DirtLocker

With beads of sweat running down his face under the hot Southern California sun, Mark Trebilcock struggled with the hard packed clay soil and uneven slope in his backyard. No matter what he did to grow the fruit trees and plants he wanted, the only thing growing in his yard were weeds and his aggravation. He had spent hundreds of dollars trying to create a beautiful garden but every plant and tree on the slope eventually died. The soil erosion and inability to keep water at the roots were the main culprits. He had tried multiple store-bought products to mitigate the erosion and keep the plants hydrated, but nothing worked, until he created a prototype in his garage that he began to test out on his yard. Years later when he was laid off from his job, he began to seriously consider making the product and marketing it. The cold cost cutting activities of corporate America did for him what he would not have been able to do for himself. He submitted his idea for patent and was declined, yet he knew there was something special with his product based on both his own experience, but also the comments and feedback from expert landscapers. He knew he had to try again, and this time he would enhance the design so that the idea would have to be patentable. The final design was environmentally beneficial in multiple ways: Saving water, stopping erosion, reducing runoff of rainfall, agricultural waste, improving access to hillside plants, greatly reducing the effort to terrace a hillside and they are made from 100@ recycled plastic.

Raised in Miami, Florida as a teenager, Mark had a passion for gardening and growing food largely due to his mother’s passion for the same and her interest in growing unique fruit trees. His interest led him to start a small business mowing his neighbors’ lawns transporting his equipment by bicycle sometimes miles away. The repetitive nature of the lawn

business and logistical obstacles he had to overcome as a young entrepreneur gave him a desire for process improvements, it seemed natural to pursue a degree in a BS in Industrial Engineering and Management Systems from University of Central Florida. Mark maintained his love of landscaping throughout the years, always trying to find solutions to gardening problems. He eventually left the flat lands of Florida and moved to California where he continued pursuing his passion for gardening as well as his career in manufacturing excellence for medical devices. It was in California, however, that Mark’s passion for creating beautiful landscapes was challenged when attempting to grow on the arid, clay slopes of Southern California. When looking around, it became clear that a lot of people, homeowner associations, farmers, and gardening enthusiasts were also struggling while trying to grow on slopes.

Mark’s creative approach to problem solving that helped create production efficiencies for pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators were drawn upon when his green thumb seemed to turn brown due to the steep slopes, clay soil, unrelenting sunshine, little rainfall, and water shortages of Southern California. Just as in creating solutions for medical products, it was important that all aspects of the product and its contents were evaluated for ease of manufacturing, supply chain availability, sustainability, user ease, durability and safety of materials. This is how the Dirt Locker was born. After several iterations, patent applications, and years of evaluating materials, testing, trial and error, Mark’s persistence won out and the Dirt-Locker was developed in such a way that is beneficial environmentally in it not only saves water, improves the growth success of plants, but also requires no special hardware, reduces erosion, environmentally friendly in numerous ways for the organic gardener. The Dirt Locker is environmentally friendly because it uses 100% recycled, post-consumer waste, High Density Polyethylene (HDPE). The Dirt Locker is also food friendly because HDPE is one of the few plastics approved by the FDA for use in food preparation as it is used in cutting boards, and the. As an example of the positive environmental impact the Dirt Locker has; each Dirt Locker saves the equivalent of 13 milk jugs from the landfill on average. And each month, the HillGrow Inc., owner of Dirt Locker, helps recover over 100,000 milk jugs monthly, with the intention of increasing that number going forward.

Both the material selection and Dirt Locker benefitted from the concepts of continuous improvement engineering in the telecom, high tech metals, and medical device industries. The hallmarks of continuous improvement are reducing waste, improving efficiency and quality through product and process design. The Dirt Locker has achieved these hallmarks in both its design for manufacturing, but also its intended use.

The design for manufacturability, using commonly available materials, standardizing connection points, and having multiple uses for the same product are all built into the Dirt Locker. Which can help with the transportability of the technology to other regions. The overall efficiencies to the end user are that the product does not require any special training, tools, or skills to use. The Dirt Locker creates efficiencies on through growing on hillsides by simultaneously can help reduce water use, stop erosion, reduce agricultural runoff, improve accessibility to plants for maintenance/harvesting. Those efficiencies can lead to the following benefits: 1) Converting otherwise non-arable sloped terrain into productive terrace hillsides 2) Reduce the labor intensiveness to create the terracing, 3) Create terracing that also stops topsoil erosion, 4) The retention of natural rainfall where installed, 5) Possibly assist in returning water to subterranean aquafers, and 6) Support an industry that incentivizes the demand for recycled plastic.

The Dirt Locker was introduced in 2018 as a commercially available product. While we have had some missteps as demand for the Dirt Locker grew 5X from year 2 to 3, we have consistently been given generous compliments from our customers for the ability of the Dirt Locker to support growth of plants in areas where they had previously been unsuccessful. →

→ Bob B. Thousand Oaks CA: The product not only saved me 70% on my project over traditional solutions, but also looks better and will save water and plants.

Adam MD North Carolina: Everyone in the neighborhood thinks the lockers are brilliant. Thanks for all of your help!

Srinivas, Georgia: Thank you so much for the detailed response the wonderful invention and services.

Gillian, Canada: I LOVE this product.

Deborah, Puerto Rico: We will be planting more coffee plants inside of the next set of some Dirt Lockers.

Dan G. Fallbrook CA: I came across your product and it’s exactly what I need!

Karl B. Niagara Falls, NY Unlike retaining walls, the Dirt Locker system gets stronger over time as the plants mature.

As demand for DirtLockers grew throughout the United States, and internationally, the CNC used to manufacture the Dirt Locker in Marks garage could not keep up. Mark decided against sourcing his materials and labor abroad, but instead, expanded his manufacturing capacity by reaching out to his Plastics Supplier, Sandhill Plastics Inc, a family run business that has specialized in producing recycled plastic materials to many industries including a strong presence in agriculture, to produce the Dirt Locker. Sandhill Plastics had the experience and manufacturing capacity to keep up with demand.

In outsourcing the product manufacturing, a clearer picture was painted for the future of the Dirt Locker because: Not only could create jobs as so many have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also, it highlighted the possibility of licensing and manufacturing the product in the countries where it would be used. African farmers for instance would not benefit if they have to pay for shipping around the world, however, if the technology was licensed to a qualified manufacturer in the region, not only would the cost to the consumer be less, but it could provide employment, help eliminate plastic pollution by creating greater demand for plastic to be recycled, further creating jobs, and reduce the carbon footprint of the product by producing it closer to the point of use.

While pursuing an MBA at St Mary’s College in Northern California, Mark traveled to East Africa where he clearly saw the need for such a product. It was during his trip through Rwanda that it became clear that the attributes of the Dirt Locker could be a solution to problems internationally. The growing concern for pollution, land availability, and a desire for sustainable agriculture. He learned that in Rwandan culture, it is customary for families to subdivide property to the children generation after generation. But this inevitably leads to less land for those families to farm and therefore, they can no longer grow enough food for their families. In addition to the overpopulated land, non-farmable slopes and erosion deteriorating the little remaining land, Rwanda has become dependent on outside sources for food instead. Mark always felt the Dirt Locker could be a solution for locations like Rwanda that also struggle with pollution problems and plastic waste management which could possibly be converted into the making of DirtLockers themselves. Mark went to Haiti as volunteer guest of the organization Love-a-Child that has been instrumental in providing sustainable help to Haitians in the form of job creation, teaching agriculture methods, healthcare and orphanage services. The deforestation that has taken place over decades created severe challenges for any form of agriculture there, that Love-A-Child was and continues to help Haitians overcome. Mark sent several DirtLocker kits, but without any proper infrastructure to support these donations, there’s no assurance they were deployed. What started off as a local solution in Santa Clarita, California, is quickly becoming applicable on a global scale, but we need help getting the word out and putting the DirtLocker system into practice where they are most needed.

Mark used the resources from his own background and those of friends and family when developing the product. Mark first created a scale version of the Dirt Locker on a 3D printer using an online CAD program online that allowed the interlocking terrace concept to be tested on a small scale. This gave Mark the confidence to create manual fixtures and purchase handheld tools that were used to construct the first functional full-scale units. After the first “handmade” units were made, assembled into a scalloped garden network, installed into hillsides at his house in California and his mother’s residence in Florida, Mark knew the product was beneficial and

worked as expected. The first large Dirt Locker project which was made from 300 Dirt Lockers was pulled onto a hillside and backfilled with soil in one day. Mark enlisted the help of a local landscape company and Jon Schneider who had significant camera and video experience to film the biggest project as of that date. The workers quickly assembled the 300 pieces in about 45 minutes. The web of terracing DirtLockers covered the hillside. The crew began attaching additional pieces where the contour of the hillside warranted, and before lunch, the hillside was being backfilled with improved soil. The system was now ready for planting. Once filled with plants, the Dirt Locker terraced garden was ready to take off. While his neighbors looked on incredulously at the hillside, wondering what would be next, not sure if they liked the new creation as they were familiar with the bleached clay and near lifeless hillside, but it was what they knew. In several months however, these neighbors would one by one stop by and marvel at the hillside and tell Mark how much they appreciated its beauty, that it was the favorite part of their walk around the block, and “it increased my property value” were common remarks. What was also discovered, is that not only did the Dirt Locker system contain irrigation water, but also trapped and forced by gravity into the hillside rainwater. The soil stayed hydrated better during extended periods of drought, and hillside treated with the Dirt Locker only improved in efficacy over time as the growing plants enhanced the strength of the system.

Having been intimately involved in all phases of the design, test, installation, manufacture of the Dirt Locker, Mark felt that his dream of using his product for a greater good was ready. His brother Norman who has a Civil Engineering firm in Naples Florida and whose engineers had helped mark with drawings and product evaluation, was also involved in Love-A-Child organization in Haiti and thought the product could be used in places with similar needs to Haiti; a growing population, limited ability to expand agriculture, competing demands for arable land and continued degradation of existing agricultural lands, topsoil erosion, and reduced access to water for irrigation. While developing the Dirt Locker and using different manufacturing methods, it was always evaluated not just for manufacturing in the US, but also in areas where there may not be the same availability to technology or skilled workers. For instance, in some geographies, complex machinery may not be realistic, however, a fixture and hand router could be used, especially when the pay rates permit labor intensive industries. This would allow the Dirt Locker to easily move manufacturing to new regions where it made economic sense. We have only begun to realize the all of the benefits of this simple product, It is our objective to work with professionals globally to find additional uses, benefits, and potential enhancements to the Dirt Locker. ◆