June 9, 2025 • 37 mins
You know those plastic bottle tops you toss in the bin? Lottie Dalziel’s turned them into coasters, earrings and pens! She’s the founder of Banish, a platform that makes sustainability accessible (and fun!).
We talk about how she started with one New Year’s resolution and ended up with 70 shoeboxes a day in the mail, the realities of greenwashing, and how to do your bit for the planet.
We also get into:
• What sparked Lottie’s green mission
• The small changes that actually save you money
• Why greenwashing is everywhere and how to spot it
• Banish’s recycling program and how it works
• Her advice for staying motivated without being perfect
Huge thanks to our Patreon Subscribers! ❤️
Get bonus episodes and more for $10 a month at http://podvan.com.au/members
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Rabbit podcast with Rabbit. I'm Rabbit.
I record this podcast inside a cute little retro caravan from
1967 that I tore around all overthe place.
Fan podcast with Robin A2 Quick things just before we get
started, did you know that theseare video episodes now?
I mean, if you're watching this,then yes, you know that.
But if you're not watching it, you could be seeing the guests
(00:24):
that I'm chatting to in the episode.
The video episodes are only available on Spotify.
And the other thing is, did you know there's a Patreon members
page? I haven't mentioned it for a
while, and I've recently had a couple of people sign up saying
I didn't even know this was a thing.
So there's like over 200 bits ofbonus content in there.
There's weekly bonus episodes with Julie that are only for
Patreon members and it's 10 bucks a month.
(00:47):
So if you want to join up, you just go to podvan.com dot AU
slash members. And thank you so much for all of
your support. I really do appreciate it.
Let's get to the episode. My guest is Lottie.
Not going to say a surname because I thought I had it
right, but OK. DALZ i.e.
(01:07):
L that's del Ziel del Ziel del. I just can't think of how it
could be anything. Is it like so far away?
So far away? How do you say it backwards?
No, there's a couple of your listeners who will know how to
pronounce it, and that is because there's a very old TV
show that pronounced it correctly.
(01:27):
Really. What?
What was the TV show? Well, if I say it, it's.
Not actually the name of the TV show.
It's something and Pasco is the TV show and that.
Delzio and Pasco, where does it come from First?
It's Scottish, OK. I don't know why it's what do
you mean? Well, I don't know why.
Don't know why the name's Scottish.
I think you've got Scottish heritage.
(01:49):
That's true, yeah, but I don't know why the Scottish have
decided to pronounce it the way that they have.
Oh, now I get it right. It's like that.
Clearly. I mean it's.
Something like that. How come you hear that I.
Think that sounds German when you say it like that?
I don't know. Oh this is fun.
It had better be a long way fromthat now after all this build
(02:09):
up. OK, my guess is Lottie, no, this
is where you say you still want to.
Do it. Yeah, I'm not going.
To figure it out. That's pretty clear now.
You have to say it first. I don't know.
You have to say Lottie, and thenI'll say it.
Oh. OK.
My guest is Lottie. DL I'm not fully I'm.
(02:30):
Sorry, I didn't realise we're just, yeah, shortening our names
down to letters. I know.
Just five silent letters. Yeah.
DL Yeah. It's very strange.
So the ALZ i.e. in the middle? Oh Nah.
You can kinda keep the E and theL at the end if you want.
What is it DL? DL Wow, yeah, very strange.
How was that through school? Yeah, it's actually been more of
(02:52):
an issue, I'd say after school, because during school you're
with the same cohort, you've gotteachers, that kind of thing.
Everyone gets a bit more used toit.
It's probably now that's more the issue because I have this
conversation a couple of times aday with people.
Of course you do. Yeah.
Have you ever considered just going with Delziel?
Yes. I always wonder that about
people with certain names. Like there's a guy who was it?
(03:15):
Oh no, no, he had a cool name. Oh, not saying your name's not
cool. Sorry, I've got actually head
off I'm I'm not. I'm busy now.
This is my thing. I invite people in, insult them.
Yeah. They leave and I get a really
good viral clip. If you could just storm out,
yeah, that'd be like throw your headphones.
Perfect. No, there's So there's a guy in
rugby and his names, that's right, he plays on the wing.
(03:36):
His name is Harry Potter. I love that.
His name's Harry Potter. That's amazing.
And I just think, what's his life been like?
Magical, Magical. That was actually what happened.
He scored a try in the corner and one of the commentators said
Harry Potter magic. And I was like, oh.
Of course. You had to do that.
You couldn't not. It was just ones where I hear
and it's like I guess like the surname like is it K0K 0CH?
(04:04):
Oh, so it's it's. Like it's cock but it but it but
isn't David. Oh no, he's Kosh.
Yeah, Kosh, She thinks he's Kosh.
But there's ones like that whereyou just go, do you at some
point just go, I'll just change your name.
It'll just be easier I think. There is a lot of my family who
have just been like, this is ridiculous.
I'm going to stick with Dalziel or but The thing is that nobody
(04:26):
just says just one other option.They do the what you did at the
start, Dalziel Daziel, the leal dazzle.
So it's not like there's a really easy way of looking.
Leaving out the Z, no one's going to Leal or something.
Do they do? Anyway, we're sticking with it.
We're going with it and. Not when.
And The thing is with you, right?
So you, oh, I have an intro thatI that I've written for you.
(04:51):
We just got caught up on that one thing.
I was like, I was gonna say, cuzall the things you've done, NSW,
young Australian of the year, yeah, like someone's gotta read
your name out. At that thing.
But they did it right. That was actually Parrotte, and
he read it correctly. And the reason why I knew that I
had received the award before heannounced it was because I saw
him look twice at the card and Iwas like, he's trying to figure.
(05:14):
Out and he had written in brackets next to it.
Yeah, DI dash ALLDLDI. I think you do D double E-E
double LE. Z but.
I think that's why he was probably looking at it going, Oh
my gosh, what am I doing here? Wow, that's OK, That's great
(05:37):
that he got that then. So Lottie DL, a sustainability
advocate, educator and entrepreneur, in 2018 founded
Banish, a platform aimed in empowering Australians with a
not with the knowledge and toolsto live more sustainably.
I love your book 365 plus ways to save the planet and your
(05:57):
Money at the same time. That's a title.
I know short last name, long title you've.
Said that many times as well. No, I haven't actually that's.
Your first time that's a really long title because I love what
you've done there right you got the 365 plus ways to save the
planet and some people would go oh great, I want that and others
(06:20):
would be like what a man and your money at the same time oh
so. Listening now.
Tell me things. Yeah, so named NSW Young
Australian of the Year in 2023 and featured in Forbes 30 Under
30 for her contributions to sustainability and
entrepreneurship. Not bad.
(06:40):
I would have done more by that age.
Far out, man. What started all of that?
A New Year's resolution, Really.I know one that actually stuck.
There has been no other one since.
What was the New Year's and whatyear?
In 2018, yeah. So I just wanted to do better
for the planet. It wasn't a smart goal.
(07:01):
It didn't have anything tangiblewith it.
I also made about 10 other news resolutions that year.
One of them was to run a half marathon and to become fluent in
Spanish, which definitely has not happened.
And you've achieved plenty of things.
I don't think anyone's gonna look at you and go, MMM, lazy.
Where's that half marathon not coming anytime soon?
But I it was back in the time when we're starting to see
(07:22):
seabirds with plastic in their stomach and we're starting to
see sea levels rising. Those plastic bags still in
supermarkets, all of these things that I was working as a
journalist at the time. Oh, OK, Reading all of these
articles about the doom and gloom that was happening to our
planet, but there was no information saying, well, here's
what you can do about it. It'd just tell you the problem.
(07:44):
And I'd go, well, I want to do something.
Now you've told me that there's all of these, I don't know, fish
with plastics in their stomach. So tell me how to help that not
happen anymore. But there was nothing about
that. And there was this really big
disconnect. So I thought, well, why not turn
this information and disseminateall of these really large and
big studies that are coming out with sustainability into
(08:06):
something actionable so that people can learn about the
issue, but then do something about it.
Amazing. So where do you start?
Because that's to a New Year's resolution.
You go right, I'm going to do something about this to what
you've done. Yeah, it wasn't overnight,
that's for sure. What's your first step?
Where'd you get a notebook out and scribble things down or?
(08:27):
No, my first step was just kind of looking at my consumption.
And literally when I had this kind of epiphany, I thought,
well, I'm going to have a smoothie for breakfast.
And in that smoothie, I'm going to put a single use plastic
straw and you can kind of go, OK, well, I've just learned that
plastic isn't great for the planet, so let's not use this
plastic straw. Mm Hmm.
So I just did a really simple and easy Google search and said
(08:51):
best sustainable straw, hundredsof thousands of results and
nothing was easy. Nothing was simple.
Nothing was the same. There was glass straws, pasta
straws, weed straws, silicon straws, bamboo straws, stainless
steel straws, all of these different options.
Yeah. And I just wanted it to be easy.
I just wanted to somebody to say, look, lady, this is what
you should be doing. Make it easy.
(09:12):
Take the guesswork out of it. But being a journalist, I was
going, well, I can do a life cycle assessment of a straw.
I can look into all of the different studies.
I can find out all of this information.
So I did the research because that I loved doing.
Eventually figured out a set of stainless steel straws was the
best solution for me and then I ordered them online from a
company that I thought was doingthe right thing for the planet.
(09:34):
I ordered 5 and they came individually wrapped in plastic.
So sad. Virtually double wrapped.
I know it was horrible. So I kind of saw this issue
going well, I've tried to do theright thing, I've spent my time,
I've spent my money, and I've just been completely let up the
garden path or what we would nowcall greenwashed.
(09:56):
Were they doing it as a thing oflike this is better for the
planet? Get stainless steel straws.
Yeah, but they obviously were just doing it for money but not
actually having the right intentions.
With those kind of things when because that's really
interesting you as a journalist background and then you look
into it because there's a big thing at the moment I think
(10:16):
about like the batteries in the electric cars.
Yeah. And then people saying that like
the amount of energy it takes actually to make those
batteries. And I don't know what how much
if it's true or whatever, but when you hear those things, I
never would have even thought about that before.
I would have just gone, yeah, electric.
That makes sense. Yeah, tick, tick.
But the things that are requiredto make those things.
(10:39):
And the disposal of them is a really tricky one as well.
And. Even the the shipping of the
five straws. Yeah, exactly.
All of that stuff and the packaging and all those yeah.
And that's where I think it'd betough for Someone Like You to
win. You're, you gotta check all that
stuff, don't you? Yeah, and it's hard really do
the everyday person isn't gonna wanna do that.
But I thought, well, if I'm doing all of this work in this
(10:59):
research anyway, I may as well just be telling people what I'm
doing and the result of this research so that I'm removing
the other barriers for people sothat when they go to make a
sustainable choice, they know exactly where to go.
They know exactly what to do. So it kind of snowballed and I
started documenting everything online.
So as I was on my sustainabilityjourney, I was showing people
(11:21):
what I was doing. I was saying, well, this is what
I'm doing now or this is the change that I've made here.
And it started really resonatingwith a lot of people.
Because you're not just jumping straight on and going.
These drawers are the best. Get these ones.
Yeah. And that's it.
Like, it's the story, it's the evolution as you go along that I
got these and they're wrapped inplastic.
(11:41):
Exactly. And that's when I probably, I
think found the most connection with other people was when I, I
don't know, tried to make a sustainable choice.
But then I got caught up with itor I kind of got greenwashed
myself and everyone was going it's, it is harder.
It's not about being perfect, it's about making those small
changes and. Learning as you go.
What's greenwashing? So greenwashing is when a brand
(12:01):
tries to do tries to market to an individual, but they're not
actually actually doing the right thing for the planet.
So say for example, it could be me deciding to launch a cleaning
product and I put on the outside, I make it a green
packet, I put flowers and leavesall over it and I call it
Lottie's Green and Clean cleaner.
Inside is actually filled with bleach.
(12:23):
So I've tried to make it sustainable, to appeal to you as
a somebody who wants to do the right thing.
But not saying but but but they don't but do they actually say
like this is a great thing for the environment, that sort of
thing, They. Could use terms like green and
eco and natural. But they're just talking about
the color on the package. Exactly.
But there's actually no certification behind the use of
(12:44):
those terms. So you could say like eco green
natural cleaner. Oh wow.
And. There's no one.
No, there's no green to give approval in Australia.
We don't have anything like, is there anywhere they're starting
to come become some overseas? So we've started to see the A
triple C in Australia kick off on some brands and really take
them breakdown on a couple of different things.
(13:06):
But that's when you're a huge multinational, not when you're a
smaller brand or a medium sized brand or some of these big
multinational corporations have been selling products for years
and they're only just getting caught for greenwashing now.
Wow. So it's really hard because as a
society we want to do better forthe planet.
Now marketers are even savvy anda marketing to this desire, so
(13:29):
we think we're doing the right thing.
We feel great about purchasing this cleaner or whatever it is
just to feel like we've done thewrong thing and it's really
frustrating and overwhelming to a lot of people.
So part of what we do at Banish is try and make it easier for
people so that they know exactlywhat they can do when it comes
to the planet, so that it removes those barriers and
(13:51):
people go, yes, I know that I can live more sustainably and
it's not gonna be an overnight thing, it's gonna be a journey.
But we're all on our own journey.
We can all do something about it.
Is it tough for you? There would be things that you
do that are not great for the planet that you do.
Yeah, cuz you're a person. Exactly.
And some things you don't know. Yeah, there's, it's just, it's
(14:12):
it's dangerous waters in the world today.
Someone could look at this videoof you on there and see the
particular headphones that you're wearing or something and
go, Oh yeah, those headphones that she's wearing, you know,
stuff like that. But it's everything.
Yeah, I would think to come out.Do you have a copy of it of that
from people? IA lot on TikTok probably more
(14:33):
than anything, but I think for me, I've never I've said that
I'm perfect and I'm never going to be perfect.
Yeah, I still consume plastic. I still drive a car.
I still live what I would consider a normal lifestyle, but
it's a lot better than it was. That's what I'm saying when you
just said I still consume that sort of I'm just picture like
you going to a fast food place or something and they and they
(14:55):
serve that up. And then you know, you, you're
out there in everyone's feeds aslooking after the planet and
making all these great sustainable choices and stuff.
And then someone snaps photo of you with, you know, plastic bags
all over the thing and that. Does that play on your mind at
all? No, because I don't think it's
realistic for anybody to be completely perfect when it comes
(15:16):
to sustainability. It's about that journey and I
know that I obviously am a role model and I wouldn't consume a
coffee that is in a single use cup, for example.
And do you have to think of those things?
Well, normal as a person, I wouldn't do that anyway, so I
wouldn't be. So it's not like I'm worried
about being paparazzi, but I think it is one of those things
(15:38):
that, like, yes, when I go to the supermarket, there is
plastic in my shopping trolley, but there's less plastic than
they used to be. Yeah.
And I think that's the whole point about living sustainably
is it's not about being perfect.It's not about starting that gym
routine and never eating sugar, always going to the gym, never
eating a piece of chocolate everagain.
Living sustainably is about the same.
(15:58):
It's about making small, incremental changes to your
habits that in the long run willmake a really big impact.
And if you do fall off the bandwagon, it's just about
getting back on and making thosesmall changes.
And those things that you learntalong that way and then you fall
off the bandwagon, whatever, they're still there in your
head. So when you do, then again, go,
I'm going to get back to doing. Yeah, you've got that knowledge.
(16:19):
Exactly. I'm going to get some of the
easiest ones that we can do, andthen I also want to get whether
there are ones that we think we're doing the right thing but
we're not. Oh yeah.
Because I know there'll be ones,I just know that there'll be
ones of those. Yeah.
What are some really simple, quick ones that people can do to
live more sustainably? And it's not hard.
(16:41):
The I think the biggest one would be, and it comes back to
saving money as well, is food waste is one of the biggest
issues for our planet but also for our pockets as well.
So in Australia, we throw away about a 20% of our groceries.
That's 20% of our groceries thatis ending up in landfill, which
is not good for the planet, but it's also costing us thousands
(17:03):
of dollars for every household every single year.
So could we not just eat what's already in that CRISPR rather
than buying more of that? Or use up what you've got, love
those bendy carrots and roast them all up rather than throwing
them away. That's a really simple one.
It doesn't require you to spend more money, doesn't require any
fancy tools. It just comes down to loving all
(17:26):
of the food that's already in your fridge.
You bought it. You obviously want it.
Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting one.
Imagine if you had a goal of like, you run out of food each
week. Like that's that.
We'll eat everything that we've we've bought and then we'll go
get more stuff. Exactly.
But not be chucking things out. I try and do one week of the
(17:46):
month where I don't actually go to the supermarket at all and I
just eat whatever is around. I'm eating through my freezer.
I'm eating the weird combat. I'm making the funkiest food
there is around. It's your time, broccoli.
Exactly. I'm using the stalk of the
broccoli. I'm using it all up because then
I'm not having to go to the shops.
I'm saving money, but I'm also saving the planet as well, so I
(18:09):
think food waste is huge, one that we probably aren't thinking
about too much, and I think that's something that I'd love
to bring to everyone's attention.
And I love that it's actually a a money saving thing as well.
Yeah, if you're going through what you've already got there,
then you're not going and buyingmore things.
You will save money. Yeah, King Compa, Mitre Chan
have been big supporters of the Pod Dan podcast right from the
start and you get all the stuff from them that you'd expect to.
(18:32):
You get plans, you get all the Weber stuff, you get all the
steel gear, the amazing principal kitchens, but it's the
stuff that you don't expect, like we.
Had an elderly lady come into the store and she brought her
remote control from her television and she didn't know
how to get it to work. And we opened it up and saw that
she just needed new batteries. And then she told me that her
(18:53):
husband had recently passed awayso he was the one that did all
that stuff for her and she didn't have anybody around to do
that so she needed us. So we took batteries out of the
packet and put them in the remote and we helped her out and
made her day. That's what she got.
And the mighty helpful King Cumber Minor.
Jen, have you been to Guandalin Bowling Club?
They're right there on the shores of Lake Macquarie.
(19:15):
They do delicious meals upstairsin the Foreshore Bistro and
Cafe, which is run by the Dish Catering Group, so you know it's
good stuff and you can dine out on the balcony looking out over
the lake. It is beautiful.
They got the cute little foreshore kiosk for a coffee and
snacks right by the jetty. The entertainment's top notch.
They got Friday night seafood raffles and Sunday sessions with
(19:38):
live music in the beer garden. You wanna find out what's
happening at the club? Check out their Facebook page or
visit gwendolinebowlingclub.com dot AU.
What else? What is some?
What is? What do you reckons the simplest
thing we can do? I think one of the simplest
things you could do would be when it comes to power, is to
turn off your switches at the wall.
(20:00):
So you know when you've got, say, for example, a plug you've
just unplugged your phone charger or whatever, turn it
off. I don't do that.
Because I it hurts my brain to look at them and they're
switched on. Does that actually make a
difference it? Trickles it's like the
equivalent of like a dripping tap.
Yes, it's called phantom power and it's just sitting there.
It's still using a tiny little bit of power, but if you think
(20:20):
about all of those different plugs everywhere around, just by
switching them off makes a huge difference.
Things like I sound like the IT person at your work, but turning
off your computer rather than putting it into standby mode
overnight, All of these little things add up to making a really
big difference. And not necessarily from you one
person doing those four like 4 switches in your house, but if
(20:42):
everyone. Exactly.
Was doing that simple little thing.
Yeah, it'll make a huge, big difference.
I think as we're coming into winter now, it's something to
consider putting on an extra jumper and a pair of socks.
Rather than being that person. It's like, oh, I'm just going to
quickly turn on the heating, do something like that.
All of these things, they're notrevolutionary, they're not
innovative. They just come back down to us
(21:03):
looking at why we so reliant on convenience.
Why are we so reliant on all of these things when we don't
actually think about the impact that they're having.
And I think that sometimes is just needed before you take an
action. It's just considering the planet
in your pocket at the same time,as well as saying, OK, if I am
going to go and make, I don't know, a new fashion purchase,
why? Why am I making that purchase?
(21:25):
Is it something that I really need?
Is there something that I've already got at home that I could
mend, repair, or just bring backto life from the depths of your
wardrobe? It's just about really
considering all of these different items.
But it's hard in this economy inthis day and age because you
look around and everything is accessible and available to you.
If I was watching a TikTok the other day and somebody was
(21:47):
saying they're like, oh, here's this top that I've got.
It was yellowing under the arms.So I just went and bought
another one, and I was going, you could have just washed it.
Washed it and cleaned it. Yeah.
But because there's no, like, you can buy that shirt for $15.
Yeah, they're probably going well.
It's just easier for me to get another one.
Yeah. And not considering the impact.
(22:08):
So it's a, it's a really awesomeway that you've done it in the
two things hand in hand, the help the planet and save
yourself some money if you actually stop and think about
these things. Exactly.
And I think that's The thing is so many barriers to entry with
living sustainably. When I have conversations with
people, they're like, I want to do it, I just can't afford it
(22:29):
and I'm going. But it doesn't actually require
you to buy anything new. It requires you some things, do
some things, some things, some things, Yeah, but.
And they're more expensive, yes,those products.
But in the if they're gonna lastyou a long time.
Say for example, take a safety razor, a good old fashioned
razor that our grandparents usedto use.
(22:50):
That is $42.00. That is expensive for a razor,
but that razor is going to last you 1015 years.
You say safety razor, you mean like the Cutthroat 1?
So you've got a cutthroat one, but there's like a one that
almost looks like a plastic razor now that it's got a
butterfly. Oh.
Yeah, yeah, you can get those, all metal ones, and the blades
(23:11):
themselves are $0.12. And the actual razor, I've had
mine for work since 2018, so it's at seven years.
OK, so you've got the whole handle, the whole blade, and
you're just replacing the. Yeah, the tiny the blade you've.
Got the whole handle, but yeah, you're just replacing the blade.
Yeah, exactly. And the blade is completely
recyclable as. Opposed to chucking out full
(23:33):
razors all the time. So as an investment, yes, $42.00
for a razor is expensive, but ifyou're looking at that cost per
use over a long period of time, it's going to be saving you a
lot of money in the long run. So I do think that with some
products, yes, it is an upfront investment, but if we look at
their long time use of them, they are going to be working out
(23:54):
to be better for the planet, yeah as well.
I tell us about Brad. He seems like a lovely guy.
He it's a lovely guy. So Brad is the Banished
Recycling and Diversion program.It's a recycling program that I
started because I'd been been running Banished for a couple of
years, and I was looking for a way to give back to our
community. And one thing that I was finding
(24:15):
as an individual was I was practicing what I was preaching
and using the safety razors and reducing my waste as much as
possible. But I was still having to throw
things into my red bin every month.
And I'd look at items like pill packets or bottle top lids or
empty beauty products and I'd go, well, I can see the
resources in these items, why can't I recycle them?
(24:38):
If you look at a blister pack ora pill packet, you can see
there's aluminium, you can see there's clear plastic.
So why can't I recycle these items?
I. Oh, OK.
Yeah, yeah, processing it just going.
OK what? So when you say recycling, I'm
thinking the yellow bin. Yeah, but you can't put these
items you. Can't put those things in there.
Yeah, they could be recycled is what you're saying is they can't
(25:00):
go in the recycling bin. But they can.
That aluminium can be melted down and made into something
else, as opposed to going into the red bin going into landfill.
Exactly. Right.
So I kind of saw this disconnectand again, did lots of research,
found different micro recyclers who would say, yeah, you know
what, I can recycle your blisterpacks and I'd say, great, I've
got three. No, they didn't want my three,
(25:25):
unfortunately, but they said if you've got 100 kilos of blister
packs then we can start recycling them.
And I'd do more research. I'd talk to somebody about like
pesky plastic bread tags and they'd say, great, we won't take
your 12 bread tags, but we can turn 2000 into a bowl.
(25:47):
So all of these different peopleI was chatting to and I was just
writing everything down, going, well, this is the minimum
quantity I need to get this, theminimum quantity I need to get.
So I put it out there to the banished community and I said,
look, I'm frustrated because I can't recycle these items.
They're going into landfill. But let's pull together all of
our resources so that we can then get the blister packs
(26:09):
recycled. We can get the bread tags,
recycled bottle top lids. Can you do that?
Because you can't have some people posting them to you.
Well, yeah, that's what I did. Yeah.
It's a bizarre concept, right? It's crazy, right?
Yeah. So I'd literally said to people
I was like, just post them to mein the mail, we'll pull them
(26:30):
together and we'll recycle them.It's bizarre.
Nobody thought it would work. And they did.
Yeah, they did. This started 4 1/2 years ago.
We now get 70 shoe boxes a day. Last year we received almost
18,000 shoe boxes in the mail from around Australia.
Of blister packs. All It's like a it's like
(26:51):
Christmas. You open up these boxes and
they're filled with a weird Christmas.
Yeah, some. Very weird Christmas.
I don't know, maybe we do Christmas differently.
Every day at Banish, so pretty much there's like, yeah,
there'll be some blister packs, some beauty products, some
coffee pods, some bottle shot lids.
We have an amazing team of volunteers who then sort them
(27:11):
into the different streams so that then we can send the 100
kilos of the blister packs off to be recycled.
Wow. Yeah.
I saw a thing you put up online.I think there's some new
coasters. Yeah, pretty.
They're made from bottle top lids.
Bottle. I thought they were bottle top
lids. Exactly how?
Cool to buy those and have thosein your home and then 'cause
(27:34):
they look different and people go oh, they're different and
you, yeah, they're maybe bottle top lids.
Exactly. It's actually a cool thing to
say. It is, and it's our
conversation, Yeah, as well because someone goes I love this
one. And you go, Oh yeah, used to be
bottle top lids. Oh, used to be bread tags.
And I think it's also just showing people that things don't
have to be linear. They don't have to be made from,
(27:55):
I don't know, whatever they usedto be made from.
It's kind of going, this can be a circular movement.
We can turn resources and keep them in.
Amazing. What's?
The costs and that stuff though,like, you know, you, you get
this 100 kilos of bottle lids orwhatever, Yeah, and you gotta
get into the thing. Do they charge you to?
Yeah. So for a lot of the streams that
(28:16):
we take, there is a fee involved.
That's why your local council won't accept things like blister
packs in your yellow bin becausethey cost money to recycle.
Because in order to separate thealuminium from the plastic, it
has to go through a lot more processing than say, for
example, an aluminium can. So because of that, that's why
there is a fee involved with recycling with Brad, Say, for
(28:39):
example, to get a coaster, we get all of the bottle top lids.
We sort them by the type of plastic and the colour.
So that's why when you have a blue coaster that's made from
full cream bottle top lids, there's no dyes or additives.
We just use the colours already existing.
So that's why when you get a redcoaster, that's all of your Coke
bottles. Yeah.
(28:59):
So that's kind of how we processthem.
So we sort the bottle top lids by the type of plastic in the
colour, wash them, shred them down and then press them into
different molds and we do that all at Central Station.
You do all that yourself? Yeah.
Oh, so when you say you send them away?
So some streams. We send away aluminium and.
Exactly. And then some streams we process
ourselves. You get like a factory that
(29:21):
shreds lids and presses them into cool.
Yeah, Central Station in Sydney.If you're ever around, come and
have a. Look, not actual central.
Yeah, the train station. It's there, yeah, where all of
the Murray's buses go to Canberra.
That's where we are on Pitt St. Wow.
Yeah. Oh, the rent must be cheap
there. We're lucky we're supported
there. We're supported there because
(29:43):
we're bringing people to the area.
We're showing people how recycling happens in real life,
so you can come and see it all. You can actually.
Go in there and see, yeah, this is all happening.
Yeah, this is so cool. Yeah.
And so good that then you are ina place like that.
Exactly. You're tucked away out the back
of an industrial area. So you can come and see, you can
(30:03):
see what's happening. For example, we have volunteers
who come through and they help sort all of the bottle top lids
or they sort all of the boxes. So opening them all up.
So that's amazing because that'speople connecting with one
another in the community over sustainability, having
conversations about things that they're struggling with, what
they're looking to improve in their lives.
(30:23):
But also in general, it gives people a way to take action
because the biggest thing is youcan feel so hopeless and that
you can't do anything. What's me switching off my 4
PowerPoints really gonna do for the planet?
But together we're making a really big impact.
And I think that's the biggest thing is we can't rely on just a
couple of people to do everything and go, oh, no, it's
(30:44):
fine. I'm not gonna turn off those
PowerPoints because Lodi's got it under control.
It's going no, we can all do a little bit.
Wow, that's so cool. You know, when you say you're at
Central Station there in Sydney,my son's going through there all
the time. He's 20.
He's totally the type that wouldwalk past that and see that.
And yeah, Oh my God, this is cool.
Exactly. How do I get involved?
(31:05):
Yeah, yeah, but you get all different ages.
Exactly. We get everybody, and that's the
best part about it because you get the oldies who are consuming
more blister packs, a lot of theother, yes, the rest of the
generations, yeah. But then you also get the really
young people who are just learning about this all for the
first time. And I think that's what's the
best thing about it is it's not just one generation, it's or
(31:27):
everybody doing something. I want to finish this with how
people send you a shoe box and what goes in it.
Is it so? Are people sending like 3
blister packed things in an envelope or it's like no get a
shoe box together? Shoe box, get it?
That's what we recommend is a shoe box.
We don't send you a shoe box in the mail.
Use something you've already gotat home.
So an empty shoe box. We fix box, whatever it is.
(31:49):
You can send a case of beer sizebox as well if you want to go
for a lot. So start collecting these items.
That's the first step because. What items?
Everything so blister packs, beauty products, coffee pods,
plastic toothbrushes, toothpastetubes, plastic bread tags,
single use cutlery, single use coffee cups, soy sauce, fishies.
(32:12):
I don't know. Really.
Floss containers. You say beauty product thing, so
I'm picturing like AI don't knowa tube that you've Yeah.
With Scar. Yeah, all your shampoo bottles.
Foundation out of it, all these things.
Yeah, don't laugh. And you say shampoo bottles.
I heard and saw what you did there.
Don't think I didn't notice Shampoo.
(32:35):
He pointed and laughed. Sorry, Nelson.
From The Simpsons, I heard what happens with those.
So all of those things come in. Do they get melted down?
So it depends on the. Toothbrush has those fibres and
the toothbrush. So if an item has mixed
materials, so say for example, amascara, A bronzer, a
(32:55):
toothbrush, because those are mixed material, they're going to
go into a lower quality product when they're produced.
So things like the bumpers in a car park, for example.
What do you mean? Are we, we're in a car park, You
know, when you can't move from one spot to the next, there's
like that little bumper that stops you from driving.
So that could be made from recycled plastics.
We could also create Rd. base, our coffee cups, for example, go
(33:18):
into a lightweight concrete, allof these different things.
And then we've got the range of products where we actually
remanufacture them ourselves in house.
So that's the things like the coasters, earrings, you can't
see the because of the headphones, pens.
I did see your earrings. They're green because they go
with you, Jack, and they're cool.
(33:38):
They bottle shut lids. Yeah, top lids.
Exactly. It could be laptop stands.
There's so many different thingsthat we can create I.
Think it's so cool. Thank you.
Right. So it's plastics essentially.
We've put in the aluminium Yeah,there's a whole list on our
website. OK, because I'm thinking I'm not
confident enough to start a shoebox because I'm like, what if
(33:59):
I'm throwing things in there that and you must get those.
Yeah, that you go red bin. But what we generally say to
people is just start collecting them.
We've got a e-mail address whereyou can send all of your
questions. So people sometimes will
literally take a photo of their shoe box, send it to the Brad
team and say, can I send you allof this stuff?
And people say yes, no, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(34:20):
There's a whole list on the website, just start collecting
and putting aside a couple of things.
So choose maybe for you it couldbe the blister packs and the
bottle top lids. Start with two streams and then
just build up and up and up fromthere.
I'm doing this, I love it. I'm doing.
I can picture in my house where it's going to be.
So we've got the two bins, we'vegot the recycling one in there
(34:40):
and the normal rubbish one. I'm going to attach one to the
wall above it. Love it.
Another bin or something. I'll screw it to the wall if I
need to, but just something thatyeah, when the when the milk.
So wait, so when the milk bottle, the two litre plastic
milk bottle that goes in the recycling, the lid doesn't?
Some councils you have to check with your local council.
Every council in Australia recycles differently.
(35:02):
Some councils are what we call alids off council.
So they don't actually want yourbottle top lid on that plastic
item when it goes into your yellow bin.
Because what happens is the bottles, all the plastic gets
compacted and put into a square cube.
So if you've got air still left in that it's like New Year's Eve
pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, all of your bottle top lids
(35:24):
are just popping off and then they actually don't recycle
them. So that's why we take them.
But you need to check because some councils go, yes, we'll
take your lids. Yeah.
Other councils will say no. Say for example, if we look at
the container deposit schemes around Australia, NSW lids on,
QLD lids off. Oh man.
Yeah, OK. So is it?
(35:45):
Is it interesting to don't put your lids in there, put your
lids in this other thing? I would.
Still say to you with your localcouncil?
Why is it better that it goes tothem than to you?
We don't want to compete with your local council.
We're trying to kind of bridge the gap between people recycled
50% of their waste at home. We're trying to be that extra
five extra 10%. We don't want to take over from
(36:05):
all of them, right? So that's why we kind of settle
into our own streams. We don't want your milk bottle
tops. We don't want your milk bottles.
We just want the tops. Do you have, I'm sure you do,
but do you have something that like we could print out and put
on the wall above that bed? So we've got to download guide,
but you can also there's one online that you can purchase and
we send you it printed in the mail because we've got some
(36:27):
oldies that need that. Because I think that is the
biggest challenge of this whole thing, right, Is make it easy.
Yeah. It's just got because it's at
that point where you've just you've grabbed the milk while
you're going to throw it in the thing and where you go, wait, am
I meant to be done at the end? Yeah.
And he just goes in the bin. Exactly.
So we've got little postcards that you stick on the front of.
It has a list of everything on there.
(36:48):
Cool. Yeah.
Thank you for what you're doing.It's so cool.
And I love spreading the word about this kind of thing because
you know, you don't know what you don't know.
And you know, it's through things like this so profound.
Fit out of my van. No, thank you.
I appreciate it because we just need more people to know about
(37:11):
this kind of stuff. That's the thing we're working
away at Central Station. But the more people that know
about what we're doing, the bigger it grows and the more
impact that we can have. So thank.
You the website is. Spanish.com dot.
AU thanks for jumping in. Thanks so much for having me.
Rabbit podcast with Rabbit. I'm Rabbit.
I record this podcast inside a cute little retro caravan from
1967 that I tore around all overthe place.
Fan podcast with Robin A2 Quick things just before we get
started, did you know that theseare video episodes now?
I mean, if you're watching this,then yes, you know that.
But if you're not watching it, you could be seeing the guests
(00:24):
that I'm chatting to in the episode.
The video episodes are only available on Spotify.
And the other thing is, did you know there's a Patreon members
page? I haven't mentioned it for a
while, and I've recently had a couple of people sign up saying
I didn't even know this was a thing.
So there's like over 200 bits ofbonus content in there.
There's weekly bonus episodes with Julie that are only for
Patreon members and it's 10 bucks a month.
(00:47):
So if you want to join up, you just go to podvan.com dot AU
slash members. And thank you so much for all of
your support. I really do appreciate it.
Let's get to the episode. My guest is Lottie.
Not going to say a surname because I thought I had it
right, but OK. DALZ i.e.
(01:07):
L that's del Ziel del Ziel del. I just can't think of how it
could be anything. Is it like so far away?
So far away? How do you say it backwards?
No, there's a couple of your listeners who will know how to
pronounce it, and that is because there's a very old TV
show that pronounced it correctly.
(01:27):
Really. What?
What was the TV show? Well, if I say it, it's.
Not actually the name of the TV show.
It's something and Pasco is the TV show and that.
Delzio and Pasco, where does it come from First?
It's Scottish, OK. I don't know why it's what do
you mean? Well, I don't know why.
Don't know why the name's Scottish.
I think you've got Scottish heritage.
(01:49):
That's true, yeah, but I don't know why the Scottish have
decided to pronounce it the way that they have.
Oh, now I get it right. It's like that.
Clearly. I mean it's.
Something like that. How come you hear that I.
Think that sounds German when you say it like that?
I don't know. Oh this is fun.
It had better be a long way fromthat now after all this build
(02:09):
up. OK, my guess is Lottie, no, this
is where you say you still want to.
Do it. Yeah, I'm not going.
To figure it out. That's pretty clear now.
You have to say it first. I don't know.
You have to say Lottie, and thenI'll say it.
Oh. OK.
My guest is Lottie. DL I'm not fully I'm.
(02:30):
Sorry, I didn't realise we're just, yeah, shortening our names
down to letters. I know.
Just five silent letters. Yeah.
DL Yeah. It's very strange.
So the ALZ i.e. in the middle? Oh Nah.
You can kinda keep the E and theL at the end if you want.
What is it DL? DL Wow, yeah, very strange.
How was that through school? Yeah, it's actually been more of
(02:52):
an issue, I'd say after school, because during school you're
with the same cohort, you've gotteachers, that kind of thing.
Everyone gets a bit more used toit.
It's probably now that's more the issue because I have this
conversation a couple of times aday with people.
Of course you do. Yeah.
Have you ever considered just going with Delziel?
Yes. I always wonder that about
people with certain names. Like there's a guy who was it?
(03:15):
Oh no, no, he had a cool name. Oh, not saying your name's not
cool. Sorry, I've got actually head
off I'm I'm not. I'm busy now.
This is my thing. I invite people in, insult them.
Yeah. They leave and I get a really
good viral clip. If you could just storm out,
yeah, that'd be like throw your headphones.
Perfect. No, there's So there's a guy in
rugby and his names, that's right, he plays on the wing.
(03:36):
His name is Harry Potter. I love that.
His name's Harry Potter. That's amazing.
And I just think, what's his life been like?
Magical, Magical. That was actually what happened.
He scored a try in the corner and one of the commentators said
Harry Potter magic. And I was like, oh.
Of course. You had to do that.
You couldn't not. It was just ones where I hear
and it's like I guess like the surname like is it K0K 0CH?
(04:04):
Oh, so it's it's. Like it's cock but it but it but
isn't David. Oh no, he's Kosh.
Yeah, Kosh, She thinks he's Kosh.
But there's ones like that whereyou just go, do you at some
point just go, I'll just change your name.
It'll just be easier I think. There is a lot of my family who
have just been like, this is ridiculous.
I'm going to stick with Dalziel or but The thing is that nobody
(04:26):
just says just one other option.They do the what you did at the
start, Dalziel Daziel, the leal dazzle.
So it's not like there's a really easy way of looking.
Leaving out the Z, no one's going to Leal or something.
Do they do? Anyway, we're sticking with it.
We're going with it and. Not when.
And The thing is with you, right?
So you, oh, I have an intro thatI that I've written for you.
(04:51):
We just got caught up on that one thing.
I was like, I was gonna say, cuzall the things you've done, NSW,
young Australian of the year, yeah, like someone's gotta read
your name out. At that thing.
But they did it right. That was actually Parrotte, and
he read it correctly. And the reason why I knew that I
had received the award before heannounced it was because I saw
him look twice at the card and Iwas like, he's trying to figure.
(05:14):
Out and he had written in brackets next to it.
Yeah, DI dash ALLDLDI. I think you do D double E-E
double LE. Z but.
I think that's why he was probably looking at it going, Oh
my gosh, what am I doing here? Wow, that's OK, That's great
(05:37):
that he got that then. So Lottie DL, a sustainability
advocate, educator and entrepreneur, in 2018 founded
Banish, a platform aimed in empowering Australians with a
not with the knowledge and toolsto live more sustainably.
I love your book 365 plus ways to save the planet and your
(05:57):
Money at the same time. That's a title.
I know short last name, long title you've.
Said that many times as well. No, I haven't actually that's.
Your first time that's a really long title because I love what
you've done there right you got the 365 plus ways to save the
planet and some people would go oh great, I want that and others
(06:20):
would be like what a man and your money at the same time oh
so. Listening now.
Tell me things. Yeah, so named NSW Young
Australian of the Year in 2023 and featured in Forbes 30 Under
30 for her contributions to sustainability and
entrepreneurship. Not bad.
(06:40):
I would have done more by that age.
Far out, man. What started all of that?
A New Year's resolution, Really.I know one that actually stuck.
There has been no other one since.
What was the New Year's and whatyear?
In 2018, yeah. So I just wanted to do better
for the planet. It wasn't a smart goal.
(07:01):
It didn't have anything tangiblewith it.
I also made about 10 other news resolutions that year.
One of them was to run a half marathon and to become fluent in
Spanish, which definitely has not happened.
And you've achieved plenty of things.
I don't think anyone's gonna look at you and go, MMM, lazy.
Where's that half marathon not coming anytime soon?
But I it was back in the time when we're starting to see
(07:22):
seabirds with plastic in their stomach and we're starting to
see sea levels rising. Those plastic bags still in
supermarkets, all of these things that I was working as a
journalist at the time. Oh, OK, Reading all of these
articles about the doom and gloom that was happening to our
planet, but there was no information saying, well, here's
what you can do about it. It'd just tell you the problem.
(07:44):
And I'd go, well, I want to do something.
Now you've told me that there's all of these, I don't know, fish
with plastics in their stomach. So tell me how to help that not
happen anymore. But there was nothing about
that. And there was this really big
disconnect. So I thought, well, why not turn
this information and disseminateall of these really large and
big studies that are coming out with sustainability into
(08:06):
something actionable so that people can learn about the
issue, but then do something about it.
Amazing. So where do you start?
Because that's to a New Year's resolution.
You go right, I'm going to do something about this to what
you've done. Yeah, it wasn't overnight,
that's for sure. What's your first step?
Where'd you get a notebook out and scribble things down or?
(08:27):
No, my first step was just kind of looking at my consumption.
And literally when I had this kind of epiphany, I thought,
well, I'm going to have a smoothie for breakfast.
And in that smoothie, I'm going to put a single use plastic
straw and you can kind of go, OK, well, I've just learned that
plastic isn't great for the planet, so let's not use this
plastic straw. Mm Hmm.
So I just did a really simple and easy Google search and said
(08:51):
best sustainable straw, hundredsof thousands of results and
nothing was easy. Nothing was simple.
Nothing was the same. There was glass straws, pasta
straws, weed straws, silicon straws, bamboo straws, stainless
steel straws, all of these different options.
Yeah. And I just wanted it to be easy.
I just wanted to somebody to say, look, lady, this is what
you should be doing. Make it easy.
(09:12):
Take the guesswork out of it. But being a journalist, I was
going, well, I can do a life cycle assessment of a straw.
I can look into all of the different studies.
I can find out all of this information.
So I did the research because that I loved doing.
Eventually figured out a set of stainless steel straws was the
best solution for me and then I ordered them online from a
company that I thought was doingthe right thing for the planet.
(09:34):
I ordered 5 and they came individually wrapped in plastic.
So sad. Virtually double wrapped.
I know it was horrible. So I kind of saw this issue
going well, I've tried to do theright thing, I've spent my time,
I've spent my money, and I've just been completely let up the
garden path or what we would nowcall greenwashed.
(09:56):
Were they doing it as a thing oflike this is better for the
planet? Get stainless steel straws.
Yeah, but they obviously were just doing it for money but not
actually having the right intentions.
With those kind of things when because that's really
interesting you as a journalist background and then you look
into it because there's a big thing at the moment I think
(10:16):
about like the batteries in the electric cars.
Yeah. And then people saying that like
the amount of energy it takes actually to make those
batteries. And I don't know what how much
if it's true or whatever, but when you hear those things, I
never would have even thought about that before.
I would have just gone, yeah, electric.
That makes sense. Yeah, tick, tick.
But the things that are requiredto make those things.
(10:39):
And the disposal of them is a really tricky one as well.
And. Even the the shipping of the
five straws. Yeah, exactly.
All of that stuff and the packaging and all those yeah.
And that's where I think it'd betough for Someone Like You to
win. You're, you gotta check all that
stuff, don't you? Yeah, and it's hard really do
the everyday person isn't gonna wanna do that.
But I thought, well, if I'm doing all of this work in this
(10:59):
research anyway, I may as well just be telling people what I'm
doing and the result of this research so that I'm removing
the other barriers for people sothat when they go to make a
sustainable choice, they know exactly where to go.
They know exactly what to do. So it kind of snowballed and I
started documenting everything online.
So as I was on my sustainabilityjourney, I was showing people
(11:21):
what I was doing. I was saying, well, this is what
I'm doing now or this is the change that I've made here.
And it started really resonatingwith a lot of people.
Because you're not just jumping straight on and going.
These drawers are the best. Get these ones.
Yeah. And that's it.
Like, it's the story, it's the evolution as you go along that I
got these and they're wrapped inplastic.
(11:41):
Exactly. And that's when I probably, I
think found the most connection with other people was when I, I
don't know, tried to make a sustainable choice.
But then I got caught up with itor I kind of got greenwashed
myself and everyone was going it's, it is harder.
It's not about being perfect, it's about making those small
changes and. Learning as you go.
What's greenwashing? So greenwashing is when a brand
(12:01):
tries to do tries to market to an individual, but they're not
actually actually doing the right thing for the planet.
So say for example, it could be me deciding to launch a cleaning
product and I put on the outside, I make it a green
packet, I put flowers and leavesall over it and I call it
Lottie's Green and Clean cleaner.
Inside is actually filled with bleach.
(12:23):
So I've tried to make it sustainable, to appeal to you as
a somebody who wants to do the right thing.
But not saying but but but they don't but do they actually say
like this is a great thing for the environment, that sort of
thing, They. Could use terms like green and
eco and natural. But they're just talking about
the color on the package. Exactly.
But there's actually no certification behind the use of
(12:44):
those terms. So you could say like eco green
natural cleaner. Oh wow.
And. There's no one.
No, there's no green to give approval in Australia.
We don't have anything like, is there anywhere they're starting
to come become some overseas? So we've started to see the A
triple C in Australia kick off on some brands and really take
them breakdown on a couple of different things.
(13:06):
But that's when you're a huge multinational, not when you're a
smaller brand or a medium sized brand or some of these big
multinational corporations have been selling products for years
and they're only just getting caught for greenwashing now.
Wow. So it's really hard because as a
society we want to do better forthe planet.
Now marketers are even savvy anda marketing to this desire, so
(13:29):
we think we're doing the right thing.
We feel great about purchasing this cleaner or whatever it is
just to feel like we've done thewrong thing and it's really
frustrating and overwhelming to a lot of people.
So part of what we do at Banish is try and make it easier for
people so that they know exactlywhat they can do when it comes
to the planet, so that it removes those barriers and
(13:51):
people go, yes, I know that I can live more sustainably and
it's not gonna be an overnight thing, it's gonna be a journey.
But we're all on our own journey.
We can all do something about it.
Is it tough for you? There would be things that you
do that are not great for the planet that you do.
Yeah, cuz you're a person. Exactly.
And some things you don't know. Yeah, there's, it's just, it's
(14:12):
it's dangerous waters in the world today.
Someone could look at this videoof you on there and see the
particular headphones that you're wearing or something and
go, Oh yeah, those headphones that she's wearing, you know,
stuff like that. But it's everything.
Yeah, I would think to come out.Do you have a copy of it of that
from people? IA lot on TikTok probably more
(14:33):
than anything, but I think for me, I've never I've said that
I'm perfect and I'm never going to be perfect.
Yeah, I still consume plastic. I still drive a car.
I still live what I would consider a normal lifestyle, but
it's a lot better than it was. That's what I'm saying when you
just said I still consume that sort of I'm just picture like
you going to a fast food place or something and they and they
(14:55):
serve that up. And then you know, you, you're
out there in everyone's feeds aslooking after the planet and
making all these great sustainable choices and stuff.
And then someone snaps photo of you with, you know, plastic bags
all over the thing and that. Does that play on your mind at
all? No, because I don't think it's
realistic for anybody to be completely perfect when it comes
(15:16):
to sustainability. It's about that journey and I
know that I obviously am a role model and I wouldn't consume a
coffee that is in a single use cup, for example.
And do you have to think of those things?
Well, normal as a person, I wouldn't do that anyway, so I
wouldn't be. So it's not like I'm worried
about being paparazzi, but I think it is one of those things
(15:38):
that, like, yes, when I go to the supermarket, there is
plastic in my shopping trolley, but there's less plastic than
they used to be. Yeah.
And I think that's the whole point about living sustainably
is it's not about being perfect.It's not about starting that gym
routine and never eating sugar, always going to the gym, never
eating a piece of chocolate everagain.
Living sustainably is about the same.
(15:58):
It's about making small, incremental changes to your
habits that in the long run willmake a really big impact.
And if you do fall off the bandwagon, it's just about
getting back on and making thosesmall changes.
And those things that you learntalong that way and then you fall
off the bandwagon, whatever, they're still there in your
head. So when you do, then again, go,
I'm going to get back to doing. Yeah, you've got that knowledge.
(16:19):
Exactly. I'm going to get some of the
easiest ones that we can do, andthen I also want to get whether
there are ones that we think we're doing the right thing but
we're not. Oh yeah.
Because I know there'll be ones,I just know that there'll be
ones of those. Yeah.
What are some really simple, quick ones that people can do to
live more sustainably? And it's not hard.
(16:41):
The I think the biggest one would be, and it comes back to
saving money as well, is food waste is one of the biggest
issues for our planet but also for our pockets as well.
So in Australia, we throw away about a 20% of our groceries.
That's 20% of our groceries thatis ending up in landfill, which
is not good for the planet, but it's also costing us thousands
(17:03):
of dollars for every household every single year.
So could we not just eat what's already in that CRISPR rather
than buying more of that? Or use up what you've got, love
those bendy carrots and roast them all up rather than throwing
them away. That's a really simple one.
It doesn't require you to spend more money, doesn't require any
fancy tools. It just comes down to loving all
(17:26):
of the food that's already in your fridge.
You bought it. You obviously want it.
Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting one.
Imagine if you had a goal of like, you run out of food each
week. Like that's that.
We'll eat everything that we've we've bought and then we'll go
get more stuff. Exactly.
But not be chucking things out. I try and do one week of the
(17:46):
month where I don't actually go to the supermarket at all and I
just eat whatever is around. I'm eating through my freezer.
I'm eating the weird combat. I'm making the funkiest food
there is around. It's your time, broccoli.
Exactly. I'm using the stalk of the
broccoli. I'm using it all up because then
I'm not having to go to the shops.
I'm saving money, but I'm also saving the planet as well, so I
(18:09):
think food waste is huge, one that we probably aren't thinking
about too much, and I think that's something that I'd love
to bring to everyone's attention.
And I love that it's actually a a money saving thing as well.
Yeah, if you're going through what you've already got there,
then you're not going and buyingmore things.
You will save money. Yeah, King Compa, Mitre Chan
have been big supporters of the Pod Dan podcast right from the
start and you get all the stuff from them that you'd expect to.
(18:32):
You get plans, you get all the Weber stuff, you get all the
steel gear, the amazing principal kitchens, but it's the
stuff that you don't expect, like we.
Had an elderly lady come into the store and she brought her
remote control from her television and she didn't know
how to get it to work. And we opened it up and saw that
she just needed new batteries. And then she told me that her
(18:53):
husband had recently passed awayso he was the one that did all
that stuff for her and she didn't have anybody around to do
that so she needed us. So we took batteries out of the
packet and put them in the remote and we helped her out and
made her day. That's what she got.
And the mighty helpful King Cumber Minor.
Jen, have you been to Guandalin Bowling Club?
They're right there on the shores of Lake Macquarie.
(19:15):
They do delicious meals upstairsin the Foreshore Bistro and
Cafe, which is run by the Dish Catering Group, so you know it's
good stuff and you can dine out on the balcony looking out over
the lake. It is beautiful.
They got the cute little foreshore kiosk for a coffee and
snacks right by the jetty. The entertainment's top notch.
They got Friday night seafood raffles and Sunday sessions with
(19:38):
live music in the beer garden. You wanna find out what's
happening at the club? Check out their Facebook page or
visit gwendolinebowlingclub.com dot AU.
What else? What is some?
What is? What do you reckons the simplest
thing we can do? I think one of the simplest
things you could do would be when it comes to power, is to
turn off your switches at the wall.
(20:00):
So you know when you've got, say, for example, a plug you've
just unplugged your phone charger or whatever, turn it
off. I don't do that.
Because I it hurts my brain to look at them and they're
switched on. Does that actually make a
difference it? Trickles it's like the
equivalent of like a dripping tap.
Yes, it's called phantom power and it's just sitting there.
It's still using a tiny little bit of power, but if you think
(20:20):
about all of those different plugs everywhere around, just by
switching them off makes a huge difference.
Things like I sound like the IT person at your work, but turning
off your computer rather than putting it into standby mode
overnight, All of these little things add up to making a really
big difference. And not necessarily from you one
person doing those four like 4 switches in your house, but if
(20:42):
everyone. Exactly.
Was doing that simple little thing.
Yeah, it'll make a huge, big difference.
I think as we're coming into winter now, it's something to
consider putting on an extra jumper and a pair of socks.
Rather than being that person. It's like, oh, I'm just going to
quickly turn on the heating, do something like that.
All of these things, they're notrevolutionary, they're not
innovative. They just come back down to us
(21:03):
looking at why we so reliant on convenience.
Why are we so reliant on all of these things when we don't
actually think about the impact that they're having.
And I think that sometimes is just needed before you take an
action. It's just considering the planet
in your pocket at the same time,as well as saying, OK, if I am
going to go and make, I don't know, a new fashion purchase,
why? Why am I making that purchase?
(21:25):
Is it something that I really need?
Is there something that I've already got at home that I could
mend, repair, or just bring backto life from the depths of your
wardrobe? It's just about really
considering all of these different items.
But it's hard in this economy inthis day and age because you
look around and everything is accessible and available to you.
If I was watching a TikTok the other day and somebody was
(21:47):
saying they're like, oh, here's this top that I've got.
It was yellowing under the arms.So I just went and bought
another one, and I was going, you could have just washed it.
Washed it and cleaned it. Yeah.
But because there's no, like, you can buy that shirt for $15.
Yeah, they're probably going well.
It's just easier for me to get another one.
Yeah. And not considering the impact.
(22:08):
So it's a, it's a really awesomeway that you've done it in the
two things hand in hand, the help the planet and save
yourself some money if you actually stop and think about
these things. Exactly.
And I think that's The thing is so many barriers to entry with
living sustainably. When I have conversations with
people, they're like, I want to do it, I just can't afford it
(22:29):
and I'm going. But it doesn't actually require
you to buy anything new. It requires you some things, do
some things, some things, some things, Yeah, but.
And they're more expensive, yes,those products.
But in the if they're gonna lastyou a long time.
Say for example, take a safety razor, a good old fashioned
razor that our grandparents usedto use.
(22:50):
That is $42.00. That is expensive for a razor,
but that razor is going to last you 1015 years.
You say safety razor, you mean like the Cutthroat 1?
So you've got a cutthroat one, but there's like a one that
almost looks like a plastic razor now that it's got a
butterfly. Oh.
Yeah, yeah, you can get those, all metal ones, and the blades
(23:11):
themselves are $0.12. And the actual razor, I've had
mine for work since 2018, so it's at seven years.
OK, so you've got the whole handle, the whole blade, and
you're just replacing the. Yeah, the tiny the blade you've.
Got the whole handle, but yeah, you're just replacing the blade.
Yeah, exactly. And the blade is completely
recyclable as. Opposed to chucking out full
(23:33):
razors all the time. So as an investment, yes, $42.00
for a razor is expensive, but ifyou're looking at that cost per
use over a long period of time, it's going to be saving you a
lot of money in the long run. So I do think that with some
products, yes, it is an upfront investment, but if we look at
their long time use of them, they are going to be working out
(23:54):
to be better for the planet, yeah as well.
I tell us about Brad. He seems like a lovely guy.
He it's a lovely guy. So Brad is the Banished
Recycling and Diversion program.It's a recycling program that I
started because I'd been been running Banished for a couple of
years, and I was looking for a way to give back to our
community. And one thing that I was finding
(24:15):
as an individual was I was practicing what I was preaching
and using the safety razors and reducing my waste as much as
possible. But I was still having to throw
things into my red bin every month.
And I'd look at items like pill packets or bottle top lids or
empty beauty products and I'd go, well, I can see the
resources in these items, why can't I recycle them?
(24:38):
If you look at a blister pack ora pill packet, you can see
there's aluminium, you can see there's clear plastic.
So why can't I recycle these items?
I. Oh, OK.
Yeah, yeah, processing it just going.
OK what? So when you say recycling, I'm
thinking the yellow bin. Yeah, but you can't put these
items you. Can't put those things in there.
Yeah, they could be recycled is what you're saying is they can't
(25:00):
go in the recycling bin. But they can.
That aluminium can be melted down and made into something
else, as opposed to going into the red bin going into landfill.
Exactly. Right.
So I kind of saw this disconnectand again, did lots of research,
found different micro recyclers who would say, yeah, you know
what, I can recycle your blisterpacks and I'd say, great, I've
got three. No, they didn't want my three,
(25:25):
unfortunately, but they said if you've got 100 kilos of blister
packs then we can start recycling them.
And I'd do more research. I'd talk to somebody about like
pesky plastic bread tags and they'd say, great, we won't take
your 12 bread tags, but we can turn 2000 into a bowl.
(25:47):
So all of these different peopleI was chatting to and I was just
writing everything down, going, well, this is the minimum
quantity I need to get this, theminimum quantity I need to get.
So I put it out there to the banished community and I said,
look, I'm frustrated because I can't recycle these items.
They're going into landfill. But let's pull together all of
our resources so that we can then get the blister packs
(26:09):
recycled. We can get the bread tags,
recycled bottle top lids. Can you do that?
Because you can't have some people posting them to you.
Well, yeah, that's what I did. Yeah.
It's a bizarre concept, right? It's crazy, right?
Yeah. So I'd literally said to people
I was like, just post them to mein the mail, we'll pull them
(26:30):
together and we'll recycle them.It's bizarre.
Nobody thought it would work. And they did.
Yeah, they did. This started 4 1/2 years ago.
We now get 70 shoe boxes a day. Last year we received almost
18,000 shoe boxes in the mail from around Australia.
Of blister packs. All It's like a it's like
(26:51):
Christmas. You open up these boxes and
they're filled with a weird Christmas.
Yeah, some. Very weird Christmas.
I don't know, maybe we do Christmas differently.
Every day at Banish, so pretty much there's like, yeah,
there'll be some blister packs, some beauty products, some
coffee pods, some bottle shot lids.
We have an amazing team of volunteers who then sort them
(27:11):
into the different streams so that then we can send the 100
kilos of the blister packs off to be recycled.
Wow. Yeah.
I saw a thing you put up online.I think there's some new
coasters. Yeah, pretty.
They're made from bottle top lids.
Bottle. I thought they were bottle top
lids. Exactly how?
Cool to buy those and have thosein your home and then 'cause
(27:34):
they look different and people go oh, they're different and
you, yeah, they're maybe bottle top lids.
Exactly. It's actually a cool thing to
say. It is, and it's our
conversation, Yeah, as well because someone goes I love this
one. And you go, Oh yeah, used to be
bottle top lids. Oh, used to be bread tags.
And I think it's also just showing people that things don't
have to be linear. They don't have to be made from,
(27:55):
I don't know, whatever they usedto be made from.
It's kind of going, this can be a circular movement.
We can turn resources and keep them in.
Amazing. What's?
The costs and that stuff though,like, you know, you, you get
this 100 kilos of bottle lids orwhatever, Yeah, and you gotta
get into the thing. Do they charge you to?
Yeah. So for a lot of the streams that
(28:16):
we take, there is a fee involved.
That's why your local council won't accept things like blister
packs in your yellow bin becausethey cost money to recycle.
Because in order to separate thealuminium from the plastic, it
has to go through a lot more processing than say, for
example, an aluminium can. So because of that, that's why
there is a fee involved with recycling with Brad, Say, for
(28:39):
example, to get a coaster, we get all of the bottle top lids.
We sort them by the type of plastic and the colour.
So that's why when you have a blue coaster that's made from
full cream bottle top lids, there's no dyes or additives.
We just use the colours already existing.
So that's why when you get a redcoaster, that's all of your Coke
bottles. Yeah.
(28:59):
So that's kind of how we processthem.
So we sort the bottle top lids by the type of plastic in the
colour, wash them, shred them down and then press them into
different molds and we do that all at Central Station.
You do all that yourself? Yeah.
Oh, so when you say you send them away?
So some streams. We send away aluminium and.
Exactly. And then some streams we process
ourselves. You get like a factory that
(29:21):
shreds lids and presses them into cool.
Yeah, Central Station in Sydney.If you're ever around, come and
have a. Look, not actual central.
Yeah, the train station. It's there, yeah, where all of
the Murray's buses go to Canberra.
That's where we are on Pitt St. Wow.
Yeah. Oh, the rent must be cheap
there. We're lucky we're supported
there. We're supported there because
(29:43):
we're bringing people to the area.
We're showing people how recycling happens in real life,
so you can come and see it all. You can actually.
Go in there and see, yeah, this is all happening.
Yeah, this is so cool. Yeah.
And so good that then you are ina place like that.
Exactly. You're tucked away out the back
of an industrial area. So you can come and see, you can
(30:03):
see what's happening. For example, we have volunteers
who come through and they help sort all of the bottle top lids
or they sort all of the boxes. So opening them all up.
So that's amazing because that'speople connecting with one
another in the community over sustainability, having
conversations about things that they're struggling with, what
they're looking to improve in their lives.
(30:23):
But also in general, it gives people a way to take action
because the biggest thing is youcan feel so hopeless and that
you can't do anything. What's me switching off my 4
PowerPoints really gonna do for the planet?
But together we're making a really big impact.
And I think that's the biggest thing is we can't rely on just a
couple of people to do everything and go, oh, no, it's
(30:44):
fine. I'm not gonna turn off those
PowerPoints because Lodi's got it under control.
It's going no, we can all do a little bit.
Wow, that's so cool. You know, when you say you're at
Central Station there in Sydney,my son's going through there all
the time. He's 20.
He's totally the type that wouldwalk past that and see that.
And yeah, Oh my God, this is cool.
Exactly. How do I get involved?
(31:05):
Yeah, yeah, but you get all different ages.
Exactly. We get everybody, and that's the
best part about it because you get the oldies who are consuming
more blister packs, a lot of theother, yes, the rest of the
generations, yeah. But then you also get the really
young people who are just learning about this all for the
first time. And I think that's what's the
best thing about it is it's not just one generation, it's or
(31:27):
everybody doing something. I want to finish this with how
people send you a shoe box and what goes in it.
Is it so? Are people sending like 3
blister packed things in an envelope or it's like no get a
shoe box together? Shoe box, get it?
That's what we recommend is a shoe box.
We don't send you a shoe box in the mail.
Use something you've already gotat home.
So an empty shoe box. We fix box, whatever it is.
(31:49):
You can send a case of beer sizebox as well if you want to go
for a lot. So start collecting these items.
That's the first step because. What items?
Everything so blister packs, beauty products, coffee pods,
plastic toothbrushes, toothpastetubes, plastic bread tags,
single use cutlery, single use coffee cups, soy sauce, fishies.
(32:12):
I don't know. Really.
Floss containers. You say beauty product thing, so
I'm picturing like AI don't knowa tube that you've Yeah.
With Scar. Yeah, all your shampoo bottles.
Foundation out of it, all these things.
Yeah, don't laugh. And you say shampoo bottles.
I heard and saw what you did there.
Don't think I didn't notice Shampoo.
(32:35):
He pointed and laughed. Sorry, Nelson.
From The Simpsons, I heard what happens with those.
So all of those things come in. Do they get melted down?
So it depends on the. Toothbrush has those fibres and
the toothbrush. So if an item has mixed
materials, so say for example, amascara, A bronzer, a
(32:55):
toothbrush, because those are mixed material, they're going to
go into a lower quality product when they're produced.
So things like the bumpers in a car park, for example.
What do you mean? Are we, we're in a car park, You
know, when you can't move from one spot to the next, there's
like that little bumper that stops you from driving.
So that could be made from recycled plastics.
We could also create Rd. base, our coffee cups, for example, go
(33:18):
into a lightweight concrete, allof these different things.
And then we've got the range of products where we actually
remanufacture them ourselves in house.
So that's the things like the coasters, earrings, you can't
see the because of the headphones, pens.
I did see your earrings. They're green because they go
with you, Jack, and they're cool.
(33:38):
They bottle shut lids. Yeah, top lids.
Exactly. It could be laptop stands.
There's so many different thingsthat we can create I.
Think it's so cool. Thank you.
Right. So it's plastics essentially.
We've put in the aluminium Yeah,there's a whole list on our
website. OK, because I'm thinking I'm not
confident enough to start a shoebox because I'm like, what if
(33:59):
I'm throwing things in there that and you must get those.
Yeah, that you go red bin. But what we generally say to
people is just start collecting them.
We've got a e-mail address whereyou can send all of your
questions. So people sometimes will
literally take a photo of their shoe box, send it to the Brad
team and say, can I send you allof this stuff?
And people say yes, no, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(34:20):
There's a whole list on the website, just start collecting
and putting aside a couple of things.
So choose maybe for you it couldbe the blister packs and the
bottle top lids. Start with two streams and then
just build up and up and up fromthere.
I'm doing this, I love it. I'm doing.
I can picture in my house where it's going to be.
So we've got the two bins, we'vegot the recycling one in there
(34:40):
and the normal rubbish one. I'm going to attach one to the
wall above it. Love it.
Another bin or something. I'll screw it to the wall if I
need to, but just something thatyeah, when the when the milk.
So wait, so when the milk bottle, the two litre plastic
milk bottle that goes in the recycling, the lid doesn't?
Some councils you have to check with your local council.
Every council in Australia recycles differently.
(35:02):
Some councils are what we call alids off council.
So they don't actually want yourbottle top lid on that plastic
item when it goes into your yellow bin.
Because what happens is the bottles, all the plastic gets
compacted and put into a square cube.
So if you've got air still left in that it's like New Year's Eve
pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, all of your bottle top lids
(35:24):
are just popping off and then they actually don't recycle
them. So that's why we take them.
But you need to check because some councils go, yes, we'll
take your lids. Yeah.
Other councils will say no. Say for example, if we look at
the container deposit schemes around Australia, NSW lids on,
QLD lids off. Oh man.
Yeah, OK. So is it?
(35:45):
Is it interesting to don't put your lids in there, put your
lids in this other thing? I would.
Still say to you with your localcouncil?
Why is it better that it goes tothem than to you?
We don't want to compete with your local council.
We're trying to kind of bridge the gap between people recycled
50% of their waste at home. We're trying to be that extra
five extra 10%. We don't want to take over from
(36:05):
all of them, right? So that's why we kind of settle
into our own streams. We don't want your milk bottle
tops. We don't want your milk bottles.
We just want the tops. Do you have, I'm sure you do,
but do you have something that like we could print out and put
on the wall above that bed? So we've got to download guide,
but you can also there's one online that you can purchase and
we send you it printed in the mail because we've got some
(36:27):
oldies that need that. Because I think that is the
biggest challenge of this whole thing, right, Is make it easy.
Yeah. It's just got because it's at
that point where you've just you've grabbed the milk while
you're going to throw it in the thing and where you go, wait, am
I meant to be done at the end? Yeah.
And he just goes in the bin. Exactly.
So we've got little postcards that you stick on the front of.
It has a list of everything on there.
(36:48):
Cool. Yeah.
Thank you for what you're doing.It's so cool.
And I love spreading the word about this kind of thing because
you know, you don't know what you don't know.
And you know, it's through things like this so profound.
Fit out of my van. No, thank you.
I appreciate it because we just need more people to know about
(37:11):
this kind of stuff. That's the thing we're working
away at Central Station. But the more people that know
about what we're doing, the bigger it grows and the more
impact that we can have. So thank.
You the website is. Spanish.com dot.
AU thanks for jumping in. Thanks so much for having me.
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