Tom Szaky

Tom Szaky

Eco-Entrepreneur

Tom Szaky is an eco-entrepreneur, known for starting TerraCycle, a company that makes eco-friendly, affordable consumer products from waste.

Tom's first successful business was a Web design company named "Flyte Design," which Tom started at age 14. In 2001, Tom matriculated to Princeton University, and in his second year, took a leave to work full time on TerraCycle, which had started as a two man project in a dorm room. Today, the company has over 100 employees worldwide, operates in fifteen different countries, collects over 40 different waste streams, and has created hundreds of upcycled and recycled products.

Tom has written a book about TerraCycle and its development titled "Revolution in a Bottle," and TerraCycle has been featured on the National Geographic mini-series "Garbage Moguls."

As a Princeton freshman, Tom and a friend fed leftovers from the university cafeteria to an army of worms and harvested the worm compost, or Worm Poop as it is fondly known, and liquefied it into a completely organic, ultra-effective fertilizer. When it came time to package and sell the fertilizer, the two boys could not afford to buy packaging, so they turned to used soda bottles they collected from recycling bins, unwittingly creating the world's first product made from and packaged entirely in waste.

In 2002, Tom took a leave of absence from Princeton to dedicate himself full-time to TerraCycle. One year in, on the verge of bankruptcy, 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.

Even without the investor’s money, TerraCycle had its breakthrough 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.

A decade later, TerraCycle has grown from a two-man, dorm room operation to an international leader in the field of eco-capitalism and upcycling and TerraCycle continues to make an effort to prove to the world that you can make a difference and a profit at the same time. However, after years of being in business, Tom realized it would take more than an army of worms to change the world. Tom realized the revolutionary idea they discovered was not Worm Poop, but using waste materials to make products that are both sustainable and affordable.

The collection program, known as the Brigade program, was launched in 2007 with TerraCycle's first partner, organic beverage manufacturer Honest Tea. For every piece of trash that TerraCycle receives, the collection Brigade is rewarded with two points, which can be put towards charity gifts such as a donation to charity:water or Feeding America, or converted to cash and donated to a charity of the participant's choice.

In 2009, TerraCycle began to take its successful Brigade programs overseas, launching with Kraft Foods in the United Kingdom, Canada and Mexico and with PepsiCo and Kraft Foods in Brazil. During 2010, the company expanded to France, Germany, Argentina, and Sweden. In 2011, TerraCycle has launched in Switzerland, Israel, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Holland, Luxembourg, and Italy.

Inc. Magazine’s annual ranking of the fastest growing private companies in America listed TerraCycle in the top 200 in 2010, moving from the 288th spot, and was also listed in the top 10 consumer goods companies. In 2011, TerraCycle ranked in the top 50 consumer goods companies and at #928 on the Inc 5000 list.

Today, TerraCycle partners with major consumer goods manufacturers such as Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, Mars, Kashi, Kimberly-Clark, SC Johnson, Nestle, L’Oreal and many more to run a comprehensive network of individuals, schools and organizations who get paid to help collect non-recyclable packaging. TerraCycle and its partners pay two cents per unit of returned packaging and the collected material is combined with other waste streams and recycled into a wide range of consumer products such as flowerpots. Some of the packaging is upcycled into tote bags, notebooks, backpacks, and lunchboxes.

TerraCycle products have been sold at retailers including The Home Depot, Walmart, RadioShack, Best Buy, Toys 'R Us, Whole Foods Market, OfficeMax, Petco, Urban Outfitters, and Target.

Over 70,000 locations and 22 million participants help TerraCycle to collect their trash and save it from the landfill. Over 2 billion pieces of pre- and post- consumer packaging have been collected, over 2 million dollars have been donated to schools and non-profits.