant prior to activation of their refuse removal consultant account. Finally we wish again, to rebut the inaccurate and misleading reports that claim Trashd.com is quote, “merely the cyber-jacking of child labor practices that have long been common on the trash heaps of Ghana, the Philippines and other developing nations.” We understood when we set-out to disrupt the Waste Management Industry that powerful forces would resist our attempt to provide market efficiencies to home-users by leveraging an under-utilized workforce for the customizable performance of a necessary service. But we didn’t think it would be so nasty.

For more information, contact Bethany Horowitz, Bethany@trashed.com

(January 3 – New York) For Immediate Release

Trashd.com, the innovator in customizable waste-removal experiences, is happy to announce that it has been acquired for $8 billion by Industrial Waste Processing of North America, Inc. Says Trashd.com Founder and CEO, Skipper Bright, “This is truly the achievement of a lifetime, and I am grateful to everyone on the Trashd.com team, from our 78 full-time employees to the thousands and thousands of independent contractors who contributed to our success.” The acquisition provides Waste Processing of North America (symbol: WPN – NYSE) with a cutting-edge platform to grow its business, and allows Trashd.com the resources of a multinational operation to settle dozens of lawsuits filed by government health and safety agencies, former Trashd.com contractors who claim they were mistreated and several major lawsuits by Trashd.com users who claim the company contributed to the reckless endangerment of their lives and property. Trashd.com of course, denies all these allegations and looks forward to resolving all outstanding matters in the course of the merger. As part of the merger, Skipper Bright will hold a seat on the Waste Processing Board.

Senior VP of Marketing and Communications Bethany Horowitz announced that she would not be staying with the company during the transition, but will be leaving to start her own online company seeking to disrupt the nanny-sharing industry. For more information contact: info@wasteprocessing.com