“Send us your trash – we’ll make it into cool products.” That's the simple premise and promise of New Jersey-based startup TerraCycle, a green recycler founded by two former Princeton University classmates who dreamed up the idea in 2001 for a business plan contest. Now full-time "eco-capitalists," they're making good business from trash by partnering with brands to create recycling campaigns for their products, and a halo effect for their affiliates.

Paul Smith wrote a series of articles about Terracyle <http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/02/28/home-depot-and-petco-targeted-for-terracycles-newest-recycling-efforts/>  last year.  Founded by Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer in 2001 while students at Princeton, Terra Cycle <http://www.terracycle.net/bb/>  started as a way to spread the benefits of vermicomposting (that is, composting <http://kellibestoliver.greenoptions.com/wiki/composting>  with worms) to a larger audience. Szaky and Beyer were eventually able to earn startup funds, and by 2004, Home Depot <http://www.homedepot.com/>  was carrying Terra Cycle <http://www.terracycle.net/bb/>  Plant Food <http://www.terracycle.net/products.htm>  on their website.

What do you do when you run out of rich, money hungry media whores to cast for a reality show, or even better yet, guidos and guidettes running the town with the poofs and pecks? You pick the next best thing, garbage men. Or in this case, garbage moguls, who take to heart that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

Forget “Jersey Shore” or the “Housewives of New Jersey”, the “trashiest” show to come out of New Jersey yet will be showed on the National Geographic channel on August 21. “Garbage Moguls” will be a three episode special that will take an inside look into how  TerraCycle, a New Jersey based recycling company, works. The company specializes in making consumer products from recycled material and trash, such as making backpacks from Capri-Sun packages. The company was founded in 2001 and since then has become one of the top 100 most innovative companies.

National Geographic Channel's "Garbage Moguls" isn't your typical New Jersey-based reality series. Instead of peddling trashy behavior like "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" or even trashier outfits like Snooki and her gang, "Garbage Moguls" star and TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky deals with actually, literal garbage.

BY Cristina Kinon National Geographic Channel's "Garbage Moguls" isn't your typical New Jersey-based reality series. Instead of peddling trashy behavior like "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" or even trashier outfits like Snooki and her gang, "Garbage Moguls" star and TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky deals with actual, literal garbage. "There's a certain kind of irony there," Szaky tells The News. "Our show wasn't picked up because it's based in New Jersey, but it's an awesome coincidence that just as Jersey is getting big in the world of reality TV, our show is trying to make a run for it."

MTV's Jersey Shore is no longer the trashiest New Jersey-based reality show on television thanks to a new series premiering this weekend.  Garbage Moguls will hit the air Saturday, August 21 on the National Geographic Channel as the trashiest of all reality shows...literally! Garbage Moguls will take "an inside look at the zany way" TerraCycle, develops products made completely out of trash. Led by Princeton University drop-out and worm poop connoisseur Tom Szaky, the show follows TerraCycle's team of young "eco-capitalists" as they brainstorm, argue over, go dumpster diving for, and eventually create new products that help solve America’s waste problem.

Waste is a relative term. What is waste to one person is a valuable commodity to another. Waste has to be dealt with in a systematic basis. Each component needs to be analyzed for potential value. Today, Kraft Foods recycles nearly 90 percent of its global manufacturing waste. "We're looking to reduce the amount of waste we produce and find value in what we do create," says Yucknut. "That means turning waste into energy and finding partners across the supply chain that can put waste to work." In the United States, Kraft Foods partners with Sonoco (www.sonoco.com), a global provider of packaging products and services, on plant waste reduction across North America, resulting in a number of plants that operate as "zero waste to landfill". The company is taking the same approach to help consumers deal with packaging that isn't recyclable. In 2008, Kraft Foods and its Capri Sun brand started partnering with TerraCycle (www.terracycle.net), an innovative company that reuses product packaging to make new, useful products. Today, Kraft Foods is the largest sponsor of TerraCycle "brigades" -- or collection points -- with more than 30,000 locations and nearly seven million people signed up to collect waste across the United States. The program has been so successful that it's expanded internationally to the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico and Brazil, and there's more in the works.

Recycling rates in the U.S. run at about 30 percent compared to other developed areas in the world which are close to 75%.  In 2008, Kraft develop strategic partnerships to help increase recycling rates in the states with organizations such as RecycleBank <http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/03/betting-on-recyclebank-the-next-big-thing/>  and TerraCycle, (a company that “upcycles” waste materials to create fashionable items such as backpacks or totebags made from Capri-Sun packaging).  Participants who send in their waste get as much as 2 cents per candy wrapper or drink pouch.

CEO of TerraCycle, Tom Szaky, built an eco-friendly powerhouse before green was popular. In TerraCycle's own words, "It all started in 2001 as a simple organic fertilizer company. Two college students fed the leftovers from their cafeteria to an army of worms. They harvested the worm compost and liquefied it into a completely organic, ultra-effective fertilizer. Not having any money they could not buy the packaging they needed to start selling their fertilizer. Undiscouraged, they began to bottle their liquid fertilizer in used soda bottles they collected from people’s recycling bins, unwittingly creating the world’s first product made from and packaged entirely in waste!