Mounting criticism has forced the social network to revert to its old terms of service.

Lehigh Technologies, which recycles tire scraps, brings in a new CEO to crank up production.

BURLINGAME, Calif.--Taking garbage and turning it into something useful is certainly an appealing concept as the whole world becomes more conservation minded.

Lehigh Technologies sees opportunity in millions of old tires. The 5-year-old company, which is based in Naples, Fla., and has a factory outside Atlanta, has a proprietary technology that freezes and grinds tire scraps into fine powders. Right now, the main customers for Lehigh's product are tire companies (who wish to remain unnamed), which use the powder to replace some of the virgin rubber in new tires. But Lehigh's factory, capable of producing 100 million pounds per year of the powder, isn't yet operating at capacity.

To boost growth, Lehigh is announcing Wednesday that it is bringing in Alan Barton, a chemicals industry veteran, as its new chief executive. Barton, who earned a doctorate in chemistry at Harvard and worked for 23 years at Rohm and Haas (nyse: ROH - news - people ), says there is great potential for Lehigh's rubber powders to be used in both the plastics and the coatings markets. One big attraction: The powder is priced at a discount to the cost of virgin materials.

"Producing powder particles in the size and quality that can be used in highly technical end uses is not an easy thing to do," Barton says. "Few, if any, other companies in the world can do this."

John Doerr, the esteemed green tech guru at Lehigh investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, said in an e-mail: "We're in 30 million tires on the road today and see vast potential in expanding in the tire market to help with cost pressures, and in specialty plastics and coatings where we can provide cost benefits and better capabilities and qualities for materials." Kleiner invested in Lehigh alongside Index Ventures in a $34.5 million round last May. So far, Lehigh has raised a total of $60 million. The company didn't disclose sales figures but said revenues have doubled since last summer.

The company buys tire scraps that are one-quarter to one-inch chips and freezes them using liquid nitrogen, then puts them through special milling machines that can operate at extremely low temperatures to produce the right size powder particles. The process was invented by a German engineer for use in pharmaceutical production.

Lehigh is treading a familiar path--one that hasn't always ended happily. Back in the 1990s, Michelin (other-otc: MGDDF.PK - news - people ) began making tires with partially recycled content for use on Ford (nyse: F - news - people ) trucks. But Michelin couldn't obtain a consistent supply of recycled material, so Ford stopped buying the tires, says Andy Acho, a former Ford executive who oversaw use of recycled materials.

New Bubble, Same Old Frauds

Enron and Worldcom, Madoff and Dreier. Is anyone really surprised?

Warren Buffett likes to say, "It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked." The same can be said for slime.

This week alone there were two arrests of prominent New Yorkers alleged to be engaged in massive frauds and the arrest of a governor accused of trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat. And if history proves consistent, there will be many more shocking disclosures to come as the world readjusts to another post-bubble era.

It's nothing new. Excesses during bubble times lead to mistakes, big losses and ultimately the unveiling of frauds. Nobody asks questions when things are going well; they scream for justice when things head south.

Bernard Madoff, a well-respected denizen of Wall Street, faces charges he defrauded investors in his advisory firm of $50 billion by running what prosecutors say he admits was nothing more than a gigantic Ponzi scheme.

The alleged fraud unraveled when Madoff, who has run the business by himself for years, faced $7 billion in client redemption requests this fall. Ponzi schemes need asset inflows to work and break down when those inflows dry up.

Until now, nobody asked loudly enough, however, how it was that Madoff could log such steady and consistent positive returns (reportedly always positive for years even as the markets gyrated). His investment management firm, an affiliate of his market-making brokerage operation bearing his name, had $17 billion under management as of the beginning of 2008, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is pursuing separate civil fraud charges.

Rival fund managers and some hedge fund due diligence firms said Friday they had wondered for years how he pulled it off, but few thought to sound alarms with regulators.