Total Garbage with Edward Humes | ChicoBag Podcast Episode 7

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Music.
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Welcome to the Chico Bag Podcast, where we talk with changemakers working to
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leave the world better than we found it.
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I'm your host, Andy Keller, and today I'm joined by Edward Humes,
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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of his new book,
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Total Garbage, How We Can Fix Our Waste and Heal the World.
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So if you want to know how to heal the world and take care of our waste problem,
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please listen. Welcome, Edward.
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Thanks, Andy. It's so great to be talking to you again. It is great. We go a ways back.
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Yeah, I met you when you wrote your first book, Garbology.
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So now you've written a second book about garbage. So tell me about this new book.
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Yeah, well, the first one, Garbology, was focused on trying to figure out just how wasteful we were.
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Because a lot of what we know now in terms of plastic pollution and where our
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material ends, things we thought were being recycled were just being shipped
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to China, all that was new when Garbology came out.
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And this one, Total Garbage, is just like the subtitle says.
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It's how much our waste not only plagues us, but offers us an opportunity to
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solve a lot of our other big crises with climate and environment.
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Yeah, so your premise is that waste is the core of most of our problems.
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Exactly. Well, first of all, we're the most wasteful civilization in history.
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Your company is already doing something to address one aspect of that,
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and that kind of solution is what I wanted to take to the next level and see what else is going on.
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And all the action right now for innovation in solving our environmental problems
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is really in community-based efforts that grow to be systemic or that are so
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popular that they are changing consumer behavior. And that's what I wanted to focus on.
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Why are we the most wasteful civilization in history? If you drive a gasoline-powered
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car, four-fifths of what you spend goes out the tailpipe as waste. in terms of waste heat.
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Waste pollutants, only one out of $5 you spend on your gas tank is going to move the car.
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That's crazy wasteful. And we have much better and less wasteful options,
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which I talk about in the book.
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And my example is a community in Georgia that has redesigned itself to make
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the primary everyday form of transportation an electric golf cart.
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And they have a separate little, it's not little, 100 miles road network.
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It's a 40,000 person community, not a retirement community.
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And everybody still has their car. If they need to go to Atlanta for the day
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or do a big shopping expedition, they rev up their gas guzzler and go.
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But mostly they drive short distances like all Americans and they don't need
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all that horsepower or range to get the job done. and they are the happiest community.
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They have low insurance rates. They have zero traffic fatalities and their kids
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that go to high school at age 15 and a half, it's a rite of passage.
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They get to drive themselves in the golf cart.
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The high school has over a thousand of these golf carts lined up every day.
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Their parking lot's even striped for them. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen.
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I thought it was nutty when I got there. I thought there's no way a golf cart
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It could be a better, you know, be a substitute for my car.
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And I left here thinking, God, my car is a crappy substitute for a golf cart.
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Because that's really how we drive. And that's just one little example of the
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hidden waste in our daily lives.
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We don't even think of how wasteful it is to have a car that can carry six people
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and go 300 miles without having to refuel or recharge.
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Most Americans don't drive more than 40 miles a day with one person in the car.
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I mean, I'm someone who's driven a golf cart. I got to say, they're a lot more fun to drive.
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They are. Yeah, especially on a nice day. You can say hi to people.
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You can notice the butterflies and things that are next to you. It is really enjoyable.
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Yeah, yeah. I drove around with the mayor and, you know, oh,
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there's somebody I need to talk to. And they had a meeting golf cart to golf
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cart right in the middle of the road. There was nobody cared.
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Can you see doing that on the freeway? No. It turns it into a social experience.
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Yeah. Well, you connect more. You know, we're living in a time where people are lonelier than ever.
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And it sounds like a great solution to bring the community together.
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Down in East Street City, Georgia. So, I spoke about that example first because
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we need to expand. I argue we need to expand how we define waste and see it clearly.
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Now, sometimes we just have to drive that big car to do things,
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but there's no reason why we have to do that for everything.
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And it's changing the wastefulness inherent in how we get ourselves around now
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could be world-changing.
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Well, I like how you put it, you know, like I'm spending maybe in California,
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five bucks on a gallon of gas and only one of those dollars is actually moving me around.
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Like that's pretty compelling. It doesn't matter what car either.
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That's the physics of internal combustion.
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There's no way around it. It's the same thing with fossil fuel power plants.
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They waste two thirds of the energy. So two thirds of your electricity bill.
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Every month goes for the waste inherent in the way we generate electricity,
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which is one of many reasons why wind and solar power are now the cheapest forms
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of energy there are because that waste of fuel doesn't exist.
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Yeah, it's a lot more efficient. You said something like 90% of the...
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Electric car, 90% of the energy that comes out of that battery turns the wheels.
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So yeah, it moves your car. Compared to 20% for internal combustion.
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Correct. So that's huge.
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I mean, it's like a no-duh. So what's preventing us from just making the switch?
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Because we're trying to make them just like our gas-guzzling cars,
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for which a very amazing logistic network for refueling exists.
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And we're trying to make electric cars do the same thing when we don't need them to do.
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I mean, we would be best served by some modern equivalent of the Volkswagen
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Bug, which was $1,600 when I was a teenager to buy a brand new one.
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And it's not a perfect car. It's small. It's underpowered.
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But if you just have to go to the store or drive to work, it was awesome. It was so cheap.
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Well, an electric equivalent of that could go maybe 100 miles.
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Is you wouldn't need a big honking half ton of full ton of lithium to power it around.
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You could get bio and pretty low-tech batteries like a golf cart, but a little bigger.
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Nobody's even thinking in those terms. Most families in America have two vehicles.
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Why do we need both of them capable of this massive amounts of range and power
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and carrying five people in four suitcases and whatever else a modern car comes in it?
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We don't. We just don't think that way. Yeah.
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I've listened to some futurists from Lyft and they were talking about the idea
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of autonomous vehicles and why even own a vehicle when it sits in your driveway
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for 90% of the time and it's just sitting there rotting basically and something you have to maintain.
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Why not just order up a car when you need it?
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And then the result is you don't need all these parking places.
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You don't need parking lots. And you can free up all that infrastructure for better things.
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Yeah, it's a different way of thinking.
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A car is absolutely any investment. A banker will tell you a car is the worst
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investment you'll ever make.
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It begins to depreciate the moment you drive it off the lot.
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And it's hugely expensive between insurance, parking, fuel, maintenance.
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It's an expensive proposition. So if you don't need that, if you can just have
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a car up here when you need it and drop you off when you're done,
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that would be game-changing too.
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And it's just a different – we're so emotionally attached to our vehicles.
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And I get that. I love the drive.
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I'm not a car hater. I like cars. That doesn't mean I can't see the logic and
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waste in it. I have the most popular electric vehicle in the world right now, an e-bike.
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And that is a, in terms of numbers sold, it is.
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And that is a huge problem solver for a lot of people, particularly young people
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who can't afford or don't want a full-size car or live in an apartment where
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parking is an issue, goes away and gets them where they need to go.
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It is a game changer. I've, you know, I've ridden my bike and some of the obstacles
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that get in my way are mental ones.
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I think, oh, I don't have time to ride my bike.
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And what I found is that I actually get to the location faster or maybe it takes
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me five, ten minutes longer than it would otherwise.
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And, you know, I guess I'm exercising the process. Exactly.
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You're turning waste into a bone. Say it again? You're turning waste into a
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boon, into a bonus. I mean, that's awesome.
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Yeah, that's for sure. And then I don't have to drive to the gym.
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Yeah, so you talked about cars. You know, I know in your book,
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what really surprised me was the part about cooking.
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So let's talk about that, because that was fascinating. Well,
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yeah, and it has a couple of pieces. The one I think most people are aware of
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is that we waste a lot of actual food, right?
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Like 40% of our food supply from farm to table ends up in the trash in one form or another.
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And that's horrendous.
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And then there's how we actually cook our food. And I focused on a couple of
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chefs who are really pushing for electrifying our commercial kitchens,
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our restaurant kitchens and our home kitchens with with
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a new actually a new old technology called
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induction cooking you know when i started working
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on this nobody knew what that was and now if
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i'm speaking to a group i say who knows what an induction
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stove is or has one a lot of hands go up
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so people have realized that this is cool
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and for those listeners who don't
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know what it is it's basically cooking with magnetism instead
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of with fire or heat and this
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is if you have a wireless phone charger you have an induction device you notice
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how it gets warm when you put your phone on it and it's charging the battery
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it's the process of induction for your phone charger a byproduct is heat in
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an induction stove that's the only product.
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All that happens on an induction stove is that a magnet projects a very focused
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magnetic field into the bottom of a pot.
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It has to be a pot that a magnet will stick to, steel or cast iron or steel.
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Any kind of pot that's clad in one of those two metals.
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And most of that energy in a phone charger goes into the battery in the phone.
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It has nowhere to go inside a pot.
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And so the electrons just start bouncing around crazily and it gets intensely hot.
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You can boil water twice as fast with an induction stove as you can from a top of the line gas stove.
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And once again- You can actually watch water boil?
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Yes, yes, you can. And it happens really fast. Everything is faster.
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So this chef, Chris Galarza is his name. He's based in Pittsburgh.
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And his killer demo is to take a pan out of the freezer and put it on an induction stove.
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And he is sizzling and sauteing vegetables faster than a gas stove cooker does
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it when the pan's already pre-warmed.
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That's how powerful this stuff is and why
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do rest why why are restaurants interested in this because you
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know if you ever watch the show bear on
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hulu or it's a cooking drama or if you you know ever worked in a restaurant
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you know the time is money time is everything in a restaurant the more quickly
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you can serve your customers the more customers you can serve they finish they're
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happy they'll want to come back
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because they didn't wait and then there's room for the next customers.
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You can actually fit an.
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An extra hour's worth of service without expanding the time you set aside for
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service, in part because things cook faster, in part because they clean faster.
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The stove doesn't get hot. The kitchen stays cool.
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And that means grease spatter and all doesn't have to be scrubbed off with chemicals.
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You just wipe it off with a sponge when you're done.
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Only the food and the pot get hot. It's crazy.
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Okay, so that's, I mean, it's kind of mind-blowing, really.
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That it seems like some sort of future technology where the stove's not getting
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hot, it's cooking your food, it cooks it twice as fast.
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That microwaves, though, it's nothing like that. There's no radiation. That's the cool part.
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People need to be worried about it? Yeah, yeah.
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It's not like that at all. And it's not those coils on the old school electric
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stove or like the ceramic top electric stoves where you can burn yourself because
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you can't tell if it's on or not.
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It's nothing like that. It doesn't make any heat. That's why it's so energy
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efficient. Again, it's like cars.
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About 85% to 90% of the energy an induction stove uses actually cooks the food.
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With a gas stove, you're lucky if you get 35% of the heat that stove generates
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to cook the food. So you have to spend a lot more energy.
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And that's why kitchens are so hot. You know, Chris said, the reason I got interested
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in this, Chef Chris, is because one day I had a meat thermometer in my pocket
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in the kitchen where I worked.
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I looked at it. It was 130 degrees in his work environment.
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That's horrendous. People were getting sick because they were so hot.
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And plus, the air conditioning was roaring. And it was still that hot because
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everything gets hot around the gas stoves.
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All that goes away. The ventilation costs, the air conditioning costs,
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the health risk, all of it goes away if you change the technology.
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So there's a really compelling business case for a restaurant.
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Faced with other rising costs, labor, food, to switch to this induction cooking
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as a way to stay competitive, right?
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Absolutely. Even if you don't give a hoot about climate change or as my chef
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friend explained to me that we're so focused on trying to survive day to day
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in a business where margins, you know,
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10, 15 years ago, it was about 7% margin.
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And now it's three or 4% if you're lucky.
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Those are, they can't afford to think about saving the world.
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They're trying to keep, save their business and their employees.
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They don't have to worry about saving the world. This is saving them money.
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This is saving them time.
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And the fact that it also is good for the planet and good for the environment, well, that's a bonus.
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And those are the kinds of solutions i focused
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on in total garbage solutions that
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make economic sense that keep your family healthier
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that just work better and save your money and and it turns out a lot of really
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important and game-changing solutions like that are out there just waiting waiting
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for us to seize them and to see them first you have to see them then you can
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see them yeah well talk about,
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health, one of the things, I mean, I have a gas stove at home.
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I prefer it over electric because it seems to work better.
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I've never tried an induction stove, but after reading your book,
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that's what I'm going to shop for next.
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However, I talk about the health issues because I had no idea.
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And my wife's like, turn on the fan. I'm like, I don't need the fan.
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Turn on the fan. Yeah, I never did. So.
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Yeah, yeah. Well, you're talking about the ventilator above many people's gas
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stoves, which are never adequate. They're not even designed properly.
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So if a restaurant tried to open without equipment, they would be closed down for being unsafe.
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So even if you turn that fan on, it's probably not going to help much.
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It's so crazy because every gas
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burning appliance in your house is vented automatically to the outside.
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If you have a gas clothes dryer, all the exhaust from burning the gas is pumped
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out of the house along with the hot air.
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If you own a gas furnace, the fumes, the emissions go up the chimney.
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Think of any other gas appliance. You would never let those fumes into your house.
00:18:02.646 --> 00:18:08.946
If they were staying in your house, you'd be in danger and you would immediately
00:18:08.946 --> 00:18:12.486
get a repair person, except for gas stoves.
00:18:13.406 --> 00:18:17.946
Right in the middle of a house, in the heart of our house, we're burning a fossil
00:18:17.946 --> 00:18:19.926
fuel. What could go wrong with that, right?
00:18:20.146 --> 00:18:25.246
Well, it's not the clean fuel that the industry likes to say it is.
00:18:25.366 --> 00:18:30.266
It emits all sorts of substances that are incredibly bad for us,
00:18:30.366 --> 00:18:34.066
which is why, And there's very robust science on this.
00:18:34.206 --> 00:18:42.446
There's a 33% higher risk of triggering childhood asthma and respiratory ailments
00:18:42.446 --> 00:18:47.566
in any vulnerable population in homes with a gas stove versus homes that don't.
00:18:48.176 --> 00:18:55.996
Have a gas stove. If I was a pediatrician and I had a child come to me who was
00:18:55.996 --> 00:19:00.156
developing otherwise unexplained childhood asthma attacks,
00:19:00.476 --> 00:19:04.276
I would ask what kind of cooking technology they use.
00:19:04.416 --> 00:19:10.616
And if it was gas stoves, I'd say, you should try not using your gas stove and see what happens.
00:19:10.856 --> 00:19:15.036
And isn't it funny how those asthma attacks always come around the holiday time
00:19:15.036 --> 00:19:19.096
of year when that stove is going on extra time for people who love to bake and
00:19:19.096 --> 00:19:21.836
cook and have feasts. It's no coincidence.
00:19:22.496 --> 00:19:27.676
The indoor air pollution from a gas stove is really unhelpful.
00:19:28.256 --> 00:19:33.936
And in fact, if those emissions were happening to coming out of a factory of
00:19:33.936 --> 00:19:37.416
some kind and going unfiltered into the outdoors,
00:19:37.676 --> 00:19:45.116
they could easily be cited for violating various health and safety codes.
00:19:45.116 --> 00:19:47.976
Is there's no regulation of indoor pollution in this country.
00:19:48.476 --> 00:19:52.916
So there's no protection for you other than your own choices of how you cook.
00:19:53.516 --> 00:19:58.116
So you're saying that the air outside our house is more regulated than the air
00:19:58.116 --> 00:20:00.176
inside our house? Absolutely, absolutely.
00:20:00.376 --> 00:20:04.536
In this country, not in every country, but in this country. In the United States.
00:20:04.856 --> 00:20:08.956
Now there's a solution for this. It's really expensive to replace your stove, right?
00:20:09.756 --> 00:20:14.416
Or if you rent, you can't. You could beg your landlord to put in some high-tech
00:20:14.416 --> 00:20:17.236
stove And, you know, most lenders are going to say, really?
00:20:18.176 --> 00:20:21.156
I'll tell you what my cousin Dorothy did to solve this problem.
00:20:21.716 --> 00:20:26.116
She has been suffering with long COVID and had a lot of respiratory issues.
00:20:26.296 --> 00:20:29.696
She lives in an apartment in New York City, has a gas stove,
00:20:29.816 --> 00:20:32.516
never thought twice about it. And she said, I read your book.
00:20:32.636 --> 00:20:33.856
I said, all right, I got an early copy.
00:20:34.016 --> 00:20:36.236
You know, I figured my cousin will give me a good review, you know.
00:20:37.456 --> 00:20:40.616
And she read that. She said, boy, I wonder if this could help me out.
00:20:40.616 --> 00:20:51.016
So she shopped online and found Ikea had a countertop induction cooker for $69.
00:20:51.056 --> 00:20:52.656
She said, I'm going to give this a try.
00:20:53.356 --> 00:20:57.636
Again, this is not scientific. Anecdotal report, she said, after two weeks,
00:20:57.896 --> 00:20:59.836
hardly ever using her gas stove.
00:21:00.896 --> 00:21:04.476
A couple times she wanted to bake something in the oven. Other than that,
00:21:04.816 --> 00:21:05.916
she just used this cooker.
00:21:06.076 --> 00:21:11.336
And she said, I'm breathing more easily. I'm not having all the wheezing and
00:21:11.336 --> 00:21:13.336
problems that I had been having before.
00:21:13.576 --> 00:21:16.816
And I never really realized there might be a link to how I cook.
00:21:17.631 --> 00:21:22.411
Now, I can't guarantee that that's what solved it, but I've heard many stories
00:21:22.411 --> 00:21:26.091
like this from other people who've told me, yeah, this has made a big difference
00:21:26.091 --> 00:21:31.171
for my kids or this has made a big difference for my husband who has chronic asthma.
00:21:31.391 --> 00:21:38.731
It's very low investment to say, you know, a bunch of the times I only need one or two burners.
00:21:39.151 --> 00:21:43.271
I could have one of these countertop induction cookers, which work amazingly.
00:21:43.271 --> 00:21:46.151
Well, there's restaurants that use the countertop ones because they like to
00:21:46.151 --> 00:21:50.591
move stations around for cooking different things, and so they're portable, but they're powerful.
00:21:50.831 --> 00:21:56.971
You can get a two-burner model, too, and 80% of your cooking can get done without firing up the gas.
00:21:57.131 --> 00:22:02.631
Yeah, you just bust out the stove on special holidays when you need extra burners.
00:22:03.151 --> 00:22:07.511
Oh, and there's one more tip for the health thing. If you must use your gas
00:22:07.511 --> 00:22:13.471
stove, don't just use that ventilator fan over it. That's not going to do much
00:22:13.471 --> 00:22:15.191
for you. A little bit on the back burner.
00:22:15.351 --> 00:22:18.391
But a lot of them just went back into the house instead of going outside.
00:22:18.671 --> 00:22:20.531
So look to see where's your leads.
00:22:20.651 --> 00:22:23.711
A lot of places, it doesn't go anywhere anyway. So it's kind of a joke.
00:22:24.311 --> 00:22:29.111
Close all the bedroom doors so those emissions don't get in your kids or your
00:22:29.111 --> 00:22:31.891
bedroom. Just keep them closed when you're running the gas stove.
00:22:32.431 --> 00:22:38.471
Open the window closest to where you're cooking, even if it's cold out.
00:22:39.231 --> 00:22:46.451
And those two things can make a huge difference in your health risks for cooking with gas.
00:22:46.651 --> 00:22:49.331
And then use that little induction cooker when you can.
00:22:49.871 --> 00:22:53.371
You know, what stood out to me, what I didn't realize is the benzene.
00:22:53.511 --> 00:22:59.791
You know, the part of the exhaust has benzene in it, which is a carcinogenic substance. Yeah.
00:23:00.761 --> 00:23:06.961
Don't want to breathe. The benzene and nitric oxides that are also lung irritants,
00:23:07.081 --> 00:23:12.661
and that's what stimulates the asthmatic response and other emissions as well.
00:23:13.441 --> 00:23:18.061
So as an investigative journalist, I appreciate in your books that you go deep
00:23:18.061 --> 00:23:21.881
on kind of the backstory behind some of this stuff.
00:23:22.041 --> 00:23:25.321
Because there's industry players, there's PR companies,
00:23:25.761 --> 00:23:31.661
there's lobbyists, all fighting to keep the status quo in place,
00:23:31.661 --> 00:23:37.741
to give us messages that we repeat and we believe, like clean natural gas,
00:23:38.041 --> 00:23:43.461
give a hoot, don't pollute, all these things that are out there.
00:23:43.541 --> 00:23:49.721
So what can you share with us on this podcast that you think people might be surprised by?
00:23:49.921 --> 00:23:55.421
Well, I begin the book with talking about plastic pollution,
00:23:55.621 --> 00:23:56.881
the subject near and dear to your heart.
00:23:57.141 --> 00:24:04.001
Yes. I start with what was then a surprising fact,
00:24:04.241 --> 00:24:09.681
although it's become more well-known now, that the average American is imbibing
00:24:09.681 --> 00:24:15.801
about a credit card's worth of plastic every week from the constant flood of
00:24:15.801 --> 00:24:19.801
waste plastics entering our water, our food, even our air and soil.
00:24:19.801 --> 00:24:25.421
It's everywhere and in everything, and it's in us. And since the book came out,
00:24:25.561 --> 00:24:29.101
I updated this for the paperback edition, which just came out.
00:24:29.361 --> 00:24:36.641
They're finding plastic inside, plastic particles, up to two teaspoonfuls in people's brains.
00:24:36.961 --> 00:24:40.461
Two teaspoons? Yeah, brain tissue of microplastics, yes.
00:24:40.981 --> 00:24:46.741
And that this material over time, very preliminary, people who have the higher
00:24:46.741 --> 00:24:51.261
amounts of this, that's an average figure, people on the higher end of that figure.
00:24:52.281 --> 00:24:56.301
Seem to be showing a greater incidence of dementia, Alzheimer's,
00:24:56.341 --> 00:24:57.541
and Parkinson's disease.
00:24:58.521 --> 00:25:02.361
So, I mean, these are fossil fuel products in all our organs.
00:25:02.361 --> 00:25:06.981
They're finding it in amniotic fluids, because these microplastics and nanoplastics
00:25:06.981 --> 00:25:11.081
are getting in through the placental barrier.
00:25:11.341 --> 00:25:18.541
And so we have newborn babies who've never had a meal outside the womb having
00:25:18.541 --> 00:25:20.641
plastic in their poop, in their first poop.
00:25:21.281 --> 00:25:24.661
This is unheard of i mean this is this is
00:25:24.661 --> 00:25:28.341
also a consequence of our our wastefulness and
00:25:28.341 --> 00:25:31.621
our choice to take a basically an
00:25:31.621 --> 00:25:34.801
eternal product like plastic that nature can't absorb
00:25:34.801 --> 00:25:37.681
or decompose or consume and in
00:25:37.681 --> 00:25:40.541
the sense that organic material can be and making
00:25:40.541 --> 00:25:43.601
it a disposable product and then having nowhere good
00:25:43.601 --> 00:25:46.761
to take it our recycling system is not what
00:25:46.761 --> 00:25:50.341
it's been made out to be not when it comes to plastics and
00:25:50.341 --> 00:25:54.081
that's that's something that we people say
00:25:54.081 --> 00:25:57.321
that well we can't not have plastic we need all this don't
00:25:57.321 --> 00:26:00.021
we and the answer is no a lot of it we
00:26:00.021 --> 00:26:03.281
don't need and particularly you shouldn't
00:26:03.281 --> 00:26:06.181
let plastic touch your food and there's ways to avoid that
00:26:06.181 --> 00:26:08.861
you drink a bottle of water that came to you
00:26:08.861 --> 00:26:11.661
in plastic it's going to have 100 times the amount
00:26:11.661 --> 00:26:14.681
of plastic particles in it than if you just drank
00:26:14.681 --> 00:26:18.121
tap water or got water in a glass bottle or anything
00:26:18.121 --> 00:26:22.601
else other than plastic i mean that's sobering it's so
00:26:22.601 --> 00:26:25.601
what it's sobering you know to sobering yeah
00:26:25.601 --> 00:26:28.381
yeah to know that you know
00:26:28.381 --> 00:26:33.341
you're you're just drinking plastic you're breathing plastic you know your salt
00:26:33.341 --> 00:26:37.661
and pepper shakers have plastic your favorite beer has plastic i mean it's kind
00:26:37.661 --> 00:26:42.621
of we've really dug a bit of a hole for us what we can do is not make it worse
00:26:42.621 --> 00:26:45.861
um and and as consumers We can choose.
00:26:46.141 --> 00:26:51.681
I'm not going to use Saran wrap anymore, or plastic wrap, not to call out a
00:26:51.681 --> 00:26:53.781
particular brand, but none of it's recyclable.
00:26:53.901 --> 00:26:56.221
People think it can be, and they put it in the recycling bin.
00:26:56.321 --> 00:26:57.161
It doesn't get recycled.
00:26:57.461 --> 00:27:01.861
It doesn't happen. But, you know, oh, I have leftover salad.
00:27:02.261 --> 00:27:05.861
Keep it in a bowl and put a plate on top of it. You just don't need that plastic wrap.
00:27:06.041 --> 00:27:11.161
There's ways to keep things fresh without encasing them in a potentially toxic substance.
00:27:12.681 --> 00:27:17.941
Glass is great. Metal's fine. I mean, there's all sorts of materials available
00:27:17.941 --> 00:27:20.121
to us that aren't plastic.
00:27:22.621 --> 00:27:30.421
People say, well, I like soda. I don't like my tap water or my choices. Well, I mean...
00:27:31.649 --> 00:27:35.089
Usually, the price point is similar for things that come in cans.
00:27:35.309 --> 00:27:40.509
I would advise buying them in cans or glass if you can find it because that
00:27:40.509 --> 00:27:43.509
at least isn't adding to your body burden of plastic.
00:27:43.909 --> 00:27:48.969
So, yeah. So, there's plastic everywhere. And you point out in your book that
00:27:48.969 --> 00:27:58.769
plastic is really the only man-made thing out there besides petrochemical substances.
00:27:59.669 --> 00:28:02.689
That, you know, it never does break down, you know, so.
00:28:03.069 --> 00:28:08.309
It only gets smaller. The particles break up and that's how they finally become
00:28:08.309 --> 00:28:13.929
small enough to get into everything, especially ourselves and our food.
00:28:14.129 --> 00:28:17.389
It's not all just what we throw away into the trash can.
00:28:17.529 --> 00:28:20.809
It's our plastic clothes and washing machines.
00:28:20.909 --> 00:28:24.769
There's only one country in the world right now that requires a filter to capture
00:28:24.769 --> 00:28:29.469
plastic particles as they get flooded into the waste stream,
00:28:30.069 --> 00:28:33.249
water waste stream. That's an easy solution, right?
00:28:33.769 --> 00:28:37.189
I know in California, I believe they were looking to pass a law.
00:28:38.089 --> 00:28:42.789
The idea is that you wash your synthetic clothes and the same way that your
00:28:42.789 --> 00:28:48.489
dryer has a lint trap, you would have a lint trap in your washer to catch the
00:28:48.489 --> 00:28:52.729
water, the plastic that's in the water coming off your clothes, right?
00:28:52.729 --> 00:28:56.369
Yeah, and it's an engineering problem that has a solution.
00:28:56.809 --> 00:28:59.169
They've been talking about California's been looking at this for,
00:28:59.169 --> 00:29:01.909
I want to say, almost 10 years. They still haven't actually done it.
00:29:01.989 --> 00:29:02.869
There's a lot of pushback.
00:29:03.449 --> 00:29:07.029
I don't know, it's going to add $8 cost to a washing machine.
00:29:07.129 --> 00:29:08.029
We can't have that, right?
00:29:10.289 --> 00:29:12.209
That's one of the more frustrating things.
00:29:12.708 --> 00:29:17.648
Solvable problems that isn't getting solved yeah well
00:29:17.648 --> 00:29:20.768
you know i know some solutions you know on that front that
00:29:20.768 --> 00:29:25.888
you know that i use is you know make sure to try to buy you know high quality
00:29:25.888 --> 00:29:31.288
items that have a lessened ability to you know create microplastic you know
00:29:31.288 --> 00:29:36.768
so instead of like a super fuzzy fleece you know having something that's more
00:29:36.768 --> 00:29:39.948
woven instead of knit is a way to
00:29:40.148 --> 00:29:44.188
help reduce that you know and then ultimately just with
00:29:44.188 --> 00:29:47.188
all the fashion fashion out there
00:29:47.188 --> 00:29:50.048
you know buying high quality clothes you know and
00:29:50.048 --> 00:29:56.288
yeah fewer and better right huh yeah yeah you were better yeah so that's one
00:29:56.288 --> 00:30:00.168
of the r's you talked about you talked about you know the traditional three
00:30:00.168 --> 00:30:04.708
r's which is reduce reuse recycle and then in your book you expanded that you
00:30:04.708 --> 00:30:08.108
know to five and then eight so let's talk about that because i don't i think
00:30:08.108 --> 00:30:09.508
everyone knows the three R's.
00:30:10.408 --> 00:30:16.328
Yes. Well, and then another R is rot for composting and refuse.
00:30:16.888 --> 00:30:23.888
In other words, you start saying no to little plastic tchotchkes that they give
00:30:23.888 --> 00:30:25.188
out at some kind of event.
00:30:25.308 --> 00:30:28.988
Just say, no, I don't need that. Or all those little plastic freebies.
00:30:29.248 --> 00:30:35.888
Or maybe I can look into getting a soda stream and carbonate my own soda.
00:30:36.168 --> 00:30:40.348
And wow, it turns out that saves you money if you're a big busy water or soda
00:30:40.348 --> 00:30:44.948
drinker and that gives you a package-free option or maybe bring your own,
00:30:45.708 --> 00:30:49.008
produce bags to the supermarket so that
00:30:49.008 --> 00:30:52.888
you don't have to use their plastic bags and there's just a lot of things that
00:30:52.888 --> 00:30:56.868
we can do that say i'm going to refuse to take this incredibly wasteful product
00:30:56.868 --> 00:31:01.748
and yeah it's changing the way i do things but after you repeat it a couple
00:31:01.748 --> 00:31:05.148
of times it feels natural and it's no big deal i mean there's all kinds of things
00:31:05.148 --> 00:31:06.348
like that we can do and then.
00:31:07.496 --> 00:31:12.416
The other R's I added to the list are repair.
00:31:12.796 --> 00:31:15.836
You know, we just throw things away when they're broken, but
00:31:15.836 --> 00:31:19.516
actually there's a grassroots movement in
00:31:19.516 --> 00:31:24.156
cities and communities all over the place where people get together in these
00:31:24.156 --> 00:31:31.376
repair cafes or other venues and share their ability to fix a lamp instead of
00:31:31.376 --> 00:31:36.916
throwing it away or help you get your home computer working again.
00:31:36.916 --> 00:31:42.576
And those kinds of opportunities not only save money and give new life to old
00:31:42.576 --> 00:31:47.696
things, but it's very satisfying to fix something that you love instead of throwing
00:31:47.696 --> 00:31:51.276
it away. The other R is repower.
00:31:51.456 --> 00:31:58.216
And we talked about cars and cooking and just also how we make our energy is
00:31:58.216 --> 00:32:05.096
the big kahuna of opportunities for solving all sorts of environmental problems,
00:32:05.256 --> 00:32:08.236
but also national security and energy security problems.
00:32:09.016 --> 00:32:12.096
Unfortunately we have a leadership now it's very hostile
00:32:12.096 --> 00:32:15.276
to anything other than fossil fuels so
00:32:15.276 --> 00:32:21.236
we have to look to our states our communities and most of all the choices we
00:32:21.236 --> 00:32:27.636
make as consumers that can move markets as well using the power of our choices
00:32:27.636 --> 00:32:32.776
and our wallets to affect change and we're going to need all of that to.
00:32:33.666 --> 00:32:38.226
To deal with the repower issue. And then the most important thing I put on the
00:32:38.226 --> 00:32:42.646
number one R is to rethink how we define waste, how we see it,
00:32:43.126 --> 00:32:49.926
why we don't see it, and really think differently about how wastefulness is
00:32:49.926 --> 00:32:53.926
a drag on all of us, on our prosperity and on our health.
00:32:54.266 --> 00:33:01.166
And it's framing some of our environmental problems as problems of waste really
00:33:01.166 --> 00:33:05.886
opens the door to a much more inclusive conversation because there's no yay
00:33:05.886 --> 00:33:09.846
waste lobby out there. I mean, nobody thinks waste is a good thing.
00:33:10.426 --> 00:33:17.326
And almost every instance where you can reduce waste, it reduces a cost.
00:33:17.626 --> 00:33:19.626
Hard to think of one where that's not true.
00:33:20.086 --> 00:33:25.506
And that's why I found the
00:33:25.506 --> 00:33:29.466
most renewable farm town in america
00:33:29.466 --> 00:33:33.086
and it is absolutely red state don't
00:33:33.086 --> 00:33:36.266
care about climate change farm community in minnesota called
00:33:36.266 --> 00:33:40.326
morris and they realized that
00:33:40.326 --> 00:33:43.646
their future aligned with focusing on
00:33:43.646 --> 00:33:46.666
the resources that they had and could control locally
00:33:46.666 --> 00:33:53.626
of renewable energy sun and wind They're making fertilizer from ammonia that's
00:33:53.626 --> 00:33:59.366
being produced with a wind power so that suddenly something had to import at
00:33:59.366 --> 00:34:06.206
great cost to keep their crops going is being made locally and in an environmentally benign way.
00:34:06.206 --> 00:34:11.506
Whereas ammonia, the most commonly produced chemical in the world and vital
00:34:11.506 --> 00:34:17.306
to agriculture all over the world, is done with burning immense amounts of fossil
00:34:17.306 --> 00:34:21.066
fuel, even though it can also be done with renewable energy. Yeah.
00:34:22.737 --> 00:34:27.297
You know, this community voted for Trump 20 plus percent in both elections,
00:34:27.297 --> 00:34:30.777
and they're very conservative, and they're all in.
00:34:30.877 --> 00:34:36.077
They have solar energy on every public building, even their liquor store,
00:34:36.317 --> 00:34:39.577
which is like a state store, a city store, I guess you would call it.
00:34:39.677 --> 00:34:42.097
And their motto is, we chill your beer with the sun.
00:34:42.737 --> 00:34:49.977
Who doesn't want that, right? And they've cut their power budget by shifting
00:34:49.977 --> 00:34:52.577
to LED lighting ahead of everybody.
00:34:52.717 --> 00:34:55.897
Before anybody else did it, they partnered with the local university and they
00:34:55.897 --> 00:34:58.197
said, our electric bills are killing us.
00:34:58.737 --> 00:35:03.857
This is before they had all the renewables. And they helped them make this transition
00:35:03.857 --> 00:35:07.177
to very energy efficient lighting.
00:35:07.517 --> 00:35:12.177
And this little town of $5,000 saved $100,000 a year on the budget.
00:35:12.177 --> 00:35:16.097
That's serious money that they could put to good purpose that they had just
00:35:16.097 --> 00:35:19.777
been spending to light the streets and their municipal buildings before.
00:35:20.297 --> 00:35:22.137
They were able in after that.
00:35:23.737 --> 00:35:26.937
And it's been amazing. And they're just great people.
00:35:27.177 --> 00:35:30.917
They welcomed me and showed me what they were doing. And they were so proud
00:35:30.917 --> 00:35:35.017
of their electric school bus, their electric public buses.
00:35:35.797 --> 00:35:43.737
Again, this is a total Magdalene sort of town. So what that shows be and should
00:35:43.737 --> 00:35:49.877
show everyone is that it's these things that reduce our waste are good across the spectrum.
00:35:50.017 --> 00:35:53.997
It doesn't matter that if it doesn't matter to you that they're environmentally
00:35:53.997 --> 00:35:57.617
beneficial, that's not that doesn't have to be the selling point.
00:35:57.977 --> 00:36:01.957
It's it sells itself on every level. I really like that because,
00:36:02.357 --> 00:36:07.557
you know, there's when you lead with the environmental benefit of something,
00:36:07.817 --> 00:36:10.777
it tends, you know, it raises questions.
00:36:10.777 --> 00:36:15.497
Well it sounds more expensive or you know all these things or it's less effective
00:36:15.497 --> 00:36:21.617
you know whereas if you lead with waste it makes a lot more sense like like you said who doesn't,
00:36:22.278 --> 00:36:27.238
There's no waste lobby. I like it. Yeah. So I'm sold. Let's talk about waste more.
00:36:28.698 --> 00:36:34.318
So you talked about, you know, you're talking about a lot of things that are near and dear to people.
00:36:34.478 --> 00:36:36.938
You know, you're talking about their cars, you're talking about,
00:36:37.078 --> 00:36:38.838
you know, their gas stoves.
00:36:39.178 --> 00:36:42.118
I know. I know. Taking gas stoves away from chefs, you know,
00:36:42.198 --> 00:36:47.818
but there's compelling reasons, you know, that chefs are getting behind because,
00:36:47.958 --> 00:36:52.798
you know, there's the economic, you know, real economic incentive for that.
00:36:53.118 --> 00:36:55.758
What about lawns? So you were talking about lawns.
00:36:56.438 --> 00:36:59.698
My favorite. It's the springboard of the American dream. What are you talking
00:36:59.698 --> 00:37:01.738
about, Edward? Oh, yeah.
00:37:03.098 --> 00:37:08.918
Again, this is kind of the craziest symbol for wealth that really dates back
00:37:08.918 --> 00:37:15.918
to the colonial days and where the most affluent Americans wanted to emulate
00:37:15.918 --> 00:37:20.198
the lawns of European royalty to show that they were,
00:37:20.198 --> 00:37:23.118
high status. Nobody else had lawns then.
00:37:23.538 --> 00:37:29.078
Nobody wanted lawns. That's a very recent invention since post-World War II
00:37:29.078 --> 00:37:31.998
of having sort of every home must have a grass lawn.
00:37:32.178 --> 00:37:36.278
And think about what it really is. It's an invasive species that requires massive
00:37:36.278 --> 00:37:40.858
amounts of water and chemicals to support it because it's not meant to grow
00:37:40.858 --> 00:37:42.598
in most places where we're growing it.
00:37:43.038 --> 00:37:45.738
And it's expensive and it's
00:37:45.738 --> 00:37:50.758
boring it's green patches i mean they're great for fields and for gaming and
00:37:50.758 --> 00:37:55.118
you know football and baseball that's that's all great but who needs to mow
00:37:55.118 --> 00:37:59.738
that thing every day in front of you i mean i i'm not a big lawn fan so i don't
00:37:59.738 --> 00:38:04.138
see the aesthetics of it on i found this.
00:38:05.818 --> 00:38:11.178
Gentleman jamiah hargins in los angeles who founded a non-profit he calls crop
00:38:11.178 --> 00:38:15.838
swap and CropSwap LA and what he does is he gets people to,
00:38:16.958 --> 00:38:22.738
got to donate their front lawn, and he takes out the grass, and he turns it
00:38:22.738 --> 00:38:24.498
into an urban micro farm.
00:38:24.978 --> 00:38:30.178
Now, he can take a, and they're beautiful, by the way. It's filled with beautiful
00:38:30.178 --> 00:38:33.058
vegetables, flowers, pollinating plants.
00:38:34.358 --> 00:38:39.098
People literally stop while they're driving by to look at it and say, wow, what is that?
00:38:39.478 --> 00:38:42.398
It's not like, oh, it's an eyesore. Property values are going down.
00:38:42.398 --> 00:38:50.418
And he can feed 40 households with fruit and vegetables delivered every week.
00:38:50.558 --> 00:38:52.638
It's California, so it's a year-round operation.
00:38:53.338 --> 00:38:58.678
Every week with just 1,000 square feet a yard, front yard formerly grass.
00:38:58.938 --> 00:39:02.598
And use 8% of the water that the grass consumed.
00:39:02.798 --> 00:39:06.218
Now, wow. In food deserts where it's really hard to get fresh produce,
00:39:06.478 --> 00:39:08.098
you're looking at me like you don't believe me.
00:39:08.578 --> 00:39:11.798
No, no, no. I believe you. I'm just listening.
00:39:14.518 --> 00:39:18.158
So it's such a better use of
00:39:18.158 --> 00:39:23.138
our real estate in an urban environment i mean every house doesn't need to do
00:39:23.138 --> 00:39:27.998
that but if every like you know block or two had them we'd all have like incredibly
00:39:27.998 --> 00:39:33.798
cheap incredibly healthy produce and vegetables where we need them most and
00:39:33.798 --> 00:39:36.478
by the way none of it comes in plastic once it's picked.
00:39:37.138 --> 00:39:43.998
And it's all heirloom, beautiful, nutrition packed produce, which is not what
00:39:43.998 --> 00:39:45.158
you get at the supermarket.
00:39:46.218 --> 00:39:49.098
You get factory food there. Especially the tomatoes, right? You think about
00:39:49.098 --> 00:39:53.958
the tomato at the supermarket versus the tomato you can grow at home and if
00:39:53.958 --> 00:39:59.658
anyone's never experienced a difference, that is the game changer right there.
00:40:00.098 --> 00:40:04.598
Yeah, yeah. The tomato we get at the supermarket is like some pale imitation
00:40:04.598 --> 00:40:09.998
that It's, you know, like AI trying to write like Mark Twain or something.
00:40:10.178 --> 00:40:11.418
It's just, it's not right.
00:40:11.678 --> 00:40:17.158
And what you get is in the supermarket, you get tomatoes that are engineered or bread.
00:40:17.338 --> 00:40:18.498
They're not necessarily genetic,
00:40:18.678 --> 00:40:24.178
but engineered the natural way to be durable, to ship well, and to be.
00:40:25.330 --> 00:40:29.870
Uniform in appearance. So they all look alike. And that just makes a great picture.
00:40:29.870 --> 00:40:32.390
And it seems to be appealing to some people.
00:40:32.610 --> 00:40:39.870
What it's not created for is maximum nutrition or flavor, because you get neither of those.
00:40:40.070 --> 00:40:44.890
It turns out the things that make every tomato look different and delicate,
00:40:45.270 --> 00:40:49.830
you know, you drop a supermarket tomato on the floor, it'll probably bounce.
00:40:49.830 --> 00:40:55.210
You drop homegrown tomato, it's going to explode with juice and goodness.
00:40:55.450 --> 00:40:59.810
And that's how you tell where the nutrition is. And it's been, you know, the FDA,
00:41:00.230 --> 00:41:04.690
not the FDA, the agriculture department did all kinds of tests of nutrition
00:41:04.690 --> 00:41:08.130
and found that a homegrown tomato will have,
00:41:08.270 --> 00:41:17.430
can have 70% more vitamins and minerals and nutrients in it than a factory farmed supermarket tomato.
00:41:17.790 --> 00:41:19.730
I mean, think about it. That's amazing.
00:41:20.150 --> 00:41:25.890
And the other thing is there's one thing that a factory farm tomato has more
00:41:25.890 --> 00:41:29.270
of than a homegrown tomato, and that's salt.
00:41:29.750 --> 00:41:34.510
Like up to nine times as much salt content. The one thing we don't need more
00:41:34.510 --> 00:41:36.490
of in our very salty diets already.
00:41:37.050 --> 00:41:42.570
Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. I thought you were going to say Roundup or something like that.
00:41:42.710 --> 00:41:48.070
Oh, God, please. So the best thing you can do really for the environment and
00:41:48.070 --> 00:41:52.210
your nutrition is to grow some vegetables at home.
00:41:52.370 --> 00:41:55.570
Even if you just live in an apartment and have a little balcony or a window,
00:41:55.990 --> 00:41:58.990
there's some great little systems that you can grow indoors.
00:41:59.630 --> 00:42:05.430
If you live in a cold place, there's all kinds of free plans online to do a
00:42:05.430 --> 00:42:09.130
little inexpensive greenhouse to grow vegetables year round.
00:42:09.130 --> 00:42:12.590
And it's so much fun it's a family activity and
00:42:12.590 --> 00:42:15.650
you won't believe the you know farmer's market
00:42:15.650 --> 00:42:18.610
quality produce in your own home it's not
00:42:18.610 --> 00:42:21.330
hard it's low tech yeah i mean i
00:42:21.330 --> 00:42:24.230
was thinking about you know you're talking about the
00:42:24.230 --> 00:42:27.530
the man in la that's doing this you know and i
00:42:27.530 --> 00:42:30.510
was thinking to myself like you know a lot
00:42:30.510 --> 00:42:33.210
of people have gardeners right and they come and they
00:42:33.210 --> 00:42:35.970
mow the lawn and they blow and but they're
00:42:35.970 --> 00:42:39.090
called gardeners yeah and i was just like well these gardeners
00:42:39.090 --> 00:42:41.950
like what if they what if you spent 300 bucks a month instead
00:42:41.950 --> 00:42:49.050
of on lawn mowing on an actual gardener to come and grow your tomatoes it's
00:42:49.050 --> 00:42:54.630
instead of then then it's like you're saving 300 bucks or probably more on your
00:42:54.630 --> 00:42:59.750
grocery bill and you're you're reducing waste in your budget and oh yeah.
00:43:00.971 --> 00:43:05.331
I love that. Tomatoes, squash. I mean, there's all the things that you're paying
00:43:05.331 --> 00:43:07.991
for now you could have from seeing.
00:43:08.571 --> 00:43:12.351
Yeah, so all the gardeners listening out there, God, there's a huge opportunity
00:43:12.351 --> 00:43:16.991
to create some... There's a little history there, too, because people say,
00:43:17.111 --> 00:43:23.231
oh, home gardens that can't really replace our big, efficient food systems.
00:43:23.711 --> 00:43:27.631
Well, they're not so efficient, but let's set that aside. During World War II,
00:43:27.771 --> 00:43:28.791
there was a huge movement.
00:43:28.991 --> 00:43:32.771
Some people may have read about this. Some people might be old enough to remember it.
00:43:33.131 --> 00:43:37.231
They called them victory gardens. And basically, Americans were urged to start
00:43:37.231 --> 00:43:41.371
growing their own produce at home, their own fruits and vegetables as much as
00:43:41.371 --> 00:43:47.971
they could so that the output of our major farms could go to food for the troops.
00:43:48.531 --> 00:43:52.671
You have to remember, during World War II, one out of every eight living Americans
00:43:52.671 --> 00:43:54.411
was serving during World War II.
00:43:54.791 --> 00:43:58.991
Wow. It's a huge population that left the country.
00:43:59.251 --> 00:44:04.291
And we had to feed them, but we also had to keep feeding our citizens at home.
00:44:04.851 --> 00:44:12.791
And during the war years, those vegetable gardens produced over 40% of our nation's
00:44:12.791 --> 00:44:15.131
produce in people's yards.
00:44:15.911 --> 00:44:20.531
40%. And they ramped that up in the space of a year.
00:44:21.271 --> 00:44:24.891
Phenomenal. and and without that
00:44:24.891 --> 00:44:27.671
even the outcome of the war might have
00:44:27.671 --> 00:44:30.311
been different i mean it was a vital one of
00:44:30.311 --> 00:44:33.711
the many vital things that were happening at all there's absolutely
00:44:33.711 --> 00:44:40.571
no reason why we can't be doing significant amount of our national food production
00:44:40.571 --> 00:44:46.131
that way too it's just we're choosing to grow grass instead which doesn't even
00:44:46.131 --> 00:44:51.351
help you know pollinators when a bumblebee flies over a grass lawn,
00:44:51.631 --> 00:44:53.731
he might as well be flying over the Sahara desert.
00:44:53.951 --> 00:44:58.391
There's absolutely nothing there life-sustaining for our pollinators,
00:44:58.411 --> 00:45:00.791
which we also need to worry about.
00:45:02.033 --> 00:45:06.433
So that's one of the things you brought up is, you know, not everyone's going
00:45:06.433 --> 00:45:07.813
to want to do a vegetable garden.
00:45:08.093 --> 00:45:12.513
However, native plants, you know, have their own benefit of,
00:45:12.733 --> 00:45:20.313
you know, using less water or no water, as well as attracting butterflies and hummingbirds. Yep.
00:45:20.873 --> 00:45:26.153
Yep. It's, they're beautiful and a little wild and untamed, but,
00:45:26.413 --> 00:45:28.833
you know, most people find that aesthetically pleasing.
00:45:28.833 --> 00:45:34.013
You know, in my neighborhood, we had a water rebate program where you got paid
00:45:34.013 --> 00:45:36.133
for every square foot of lawn you removed.
00:45:36.793 --> 00:45:40.973
And, you know, I know some other communities, you know, where we have water
00:45:40.973 --> 00:45:43.873
issues may have similar programs. It was great.
00:45:44.273 --> 00:45:47.753
You know, so we took out a bunch of lawn and put in lavender.
00:45:48.833 --> 00:45:53.913
Oh, beautiful. Yeah, it's blooming right now and it's beautiful and the bees
00:45:53.913 --> 00:45:56.333
are out and smells wonderful.
00:45:56.793 --> 00:46:00.613
So highly recommend it. I love that. Yeah.
00:46:01.233 --> 00:46:05.073
Well, is there anything else you want to leave us with? I know your book has
00:46:05.073 --> 00:46:10.273
a whole list of tips and tricks and things that actions people can take.
00:46:10.693 --> 00:46:18.193
Is there anything off that list that you want to leave the listener with that could top this off?
00:46:18.753 --> 00:46:21.973
Oh, it's all kind of...
00:46:23.013 --> 00:46:26.193
There's something in there for everyone, I guess. whether you're like,
00:46:26.313 --> 00:46:33.773
oh, I want to go to find a refill store and not buy so many things in plastic bottles.
00:46:35.733 --> 00:46:42.573
There's a list in there called How to Be a Marge. And this is a story of.
00:46:43.390 --> 00:46:48.230
A single mom in Maine who worked
00:46:48.230 --> 00:46:51.350
for a nonprofit and worked for eight years on
00:46:51.350 --> 00:46:58.450
trying to get Maine to pass a law that required manufacturers like soda companies
00:46:58.450 --> 00:47:04.310
and others who make these disposable products to take care of the cost of recycling
00:47:04.310 --> 00:47:09.130
and collecting them and dealing with them because it was breaking the bank of
00:47:09.130 --> 00:47:10.430
all these small towns in Maine.
00:47:10.430 --> 00:47:15.210
They couldn't afford it because, you know, only about 9% of our plastics get
00:47:15.210 --> 00:47:17.150
recycled anyway, no matter what we do.
00:47:17.350 --> 00:47:21.010
Why are these companies allowed to foist that problem off onto taxpayers?
00:47:21.270 --> 00:47:27.310
So she worked and worked to get main legislators to buy into this idea.
00:47:27.470 --> 00:47:32.910
And she did it by going town to town and finding a local volunteer who was passionate
00:47:32.910 --> 00:47:36.170
about this, passionate about litter, about plastic pollution.
00:47:36.170 --> 00:47:39.190
And she called that person her march after
00:47:39.190 --> 00:47:42.210
her first person in a community
00:47:42.210 --> 00:47:47.210
that helped her with one of her causes and so he would tell them how to access
00:47:47.210 --> 00:47:51.390
the legislative process and become a citizen witness how to send get a letter
00:47:51.390 --> 00:47:55.850
that will be go to the right committee and she walked them through how to become
00:47:55.850 --> 00:48:00.990
an activist really in your own community and i interviewed a bunch of
00:48:01.110 --> 00:48:06.870
And what they tell me is, we never knew that we could do this and be heard.
00:48:07.090 --> 00:48:09.550
You know, it always was this impenetrable process.
00:48:09.890 --> 00:48:16.570
And Sarah showed us what the, you know, she unlocked something for us that empowered us.
00:48:16.710 --> 00:48:20.810
And Maine became the first state to pass this law that other states are now
00:48:20.810 --> 00:48:26.230
adopting, where producers of pollution, in this case, plastic pollution,
00:48:26.230 --> 00:48:28.030
are responsible for dealing with it.
00:48:28.833 --> 00:48:32.093
Which is as it should be. It always should have been.
00:48:33.573 --> 00:48:39.433
And that citizen involvement and the power of one person to sort of get it rolling.
00:48:40.473 --> 00:48:46.673
Defeated all the lobbyists from Coca-Cola and all the big brands that didn't want this law to pass.
00:48:47.053 --> 00:48:52.353
And that's a game changer. And I brought that up with the, well,
00:48:52.453 --> 00:48:53.553
what's the one last thing?
00:48:53.673 --> 00:48:57.953
Because it shows you we are not helpless and we're not hopeless.
00:48:58.833 --> 00:49:01.893
On all these big issues, we can do that.
00:49:02.053 --> 00:49:07.553
Well, that is good advice, you know, because with so many issues out there,
00:49:07.813 --> 00:49:12.173
you know, it's important to know that we can take action, we can make change.
00:49:12.533 --> 00:49:15.273
Extended producer responsibility that you're referring to, you know,
00:49:15.373 --> 00:49:20.333
is really, I forgot the quote exactly from your book, but it's just changing
00:49:20.333 --> 00:49:23.493
the billing address for the problem, right?
00:49:23.913 --> 00:49:27.993
The billing is currently going to the taxpayer, and we're paying for,
00:49:28.013 --> 00:49:32.193
you know, the decisions of a big multinational corporation.
00:49:32.873 --> 00:49:37.013
And really, the bill just should be sent back to them. And then if they're paying
00:49:37.013 --> 00:49:38.933
the bill, then maybe they can make better choices.
00:49:39.513 --> 00:49:42.053
So I love it. Thank you, Edward.
00:49:42.973 --> 00:49:46.073
I appreciate your book and all the tips.
00:49:46.313 --> 00:49:53.013
And, you know, I think it's going to help people, you know, find a way to easily
00:49:53.013 --> 00:50:00.133
move into a new reality where things are better and it just makes sense to live
00:50:00.133 --> 00:50:03.453
more in harmony with nature. So thank you. My pleasure.
00:50:05.040 --> 00:50:15.642
Music.