October 19, 2021 • 21 mins
Surprise: very little of the plastic you dutifully put in your recycling bin ends up actually being used again. The costs to successful recycling are prohibitive. And even then, recycling is a market with fewer and fewer buyers. So how can we really cut down on waste? Michael Cyr is the co-founder of Cup Zero, a company that seeks to cut down on waste, starting with all those cups we use and throw away at public events. He joins The Recount Daily Pod to break it all down for us.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
From the Recount on Marina nine and you're listening to
the Recount Daily Pod. Today's Tuesday, October. We need to
start those habits of like making one less paper towel
and making one less napkin, one less disposable fork, And
to do that you need to be conscious of what
you're actually thrown away. That was Michael Sear, co founder
of Cup zero company, looking to cut down on waste
(00:27):
by starting with all those cups that we use once
and throw away. My colleague britt Terrell interviewed Michael for
the podcast. But first the morning headlines. An emergency haunt
is stopping abortions. That's what the Justice Department is asking
the Supreme Court for in Texas. It's America's most restrictive
abortion law, Texas s B. Eight. The Biden Administration in
(00:51):
its filing called it a violation of the Constitution. Abortion
has become nearly impossible in the state since the six
week band went into effect on September one. The law
and a previous block on it, has bounced around federal
courts and appeals courts in recent weeks. Now, the administration
and abortion providers are asking for the Supreme Court to
(01:13):
take up the issue in its current term. The State
Department is opening a series of investigations into the Biden
administration's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and its aftermath. That's according
to a letter the Department's Acting Inspector General sent to
several congressional committees. The investigations will focus on the resettlement
(01:34):
of Afghan refugees and the evacuation of America's embassy in Cobble.
In related news, us envoid Afghanistan, Zalma khalil Zad announced
that he would be stepping down effective today, on behalf
of both the Trump and Biden administrations. Khalil Zad, who
is Afghan American, led long negotiations with the Taliban who
(01:54):
now control the country, and lastly environmental protection agents he had.
Michael Reagan announced plans on Monday to tackle a harmful
group of pollutive man made chemicals known as p p as.
The strategy will leverage EPs existing authority to take bold
action to restrict chemicals from entering the air, the water,
(02:15):
and land at all levels that are harmful to public
health and the environment. P pase are commonly known as
forever chemicals because of their staying power whether in the
environment or the bloodstream. They've been linked to thyroid disease, cancer,
and developmental problems in children. The e p A could
force companies to pay or even lead environmental cleanup efforts,
(02:37):
set limits for p fase and drinking water, and require
manufacturers to report on the toxicity of their own products.
P pas are often found in products like non stick
frying pans, stain resistant rugs, and even biodegradable containers, which
brings us to our interview with Michael Sear all about
recycling and reducing the use of disposables. And now to
(03:01):
our interview, I'm Terrell filling in for a Rena nine.
In recycling, it's been held out as a solution to
waste since it start, at least in its modern form
in the nineteen sixties. But it turns out that very
little of the plastic you dutifully put in your recycling
bin ends up being used again. The costs too successful recycling,
most of which are covered on a local level in
(03:23):
the US, are prohibitive. And even then, recycling is a market,
and it turns out that these days there are a
few buyers, which is a big part of the equation.
So how can we really cut down on waste? I'm
joined today by Michael Seer, co founder of cup zero
and operational consultant for the zero waste movement, who will
break it all down for us. Michael, welcome, thank you,
(03:46):
thank you, Thanks for having me. So I'm excited to
talk to you because I feel like we talk about
recycling all the time. It's a huge part of the
discussion that's going on when it comes to the environment.
But you know, the modern recycling industry in the US
has been broken for a long time. It's costly, the
logistics are challenging. Can you break down the issues with
us that what's been plaguing it for so long? Well,
(04:08):
I think, first and foremost, we were sold a dream
right that if we as consumers put something in the
blue bin, you know, all of our consumption problems have
been absolved and someone else is going to take care
of it. But really, recycling is not a bunch of
tree huggers or hippies and a drum circle. It's a
global scrap material trade that relies on businesses and companies
(04:29):
to actually purchase those scrap materials that they can use.
And if there's no use for a company to buy
a kind of material, then the recycling chain doesn't actually work.
So I want you to speak more about this, because
I don't think that it's widely known that once you recycle,
it doesn't naturally just get recycled. Yeah, you know, the
story that we're taught as people and as kids in
(04:52):
schools is like blue bin to the truck to the
sorting facility, and that's where the story ends, right, But
that's really half of the journey, because that material needs
to be you know, shipped around the world to find
buyers elsewhere. So for the most part, it is a
commodities market. Those prices rise and fall on a daily basis,
and big global factors tend to you know, crash or
(05:15):
or boost up that market. And we kind of came
off a perfect storm in two thousand seventeen. A lot
of people heard about, you know how China is no
longer buying our materials. Um, that's actually the peak of it,
and actually the turn of it, because they held the
Olympics a couple of years beforehand, and they needed a feedstock, right,
so they were very eager to buy everything that they could,
(05:36):
and so we were really accustomed to having an automatic
buyer for almost everything with very low standards for years,
and then they realized that there was way too much
for them to handle. A lot of stuff is actually
not really useful downstream, so they implemented a national policy
to stop taking certain kinds of materials. And so in
(05:56):
two thousand seventeen, that was a lot of plastics. Um,
that was a lot of mixed paper is like our
junk mail and things like that, and all of a sudden,
you know, the biggest buyer in the world and there's
no replacement for China was totally gone. So China stopped
buying our waste, largely because what they were getting was
contaminated and they themselves weren't able to do what they
(06:16):
needed to do with it. Right. It was just way
too much. But what is the solution to that? The
answer is making less, right, Like, we need to make
less waste in the first place, so we don't need
to continually find outlets for it. But the US just
has not caught up to build that infrastructure. China had
the infrastructure to take on that waste for decades, right,
(06:37):
and so we're decades behind implementing our own structure here,
and it's going to be more expensive. Here. One of
the things that you said in your TED talk you
argue that we are addicted to single use plastic and
rather than reduce reuse recycle, we need to reduce reuse
and rethink. What do you mean by that? And why
don't you think recycling is sustainable as it is right now? Well,
(07:00):
recycling should really be the last resort, right It's in
that order for a reason. And there's some more rs
out there. There's you know, refuse and refill, but recycling
should really be the last resort. To put it in
another way, like let's say you spend all night making
a lasagna. It's your your grandma's recipe. You make the
sauce from scratch, you layer everything carefully, and then you
(07:21):
take one bite and put it in the compost bin.
You know, sure that's better than the trash can. But
like spending resources, time, energy shipping across the world, to
use something for ten minutes is just never ever going
to make sense. For those listening that are avid recyclers,
what is your advice so that they can make sure
that what they recycle actually gets recycled. They should keep
(07:44):
recycling and all hope is not lost. But really, if
they're average recyclers, then they're ready for the next step
and how they can start reducing some of those things
coming into their household. And the hope that I see
is that there's a lot of solutions coming out from
the business world, and that's on all phases right. So,
like I have a company on cups. We worked with
concert venues, festivals, big events to provide a really turnkey
(08:07):
washing service so that they can still have zero waste
and not have to worry about any of the headaches
of washing and pressing it. But there's another company on
reasonable delivery containers. Um, there's refillable grocery stores coming out,
So the solutions are becoming available to actually make less waste,
whereas we didn't always have that choice. So there is
(08:28):
a lot of hope out there. And really you gotta
vote with your dollar every day. What you buy dictates
how the world is going to move. So if you
can take an extra couple of minutes to cut your
carrots instead of buying the prepackaged pre cut carrots, that's
one step. But we do also need to not take
it slow and and do one step at the time.
(08:49):
It really is time for drastic systematic change because it
is a dire situation. It is really urgent. We are
at an emergency and we need to take drastic steps.
But there is there is hope out there. As someone
that's worked in this industry for so long, are you
starting to see a change from these much bigger corporations.
Are they trying to reduce their waste and reduce their
(09:10):
environmental impact. I think we're still in the greenwashing phase
where every big company has a sustainability section on their
website with nice green leaves and zoomed now a picture
of a forest on it. And I think everyone's doing something,
but I don't think it's really addressing the problem. That
being said, I think they can see the trends coming,
(09:31):
and so I think they're honestly already prepared for a
solution to actually be good humans and good companies. They
just haven't been pushed to it because of market needs.
So Starbucks is a good example, right. They just don't
want to lose market share, and so they're kind of
forced into doing this thing. They launched a reasonable cup program,
and it's not because I think they want to, it's
because there's reasonable cup companies out there popping up right,
(09:53):
they're responding to the market, but we're driving that market right.
We we also are complicit in driving it to where
it's been right. We voted for cheap and convenient for
a while, but we can make those decisions in the
other way too. We have to take a quick break.
We'll be back with Cup zero co founder Michael Seer
on the Recount Daily Pod. Welcome back to the Recount
(10:17):
Daily Pod, a podcast from the Recount and I Heart Radio.
We're here with cup zero co founder Michael Seer talking
about recycling and waste reduction and what we can do
to fix it. You know, it seems like there's a
patchwork of different recycling approaches that are happening across the US. Recently,
we saw in Maine they've implemented a solution to charge
(10:38):
the actual company that creates the packaging to pay for recycling.
Do you think that this will work. I'll talk to
the state side piece first, you know, and everyone listening
should know that recycling is different everywhere, and that's not
just on state to state level. UM, that's also on
town to town level. That's also from a business in
one town to your home at a town. Uh, recycling
(11:00):
is different everywhere you go, and really it's based on
the capabilities of that sorting facility. And then furthermore, it
makes sense really at scale and near ports, so like
New York and California, there's a lot of waste going
through their near the cheapest shipping option, and like that's
where recycling works. The middle of the country, you've got
(11:20):
to truck things to the coast, right, so that's just
gonna add on costs from the start. I think Maine
did a really great job because it's all encompassing. It
takes the burden and the cost of recycling off of municipalities.
So instead of deciding whether you're gonna cut the music
program or filling potholes and recycling instead, you don't have
to make that tough choice anymore. It's also going to
(11:42):
put that cost onto the companies, which I don't think
they're gonna fully absorb. I think that's going to be
passed onto us in one way or another. But the
key difference is they don't have a team right now
focused on what happens to their packaging, whereas they're going
to build a team to find out what the cheap
this way to actually put their packaging into the main state.
(12:04):
So I want to zoom out a bit and talk
about what's happening on a global scale in other countries
around the world. You know, they're also facing recycling and
waste problems. Some seem to be having more success in
the US, some seem to be struggling more than the US.
What are the different approaches out there, what's working and
(12:24):
what is it Europe is working, are better than us,
and I wouldn't say it's perfect, but they've had reuse
and refilled systems for a long time. So a lot
of their beverage containers are actually refillable glass bottles, and
they have a higher deposit on them. The create that
it comes in also has a deposit on it. That
system is working, and your Coca Cola bottle is actually
(12:45):
reused many, many times. You can see the you know,
the processing impacts of it. And that's a cultural thing
that is happening at the moment other places around the world. Africa,
for example, is both a big threat and a really
big opportunity. So right now, the same packaging is flowing
into Africa as a continent, but there's no infrastructure to
(13:05):
actually take it away and remove it, or recycle it
or do anything with it. So right now, a lot
of it's being burned. But that also paves the way
to kind of have these technological leaps. Just like they
never built landlines for telephones and they went straight to
cell phones, I think they can go straight to the
next step of reuse models. I don't think a lot
of people realize the carbon footprint it has when it
(13:27):
comes to producing plastic. But also you mentioned burning plastic,
which must have its own carbon footprint as well, So
can you talk a little bit more about that, not
just plastic. Everything has an impact in creating it. Right,
if you're gonna make a paper cup, you have to
cut down a tree to make paper cups. Um, if
you're gonna make plastic forks, plastic is made from oil, right,
(13:49):
so you have to drill that somehow, you have to
transport that oil, you have to refine it and make it.
So all of that takes energy and resources, and if
you translate them into CEO two emissions, if that actually
quite quite large. Usually when we think of recycling, we
think of newspapers and boxes and bottles and cans, and
as we were saying earlier, we put them in their
own specific bends. But there is a lot more that
(14:11):
we can recycle. Correct. What are some of the lesser
known recyclables that can really make a difference when it
comes to reducing waste. Well, I actually think we kind
of have the opposite problem that there's a recycling symbol
placed on almost everything when that's not actually true. An
Amazon package, for example, you know, it says recycled me
all over it. And while technically you can find a
(14:35):
way to recycle that, logistically it's not actually going to happen.
It doesn't make sense economically. It's just really really low
low cases that that's actually going to happen. And why
is that? The price per ton of film plastic is
really low, So it's about ten dollars a ton, So
if you think about two thou pounds of plastic bags
or or packaging, that's a lot. And then if you
(14:56):
think about paying you know, union drivers to drive a
round on a big three dollar truck to collect two
thousand pounds of something, you're you're never gonna do it
in the slice of time where it's going to be
worth ten dollars. And that's really just the math of it.
Let's take a quick break. We'll be back with Cup
zero co founder Michael Seer on the Recount Daily Pod.
(15:21):
Welcome back to the Recount Daily Pod, a podcast from
the Recount and I Heart Radio. We're here with Cup
zero co founder Michael Seer. So I want to follow
up with you and talk about compostables and bioplastics. These
are supposed to be the solution, right, just make products
that compost on their own and don't need to be recycled. Yeah,
(15:42):
that's a band aid, and and shifting one disposable to
the other. Bioplastics especially are really tricky and I think
a really dangerous green wash. Just like you can make
gasoline from corn, you can also make plastic from plants,
and so molecularly, it's the same as plastic, so behaves
like plastic downstream. So if it ends up in the
(16:02):
ocean or landfill, it's going to stay there just as
long as plastic is. It's just made from a different source.
And furthermore, the composting facilities that are set up often
screen them out as contaminants. And right now I think
we're seeing the truth come out that compost facilities are
pushing back and saying we don't want to accept this
material anymore. The ones that do, they're also getting, you know,
(16:24):
palettes of old chicken from a grocery store, and they
have a shredding machine and it pulls out anything that
looks and feels like plastic. So that process doesn't know
if it's been made from corn or whatever. It's going
to screen it out because it looks and feels like
a regular plastic thing, and those are all being landfilled.
Does the US federal government play a role in our recycling,
(16:45):
whether whether it's covering cost or whether it's how we
do it. Where do they fit into all of this?
I think they could play a role if we wanted
to go that way. They could subsidize recycling, just like
their subsidizing corn or sugar or something like that. They
could make the economics of recycling a little bit easier.
That being said, I don't think that's the best long
(17:05):
term strategy. Really, we need to stop focusing on recycling
and focus on reuse and reduction models instead. So one
thing that the government could do is start implementing more
bands of certain material types, So the plastic bag band,
for example, that's across eight states at the moment, um
Plastic bags are notoriously not recyclable, and a five cent
(17:27):
fee on those actually has been shown to reduce use
rates of up to pretty immediately. They could take that
same concept into other hard to recycle materials like coffee cups,
for example. Those are aligned with plastics, so they're not recyclable.
We need to start having bands and fees on other
hard to recycle materials that municipalities are taking on. What
(17:49):
is your biggest piece of advice to those that want
to do better when it comes to their waste daily,
they should look in their trash, look at what you're producing,
look what's coming into your home or your office. Pick
one thing and and try to eliminate that. Because there
is a way to do it. It just takes a
little bit of a shift of what we're currently doing.
(18:09):
You start with one, and then you take down two,
and then three, and then four, and then we get
all the way to zero. So really begin to ask
questions about your own habits trash and waste especially, it's
really this out of sight, out of mind, the thing
where you put something in a bin or even if
in your trash can right, it's in like a black
bag and like it prevents you from seeing the sides
(18:29):
of it. Even a clear bag would help you see
what you're producing and what you're going in. And we
need to start those habits of like making one less
paper towel, making one less nap and one less disposable fork.
And to do that, you need to be conscious of
what you're actually thrown away. Hold onto your trash for
two weeks and see how you feel about it. Michael
Sear is co founder of Cup zero and operational consultant
(18:51):
for the zero waste movement. Thank you so much for
joining us. I've loved our conversation. Thank you as a pleasure. Brent,
thank you so much. And now for the ahead else
we're watching today. Steve Bannon is expected to face a
criminal contempt charge for failing to comply with the subpoena.
The Select Committee to investigate the January six attack on
(19:11):
the Capitol is meeting today to vote on the matter. Bennon,
formally President Trump's chief strategist, claims that any discussions he
had with Trump are protected by executive privilege, but according
to Congressman Adam Schiff, those claims don't apply because Bannon
stopped working in the White House in two thousand seventeen.
That's one of three years before insurrection. As for the
(19:34):
former president himself, he's suing the Committee as well as
the National Archives to block the release of his administration's
records related to the attack. The first exchange traded fund
based on bitcoin futures is making its debut on the
New York Stock Exchange. This won't allow investors to buy bitcoin,
but it's seen as a milestone for the cryptocurrency industry
(19:57):
given how highly regulated the financial world is. If you're
looking out for it. Not that I am giving any
of you any investment advice. The ticker is b I
t O and major congrats to the Chicago Sky for
their w NBA Championship win. On Sunday, tonight, season of
the NBA begins the Big Game to watch the Brooklyn
(20:19):
Nets versus the defending champions, the Milwaukee Bucks. Seven time
All Star point guard Kyrie Irving will be missing from
the Nets lineup after refusing to get vaccinated. Have a
great day everyone, We'll see you back tomorrow. This is
a Recount Daily Pod, a podcast from the Recount Our.
(20:41):
Thanks to Michael Seer for being on the show and
if you like this episode, I hope you subscribe to
the Recount Daily pod and to leave us a rating
on the Apple podcast app. I'm your Host, Rena nine
four
From the Recount on Marina nine and you're listening to
the Recount Daily Pod. Today's Tuesday, October. We need to
start those habits of like making one less paper towel
and making one less napkin, one less disposable fork, And
to do that you need to be conscious of what
you're actually thrown away. That was Michael Sear, co founder
of Cup zero company, looking to cut down on waste
(00:27):
by starting with all those cups that we use once
and throw away. My colleague britt Terrell interviewed Michael for
the podcast. But first the morning headlines. An emergency haunt
is stopping abortions. That's what the Justice Department is asking
the Supreme Court for in Texas. It's America's most restrictive
abortion law, Texas s B. Eight. The Biden Administration in
(00:51):
its filing called it a violation of the Constitution. Abortion
has become nearly impossible in the state since the six
week band went into effect on September one. The law
and a previous block on it, has bounced around federal
courts and appeals courts in recent weeks. Now, the administration
and abortion providers are asking for the Supreme Court to
(01:13):
take up the issue in its current term. The State
Department is opening a series of investigations into the Biden
administration's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and its aftermath. That's according
to a letter the Department's Acting Inspector General sent to
several congressional committees. The investigations will focus on the resettlement
(01:34):
of Afghan refugees and the evacuation of America's embassy in Cobble.
In related news, us envoid Afghanistan, Zalma khalil Zad announced
that he would be stepping down effective today, on behalf
of both the Trump and Biden administrations. Khalil Zad, who
is Afghan American, led long negotiations with the Taliban who
(01:54):
now control the country, and lastly environmental protection agents he had.
Michael Reagan announced plans on Monday to tackle a harmful
group of pollutive man made chemicals known as p p as.
The strategy will leverage EPs existing authority to take bold
action to restrict chemicals from entering the air, the water,
(02:15):
and land at all levels that are harmful to public
health and the environment. P pase are commonly known as
forever chemicals because of their staying power whether in the
environment or the bloodstream. They've been linked to thyroid disease, cancer,
and developmental problems in children. The e p A could
force companies to pay or even lead environmental cleanup efforts,
(02:37):
set limits for p fase and drinking water, and require
manufacturers to report on the toxicity of their own products.
P pas are often found in products like non stick
frying pans, stain resistant rugs, and even biodegradable containers, which
brings us to our interview with Michael Sear all about
recycling and reducing the use of disposables. And now to
(03:01):
our interview, I'm Terrell filling in for a Rena nine.
In recycling, it's been held out as a solution to
waste since it start, at least in its modern form
in the nineteen sixties. But it turns out that very
little of the plastic you dutifully put in your recycling
bin ends up being used again. The costs too successful recycling,
most of which are covered on a local level in
(03:23):
the US, are prohibitive. And even then, recycling is a market,
and it turns out that these days there are a
few buyers, which is a big part of the equation.
So how can we really cut down on waste? I'm
joined today by Michael Seer, co founder of cup zero
and operational consultant for the zero waste movement, who will
break it all down for us. Michael, welcome, thank you,
(03:46):
thank you, Thanks for having me. So I'm excited to
talk to you because I feel like we talk about
recycling all the time. It's a huge part of the
discussion that's going on when it comes to the environment.
But you know, the modern recycling industry in the US
has been broken for a long time. It's costly, the
logistics are challenging. Can you break down the issues with
us that what's been plaguing it for so long? Well,
(04:08):
I think, first and foremost, we were sold a dream
right that if we as consumers put something in the
blue bin, you know, all of our consumption problems have
been absolved and someone else is going to take care
of it. But really, recycling is not a bunch of
tree huggers or hippies and a drum circle. It's a
global scrap material trade that relies on businesses and companies
(04:29):
to actually purchase those scrap materials that they can use.
And if there's no use for a company to buy
a kind of material, then the recycling chain doesn't actually work.
So I want you to speak more about this, because
I don't think that it's widely known that once you recycle,
it doesn't naturally just get recycled. Yeah, you know, the
story that we're taught as people and as kids in
(04:52):
schools is like blue bin to the truck to the
sorting facility, and that's where the story ends, right, But
that's really half of the journey, because that material needs
to be you know, shipped around the world to find
buyers elsewhere. So for the most part, it is a
commodities market. Those prices rise and fall on a daily basis,
and big global factors tend to you know, crash or
(05:15):
or boost up that market. And we kind of came
off a perfect storm in two thousand seventeen. A lot
of people heard about, you know how China is no
longer buying our materials. Um, that's actually the peak of it,
and actually the turn of it, because they held the
Olympics a couple of years beforehand, and they needed a feedstock, right,
so they were very eager to buy everything that they could,
(05:36):
and so we were really accustomed to having an automatic
buyer for almost everything with very low standards for years,
and then they realized that there was way too much
for them to handle. A lot of stuff is actually
not really useful downstream, so they implemented a national policy
to stop taking certain kinds of materials. And so in
(05:56):
two thousand seventeen, that was a lot of plastics. Um,
that was a lot of mixed paper is like our
junk mail and things like that, and all of a sudden,
you know, the biggest buyer in the world and there's
no replacement for China was totally gone. So China stopped
buying our waste, largely because what they were getting was
contaminated and they themselves weren't able to do what they
(06:16):
needed to do with it. Right. It was just way
too much. But what is the solution to that? The
answer is making less, right, Like, we need to make
less waste in the first place, so we don't need
to continually find outlets for it. But the US just
has not caught up to build that infrastructure. China had
the infrastructure to take on that waste for decades, right,
(06:37):
and so we're decades behind implementing our own structure here,
and it's going to be more expensive. Here. One of
the things that you said in your TED talk you
argue that we are addicted to single use plastic and
rather than reduce reuse recycle, we need to reduce reuse
and rethink. What do you mean by that? And why
don't you think recycling is sustainable as it is right now? Well,
(07:00):
recycling should really be the last resort, right It's in
that order for a reason. And there's some more rs
out there. There's you know, refuse and refill, but recycling
should really be the last resort. To put it in
another way, like let's say you spend all night making
a lasagna. It's your your grandma's recipe. You make the
sauce from scratch, you layer everything carefully, and then you
(07:21):
take one bite and put it in the compost bin.
You know, sure that's better than the trash can. But
like spending resources, time, energy shipping across the world, to
use something for ten minutes is just never ever going
to make sense. For those listening that are avid recyclers,
what is your advice so that they can make sure
that what they recycle actually gets recycled. They should keep
(07:44):
recycling and all hope is not lost. But really, if
they're average recyclers, then they're ready for the next step
and how they can start reducing some of those things
coming into their household. And the hope that I see
is that there's a lot of solutions coming out from
the business world, and that's on all phases right. So,
like I have a company on cups. We worked with
concert venues, festivals, big events to provide a really turnkey
(08:07):
washing service so that they can still have zero waste
and not have to worry about any of the headaches
of washing and pressing it. But there's another company on
reasonable delivery containers. Um, there's refillable grocery stores coming out,
So the solutions are becoming available to actually make less waste,
whereas we didn't always have that choice. So there is
(08:28):
a lot of hope out there. And really you gotta
vote with your dollar every day. What you buy dictates
how the world is going to move. So if you
can take an extra couple of minutes to cut your
carrots instead of buying the prepackaged pre cut carrots, that's
one step. But we do also need to not take
it slow and and do one step at the time.
(08:49):
It really is time for drastic systematic change because it
is a dire situation. It is really urgent. We are
at an emergency and we need to take drastic steps.
But there is there is hope out there. As someone
that's worked in this industry for so long, are you
starting to see a change from these much bigger corporations.
Are they trying to reduce their waste and reduce their
(09:10):
environmental impact. I think we're still in the greenwashing phase
where every big company has a sustainability section on their
website with nice green leaves and zoomed now a picture
of a forest on it. And I think everyone's doing something,
but I don't think it's really addressing the problem. That
being said, I think they can see the trends coming,
(09:31):
and so I think they're honestly already prepared for a
solution to actually be good humans and good companies. They
just haven't been pushed to it because of market needs.
So Starbucks is a good example, right. They just don't
want to lose market share, and so they're kind of
forced into doing this thing. They launched a reasonable cup program,
and it's not because I think they want to, it's
because there's reasonable cup companies out there popping up right,
(09:53):
they're responding to the market, but we're driving that market right.
We we also are complicit in driving it to where
it's been right. We voted for cheap and convenient for
a while, but we can make those decisions in the
other way too. We have to take a quick break.
We'll be back with Cup zero co founder Michael Seer
on the Recount Daily Pod. Welcome back to the Recount
(10:17):
Daily Pod, a podcast from the Recount and I Heart Radio.
We're here with cup zero co founder Michael Seer talking
about recycling and waste reduction and what we can do
to fix it. You know, it seems like there's a
patchwork of different recycling approaches that are happening across the US. Recently,
we saw in Maine they've implemented a solution to charge
(10:38):
the actual company that creates the packaging to pay for recycling.
Do you think that this will work. I'll talk to
the state side piece first, you know, and everyone listening
should know that recycling is different everywhere, and that's not
just on state to state level. UM, that's also on
town to town level. That's also from a business in
one town to your home at a town. Uh, recycling
(11:00):
is different everywhere you go, and really it's based on
the capabilities of that sorting facility. And then furthermore, it
makes sense really at scale and near ports, so like
New York and California, there's a lot of waste going
through their near the cheapest shipping option, and like that's
where recycling works. The middle of the country, you've got
(11:20):
to truck things to the coast, right, so that's just
gonna add on costs from the start. I think Maine
did a really great job because it's all encompassing. It
takes the burden and the cost of recycling off of municipalities.
So instead of deciding whether you're gonna cut the music
program or filling potholes and recycling instead, you don't have
to make that tough choice anymore. It's also going to
(11:42):
put that cost onto the companies, which I don't think
they're gonna fully absorb. I think that's going to be
passed onto us in one way or another. But the
key difference is they don't have a team right now
focused on what happens to their packaging, whereas they're going
to build a team to find out what the cheap
this way to actually put their packaging into the main state.
(12:04):
So I want to zoom out a bit and talk
about what's happening on a global scale in other countries
around the world. You know, they're also facing recycling and
waste problems. Some seem to be having more success in
the US, some seem to be struggling more than the US.
What are the different approaches out there, what's working and
(12:24):
what is it Europe is working, are better than us,
and I wouldn't say it's perfect, but they've had reuse
and refilled systems for a long time. So a lot
of their beverage containers are actually refillable glass bottles, and
they have a higher deposit on them. The create that
it comes in also has a deposit on it. That
system is working, and your Coca Cola bottle is actually
(12:45):
reused many, many times. You can see the you know,
the processing impacts of it. And that's a cultural thing
that is happening at the moment other places around the world. Africa,
for example, is both a big threat and a really
big opportunity. So right now, the same packaging is flowing
into Africa as a continent, but there's no infrastructure to
(13:05):
actually take it away and remove it, or recycle it
or do anything with it. So right now, a lot
of it's being burned. But that also paves the way
to kind of have these technological leaps. Just like they
never built landlines for telephones and they went straight to
cell phones, I think they can go straight to the
next step of reuse models. I don't think a lot
of people realize the carbon footprint it has when it
(13:27):
comes to producing plastic. But also you mentioned burning plastic,
which must have its own carbon footprint as well, So
can you talk a little bit more about that, not
just plastic. Everything has an impact in creating it. Right,
if you're gonna make a paper cup, you have to
cut down a tree to make paper cups. Um, if
you're gonna make plastic forks, plastic is made from oil, right,
(13:49):
so you have to drill that somehow, you have to
transport that oil, you have to refine it and make it.
So all of that takes energy and resources, and if
you translate them into CEO two emissions, if that actually
quite quite large. Usually when we think of recycling, we
think of newspapers and boxes and bottles and cans, and
as we were saying earlier, we put them in their
own specific bends. But there is a lot more that
(14:11):
we can recycle. Correct. What are some of the lesser
known recyclables that can really make a difference when it
comes to reducing waste. Well, I actually think we kind
of have the opposite problem that there's a recycling symbol
placed on almost everything when that's not actually true. An
Amazon package, for example, you know, it says recycled me
all over it. And while technically you can find a
(14:35):
way to recycle that, logistically it's not actually going to happen.
It doesn't make sense economically. It's just really really low
low cases that that's actually going to happen. And why
is that? The price per ton of film plastic is
really low, So it's about ten dollars a ton, So
if you think about two thou pounds of plastic bags
or or packaging, that's a lot. And then if you
(14:56):
think about paying you know, union drivers to drive a
round on a big three dollar truck to collect two
thousand pounds of something, you're you're never gonna do it
in the slice of time where it's going to be
worth ten dollars. And that's really just the math of it.
Let's take a quick break. We'll be back with Cup
zero co founder Michael Seer on the Recount Daily Pod.
(15:21):
Welcome back to the Recount Daily Pod, a podcast from
the Recount and I Heart Radio. We're here with Cup
zero co founder Michael Seer. So I want to follow
up with you and talk about compostables and bioplastics. These
are supposed to be the solution, right, just make products
that compost on their own and don't need to be recycled. Yeah,
(15:42):
that's a band aid, and and shifting one disposable to
the other. Bioplastics especially are really tricky and I think
a really dangerous green wash. Just like you can make
gasoline from corn, you can also make plastic from plants,
and so molecularly, it's the same as plastic, so behaves
like plastic downstream. So if it ends up in the
(16:02):
ocean or landfill, it's going to stay there just as
long as plastic is. It's just made from a different source.
And furthermore, the composting facilities that are set up often
screen them out as contaminants. And right now I think
we're seeing the truth come out that compost facilities are
pushing back and saying we don't want to accept this
material anymore. The ones that do, they're also getting, you know,
(16:24):
palettes of old chicken from a grocery store, and they
have a shredding machine and it pulls out anything that
looks and feels like plastic. So that process doesn't know
if it's been made from corn or whatever. It's going
to screen it out because it looks and feels like
a regular plastic thing, and those are all being landfilled.
Does the US federal government play a role in our recycling,
(16:45):
whether whether it's covering cost or whether it's how we
do it. Where do they fit into all of this?
I think they could play a role if we wanted
to go that way. They could subsidize recycling, just like
their subsidizing corn or sugar or something like that. They
could make the economics of recycling a little bit easier.
That being said, I don't think that's the best long
(17:05):
term strategy. Really, we need to stop focusing on recycling
and focus on reuse and reduction models instead. So one
thing that the government could do is start implementing more
bands of certain material types, So the plastic bag band,
for example, that's across eight states at the moment, um
Plastic bags are notoriously not recyclable, and a five cent
(17:27):
fee on those actually has been shown to reduce use
rates of up to pretty immediately. They could take that
same concept into other hard to recycle materials like coffee cups,
for example. Those are aligned with plastics, so they're not recyclable.
We need to start having bands and fees on other
hard to recycle materials that municipalities are taking on. What
(17:49):
is your biggest piece of advice to those that want
to do better when it comes to their waste daily,
they should look in their trash, look at what you're producing,
look what's coming into your home or your office. Pick
one thing and and try to eliminate that. Because there
is a way to do it. It just takes a
little bit of a shift of what we're currently doing.
(18:09):
You start with one, and then you take down two,
and then three, and then four, and then we get
all the way to zero. So really begin to ask
questions about your own habits trash and waste especially, it's
really this out of sight, out of mind, the thing
where you put something in a bin or even if
in your trash can right, it's in like a black
bag and like it prevents you from seeing the sides
(18:29):
of it. Even a clear bag would help you see
what you're producing and what you're going in. And we
need to start those habits of like making one less
paper towel, making one less nap and one less disposable fork.
And to do that, you need to be conscious of
what you're actually thrown away. Hold onto your trash for
two weeks and see how you feel about it. Michael
Sear is co founder of Cup zero and operational consultant
(18:51):
for the zero waste movement. Thank you so much for
joining us. I've loved our conversation. Thank you as a pleasure. Brent,
thank you so much. And now for the ahead else
we're watching today. Steve Bannon is expected to face a
criminal contempt charge for failing to comply with the subpoena.
The Select Committee to investigate the January six attack on
(19:11):
the Capitol is meeting today to vote on the matter. Bennon,
formally President Trump's chief strategist, claims that any discussions he
had with Trump are protected by executive privilege, but according
to Congressman Adam Schiff, those claims don't apply because Bannon
stopped working in the White House in two thousand seventeen.
That's one of three years before insurrection. As for the
(19:34):
former president himself, he's suing the Committee as well as
the National Archives to block the release of his administration's
records related to the attack. The first exchange traded fund
based on bitcoin futures is making its debut on the
New York Stock Exchange. This won't allow investors to buy bitcoin,
but it's seen as a milestone for the cryptocurrency industry
(19:57):
given how highly regulated the financial world is. If you're
looking out for it. Not that I am giving any
of you any investment advice. The ticker is b I
t O and major congrats to the Chicago Sky for
their w NBA Championship win. On Sunday, tonight, season of
the NBA begins the Big Game to watch the Brooklyn
(20:19):
Nets versus the defending champions, the Milwaukee Bucks. Seven time
All Star point guard Kyrie Irving will be missing from
the Nets lineup after refusing to get vaccinated. Have a
great day everyone, We'll see you back tomorrow. This is
a Recount Daily Pod, a podcast from the Recount Our.
(20:41):
Thanks to Michael Seer for being on the show and
if you like this episode, I hope you subscribe to
the Recount Daily pod and to leave us a rating
on the Apple podcast app. I'm your Host, Rena nine
four
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