Watch National Geographic Garbage Moguls video and photos here. The documentary, presented on Earth Day, April 22, 2009 at 9 p.m. ET/PT chronicles the efforts of a New Jersey company, TerraCycle, helmed by a 27-year-old CEO, Tom Szaky, with a staff of more than 50, who literally turn trash into cash.

Tom Szaky established the company in his dorm room while he was a freshman at Princeton. It was actually the second company the Hungarian born and Canadian-raised Szarky had established; at 14 he had a web design business. It has since become a multimillion dollar company that employs more than 50 people and whose clients include Wal-Mart, OfficeMax, Home Depot and Target.

Initially, the company began with a single produce; TerraCycle Plant Food made by converting the castings of worms that had consumed garbage into an all-natural liquid fertilizer, which is then packaged in used soda bottles. The product is literally garbage packaged in garbage. Presently the TerraCycle Plant Food is sold at Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, and thousands of other stores.

Photo credit: Milton Oppenheimer / Silent Crow Arts

Both the company and its CEO have won notoriety and acclaim. Inc Magazine named Szaky its “The #1 CEO Under Thirty” in its July 2006 issue, beating out Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Read the feature article: The Coolest Little Start-Up in America

Tom Szaky has also written a book, Revolution in a Bottle How TerraCycle is Redefining Green Business, which lays out the company’s vision and mission and presents a blueprint for other companies to follow. Regarding the company’s mission and vision, Szaky said in a recent interview.

“Recycling has solved for certain types of waste material — we want to solve for everything else….Waste is always going to be present. The trick is not to view it as waste.” [...]

“It’s like I am in California in 1849, but I am the only one who can see the gold,” Szaky said. “No one else is cashing in on this model because it is not a sexy industry. In fact, it is the opposite of sexy, it’s garbage.”

Source: TerraCycle looks to transform U.S. habits by creating useful products

The company also “upcycles” which is the process of making useful products out of garbage that can’t be recycled.

National Geographic Garbage Moguls documentary gives a fascinating glimpse into the creativity and inventiveness of the process. Upcycling in concrete terms means making kites out of Oreo cookie wrappers, messenger bags from billboards, pencils from rolled newspapers and spiral notebooks from cardboard cereal boxes.

TerraCycle has a massive outreach effort to collect the raw materials for such creative transformation. Among these is a collaboration with Kraft Foods. The food conglomerate owns Capri Sun and other drink products popular with children. The outreach effort involves collecting the various juice containers for reuse, paying 2 cents a piece to participating schools, churches and community groups which number more than 20,000 nationwide.

Watch National Geographic: Garbage Moguls video, photos below.

Video “Terra-Re-Cycle” – TerraCycle reaches out to the next generation of consumers – and recyclers. Video Link



Video “Go Fly a Kite” – Got a kite? Check. Open space? Sorta. Clear skies? Not even close. But that won’t keep these moguls from trying. Video Link

Video “Fire Test” – If someone offered you $1,000 to tell them if cookie wrapper are flammable, could you do it? Video Link



Video “Bleach Test” – What’s better than watching bleach work its magic on cookie wrappers? Watching this dude watching bleach. Video Link



Photos and video courtesy of National Geographic Channel

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National Geographic: Garbage Moguls Video, Photos (Earth Day 4-22-09) pics pictures