RecycleMatch is known as the “eBay of trash and recycling,” helping make use of industrial waste. How does it work?
1. Seller posts waste or recyclables
2. Buyers bid on materials
3. A Match is made
… and one business’ trash efficiently becomes another business’ treasure.

Brooke Farrell (@brookebf), the CMO and Founder of RecycleMatch, will be presenting for her second time at SXSWi at Techies Can Save the World, Why Aren’t They?, a panel focused on uses of technology for the environmental good, on Tuesday, March 15 at 3:30pm in Room 6AB. In a recent interview, Brooke answered a few questions on her upcoming panel, RecycleMatch’s goals and how the internet can result in a more green society.

Since when have you or RecycleMatch been participating at SXSWi?

RecycleMatch presented last year at SXSW in the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator competition where we were one of three finalists (we lost out to Siri). Last year was our first year to attend SXSW. See my blog for more info including how my first visit to SXSW in 2010 inspired the theme of the panel.

Have you presented at other conferences before?

I’ve presented at a number of conferences mainly in the green business arena including Sustainable Brands and Opportunity Green and presented as a Fellow at PopTech.

What is RecycleMatch and what are your goals?

RecycleMatch is the first online B2B marketplace addressing the $90 billion market for business recycling and waste diversion. RecycleMatch gives companies a new way to buy, sell or give away their large volumes of waste and commodity recyclables. Companies list materials free of charge on the site, with their brands and identities kept confidential. Prospective buyers can ask questions, get samples and make offers on the materials which can be reused or upcycled as well as recycled. The listing company selects the party that is the right match for their goals, which may include environmental requirements as well as price. Our goal is to profit while helping companies make money while helping the environment. Our ultimate goal is to make landfills obsolete.

Is there a particular aspect of your presentation this year that you would like to emphasize?

“Techies Can Save the World – So Why Aren’t They?” is the name of our panel. And yet I’m thrilled to be bringing four other panelists who have made major strides to improve the world through the use of technology.

· Rebecca Moore is the computer scientist who started Google Earth Outreach, which supports nonprofits, communities and indigenous peoples around the world in applying Google’s mapping tools to the world’s pressing problems in areas such as environmental conservation, human rights, cultural preservation and creating a sustainable society. Her personal work using Google Earth was recently instrumental in stopping a plan to log more than a thousand acres of redwoods in her Santa Cruz Mountain community. Rebecca earned her undergraduate degree from Brown University in Artificial Intelligence, Masters from Stanford in Cognitive Psychology and spent several years in the Stanford PhD program in Computer Science before taking leave to join a Silicon Valley startup.

· Jack Hidary is a tech legend, as co-founder and Chairman of Vista Research (sold to Standard and Poors) and co-founder, President and CEO of EarthWeb (now Dice, Inc) which had a record breaking IPO and earned the Business Week Info Tech 100 award as the third fastest growing IT company. Jack sits on the board of the National Renewable Energy Lab, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Clinton Global Initiative, and is a Young Leadership Fellow of the National Committee on China-US Relations. Jack’s work was featured in Thomas Friedman’s book Hot, Flat, and Crowded. Jack is the recipient of the Einstein Technology Medal , and has been recognized as a Global Leader of Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum.

· Joel Serface has been a long-term leader in the cleantech community, having created or funded more than 20 cleantech companies, non-profits and policy organizations in the past decade. Joel’s work on policy, community development, technology commercialization and finance have all focused on massively scaling renewable energy and energy efficiency. Joel serves and/or has served on the boards of the Clean Economy Network Educational Foundation, CleanTX Foundation, Colorado Cleantech Industry Association, California Blue Ribbon Task Force on Nanotechnology, California Nanosystems Institute, and is a Founding Member of Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) and progenitor of the California Cleantech Open. Joel was the first Entrepreneur in Residence at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory with venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Joel previously headed renewable energy efforts at the Austin Clean Energy Incubator, Eastman Ventures, and Sierra Ventures, and founded Austin’s Pecan Street Project, the nation’s first SmartGrid 2.0 test implementation supported by the Department of Energy.

· Graham Hill will bring the perspective of a treehugger. And of a successful entrepreneur who has mastered the art and science of new media. Graham founded treehugger.com, which was acquired by Discovery Channel in 2007. As the leading media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream, Treehugger is the one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information online. Prior to starting Treehugger, Graham grew and later sold the web-developer, SiteWerks, to 60 people doing work for clients such as Microsoft. As a prolific traveler, Graham has been on planes, trains and automobiles. But the most interesting vehicle was the Plastiki, a boat made literally of plastic water bottles that traveled around the world to draw attention to the Pacific Gyre.

What kind of audience should come listen to your panel? Who is the information geared towards?

I purposely sought a variety of thought leaders in technology in order to make this as relevant as possible to people in the tech community. Our panel is specifically focused on how the tech community can leverage its unique skills to address the pressing issues facing the planet. Our panel includes successful entrepreneurs, computer scientists, new media journalists and VCs.

What do you hope for the audience to take away from your panel?

I hope that people are inspired and challenged to find unique ways to use technology for environmental good. People in the community, including our panelists, are doing amazing work. But there are unbelievable opportunities and problems left to be tackled and we’ll need techies to put their special skills to work for environmental good.