Tonight we have Tom Szaky CEO and Founder of TerraCycle and star of the hit reality show Garbage Moguls.

Tom Szaky, 27, is one of the world’s foremost leaders in eco-capitalism and upcycling and one of the fastest growing eco-friendly companies in the world. In 2006, Inc. Magazine named TerraCycle, “The Coolest Little Start-Up in America!”  That same year Tom was named the “#1 CEO in America Under 30”. However, the rapid growth and success of TerraCycle is no surprised to those who have known Tom his whole life.

Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1982, Tom emigrated with his family as political refugees from Hungary to Holland and eventually to Toronto. At age 14 he started his first business, a Web design company called Flyte Design, which employed three associates and earned its young proprietor a five-figure income, while landing clients as big as Roots clothing company.  Flyte Design also earned a number of Canadian national design awards.  That earlier entrepreneurial success motivated Tom engaged in the start-up of three small, but successful ‘dot.com’ companies.

Tom came to the United States in 2001 when he matriculated as a Princeton University freshman.  In 2002, he took a leave of absence to dedicate himself full-time to starting TerraCycle, which began as a two-man outfit in a dorm room in Princeton.  Despite being on the verge of bankruptcy a year into starting the business, Tom turned down a million dollar grand prize from the Carrot Capital Business Plan because the investors wanted TerraCycle to become less focused on being environmentally responsible.

Despite a tumultuous start, TerraCycle had its break through in 2004, selling its little known fertilizer to The Home Depot and Walmart, two of the world’s biggest retailers. Today, after doubling in size for four straight years, TerraCycle occupies a 20,000 sq. ft. factory in an Urban Enterprise Zone in Trenton, NJ, where it employs over 20 workers in its labor force and is a second chance employer as part of its pledge to being socially beneficial. Its products are found at The Home Depot, Wal*Mart, Target, Whole Foods Market, Petco, Kroger, CVS, Office Max, and Petco.

TerraCycle recent growth has been focused on an idea called Sponsored Waste. The concept allows TerraCycle to get low cost waste materials to build products, provides free PR and marketing and helps schools and other community groups to earn much needed funding while teaching their communities about resource conservation and environmental responsibility

TerraCycle works with major companies such as Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, Mars, Kashi, Stonyfield Farm, CLIF BAR and Honest Tea to sponsor the collection of post-consumer packaging. With these sponsors help, TerraCycle pays schools and non-profits 2 cents for every piece of packaging they collect.  TerraCycle upcycles the collected ‘waste’ material into affordable, eco-friendly products.  Today over 50,000 organizations have helped collect over 1 billion pre- and post-consumer wrappers.

In April 2009 Tom released his first book, Revolution in a Bottle, published by Portfolio to critical acclaim. That same month, National Geographic Channel aired a pilot episode of a TV series about Tom and TerraCycle called, Garbage Moguls.  After a very successful pilot, the first full season of Moguls was in Spring 2010 on the National Geographic Channel.