August 8, 2023 • 44 mins
Join your favorite green living podcast on their first-ever cocktail hour recording as they explore alternative household waste collection service Ridwell! Drink along with a glass of rosé, red wine or a G&T and find out if this subscription service is better than Netflix or not worth the effort.
Sources:
- Ridwell
- OPB: A Seattle-based startup challenges the status quo for garbage and recycling pickup in its expansion in Oregon
- Reddit: Opinion: Ridwell and Other Subscription Recycling Services Don't Address the Real Issue
- Willamette Week: Who's Afraid of a Ridwell Box?
- Ask MetaFilter: Paid recycling services -- verifying what they do, and best total impact?
- KGW8: Ridwell adds campaign yard signs to growing list of recyclables
- Wastedive: Specialty recycling pick-up services flip the script on items accepted curbside
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hello and welcome to grinninggot my x official first cocktail
hour. This is me, stirring a ginand tonic Tiffany, what are you
having this evening?
We're having some red wine.
Excellent choice. I think afterlast week's episode, we just
needed to decompress a little weare recording a second episode
tonight, which means we just gotdone talking for an hour about
(00:23):
plastic recycling.
And that was our second hour.
So if you made it through withus, thank you. I hope you have a
drink of choice as well.
Something that you love thatmakes you feel good to relax
your nerves or make you feelfancy. deserve
it to apps freakin lately.
Yeah. If you didn't if youhaven't listened yet go back.
(00:45):
Last week and the week before wedid the fourth horseman of the
recycle Apocalypse it wasplastic recycling and if it
doesn't enrage you, nothing willtruly truly I lost sleep and
some tears. So it's it's butit's so important. I think it's
the most important thing we'vedone so far. Because
(01:06):
I think that is our if we donothing else that was our magnum
opus right there.
Yes. Like, I knew it was bad.
But I was shocked at what Idiscovered. So
yeah. Well, thank you for doingall that research. I'm really
excited to do tonight's episode,which is on eco friendly junk
collection. And specifically thecompany called Radwell.
(01:30):
I love I'm so excited. Yeah, metoo.
I think it'd be fun as the thisis our first time ever having a
drink while we do this. I don'tthink we're not gonna go crunk
or anything. Butright now, I did pour a large
glass of wine, but a largegin and tonic. So
yeah, that's allowed. We'reallowed.
(01:50):
We're in middle of the summerhere. It's 105 degrees in
Austin, Texas. I think,Oh, boy. Relax. Yep. That heat
dome, or whatever it's called.
Which is caused by climatechange not going to get to.
Yeah. So this is greening up myact if you don't know we're a
podcast. I hope you figure thatout when you when you found us
but we are committed to findinganswers to Green Living
(02:15):
questions and finding the mostactually eco friendly,
economically sustainable andpersonally possible changes to
your life that you can make thatwork in a green sustainable
mindset. And as to marketingwriters, Tiffany and I both know
(02:37):
the power of words to obscuretruth from a personal unhand
kind of point of view, or excuseme, firsthand point of view. So
we we dig through what we callgreen hooey, which is marketing
greenwashing that makes productsor lifestyle changes look
sustainable and eco friendlywhen they're really not. And
(02:59):
that is our goal in the not onlyare they sometimes not
sustainable, but they are antisustainable. Yes. Plastic. Yes.
So plastics, recycling is antieverything. Yeah, we all believe
inand, and we do the research, so
you don't have to is our goal.
So you can listen to us for 4040minutes to an hour every week
(03:21):
and get some nuggets of truthand make decisions on your own.
And again, we're not here toshame anyone ever. We're here
here to offer alternatives thathave worked for us, and that we
think can work for you. And anychange you make is a good
change.
Yeah, and plus, if we shamedanybody we would be such damn
hypocrites justso hypocrites. Yeah, I'm, we're
(03:41):
by no means green goddesses. Sodon't come. We never claim to
know dressing. No, I am not aGreek goddess dressing.
No, we're we're slightly antiessential oils and like, other
things that are typicallyassociated with being green. So
(04:03):
yeah, we're there with you.
We're just trying our bestfolks.
Yeah, not that as hippies on theplanet. But we do try to so I'm
just gonna dig right in startedwith my sources. And this is
going to be I think a shorterone than last week, which is
nice. So good. Okay, goodcleanser. I mean, if it's not,
that's fine, too. But yeah, andif you hear my glass clinking
(04:25):
that's my metal straw. Because Iam committed to sustainability.
There you go. Yeah, the seaturtles got me. Okay, so the sea
turtles sources this weekincluded radwell.com That's our
I D W E ll that is the companywe are looking at. Then OPB,
(04:45):
which is a Seattle online newsagency, kg W eight another news
agency up in the PacificNorthwest. I also I think for
the first time ever I looked atReddit Ian's cool, yeah, and
then a website called metafilter, which is a similar thing
(05:06):
where people can ask questionsand get answers from the
community about things. Okay. Sothose are all sources I use a
recently called W week was a newservice as well. And then I
await a website called wastedive.com. And again, we had an
article about specialtyrecycling services like Radwell,
and a few others. So we willlink all of those up in our show
(05:28):
notes. If you care to look intothem. We will start with what is
read well, do you know what readwell Is Tiffany, have you heard
of it?
I only from you, but I reallydon't think
it is a waste reduction service.
So this company specifically wasa startup started in Seattle by
a guess what? Guess what? He is?
A tech guy, marketing executive.
Yeah, he's a tech bro. But he'sa marketing. He's one of us.
(05:52):
Wow, goodness. worked forMicrosoft and a few other Zulily
a few companies. The idea behindgoodwill is they take the stuff
that you can't recycle in yourrecycling bin. They take the
wish cycling, right? All thethings you wish you could
recycle and throw in thereanyway, that you can't really
like plastic bags or plasticfilm, what? They take batteries,
(06:14):
they take light bulbs, what theytake clothing, and textiles and
a bunch of other things well,and that's on a weekly basis.
They take those specific coreitems, and then they partner
with local companies in yourarea to either recycle it or
reuse it. What? Yes. So I knowit sounds too good to be true,
(06:39):
right? It does the way it works.
And I am a member of goodwill.
Okay. So you pay a monthly fee,they give you a metal bin that
sits on your front porch thatsays read well on it. So your
neighbors all know, like gettinga Prius sort of a promo. And
then they give you some clothbags with labels on them. So
they say you know, here's theone for batteries. There's one
(07:00):
for light bulbs, here's one forthreads. Here's the one for
plastic film, you fill up thebags, if you need to, you don't
have to just run through yourhouse, throwing things away for
fun. And then if you have stufffor them to pick up, you opt in
for your IDs every other week.
So bi weekly, you opt in foryour pickup, they have an app
makes it really easy. They'llsend you a text also makes it
easy or you get an email, theyhave several ways to make sure
(07:23):
that you opt in and then theypick it up whatever day your
neighborhood is assigned andleave you new bags to fill up
for next week. Wow. They do makea point of partnering with local
businesses that can use thatstuff, which is why they only
take certain things in certaincities.
Okay, so that was my bigquestion. I was like, Is this a
(07:44):
bunch of QE? I just said QE.
We drink taken out. I think wehave to drink every time we miss
a drink. It's not hooey. I'mjust going to talk about Austin
here because I live here and I'ma consumer of Radwell or what do
you call that? Customers humor.
I'm a I buy into it. I give themmy stuff. I'm a donor. Yeah, but
I'm a participant in Bridwellhere, so in Austin they take
(08:08):
their plastic film to trekswhich is a company that makes
building materials. And Iactually my back patio that I
had put on here when I moved into this house, which is amazing
is made out of trucks. So it'sit looks like wood, it feels
like wood, but it's a lot moredurable. So that's a reuse of
plastic film.
(08:28):
So cool. Yeah,so then multilayer plastic which
is a new one they're adding as aregular pickup, which is the
plastic you get, like granolasay might come in earlier
plastic bag where it's not justone type of plastic. It's it
might be plastic and aluminum orplastic and something else like
a pouch or something. Yeah, likea pouch. So they pick those up?
Well,I used so many pouches for kids.
(08:53):
If you have kids as houses, yes,they take those to a company
called hydro blocks, whichconverts those into drainage
material that direct stormwaterback to aquifers. Oh my god.
Yeah, pretty cool. The threadsand textiles they take to
Goodwill, which you can doyourself of course, but this is
right from your front porchtwice, twice a month or whatever
(09:16):
so so interesting that theytake it to Goodwill but yeah, I
thought maybe they sent it to aplace that would I mean, this is
again is an Austin there mightbe other options other places,
but okay, we're we are going tohave to do an entire thing about
fast fashion. Yes, that's theplan for sure. Your clothes
don't really get recycled,ladies. But in any case, light
bulbs are sent to a companycalled lighting resources and
(09:38):
they do mechanical recycling toto re make light bulbs out of
the raw materials and the lightbulbs you give the including
Mercury gas, so that's prettycool Styrofoam they sent to
Austin recycle and reuse dropoff center which is probably a
place you can go yourself butit's densified so it can be Eat
into stuff like picture frames.
(10:01):
So 11 alternative to plastic, Iguess. Well, I guess it is. The
styrofoam a type of plastic? Ithink it is. I think I think
it's made from oil. Yeah. Soit's a petroleum product. Yeah,
I think Yeah. Well, and thenthey take batteries to call to
recycle, which again, usesmechanical recycling techniques
to recover material and make newbatteries. Wow. So I'll get into
(10:24):
this makes me feel somuch better. And I'm excited. I
will give them all of my money,but go Yeah.
Okay. Well, I mean, the originstory is cute. Okay, so it's the
CEO is in marketing. So ofcourse, it's gonna be a cute
story. He and his kid werehanging out one Saturday
afternoon. And they're like, Wegot all these batteries to
recycle. Where should we takethem? It was Seattle, it was
(10:44):
2018. And he thought, Oh, my, mylocal place. I can take them
there. But their local recyclingrules for their place have
changed. So it took him threecalls to find a location that
was actually acceptingbatteries. And he was like,
Well, this is dumb. Why should Ihave to do this every week? You
know, every time I have abattery recycle. And then he was
talking with some friends. Andthey're like, Yeah, I've got a
(11:06):
bunch too. Maybe you could takethem for me. So he set up a
recycling carpool. Andeventually, he was picking up
recycling that wouldn't couldn'tgo in the bin from 60 houses in
his neighborhood and taking themto the recycling for them.
So he was basically doing this.
Yes. That was his own car. Cool.
Yeah. Cool.
(11:26):
Yeah. I appreciate this to know.
And so where you can use readwell, if you're in Denver,
Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis,Austin, the Bay area of
California and Atlanta. Thoseare the only cities they're in
right now. Yeah, as of November2022, according to K GW a
Portland, they had more than75,000 customers in those
cities. And so word of mouth isworking. I know, they did a huge
(11:50):
marketing campaign here inAustin. That's how I found out
about them. They were all overmy social media, they were all
over. I mean, they theirmarketing CEO, he knows what
he's doing. So I signed up ayear ago. I've been doing it for
a while. Okay. But again, it'sonly in those cities for now.
(12:13):
So here are the reasons youmight use red Well, okay. They,
they pick up stuff that youcan't put in your bin that you
might not even know you can'tput in your bin and they educate
you on what they take. And whatthey do it that they're very
transparent. So again, plasticfilm that includes plastic
grocery bags, the bags thatyou're like broccoli and stuff
from the grocery store come in,they have a whole they tell you
exactly what plastic film meansthe tops to like when you open
(12:37):
something and it has a plasticfilm. Yeah, batteries, again,
light bulbs, clothes that you'renot using anymore napkins,
things like that. And again,Styrofoam, they get the harder
to recycle stuff to places thatwill actually use it and make
sure that these places are localto your area. So they're not
like shipping it to China. Ilove that. And they're not going
to pick up stuff that won't beused. Yeah, that's great.
(12:59):
They're very explicit about thatthey pick up every other week,
very convenient. They have anapp also convenient. And then
every month, they have aspecialty pickup. And they tell
you about it like a monthbeforehand. Like they'll do
phone charging cords or shoes,or like ladies handbags. Oh,
(13:20):
cool toys. So they'll have likea specialty or like, in
February, I think they doholiday lights. Because that's
when people throw out all theirholiday lights after you know,
the Christmas season. So they'llpick those up. And I don't know
where they take them becauseit's different every month,
whatever their specialty is, butsame thing, then they say that
they've saved 10 million poundsof stuff from landfills just in
Austin so far. And that overall,in all of the cities where they
(13:44):
pick up 97% of the material theycollect is reused or recycled.
So that's based on again, youhave to clean the stuff, you
can't give them dirty plastic,you know, I repair, everything
has to be cleaned and sorted. Sobut that means they're only
throwing away 3% of the stuffthat they're getting, which is
way better than most recyclingefforts, as we know, totally.
(14:07):
Way better. That's like, Yeah, Ithink the best was around what
50 60% And depending on whatwhat
even. And that's even if the 50or 50% of stuff that gets put in
the bin. Right. So they say inAustin, they claim a 100% Reuse
rate for threads. So textilesand clothing, light bulbs, and
(14:28):
batteries. So all three of those100% recycled. Why
don't they just give the threadsto Goodwill?
Yeah, so that's my thing. Thetrick is, is goodwill. Yeah,
no, I think I don't trustgoodwill in the slightest. Yeah.
But that's interesting. I don'tknow maybe they have different
(14:48):
differentbooks. So they sort the stuff
themselves in their ownwarehouses. And I think what
they're saying is that the stuffthat they're getting is good
enough that when they give it toGoodwill, it's sellable. rather
than trash a bowl, they said theworst problem they have is
mildewed clothing. So I mean,again, because it's pre sorted
by people who are consciousenough to sign up in the first
(15:10):
place, and they're explicitenough about what they take,
that it may be, it may be thaton their end 100% of what
they're giving to Goodwill isable to be sold.
Right? Whether or not it will beisn't the story been
okay? But that's where theirresponsibility ends. And you
know, right and right now willbe in our fast fashion. And then
(15:31):
97.9% of their multilayerplastic pickups they do and the
same number for plastic film,again, this is so much better
than throwing the stuff in therecycling bin and just wishing
it would be recycled. And yeah,and it goes straight to the
landfill. Yeah, that's so cool.
And the other thing is, becauseit's convenient, Americans, as
(15:52):
we all know, love convenience.
So it increases recyclingparticipation, you're much more
likely to recycle, if it's easy.
This is doing that thinking foryou. And clear.
Like I like how they haveseparate bags for Yes,
batteries. And it's like obviouswhat you take. I think a lot of
the time people have trouble.
Well, we were just talking aboutthis egg cartons used to be
(16:14):
recyclable in my district.
Because I know that I read itlike plastic ones. I know that I
read it on the website. And thenI just looked among when I was
doing the research and notanymore.
Yeah. And it just they're reallygood at communication. So again,
they're just starting theirmultilayer plastic recycling
(16:34):
program in full force that usedto be one of their monthly
pickups, but it was so popularand they found hydro, whatever
this company was called, whatdid we decide it was called? The
scroll of your hydro blocks. Sothey found a company to work
with. And so now they will moreregularly take multilayer
plastic. Yeah. And they're,they're very straightforward
with it. Like we found a placethat'll do it. So we'll take it.
(16:55):
And so in other districts injurisdictions, they'll use
they'll recycle clamshellcontainers, or polystyrene foam
and other other things that theythey don't take in Austin
currently, but they do take inPortland, OR Seattle, because
they have the partners, you haveto look on the website to see
what they'll take in your localarea. But it's again, it's super
local.
Well, I was just gonna say Iappreciate the fact that they're
(17:15):
this stuff sounds like it'sgoing into, like, more long term
products, rather than justrecycling it back into a cup
that you're going to use onceand throw away,
right? Which is always yes orno, I didn't go deep dive into
are these companies that they'reworking with? I mean, I know
treks is a great reuse ofplastic film, but like, is the
(17:39):
manufacturing process. It'sstill, you know, it's not going
to Malaysia and beingexactly. It's, it's a step up
for sure.
Yes, it's it's not perfect, butit is. Now this was something
interesting. So I went lookingfor detractors to read well,
because that's part of you know,what we have to do. I was like,
is that really better? Andthat's where I found read it.
(18:01):
And I saw this poster whenabout, well, it's just
increasing the carbon footprintto have a truck come to your
house and pick stuff. Okay. sohear me out, having a single
truck come to your house andpick up your recycling is better
than having everyone in yourneighborhood drive their
individual recycling to theplant? Right? Yeah, totally to
(18:21):
the recycling center. So onetruck doing a neighborhood is
better than 15 trucks makingthat same trip right? Or 100. So
that actually, you know, yes, itis a single vehicle with a
carbon footprint. But it'sbetter than 50 vehicles with
their own individual carbonfree.
Yeah, cuz like, I'll take mystuff to Goodwill. And then I'll
take other stuff to SalvationArmy, and then I'll take other
(18:42):
stuff to restore.
Yeah, and this is they're takingeveryone's stuff, taking it to a
single sorting facility, andthen taking it in bulk to the
places where it's supposed to gorather than all of us making
this individual right. So it isbetter from a car usage
standpoint. I mean, you know,hopefully they're gonna have
electric vehicles at some point,but for now, it is better to
(19:05):
have a single truck do it then,you know, 50 I don't you know,
the the reason I know this math,I used to subscribe to a CSA,
which is community supportedagriculture. I'm in one. Yeah.
And it was, yeah, you get adelivery box of groceries once a
week or every other week. Andthe guy who owned the CSA was
talking about, you know, I feelreally bad about having a truck
(19:26):
making these deliveries all overtown all week. But then I did
the math. And again, if all ofyou came to our place to pick up
your CSA once a week, that'd be50 cars making a 10 mile round
trip, on average, whereas I'mjust making 130 mile round trip,
you know, it cuts it back. Andhe's like, I did the math over
and over again. And that's how Iknow that that you know, that
(19:47):
math makes sense.
Yeah, that is reallyinteresting. I yeah, I think
we're in talking about CSAslater so I can say this, but I
our our CSA delivery costs like$150 More More. Well, yeah, so I
was like, I'm gonna just pick itup because it's like, four
minutes drive from my daughter'sdaycare, but Okay, so you're on
(20:09):
the way and yeah, but I havestarted just kind of like
stopping at a coffee shophanging out and then going and
so I'm like driving home drivenvector. But yeah, I'm not paying
150 bucks right now.
No, that's so this CSA was freeto like I don't know if they
still do it so right. Yeah, thatmakes sense. I was like yeah,
sure, right?
Oh yeah, I totally would havedone it then. But it is also
really nice to be able to justhang it because it's at this
(20:29):
little cutie market and talk topeople and I never leave my
house because I work remotely soI totally take advantage.
Any excuse. Okay, so yeah, okay,so those are the why you might
use red. Well. I should also sayif you're that kind of person,
it totally gives you like egocred. I don't know if that's a
thing we can talk about. Butlike street cred, but for like
(20:50):
ecological, like having a Prius.
I love it. The red. Well, Ben,you're eco cred. Yeah. Eco
great. I love it. It gives youeco credit, you know, and that
most eco credit is green Hui.
But again, social pressure is agreat way to introduce change.
And if you can get other peopleinterested in these kinds of
programs, I don't think there'sanything wrong with having a
(21:11):
little eco cred, right?
As long as it's not the wordthat everybody loves to use is
performative. Yes.
I mean, if it really ismeaningful, and I think electric
cars are meaningful, you know,just it's one step forward, and
30 steps back, still keep takingthat one step forward. Ladies
and gentlemen, please, andeveryone else, yes, please do.
Okay, so reasons you might notuse red well, okay, cost, it's
(21:35):
at least $14 a month, it variesby the location, that just gives
you the basic pickup for thatplastic film batteries, light
bulbs, threads, whatever, thenyou pay extra, if you have
another bag of plastic film,they cost $10 To do a bag of
Styrofoam, so you really have tomake a collection of that. And
then you know, other items, itcosts extra for the multilayer
(21:55):
plastic program so that thesubscription fees can add up,
right? Also, it could beunnecessary if these recycling
services are available at yourlocal waste management spot. And
it's not inconvenient for you toget there. And it's not too far
for you to go and you know whatthey take, and they always take
the same stuff and you're ableto take it yourself, you may not
want to pay this, you may justwant to go on your Saturday
(22:16):
morning, run to the farmersmarket and drop off your
recycling.
Or if you don't live anywherenear any of those places like
me, and I'm angry at a time.
Yeah, well, there's otherprograms anyway. It's coming.
Just I'll say that it is coming.
So the issue is, again,contaminants, just like with
your regular city beenrecycling, if you don't give
them the clean recyclables,they're probably just going to
(22:38):
have to throw it in the landfillanyway, okay. Now, again, they
claim they put over 97% of whatthey get to good use. So that's
way better numbers than otherrecycling programs. But you just
have to remember that that doesput the onus on you to make sure
you're putting the right thingsin the right bag,
and they tell you how to cleanit. Yeah,
they do they have a lot ofeducational materials, because
(22:59):
again, they're a marketing firm.
Okay, and what you were justcomplaining about, yes, limited
pickup, if they're not in yourzip code, you can't use them
anyway. They also take limiteditems. So they may not even pick
up the stuff you want to recyclethat, you know your recycling
place doesn't take. So that itmay be a moot point in that
sense. The worst part, I thinkis increasing wishful thinking
about recycling. Right? If youthink you can put your plastic
(23:21):
film into the Redwall bin, itmay stop you from doing the
active work of not getting stuffwith plastic film to begin.
Right. Right. Yeah. And that'swhat we all should be striving
toward. So I know I do this.
When I go to the grocery store.
I list. I feel less guilty nowabout getting the pre bagged pre
cut broccoli.
Totally. I already felt like ahuge sense of relief when I
(23:42):
thought this was an option forme. Yes, well, yeah. It's just
like, Oh, thank god. No,no, it's true, though. It's
true. There's no escaping.
Yeah, it would be better for meto just get my broccoli without
a bag delivered by my local CSA.
But, you know, it does. It doesplant that seed in your head. It
is wishful thinking. Not quitewish cycling. Yeah. Because you
(24:03):
are actually recycling buttotally again, yeah, absolutely
stymieing The reduce. It's justlike recycling in general, like,
oh, this cardboard isrecyclable. Therefore, I can
order from Amazon 100 times. Nobig deal. Yeah. No.
Yeah. Another issue is that. Andthis this came up a lot. They
might be skirting importantregulations. And I don't think
(24:28):
on purpose. But so in Portland,for instance, there was a
campaign by traditional trashcollection or waste management
agencies to get rid well blockedbecause they didn't go through
the regulated regulatorycompliance rules that are set in
place by city and localgovernments were charged
regarding trash pickup, right?
So they did say the new story Iread said that Radwell did a
little bit of due diligence.
(24:51):
They emailed the Portland bureauof Planning and Sustainability
asking if they could start doingpickup and they were like, sure,
you know, they like try to covertheir bases, but It, you know, I
don't think a lot of peoplethink about it was the same
problem when Uber wasintroduced. Yeah, I
was gonna say absolutely. Yeah.
Taxi, taxi drivers weremad, not just because they were
losing business. But they were,they were losing money because
(25:12):
Uber and Lyft weren't held tothe same regulatory, like, you
didn't have to be licensed to bea driver. Anyone write your
driver, which is also a safetyissue for Lyft pickup, you know,
your Uber driver doesn't haveto, I mean, they they said they
pass background checks, butthere are definitely pretty
sketchy systems out there andvery little recourse. I
(25:33):
absolutely agree with the taxidrivers in this sense, because
you used to go hop in a taxi.
This is a little off topic, butuseful hop in a taxi and be
like, I want to go here and theywould just be like, okay, and
not have to pull out a phone.
They just knew the city. TheseUber drivers know me, I
literally have never had an Uberdriver who doesn't use his phone
for directions isit's part of it. It's how they
(25:53):
log their miles. That's true.
Oh, that's true.
Actually never thought aboutthat. Maybe they do know where
they're going kind of. Yeah, butthey do. They're often I mean,
they're untrained. I'vedefinitely had people pick me up
maneuvers that had never been tothe airport before in their
life. And they just starteddriving today. And it took 40
minutes for them to figure outwhere the pickup was, you know,
because they kept circling theairport, like first time, you
know, annoying whereas a taxidriver just I had I took a taxi
(26:17):
in San Francisco the other day,and he's like, Yep, I know where
that is. And he just takesit's so nice. There's something
really wonderful about it. Butanyways, and and the report that
they have their license rightthere. And if you need to report
them to the authorities, youcan't the numbers right there,
right.
Yeah, reporting to Uber. I'mlike, No, I don't know if they
actually give a shit. Yeah, Ihave weren't. I wonder there's a
(26:37):
lot of lawsuits out there. Sothere is some question. Okay.
Now, I will say that picking uptrash. I find a little bit less
concern about my trash collectorbeing unlicensed. I kind of
agree with you, if they'rehandling hazardous materials,
maybe or if they were likeputting people at risk, but it's
(26:57):
they're picking stuff up from myporch. They're not coming into
my house, you know, it's apretty straightforward. There
was a lawsuit that Radwell filedin 2022, against Washington
County in Oregon, because thecounty had stopped them from
doing pickup in unincorporatedareas around the state around
the county. And again, it thethe articles I read said that
(27:19):
the big waste companies aren'treally concerned about ridable
itself, but about the big waste,boom, that's coming. So they're
kind of looking out for theirfuture of owning waste
collection.
What does that mean? The bigwaste boom?
Well, they're thinking therewill be bigger companies that
are going to just like, whathappens next? Are they going to
(27:41):
offer to sort your trash for youright there? You know, are they
going to take municipalcontracts out of business? Are
they going to start their ownlandfills? You know, there's all
kinds of issues withprivatization in that sense.
It's a million dollar industry,you think it's 75,000 people pay
$14 a month? How much money youthink they're making? Yeah, they
(28:02):
do say that the increased costsfor things like multilayer
plastic that they collect, areeaten up by the cost it takes to
transport it to the places theytake them. So there's that
consideration, the cost ofoperations for this is
expensive, again, because theUnited States doesn't have
really centralized recyclingprograms that do these things.
(28:23):
But it's big business. It's andit's coming. I like we were just
saying people are waking up tothe fact that plastic is just
the worst. And if somebodydevelops a way to take plastic
and make it reusable, in a waythat every consumer in America
is going to want to be a partof, and they're transparent. And
they have an app, you know,yeah, it's fair. If they're not
regulated, the hard thing isthat you're kind of like
(28:45):
crossing your fingers that theyare doing good rather than evil.
Yeah. So I get that I understandthat actually.
You know, trash is one thingthat Americans especially just
want out of their house. I don'twant to hear what happens to it
after it's out of my house. Youknow, totally. I
mean, I do it. I'm like, I mean,like I told that story earlier
(29:06):
about donating my frickin pastamaker and my, like, very nice
pasta. Yeah, home hand pastamaker and just seeing it thrown
into pieces cracked apart. Yeah.
In goodwill. I'm like, Well, Iused to be in denial and
oblivious. And now I can't beanymore. Thanks, Goodwill. Yeah,
no, exactly. I mean, there is aquestion of that. But it's also
(29:29):
the way of the future and likeyou were saying, you were
excited to hear about it. I wasexcited when I saw Red Bull was
coming to my neighborhood. Ididn't even do the research into
it before I bought into them.
Yeah, yep. And I'm glad I'vedone it now. And I feel good
about it. Right. Totally. Butit's time. Yeah, there. There
are issues at hand, you know, sowe'll see. We'll see what
happens.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
I still would probably use thembut yeah.
(29:55):
Well, there are otheralternatives. Okay. I mean,
there's obviously your local forrecycling center where you can
drop stuff off, you just have toknow county or municipal website
to visit to see what they'reactually taking. And you have to
keep on top of that. So you'renot surprised? Yeah, they
don't I don't think mine takesbatteries. It's very annoying.
Yeah, that sucks. They takebatteries at like REI or
somewhere really random. Yeah,that's my like, I don't know if
(30:17):
I'm random.
That's the thing about red wellis they do it for you. They know
where they are the batteries goand they take it for you. They
do the research. So you don'thave to, which is kind of what
we do. Exactly. There's also acouple other companies, there's
one called TerraCycle, whichwill send you a box, okay, and
you ship it back to them. Andthey're like, this is great,
because it's actually already,you know, the postman is already
coming. So why not just use atruck that already exists? We're
(30:40):
not putting an extra truck onthe road, right? There's one
called rabbit recycling. There'sone called Casella waste
systems. And there's probablyplenty in your local area if you
just do a Google for recyclingpickup, but these are kind of
the big players that are doingmajor campaigns on a large
scale. Okay, they exist. They'reout there. Are you ready for my
granola rating? Yes. Okay. So werate services and products on a
(31:04):
scale of one to five granolasone being soggy which is the
worst you would have granola beor last week, for instance,
plastic recycling was a zero,which was sodden, wet. What did
you call it? waterlogged? Yeah,why zero is water like we've
only had one waterlogged and onesoggy granola so far, huh. And
(31:25):
then it goes all the way up tofive, which is breaker tooth
off. I'm really tempted to giverid will break your tooth off. I
might go with crunchy which isjust below that, which would be
a four. But I really I do thinkit does help make things more
convenient, which increasesrecycling. And they're doing it
locally. They're creating jobs.
They're transparent. They makeit so easy. They take stuff your
(31:49):
dump might not the cut or thatmight take but it's not easy to
get to the dump. They cut downon co2 emissions by you know,
having one truck go to thecenters. The only major
detractor for me is that wishcycling factor again where Yeah,
I feel like I can I can safelyget plastic and you just have to
check that and be aware of it.
(32:11):
Yes. The other big thing is lackof
access. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that'sgonna change. You think so? I
do. I think they expand. I mean,they're making millions of
dollars. And yeah, they have alot of backing people love them.
Also, probably theaffordability. Because is that
really affordable for most$14 a month? I mean, that's your
(32:32):
Netflix subscription. Which weall know, Netflix is trash. Have
you seen anything on Netflixlately? That you were like, yes,
no, I started watching somethinglast night. I was like, why my
Washington. Allit's all foreign movies that
have been dubbed in English,which I love foreign movies. But
it's like, it's clear thatthey're cutting costs by filming
abroad, you know, and it's someof them are really good stories,
(32:52):
but it's like, okay, I eatthere's not much compelling
television on, you know, andit's also like, I think I'm past
the pandemic point of televisionis life. Yeah, we're just like,
I don't want to watch TVanymore.
I watched way too much. And thenI just the other day was like,
why am I doing this? This isstupid.
I quit watching TV, because it'sweird. It's not like the one
(33:15):
thing we all it's not ournational pastime anymore. Right?
To segmented nobody's watchingthe same stuff like all watch.
With the guy I'm dating willwatch a TV show together. Maybe
but that's like it, you know,and there's a lot of other
options. So I don't know. Iwould rather get rid of Netflix
and Harvard. Well, personally.
(33:35):
Yeah. $14 a month. What is thatper year? $168.
Okay, that's a single carpayment for me.
I mean, I would absolutely. I'mjust trying to think about like
most peopleconvenience. Yeah. I mean,
that's the question. Is it worthit? I think for a lot of I mean,
especially if you don't have acar? Yes. And a lot of these
cities are areas where peoplemay not have Yes, it makes sense
(33:57):
to not now there is somedifficulty I would say they like
expanding to cities where mostpeople live in an apartment
rather than a house becausewhere you're going to put the
red walls and the stairs, butone of our former cars. So
Tiffany and I used to worktogether at a company and she
used to say that in theirneighborhood. One person had the
goodwill bin, and everyone inthe neighborhood came and filled
(34:18):
it. Oh, that's really smart. Sothere's a community aspect to
that, too. It's really you canhave your neighbor with the
goodwill. And you know, I mightstart doing that with my
neighbors and say, Hey, y'all, Ihaven't heard Well, Ben, do you
wantYeah, that's really cool. Yeah,
I mean, I wouldn't argue withyou if you gave it a crunchy or
sorry. Yeah. A break.
A fight. Yeah, I think so. Youknow, it's,
(34:38):
it's really cool. It's growing.
It's going to be here one day,and I'm going to make it be.
Yeah, yes, you should I'm youcan go on to their website and
enter your zip code and they'llsend you an email when they
call.
That's awesome. Okay, I'm gonnado that because I really
appreciate how they work withcompanies that actually will use
this stuff that you give them.
It's not just like, like yousaid, which likely,
they're not pretending. Yeah,you're not just sending it over.
(35:00):
Received yes to live in a newland. Exactly. So nice. I mean,
okay, so that was a palatecleanser from plastic as I got,
and I needed that, you know,there's because it's a
relatively new program, it'sonly been since 2018 or so, you
know, the old there's only oneredditor who detracted from it
that I could find. So if you areout there and you know, dirt on
Bridwell that I just totallymissed. Could you send us an
(35:21):
email at greening up myact@gmail.com? And let me know
or tell us on Instagram orwherever? Because I just felt
like, Is this too good to betrue? You know, I mean,
obviously the regulations issuesand the wish cycling issues and
and again, there are issues withtruck like, everyone quit buying
stuff that makes waste. Yeah.
Just just quit buying plastic.
Do your best to quit buyingplastic. And if you can't do
(35:43):
that get rid Well, you know,like that's, it's a it's a
lesser of two evils. Yeah, Iwould say right, but I've thank
God for lesser of two evils.
Yeah, that we have theseoptions. It's not
all pure evil. Yeah.
Yes. So there you go. That's myriddles. That was great. I'm
very glad to hear that. We'renot all there are like some
options. I love how they'retaking stuff that's like
(36:07):
supposedly unrecyclable I justlooked up TerraCycle and I found
that there's like throughTerraCycle there is a girl
Gerber has a free recyclingprogram for their package. Oh,
wow.
So like, so like baby for theirpouches or their pouch? I
didn't. So I'm so behind on aGerber Baby Food because like,
there was a point in middleschool when the girls were like,
(36:28):
Oh, I eat baby food, which Iwas. I don't know, when I was 12
year old girls do stupid things.
But I was like, Well, it's alittle glass jars and like no,
of course they're in pouches.
Right? Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Oh, maybe I don't know how newthe pouches are. But yeah,
they're here now. Yeah, butyeah, they're pouches and their
other little like tubs withlittle cheese puffs. And I'm
like, assuming these aren'trecyclable, but they take them
(36:49):
through TerraCycleAwesome. Well, it looks like
rabbit recycling is based inPhiladelphia. So let's see what
their service map looks likezero waste in a bucket. They
call it interesting. Yeah,they're in like, yes, the only
in Philadelphia looks like okay,but if you're in Philadelphia,
and they work with bottleunderground goodbye supply South
(37:09):
Philly food Co Op. So they itlooks like and they take circle
compost. So it looks like theytake compost, which is pretty
cool.
That is cool. Yeah, cuz it lookslike TerraCycle partners with
all these companies. A mica doesthe hairspray. Oh, that's huge.
Yeah, I think I have someactually. Armand Hammer, which
(37:31):
is our baking soda. They partnerwith them. Also for toothpaste.
Berea law ready pasta freerecycling envelopes, baby Bell
cheese, which I use all the timenow for Charlie. Wow, this is so
I'm gonna look into this morebecause that's really
interesting. They're just oh,they take bento bones. You know
the ones for dogs? Oh, well,yeah, I don't I don't know how
(37:53):
this works. But that'sfascinating. Huh? Oh, Black and
Decker small home products likecoffee pots and vacuums. Yeah.
Whoa, okay. This is really cool.
I mean, that's the thing is thatthere may be other places in
your, you know, your local areathat do collection that you
don't know about yet. But thething with these places is that
(38:14):
you don't have to leave yourhome to get it done. Right, is
the American way. Sorry, thepandemic changed us we want
things delivered to us and takenaway from us. I know, you know,
and I'm going to retro activelytell a story. I think like, a
couple of years ago, I said thison Facebook, and I should look
it up and be like, This was me.
I said this and somebody took myidea. I posted on Facebook about
how I like I've seen all thesesubscription services for
(38:37):
they'll like, give you like abox full of clothes, you know,
or, you know, a box full ofstuff. And I was like, what
about if you sent me a box and Isent you all this stuff I don't
want anymore and you handlefiguring out where it goes. That
was my idea. Right? And that'swhat they do now. From my mouth
to god's ear. But I'm I don'tthink I could I could claim any
(38:57):
rights to that idea. But it's onFacebook. I swear to you.
That's awesome. What if what if?
That's great. You made ithappen?
I did. My wish. My wish. Oh,yeah, this
is this is really cool. So good.
I'm definitely gonna look intothat. Awesome.
So what's next week my friend?
Yeah. So next week. First off,we're gonna have a little mini
(39:21):
episode. On Thursday come out.
So this this episode is comingout on August 8. So in a dead
heat of summer. Well, it'salready hot in Austin here in
June. So yeah, well, there yougo.
And then we're gonna have a miniepisode on how to reuse jars
because I have been obsessiveabout reusing my jars and I
(39:42):
found some tips and tricks. Somefrom Nancy. I'll be honest,
Nancy are all hail St. Nancy.
We talked a lot about Nancybirtwhistle who has an amazing
she's Great British Bake Offlady
who was our patron green saint.
Yes.
But she has a great Instagram.
So anyway, yeah, so, and I'vejust been doing some
(40:05):
experimentation. So I feel likeI have a lot to offer but it's
gonna be mini episode just for aquick, quick tidbit if you're
interested. And then the nextweek I'm gonna talk about
reusable stuff. And so I'mlooking into like reusable saran
wrap, reusable zip locks, andjust gonna
blink on my reusable straw hereand see here it Yep, yeah, cuz
(40:29):
I found a couple articles thatare really useful in this regard
to look into. Are these actuallyworth our time? So awesome.
That's gonna be fun.
Can't wait. Yeah,I'm excited. Well,
thank you, Tiffany. This hasbeen an uplifting episode. I
didn't even finish my gin andtonic. I was so excited about
talking about red well, so well.
I'm not surprised. I definitelyfinished my wine because Oh,
(40:52):
good.
Let's have a little giggle festlet's do some cackling I don't
know I can't even imitate howthe men cackle on the comedy
websites. It's like wakes me up.
And I'm like to Shut up, man.
Just shut up.
So funny. So I don't I think thething is, I don't listen to any
podcasts without that. Sorry,any male lead podcasts. I only
(41:16):
listen to women lead podcast. Mygoodness, you
brazen feminists, I didn'trealize that I did that until I
started listening to one that'sactually really good. It's
called Tooth and Claw. It'sabout animal attacks. It's
really a good one. But sometimesit's three dudes. And sometimes
they talk about women in a waythat's really annoying. And I
actually think that they're veryrespectful in general, and I
(41:37):
don't think they're bad people.
But sometimes they're just like,oh, that hot chick. And I'm
like, Come on, guys. Like, curlup. Yeah. Are you crazy? Like,
yeah, it's like, because isn'tthree dudes to mean to think how
often do we get as women becauseMiss might be too much. But
like, we just turned this 30minute podcast and 45 minutes
(41:58):
feminist rant. But you We sorarely as women are privy to
men's private conversationthing, which is it? Which is
something that men don'trecognize is that like, yes,
they don't cat call it whenthere's a man around, and we
don't know what you're talkingabout in the locker room. So
disconnect about, like,yeah, we're not there to be
(42:19):
like,hey, maybe don't call us chicks.
You know, I listened to sometech bros talk about the wife,
oh, at dinner behind me theother night and I was sitting in
a bar and they kept referring totheir colleagues, wives as the
wife, I'm like, does she have aname? And you know, it was the
(42:41):
implication was that shecontrolled the trajectory of
this man's life. And I'm likeroad partners, you know, it's
life. Oh, menwho are married to these women,
I can almost guarantee you don'tfeel that way about their wives.
And so it's ridiculous that I'mlike, oh, so
derogatory. And like, these are,this was San Francisco. These
(43:04):
are supposed to be forwardthinking men, and they're the
leaders of big tech companiesthat are supposed to be changing
the world. Right? I may stillrefer, you know, it's it's funny
to call women's a wife and like,talk about her. Like, she's some
horrible battleaxe, you know,right. And you might as well be
on Wall Street and like, 1980.
Yeah.
(43:25):
I was like, What am I in madmen?
If I Peggy, like, sitting in thecorner here drinking my glass of
Rosae because I also am astereotype. But anyway. It was a
fun, fun evening, but Okay, so,on that note, I will finish my
gin and tonic and I will leaveyou to enjoy your evening of the
(43:46):
rosy feeling of having heardabout eco friendly junk
collection. Yes, thank you.
You're welcome. And I'll talk toyou next week. Thanks to me,
okay.
Hello and welcome to grinninggot my x official first cocktail
hour. This is me, stirring a ginand tonic Tiffany, what are you
having this evening?
We're having some red wine.
Excellent choice. I think afterlast week's episode, we just
needed to decompress a little weare recording a second episode
tonight, which means we just gotdone talking for an hour about
(00:23):
plastic recycling.
And that was our second hour.
So if you made it through withus, thank you. I hope you have a
drink of choice as well.
Something that you love thatmakes you feel good to relax
your nerves or make you feelfancy. deserve
it to apps freakin lately.
Yeah. If you didn't if youhaven't listened yet go back.
(00:45):
Last week and the week before wedid the fourth horseman of the
recycle Apocalypse it wasplastic recycling and if it
doesn't enrage you, nothing willtruly truly I lost sleep and
some tears. So it's it's butit's so important. I think it's
the most important thing we'vedone so far. Because
(01:06):
I think that is our if we donothing else that was our magnum
opus right there.
Yes. Like, I knew it was bad.
But I was shocked at what Idiscovered. So
yeah. Well, thank you for doingall that research. I'm really
excited to do tonight's episode,which is on eco friendly junk
collection. And specifically thecompany called Radwell.
(01:30):
I love I'm so excited. Yeah, metoo.
I think it'd be fun as the thisis our first time ever having a
drink while we do this. I don'tthink we're not gonna go crunk
or anything. Butright now, I did pour a large
glass of wine, but a largegin and tonic. So
yeah, that's allowed. We'reallowed.
(01:50):
We're in middle of the summerhere. It's 105 degrees in
Austin, Texas. I think,Oh, boy. Relax. Yep. That heat
dome, or whatever it's called.
Which is caused by climatechange not going to get to.
Yeah. So this is greening up myact if you don't know we're a
podcast. I hope you figure thatout when you when you found us
but we are committed to findinganswers to Green Living
(02:15):
questions and finding the mostactually eco friendly,
economically sustainable andpersonally possible changes to
your life that you can make thatwork in a green sustainable
mindset. And as to marketingwriters, Tiffany and I both know
(02:37):
the power of words to obscuretruth from a personal unhand
kind of point of view, or excuseme, firsthand point of view. So
we we dig through what we callgreen hooey, which is marketing
greenwashing that makes productsor lifestyle changes look
sustainable and eco friendlywhen they're really not. And
(02:59):
that is our goal in the not onlyare they sometimes not
sustainable, but they are antisustainable. Yes. Plastic. Yes.
So plastics, recycling is antieverything. Yeah, we all believe
inand, and we do the research, so
you don't have to is our goal.
So you can listen to us for 4040minutes to an hour every week
(03:21):
and get some nuggets of truthand make decisions on your own.
And again, we're not here toshame anyone ever. We're here
here to offer alternatives thathave worked for us, and that we
think can work for you. And anychange you make is a good
change.
Yeah, and plus, if we shamedanybody we would be such damn
hypocrites justso hypocrites. Yeah, I'm, we're
(03:41):
by no means green goddesses. Sodon't come. We never claim to
know dressing. No, I am not aGreek goddess dressing.
No, we're we're slightly antiessential oils and like, other
things that are typicallyassociated with being green. So
(04:03):
yeah, we're there with you.
We're just trying our bestfolks.
Yeah, not that as hippies on theplanet. But we do try to so I'm
just gonna dig right in startedwith my sources. And this is
going to be I think a shorterone than last week, which is
nice. So good. Okay, goodcleanser. I mean, if it's not,
that's fine, too. But yeah, andif you hear my glass clinking
(04:25):
that's my metal straw. Because Iam committed to sustainability.
There you go. Yeah, the seaturtles got me. Okay, so the sea
turtles sources this weekincluded radwell.com That's our
I D W E ll that is the companywe are looking at. Then OPB,
(04:45):
which is a Seattle online newsagency, kg W eight another news
agency up in the PacificNorthwest. I also I think for
the first time ever I looked atReddit Ian's cool, yeah, and
then a website called metafilter, which is a similar thing
(05:06):
where people can ask questionsand get answers from the
community about things. Okay. Sothose are all sources I use a
recently called W week was a newservice as well. And then I
await a website called wastedive.com. And again, we had an
article about specialtyrecycling services like Radwell,
and a few others. So we willlink all of those up in our show
(05:28):
notes. If you care to look intothem. We will start with what is
read well, do you know what readwell Is Tiffany, have you heard
of it?
I only from you, but I reallydon't think
it is a waste reduction service.
So this company specifically wasa startup started in Seattle by
a guess what? Guess what? He is?
A tech guy, marketing executive.
Yeah, he's a tech bro. But he'sa marketing. He's one of us.
(05:52):
Wow, goodness. worked forMicrosoft and a few other Zulily
a few companies. The idea behindgoodwill is they take the stuff
that you can't recycle in yourrecycling bin. They take the
wish cycling, right? All thethings you wish you could
recycle and throw in thereanyway, that you can't really
like plastic bags or plasticfilm, what? They take batteries,
(06:14):
they take light bulbs, what theytake clothing, and textiles and
a bunch of other things well,and that's on a weekly basis.
They take those specific coreitems, and then they partner
with local companies in yourarea to either recycle it or
reuse it. What? Yes. So I knowit sounds too good to be true,
(06:39):
right? It does the way it works.
And I am a member of goodwill.
Okay. So you pay a monthly fee,they give you a metal bin that
sits on your front porch thatsays read well on it. So your
neighbors all know, like gettinga Prius sort of a promo. And
then they give you some clothbags with labels on them. So
they say you know, here's theone for batteries. There's one
(07:00):
for light bulbs, here's one forthreads. Here's the one for
plastic film, you fill up thebags, if you need to, you don't
have to just run through yourhouse, throwing things away for
fun. And then if you have stufffor them to pick up, you opt in
for your IDs every other week.
So bi weekly, you opt in foryour pickup, they have an app
makes it really easy. They'llsend you a text also makes it
easy or you get an email, theyhave several ways to make sure
(07:23):
that you opt in and then theypick it up whatever day your
neighborhood is assigned andleave you new bags to fill up
for next week. Wow. They do makea point of partnering with local
businesses that can use thatstuff, which is why they only
take certain things in certaincities.
Okay, so that was my bigquestion. I was like, Is this a
(07:44):
bunch of QE? I just said QE.
We drink taken out. I think wehave to drink every time we miss
a drink. It's not hooey. I'mjust going to talk about Austin
here because I live here and I'ma consumer of Radwell or what do
you call that? Customers humor.
I'm a I buy into it. I give themmy stuff. I'm a donor. Yeah, but
I'm a participant in Bridwellhere, so in Austin they take
(08:08):
their plastic film to trekswhich is a company that makes
building materials. And Iactually my back patio that I
had put on here when I moved into this house, which is amazing
is made out of trucks. So it'sit looks like wood, it feels
like wood, but it's a lot moredurable. So that's a reuse of
plastic film.
(08:28):
So cool. Yeah,so then multilayer plastic which
is a new one they're adding as aregular pickup, which is the
plastic you get, like granolasay might come in earlier
plastic bag where it's not justone type of plastic. It's it
might be plastic and aluminum orplastic and something else like
a pouch or something. Yeah, likea pouch. So they pick those up?
Well,I used so many pouches for kids.
(08:53):
If you have kids as houses, yes,they take those to a company
called hydro blocks, whichconverts those into drainage
material that direct stormwaterback to aquifers. Oh my god.
Yeah, pretty cool. The threadsand textiles they take to
Goodwill, which you can doyourself of course, but this is
right from your front porchtwice, twice a month or whatever
(09:16):
so so interesting that theytake it to Goodwill but yeah, I
thought maybe they sent it to aplace that would I mean, this is
again is an Austin there mightbe other options other places,
but okay, we're we are going tohave to do an entire thing about
fast fashion. Yes, that's theplan for sure. Your clothes
don't really get recycled,ladies. But in any case, light
bulbs are sent to a companycalled lighting resources and
(09:38):
they do mechanical recycling toto re make light bulbs out of
the raw materials and the lightbulbs you give the including
Mercury gas, so that's prettycool Styrofoam they sent to
Austin recycle and reuse dropoff center which is probably a
place you can go yourself butit's densified so it can be Eat
into stuff like picture frames.
(10:01):
So 11 alternative to plastic, Iguess. Well, I guess it is. The
styrofoam a type of plastic? Ithink it is. I think I think
it's made from oil. Yeah. Soit's a petroleum product. Yeah,
I think Yeah. Well, and thenthey take batteries to call to
recycle, which again, usesmechanical recycling techniques
to recover material and make newbatteries. Wow. So I'll get into
(10:24):
this makes me feel somuch better. And I'm excited. I
will give them all of my money,but go Yeah.
Okay. Well, I mean, the originstory is cute. Okay, so it's the
CEO is in marketing. So ofcourse, it's gonna be a cute
story. He and his kid werehanging out one Saturday
afternoon. And they're like, Wegot all these batteries to
recycle. Where should we takethem? It was Seattle, it was
(10:44):
2018. And he thought, Oh, my, mylocal place. I can take them
there. But their local recyclingrules for their place have
changed. So it took him threecalls to find a location that
was actually acceptingbatteries. And he was like,
Well, this is dumb. Why should Ihave to do this every week? You
know, every time I have abattery recycle. And then he was
talking with some friends. Andthey're like, Yeah, I've got a
(11:06):
bunch too. Maybe you could takethem for me. So he set up a
recycling carpool. Andeventually, he was picking up
recycling that wouldn't couldn'tgo in the bin from 60 houses in
his neighborhood and taking themto the recycling for them.
So he was basically doing this.
Yes. That was his own car. Cool.
Yeah. Cool.
(11:26):
Yeah. I appreciate this to know.
And so where you can use readwell, if you're in Denver,
Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis,Austin, the Bay area of
California and Atlanta. Thoseare the only cities they're in
right now. Yeah, as of November2022, according to K GW a
Portland, they had more than75,000 customers in those
cities. And so word of mouth isworking. I know, they did a huge
(11:50):
marketing campaign here inAustin. That's how I found out
about them. They were all overmy social media, they were all
over. I mean, they theirmarketing CEO, he knows what
he's doing. So I signed up ayear ago. I've been doing it for
a while. Okay. But again, it'sonly in those cities for now.
(12:13):
So here are the reasons youmight use red Well, okay. They,
they pick up stuff that youcan't put in your bin that you
might not even know you can'tput in your bin and they educate
you on what they take. And whatthey do it that they're very
transparent. So again, plasticfilm that includes plastic
grocery bags, the bags thatyou're like broccoli and stuff
from the grocery store come in,they have a whole they tell you
exactly what plastic film meansthe tops to like when you open
(12:37):
something and it has a plasticfilm. Yeah, batteries, again,
light bulbs, clothes that you'renot using anymore napkins,
things like that. And again,Styrofoam, they get the harder
to recycle stuff to places thatwill actually use it and make
sure that these places are localto your area. So they're not
like shipping it to China. Ilove that. And they're not going
to pick up stuff that won't beused. Yeah, that's great.
(12:59):
They're very explicit about thatthey pick up every other week,
very convenient. They have anapp also convenient. And then
every month, they have aspecialty pickup. And they tell
you about it like a monthbeforehand. Like they'll do
phone charging cords or shoes,or like ladies handbags. Oh,
(13:20):
cool toys. So they'll have likea specialty or like, in
February, I think they doholiday lights. Because that's
when people throw out all theirholiday lights after you know,
the Christmas season. So they'llpick those up. And I don't know
where they take them becauseit's different every month,
whatever their specialty is, butsame thing, then they say that
they've saved 10 million poundsof stuff from landfills just in
Austin so far. And that overall,in all of the cities where they
(13:44):
pick up 97% of the material theycollect is reused or recycled.
So that's based on again, youhave to clean the stuff, you
can't give them dirty plastic,you know, I repair, everything
has to be cleaned and sorted. Sobut that means they're only
throwing away 3% of the stuffthat they're getting, which is
way better than most recyclingefforts, as we know, totally.
(14:07):
Way better. That's like, Yeah, Ithink the best was around what
50 60% And depending on whatwhat
even. And that's even if the 50or 50% of stuff that gets put in
the bin. Right. So they say inAustin, they claim a 100% Reuse
rate for threads. So textilesand clothing, light bulbs, and
(14:28):
batteries. So all three of those100% recycled. Why
don't they just give the threadsto Goodwill?
Yeah, so that's my thing. Thetrick is, is goodwill. Yeah,
no, I think I don't trustgoodwill in the slightest. Yeah.
But that's interesting. I don'tknow maybe they have different
(14:48):
differentbooks. So they sort the stuff
themselves in their ownwarehouses. And I think what
they're saying is that the stuffthat they're getting is good
enough that when they give it toGoodwill, it's sellable. rather
than trash a bowl, they said theworst problem they have is
mildewed clothing. So I mean,again, because it's pre sorted
by people who are consciousenough to sign up in the first
(15:10):
place, and they're explicitenough about what they take,
that it may be, it may be thaton their end 100% of what
they're giving to Goodwill isable to be sold.
Right? Whether or not it will beisn't the story been
okay? But that's where theirresponsibility ends. And you
know, right and right now willbe in our fast fashion. And then
(15:31):
97.9% of their multilayerplastic pickups they do and the
same number for plastic film,again, this is so much better
than throwing the stuff in therecycling bin and just wishing
it would be recycled. And yeah,and it goes straight to the
landfill. Yeah, that's so cool.
And the other thing is, becauseit's convenient, Americans, as
(15:52):
we all know, love convenience.
So it increases recyclingparticipation, you're much more
likely to recycle, if it's easy.
This is doing that thinking foryou. And clear.
Like I like how they haveseparate bags for Yes,
batteries. And it's like obviouswhat you take. I think a lot of
the time people have trouble.
Well, we were just talking aboutthis egg cartons used to be
(16:14):
recyclable in my district.
Because I know that I read itlike plastic ones. I know that I
read it on the website. And thenI just looked among when I was
doing the research and notanymore.
Yeah. And it just they're reallygood at communication. So again,
they're just starting theirmultilayer plastic recycling
(16:34):
program in full force that usedto be one of their monthly
pickups, but it was so popularand they found hydro, whatever
this company was called, whatdid we decide it was called? The
scroll of your hydro blocks. Sothey found a company to work
with. And so now they will moreregularly take multilayer
plastic. Yeah. And they're,they're very straightforward
with it. Like we found a placethat'll do it. So we'll take it.
(16:55):
And so in other districts injurisdictions, they'll use
they'll recycle clamshellcontainers, or polystyrene foam
and other other things that theythey don't take in Austin
currently, but they do take inPortland, OR Seattle, because
they have the partners, you haveto look on the website to see
what they'll take in your localarea. But it's again, it's super
local.
Well, I was just gonna say Iappreciate the fact that they're
(17:15):
this stuff sounds like it'sgoing into, like, more long term
products, rather than justrecycling it back into a cup
that you're going to use onceand throw away,
right? Which is always yes orno, I didn't go deep dive into
are these companies that they'reworking with? I mean, I know
treks is a great reuse ofplastic film, but like, is the
(17:39):
manufacturing process. It'sstill, you know, it's not going
to Malaysia and beingexactly. It's, it's a step up
for sure.
Yes, it's it's not perfect, butit is. Now this was something
interesting. So I went lookingfor detractors to read well,
because that's part of you know,what we have to do. I was like,
is that really better? Andthat's where I found read it.
(18:01):
And I saw this poster whenabout, well, it's just
increasing the carbon footprintto have a truck come to your
house and pick stuff. Okay. sohear me out, having a single
truck come to your house andpick up your recycling is better
than having everyone in yourneighborhood drive their
individual recycling to theplant? Right? Yeah, totally to
(18:21):
the recycling center. So onetruck doing a neighborhood is
better than 15 trucks makingthat same trip right? Or 100. So
that actually, you know, yes, itis a single vehicle with a
carbon footprint. But it'sbetter than 50 vehicles with
their own individual carbonfree.
Yeah, cuz like, I'll take mystuff to Goodwill. And then I'll
take other stuff to SalvationArmy, and then I'll take other
(18:42):
stuff to restore.
Yeah, and this is they're takingeveryone's stuff, taking it to a
single sorting facility, andthen taking it in bulk to the
places where it's supposed to gorather than all of us making
this individual right. So it isbetter from a car usage
standpoint. I mean, you know,hopefully they're gonna have
electric vehicles at some point,but for now, it is better to
(19:05):
have a single truck do it then,you know, 50 I don't you know,
the the reason I know this math,I used to subscribe to a CSA,
which is community supportedagriculture. I'm in one. Yeah.
And it was, yeah, you get adelivery box of groceries once a
week or every other week. Andthe guy who owned the CSA was
talking about, you know, I feelreally bad about having a truck
(19:26):
making these deliveries all overtown all week. But then I did
the math. And again, if all ofyou came to our place to pick up
your CSA once a week, that'd be50 cars making a 10 mile round
trip, on average, whereas I'mjust making 130 mile round trip,
you know, it cuts it back. Andhe's like, I did the math over
and over again. And that's how Iknow that that you know, that
(19:47):
math makes sense.
Yeah, that is reallyinteresting. I yeah, I think
we're in talking about CSAslater so I can say this, but I
our our CSA delivery costs like$150 More More. Well, yeah, so I
was like, I'm gonna just pick itup because it's like, four
minutes drive from my daughter'sdaycare, but Okay, so you're on
(20:09):
the way and yeah, but I havestarted just kind of like
stopping at a coffee shophanging out and then going and
so I'm like driving home drivenvector. But yeah, I'm not paying
150 bucks right now.
No, that's so this CSA was freeto like I don't know if they
still do it so right. Yeah, thatmakes sense. I was like yeah,
sure, right?
Oh yeah, I totally would havedone it then. But it is also
really nice to be able to justhang it because it's at this
(20:29):
little cutie market and talk topeople and I never leave my
house because I work remotely soI totally take advantage.
Any excuse. Okay, so yeah, okay,so those are the why you might
use red. Well. I should also sayif you're that kind of person,
it totally gives you like egocred. I don't know if that's a
thing we can talk about. Butlike street cred, but for like
(20:50):
ecological, like having a Prius.
I love it. The red. Well, Ben,you're eco cred. Yeah. Eco
great. I love it. It gives youeco credit, you know, and that
most eco credit is green Hui.
But again, social pressure is agreat way to introduce change.
And if you can get other peopleinterested in these kinds of
programs, I don't think there'sanything wrong with having a
(21:11):
little eco cred, right?
As long as it's not the wordthat everybody loves to use is
performative. Yes.
I mean, if it really ismeaningful, and I think electric
cars are meaningful, you know,just it's one step forward, and
30 steps back, still keep takingthat one step forward. Ladies
and gentlemen, please, andeveryone else, yes, please do.
Okay, so reasons you might notuse red well, okay, cost, it's
(21:35):
at least $14 a month, it variesby the location, that just gives
you the basic pickup for thatplastic film batteries, light
bulbs, threads, whatever, thenyou pay extra, if you have
another bag of plastic film,they cost $10 To do a bag of
Styrofoam, so you really have tomake a collection of that. And
then you know, other items, itcosts extra for the multilayer
(21:55):
plastic program so that thesubscription fees can add up,
right? Also, it could beunnecessary if these recycling
services are available at yourlocal waste management spot. And
it's not inconvenient for you toget there. And it's not too far
for you to go and you know whatthey take, and they always take
the same stuff and you're ableto take it yourself, you may not
want to pay this, you may justwant to go on your Saturday
(22:16):
morning, run to the farmersmarket and drop off your
recycling.
Or if you don't live anywherenear any of those places like
me, and I'm angry at a time.
Yeah, well, there's otherprograms anyway. It's coming.
Just I'll say that it is coming.
So the issue is, again,contaminants, just like with
your regular city beenrecycling, if you don't give
them the clean recyclables,they're probably just going to
(22:38):
have to throw it in the landfillanyway, okay. Now, again, they
claim they put over 97% of whatthey get to good use. So that's
way better numbers than otherrecycling programs. But you just
have to remember that that doesput the onus on you to make sure
you're putting the right thingsin the right bag,
and they tell you how to cleanit. Yeah,
they do they have a lot ofeducational materials, because
(22:59):
again, they're a marketing firm.
Okay, and what you were justcomplaining about, yes, limited
pickup, if they're not in yourzip code, you can't use them
anyway. They also take limiteditems. So they may not even pick
up the stuff you want to recyclethat, you know your recycling
place doesn't take. So that itmay be a moot point in that
sense. The worst part, I thinkis increasing wishful thinking
about recycling. Right? If youthink you can put your plastic
(23:21):
film into the Redwall bin, itmay stop you from doing the
active work of not getting stuffwith plastic film to begin.
Right. Right. Yeah. And that'swhat we all should be striving
toward. So I know I do this.
When I go to the grocery store.
I list. I feel less guilty nowabout getting the pre bagged pre
cut broccoli.
Totally. I already felt like ahuge sense of relief when I
(23:42):
thought this was an option forme. Yes, well, yeah. It's just
like, Oh, thank god. No,no, it's true, though. It's
true. There's no escaping.
Yeah, it would be better for meto just get my broccoli without
a bag delivered by my local CSA.
But, you know, it does. It doesplant that seed in your head. It
is wishful thinking. Not quitewish cycling. Yeah. Because you
(24:03):
are actually recycling buttotally again, yeah, absolutely
stymieing The reduce. It's justlike recycling in general, like,
oh, this cardboard isrecyclable. Therefore, I can
order from Amazon 100 times. Nobig deal. Yeah. No.
Yeah. Another issue is that. Andthis this came up a lot. They
might be skirting importantregulations. And I don't think
(24:28):
on purpose. But so in Portland,for instance, there was a
campaign by traditional trashcollection or waste management
agencies to get rid well blockedbecause they didn't go through
the regulated regulatorycompliance rules that are set in
place by city and localgovernments were charged
regarding trash pickup, right?
So they did say the new story Iread said that Radwell did a
little bit of due diligence.
(24:51):
They emailed the Portland bureauof Planning and Sustainability
asking if they could start doingpickup and they were like, sure,
you know, they like try to covertheir bases, but It, you know, I
don't think a lot of peoplethink about it was the same
problem when Uber wasintroduced. Yeah, I
was gonna say absolutely. Yeah.
Taxi, taxi drivers weremad, not just because they were
losing business. But they were,they were losing money because
(25:12):
Uber and Lyft weren't held tothe same regulatory, like, you
didn't have to be licensed to bea driver. Anyone write your
driver, which is also a safetyissue for Lyft pickup, you know,
your Uber driver doesn't haveto, I mean, they they said they
pass background checks, butthere are definitely pretty
sketchy systems out there andvery little recourse. I
(25:33):
absolutely agree with the taxidrivers in this sense, because
you used to go hop in a taxi.
This is a little off topic, butuseful hop in a taxi and be
like, I want to go here and theywould just be like, okay, and
not have to pull out a phone.
They just knew the city. TheseUber drivers know me, I
literally have never had an Uberdriver who doesn't use his phone
for directions isit's part of it. It's how they
(25:53):
log their miles. That's true.
Oh, that's true.
Actually never thought aboutthat. Maybe they do know where
they're going kind of. Yeah, butthey do. They're often I mean,
they're untrained. I'vedefinitely had people pick me up
maneuvers that had never been tothe airport before in their
life. And they just starteddriving today. And it took 40
minutes for them to figure outwhere the pickup was, you know,
because they kept circling theairport, like first time, you
know, annoying whereas a taxidriver just I had I took a taxi
(26:17):
in San Francisco the other day,and he's like, Yep, I know where
that is. And he just takesit's so nice. There's something
really wonderful about it. Butanyways, and and the report that
they have their license rightthere. And if you need to report
them to the authorities, youcan't the numbers right there,
right.
Yeah, reporting to Uber. I'mlike, No, I don't know if they
actually give a shit. Yeah, Ihave weren't. I wonder there's a
(26:37):
lot of lawsuits out there. Sothere is some question. Okay.
Now, I will say that picking uptrash. I find a little bit less
concern about my trash collectorbeing unlicensed. I kind of
agree with you, if they'rehandling hazardous materials,
maybe or if they were likeputting people at risk, but it's
(26:57):
they're picking stuff up from myporch. They're not coming into
my house, you know, it's apretty straightforward. There
was a lawsuit that Radwell filedin 2022, against Washington
County in Oregon, because thecounty had stopped them from
doing pickup in unincorporatedareas around the state around
the county. And again, it thethe articles I read said that
(27:19):
the big waste companies aren'treally concerned about ridable
itself, but about the big waste,boom, that's coming. So they're
kind of looking out for theirfuture of owning waste
collection.
What does that mean? The bigwaste boom?
Well, they're thinking therewill be bigger companies that
are going to just like, whathappens next? Are they going to
(27:41):
offer to sort your trash for youright there? You know, are they
going to take municipalcontracts out of business? Are
they going to start their ownlandfills? You know, there's all
kinds of issues withprivatization in that sense.
It's a million dollar industry,you think it's 75,000 people pay
$14 a month? How much money youthink they're making? Yeah, they
(28:02):
do say that the increased costsfor things like multilayer
plastic that they collect, areeaten up by the cost it takes to
transport it to the places theytake them. So there's that
consideration, the cost ofoperations for this is
expensive, again, because theUnited States doesn't have
really centralized recyclingprograms that do these things.
(28:23):
But it's big business. It's andit's coming. I like we were just
saying people are waking up tothe fact that plastic is just
the worst. And if somebodydevelops a way to take plastic
and make it reusable, in a waythat every consumer in America
is going to want to be a partof, and they're transparent. And
they have an app, you know,yeah, it's fair. If they're not
regulated, the hard thing isthat you're kind of like
(28:45):
crossing your fingers that theyare doing good rather than evil.
Yeah. So I get that I understandthat actually.
You know, trash is one thingthat Americans especially just
want out of their house. I don'twant to hear what happens to it
after it's out of my house. Youknow, totally. I
mean, I do it. I'm like, I mean,like I told that story earlier
(29:06):
about donating my frickin pastamaker and my, like, very nice
pasta. Yeah, home hand pastamaker and just seeing it thrown
into pieces cracked apart. Yeah.
In goodwill. I'm like, Well, Iused to be in denial and
oblivious. And now I can't beanymore. Thanks, Goodwill. Yeah,
no, exactly. I mean, there is aquestion of that. But it's also
(29:29):
the way of the future and likeyou were saying, you were
excited to hear about it. I wasexcited when I saw Red Bull was
coming to my neighborhood. Ididn't even do the research into
it before I bought into them.
Yeah, yep. And I'm glad I'vedone it now. And I feel good
about it. Right. Totally. Butit's time. Yeah, there. There
are issues at hand, you know, sowe'll see. We'll see what
happens.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
I still would probably use thembut yeah.
(29:55):
Well, there are otheralternatives. Okay. I mean,
there's obviously your local forrecycling center where you can
drop stuff off, you just have toknow county or municipal website
to visit to see what they'reactually taking. And you have to
keep on top of that. So you'renot surprised? Yeah, they
don't I don't think mine takesbatteries. It's very annoying.
Yeah, that sucks. They takebatteries at like REI or
somewhere really random. Yeah,that's my like, I don't know if
(30:17):
I'm random.
That's the thing about red wellis they do it for you. They know
where they are the batteries goand they take it for you. They
do the research. So you don'thave to, which is kind of what
we do. Exactly. There's also acouple other companies, there's
one called TerraCycle, whichwill send you a box, okay, and
you ship it back to them. Andthey're like, this is great,
because it's actually already,you know, the postman is already
coming. So why not just use atruck that already exists? We're
(30:40):
not putting an extra truck onthe road, right? There's one
called rabbit recycling. There'sone called Casella waste
systems. And there's probablyplenty in your local area if you
just do a Google for recyclingpickup, but these are kind of
the big players that are doingmajor campaigns on a large
scale. Okay, they exist. They'reout there. Are you ready for my
granola rating? Yes. Okay. So werate services and products on a
(31:04):
scale of one to five granolasone being soggy which is the
worst you would have granola beor last week, for instance,
plastic recycling was a zero,which was sodden, wet. What did
you call it? waterlogged? Yeah,why zero is water like we've
only had one waterlogged and onesoggy granola so far, huh. And
(31:25):
then it goes all the way up tofive, which is breaker tooth
off. I'm really tempted to giverid will break your tooth off. I
might go with crunchy which isjust below that, which would be
a four. But I really I do thinkit does help make things more
convenient, which increasesrecycling. And they're doing it
locally. They're creating jobs.
They're transparent. They makeit so easy. They take stuff your
(31:49):
dump might not the cut or thatmight take but it's not easy to
get to the dump. They cut downon co2 emissions by you know,
having one truck go to thecenters. The only major
detractor for me is that wishcycling factor again where Yeah,
I feel like I can I can safelyget plastic and you just have to
check that and be aware of it.
(32:11):
Yes. The other big thing is lackof
access. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that'sgonna change. You think so? I
do. I think they expand. I mean,they're making millions of
dollars. And yeah, they have alot of backing people love them.
Also, probably theaffordability. Because is that
really affordable for most$14 a month? I mean, that's your
(32:32):
Netflix subscription. Which weall know, Netflix is trash. Have
you seen anything on Netflixlately? That you were like, yes,
no, I started watching somethinglast night. I was like, why my
Washington. Allit's all foreign movies that
have been dubbed in English,which I love foreign movies. But
it's like, it's clear thatthey're cutting costs by filming
abroad, you know, and it's someof them are really good stories,
(32:52):
but it's like, okay, I eatthere's not much compelling
television on, you know, andit's also like, I think I'm past
the pandemic point of televisionis life. Yeah, we're just like,
I don't want to watch TVanymore.
I watched way too much. And thenI just the other day was like,
why am I doing this? This isstupid.
I quit watching TV, because it'sweird. It's not like the one
(33:15):
thing we all it's not ournational pastime anymore. Right?
To segmented nobody's watchingthe same stuff like all watch.
With the guy I'm dating willwatch a TV show together. Maybe
but that's like it, you know,and there's a lot of other
options. So I don't know. Iwould rather get rid of Netflix
and Harvard. Well, personally.
(33:35):
Yeah. $14 a month. What is thatper year? $168.
Okay, that's a single carpayment for me.
I mean, I would absolutely. I'mjust trying to think about like
most peopleconvenience. Yeah. I mean,
that's the question. Is it worthit? I think for a lot of I mean,
especially if you don't have acar? Yes. And a lot of these
cities are areas where peoplemay not have Yes, it makes sense
(33:57):
to not now there is somedifficulty I would say they like
expanding to cities where mostpeople live in an apartment
rather than a house becausewhere you're going to put the
red walls and the stairs, butone of our former cars. So
Tiffany and I used to worktogether at a company and she
used to say that in theirneighborhood. One person had the
goodwill bin, and everyone inthe neighborhood came and filled
(34:18):
it. Oh, that's really smart. Sothere's a community aspect to
that, too. It's really you canhave your neighbor with the
goodwill. And you know, I mightstart doing that with my
neighbors and say, Hey, y'all, Ihaven't heard Well, Ben, do you
wantYeah, that's really cool. Yeah,
I mean, I wouldn't argue withyou if you gave it a crunchy or
sorry. Yeah. A break.
A fight. Yeah, I think so. Youknow, it's,
(34:38):
it's really cool. It's growing.
It's going to be here one day,and I'm going to make it be.
Yeah, yes, you should I'm youcan go on to their website and
enter your zip code and they'llsend you an email when they
call.
That's awesome. Okay, I'm gonnado that because I really
appreciate how they work withcompanies that actually will use
this stuff that you give them.
It's not just like, like yousaid, which likely,
they're not pretending. Yeah,you're not just sending it over.
(35:00):
Received yes to live in a newland. Exactly. So nice. I mean,
okay, so that was a palatecleanser from plastic as I got,
and I needed that, you know,there's because it's a
relatively new program, it'sonly been since 2018 or so, you
know, the old there's only oneredditor who detracted from it
that I could find. So if you areout there and you know, dirt on
Bridwell that I just totallymissed. Could you send us an
(35:21):
email at greening up myact@gmail.com? And let me know
or tell us on Instagram orwherever? Because I just felt
like, Is this too good to betrue? You know, I mean,
obviously the regulations issuesand the wish cycling issues and
and again, there are issues withtruck like, everyone quit buying
stuff that makes waste. Yeah.
Just just quit buying plastic.
Do your best to quit buyingplastic. And if you can't do
(35:43):
that get rid Well, you know,like that's, it's a it's a
lesser of two evils. Yeah, Iwould say right, but I've thank
God for lesser of two evils.
Yeah, that we have theseoptions. It's not
all pure evil. Yeah.
Yes. So there you go. That's myriddles. That was great. I'm
very glad to hear that. We'renot all there are like some
options. I love how they'retaking stuff that's like
(36:07):
supposedly unrecyclable I justlooked up TerraCycle and I found
that there's like throughTerraCycle there is a girl
Gerber has a free recyclingprogram for their package. Oh,
wow.
So like, so like baby for theirpouches or their pouch? I
didn't. So I'm so behind on aGerber Baby Food because like,
there was a point in middleschool when the girls were like,
(36:28):
Oh, I eat baby food, which Iwas. I don't know, when I was 12
year old girls do stupid things.
But I was like, Well, it's alittle glass jars and like no,
of course they're in pouches.
Right? Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Oh, maybe I don't know how newthe pouches are. But yeah,
they're here now. Yeah, butyeah, they're pouches and their
other little like tubs withlittle cheese puffs. And I'm
like, assuming these aren'trecyclable, but they take them
(36:49):
through TerraCycleAwesome. Well, it looks like
rabbit recycling is based inPhiladelphia. So let's see what
their service map looks likezero waste in a bucket. They
call it interesting. Yeah,they're in like, yes, the only
in Philadelphia looks like okay,but if you're in Philadelphia,
and they work with bottleunderground goodbye supply South
(37:09):
Philly food Co Op. So they itlooks like and they take circle
compost. So it looks like theytake compost, which is pretty
cool.
That is cool. Yeah, cuz it lookslike TerraCycle partners with
all these companies. A mica doesthe hairspray. Oh, that's huge.
Yeah, I think I have someactually. Armand Hammer, which
(37:31):
is our baking soda. They partnerwith them. Also for toothpaste.
Berea law ready pasta freerecycling envelopes, baby Bell
cheese, which I use all the timenow for Charlie. Wow, this is so
I'm gonna look into this morebecause that's really
interesting. They're just oh,they take bento bones. You know
the ones for dogs? Oh, well,yeah, I don't I don't know how
(37:53):
this works. But that'sfascinating. Huh? Oh, Black and
Decker small home products likecoffee pots and vacuums. Yeah.
Whoa, okay. This is really cool.
I mean, that's the thing is thatthere may be other places in
your, you know, your local areathat do collection that you
don't know about yet. But thething with these places is that
(38:14):
you don't have to leave yourhome to get it done. Right, is
the American way. Sorry, thepandemic changed us we want
things delivered to us and takenaway from us. I know, you know,
and I'm going to retro activelytell a story. I think like, a
couple of years ago, I said thison Facebook, and I should look
it up and be like, This was me.
I said this and somebody took myidea. I posted on Facebook about
how I like I've seen all thesesubscription services for
(38:37):
they'll like, give you like abox full of clothes, you know,
or, you know, a box full ofstuff. And I was like, what
about if you sent me a box and Isent you all this stuff I don't
want anymore and you handlefiguring out where it goes. That
was my idea. Right? And that'swhat they do now. From my mouth
to god's ear. But I'm I don'tthink I could I could claim any
(38:57):
rights to that idea. But it's onFacebook. I swear to you.
That's awesome. What if what if?
That's great. You made ithappen?
I did. My wish. My wish. Oh,yeah, this
is this is really cool. So good.
I'm definitely gonna look intothat. Awesome.
So what's next week my friend?
Yeah. So next week. First off,we're gonna have a little mini
(39:21):
episode. On Thursday come out.
So this this episode is comingout on August 8. So in a dead
heat of summer. Well, it'salready hot in Austin here in
June. So yeah, well, there yougo.
And then we're gonna have a miniepisode on how to reuse jars
because I have been obsessiveabout reusing my jars and I
(39:42):
found some tips and tricks. Somefrom Nancy. I'll be honest,
Nancy are all hail St. Nancy.
We talked a lot about Nancybirtwhistle who has an amazing
she's Great British Bake Offlady
who was our patron green saint.
Yes.
But she has a great Instagram.
So anyway, yeah, so, and I'vejust been doing some
(40:05):
experimentation. So I feel likeI have a lot to offer but it's
gonna be mini episode just for aquick, quick tidbit if you're
interested. And then the nextweek I'm gonna talk about
reusable stuff. And so I'mlooking into like reusable saran
wrap, reusable zip locks, andjust gonna
blink on my reusable straw hereand see here it Yep, yeah, cuz
(40:29):
I found a couple articles thatare really useful in this regard
to look into. Are these actuallyworth our time? So awesome.
That's gonna be fun.
Can't wait. Yeah,I'm excited. Well,
thank you, Tiffany. This hasbeen an uplifting episode. I
didn't even finish my gin andtonic. I was so excited about
talking about red well, so well.
I'm not surprised. I definitelyfinished my wine because Oh,
(40:52):
good.
Let's have a little giggle festlet's do some cackling I don't
know I can't even imitate howthe men cackle on the comedy
websites. It's like wakes me up.
And I'm like to Shut up, man.
Just shut up.
So funny. So I don't I think thething is, I don't listen to any
podcasts without that. Sorry,any male lead podcasts. I only
(41:16):
listen to women lead podcast. Mygoodness, you
brazen feminists, I didn'trealize that I did that until I
started listening to one that'sactually really good. It's
called Tooth and Claw. It'sabout animal attacks. It's
really a good one. But sometimesit's three dudes. And sometimes
they talk about women in a waythat's really annoying. And I
actually think that they're veryrespectful in general, and I
(41:37):
don't think they're bad people.
But sometimes they're just like,oh, that hot chick. And I'm
like, Come on, guys. Like, curlup. Yeah. Are you crazy? Like,
yeah, it's like, because isn'tthree dudes to mean to think how
often do we get as women becauseMiss might be too much. But
like, we just turned this 30minute podcast and 45 minutes
(41:58):
feminist rant. But you We sorarely as women are privy to
men's private conversationthing, which is it? Which is
something that men don'trecognize is that like, yes,
they don't cat call it whenthere's a man around, and we
don't know what you're talkingabout in the locker room. So
disconnect about, like,yeah, we're not there to be
(42:19):
like,hey, maybe don't call us chicks.
You know, I listened to sometech bros talk about the wife,
oh, at dinner behind me theother night and I was sitting in
a bar and they kept referring totheir colleagues, wives as the
wife, I'm like, does she have aname? And you know, it was the
(42:41):
implication was that shecontrolled the trajectory of
this man's life. And I'm likeroad partners, you know, it's
life. Oh, menwho are married to these women,
I can almost guarantee you don'tfeel that way about their wives.
And so it's ridiculous that I'mlike, oh, so
derogatory. And like, these are,this was San Francisco. These
(43:04):
are supposed to be forwardthinking men, and they're the
leaders of big tech companiesthat are supposed to be changing
the world. Right? I may stillrefer, you know, it's it's funny
to call women's a wife and like,talk about her. Like, she's some
horrible battleaxe, you know,right. And you might as well be
on Wall Street and like, 1980.
Yeah.
(43:25):
I was like, What am I in madmen?
If I Peggy, like, sitting in thecorner here drinking my glass of
Rosae because I also am astereotype. But anyway. It was a
fun, fun evening, but Okay, so,on that note, I will finish my
gin and tonic and I will leaveyou to enjoy your evening of the
(43:46):
rosy feeling of having heardabout eco friendly junk
collection. Yes, thank you.
You're welcome. And I'll talk toyou next week. Thanks to me,
okay.
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