Last September I posted about Terracycle's fantastic plant food. Their products use organic ingrediants (read: 100% worm poop) and are packaged in recycled soda pop bottles. Terracycle is a treehugger's dream, but the little guys everyone wants to love is in a big spot of legal trouble. It seems that The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company has taken exception to Terracycle, and they've decided to sue their much smaller competitor into oblivion. The lawsuit claims that Terracycle's packaging was designed to purposely confuse the consumer into buying the wrong product, and that Terracycle's claims of superiority are false.

I'm of the opinion that this lawsuit was brought on by Miracle-Gro's desire to strangle a small competitor before they became a significant threat. A win for Miracle-Gro would destroy Terracycle, so the smaller company is fighting as best they can.

Tom Szaky, Terracycle's 25 year old founder, has started a blog at Sued By Scott's hoping to stir up some public outrage which will hopefully force Scott's to drop their lawsuit. It's a long shot, but Szaky's team has done a great job assembling convincing evidence showing the Miracle-Gro suit to be a frivolous abuse of the legal system. On the packaging side we can easily say that Miracle-Gro's claims are false, and there are records of experiments showing Terracycle outperforming other brands. Good luck with the fight, guys!