Waste not, want not - making money from rubbish

But then waste is a subject dear to his heart. He is the founder and chief executive of social enterprise TerraCycle, a company whose aim is eliminating waste.

"It's a lofty ideal I know," he says, but so far so good.

In 13 years, US-based TerraCycle has gone from the classic start-up run out of a basement to operating in 21 countries. Last year it had revenue worth $20m (£13m) and 115 employees.

The company's business model is to find waste and turn it into something useful, for a profit. It collects things that are generally considered difficult to recycle - such as cigarette stubs, coffee capsules, or biscuit wrappers - and finds a way to reuse them.

That is done mainly through processing them down into a material and selling them to a manufacturer, and to a lesser extent by turning them into products such as bags, benches or dustbins.

It relies on contracts with businesses - such as McVities, Johnson & Johnson, and Kenco - that pay TerraCycle to take away their waste, as well as individual consumers collecting and sending it in, in return for donations to a charity of their choice.

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