Think Differently. Solve the Impossible.

Show Notes

Why Get Wasted
Website: https://www.whygetwasted.com

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@WhyGetWasted

Transcript

My guest today is Liz Entin.

Liz is a Sustainability Consultant for those who want an event they're hosting to be eco-conscious, sustainable and memorable.

Her company is Why Get Wasted.

Clients include event and party planners, film production companies, and those planning conferences and fashion shows.

She also has a YouTube channel in which she discusses sustainability and what you can do to limit the amount of waste you create at your event, as well as how to be eco-conscious in general.

Welcome to my show, Liz.

Hi, Daniel.

Thank you so much for having me.

So tell me about your new business and what made you decide to do it.

Sure.

So, yeah, as you know, it's called Why Get Wasted, and we work with, you know, professional events.

We're also doing personal parties, but, you know, mainly work so far with fashion shows and fashion shoots and commercials.

We also do in-house consulting for corporations.

So really, how to become eco-friendly.

And our ideal is to work to reduce waste in the first place.

But we're also, we know that's not completely possible.

So we also come up with creative solutions for what to do with your waste after the event.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I've seen some more of that lately.

What about reducing this?

Yeah.

Oh, and also, I'm sorry, I never answered why I started it.

Oh, sorry.

No, no, sorry.

My bad.

I got tangent.

You said something that gave me a thought.

I like that you're...

That's a good sigh.

Yeah, and I really started it.

It was over quarantine.

I've always been an entrepreneur.

And at that point, I used to have a company in fashion, and I worked assisting in styling as a fashion stylist.

And I was doing a lot of consulting for startups.

And as most listeners probably know, because I've been on them before for my other business, VTF just happened.

I knew that was just like a part-time thing, and I wanted to...

I was just really trying to figure out what do I care about.

And I care about a lot of different issues, but I do feel that if climate isn't handled well, the other issues don't really matter, because when you're in a climate disaster, all the other important issues become fairly irrelevant.

So that was what made me realize I want to do something with climate and start blogging over quarantine.

And after quarantine, I was continuing to focus a little more on WTF just happened and on more consulting with other startups.

And it just, you know, I realized the thing I missed the most during quarantine was events.

I'm very in-person person, I'm very social.

And so, you know, I was going to every event I could again after we could be in person.

And I just would always notice all the waste and all the waste.

And I was like, but I always like want to jump in and do things.

I'm like, wait, I don't, I do that and get people to pay me to do it.

So that's how I, there are a lot of people, you know, I mean, I know if I go to an event, and I just see a catastrophic amount of waste, it comes to mind, like even the food, kind of like where's the food go?

And you know, some events will actually, will take it to like a food bank or something afterwards, if they can, if they have food leftover that they can.

I was trying to find a gentle way to ease into this because I'm not one who believes in climate change.

I'm also one who is kind of like, there's so many things we can do besides CO2.

Most of climate change activities are reducing carbon dioxide, right, Liz?

And there's so many other things we can do.

For example, waste isn't even part of that.

It's carbon dioxide.

Is nuclear waste considered waste?

Specialty, but yes, I believe it is.

All types of waste that you don't, I mean, a lot of this is so specific with science, and I'm more like about the plastics and Yeah.

But.

Well, the only reason I ask is because you're a nice person, and it's a touchy subject, and it's kind of hard to talk about this.

If climate change is really important to you, if you were to say nuclear waste is waste, I think it is, the path we're going right down right now, is the nuclear power is the only solution to global warming if you want to eliminate carbon dioxide.

Solar power?

No, solar can't.

I lived in Arizona when John, it was the other senator, not John McCain.

He was actually, and we're in Arizona, we have solar power.

He was on the Washington, he was one of the senators on the panel for energy.

And he's like, it can't be done, and we didn't believe him, so I wrote him a letter, but it's not really, we'll see the other thing.

We'll get back to what we can do back to events in a moment.

But I did want to have a conversation with you about this because you're eco-conscious, and it's hard to find someone who will talk with me about this.

So I used to be the engineer for the solar panel on technology.

The same process, it's very toxic to the air and the water.

The big part is the solar panels?

Yeah, the whole thing.

How so?

Well, for start, you take silicon, which is just sand, but then you implant.

Implant means at high temperature and pressure, you drive molecules in that otherwise wouldn't be able to drive.

You wouldn't get stuff into metal like silicon is basically sand, like it's not porous.

How do you build a circuit?

A solar panel is basically a miniature computer, miniature circuit.

The most basic level circuit and sunlight causes it, cause an electrical charge and kind of like fluorescent lighting.

It goes back and forth.

It hits it.

It makes a charge go, hits it.

To make that little circuit, you're building a basically a little computer chip.

So when you build a basic computer chip, you have the toxic stuff you're implanting, which is never coming out.

In 20 years, when your solar panels don't work as good, that's because those molecules moved.

So you lose an efficiency of your solar.

They'll never completely come out.

It's not recyclable.

It took extreme temperatures and pressure to drive it in and chemicals.

And when you're building that little chip, the way you build layers and build an actual circuit is you mask it, which means you put a chemical on it over a mask, and then you hit that with light to set it, and then you implant more stuff, and then you strip that off with chemicals.

And those chemicals, when I worked at Motorola, they accused us of contaminating the groundwater.

And it was true.

As a young engineer, I went out there and I'm looking at the holding ponds.

The idea is it will evaporate into the air.

Well, that's good.

Where does it go in the sky then?

And another one of my processes, the steps, was going out the smoke stack to keep it simple, not smoke, but pollution.

And we had an air quality permit, landed on my desk, to sign.

Well, how do I know we're not polluting?

Well, Daniel, you see, we got these big air scrubbers and they clean the air.

I'm like, how do we know?

So he took me up to look at it, a couple million dollar air scrubber.

I'm like, how do we know it works?

Turns out it doesn't, 100 percent.

The process is really toxic and the stuff can't be recycled.

And that's even if we could power the whole planet by solar.

I'm not the only one that understands this, actually.

If you Google what I'm talking about, solar toxic panels, the manufacturing process, you'll see they are trying to come up with other ways of making it.

But this get that aren't so toxic.

But the bottom line is, it's not free.

There's some manufacturing and it's not, there's no such thing as a free ride.

Like we'll just put solar panels out and get free energy.

There's this term cradle to grave.

Are you familiar with cradle to grave?

Yeah, meaning ones that last your whole life.

Cradle to grave means to be truly sustainable.

You consider every step that something you get, like a plastic cup or even something recyclable, like the recycled park bench that was made out of recycled plastic bottles.

You go, oh, well, that's a free park bench.

No, because you had to take all the plastic bottles, drive them to, you're right, that's a grave.

Yeah.

Okay.

I don't use that term, but yeah, that's what I do with.

And the same thing with the nuclear waste, because you're like, well, nuclear power is clean.

But what do you do with the waste?

If you don't think it's waste, that's fine.

But cradle to grave, truly sustainable would mean, you could put it back in the ground like our professor at college, when we're building houses, he's like, we should be using screws instead of nails, so we can take this house apart.

Instead of bulldozing it, someday we can literally, yeah, instead of hacking it to death and throwing it in the dumpster, we could literally reuse the lumber.

But of course, he was using liquid nails then to make air tight, so it was energy efficient, so that was kind of not going to work.

But that would be a true cradle to grave, truly sustainable.

And yeah, I mean, I don't know enough about solar.

You know, it's kind of like climate is like medicine, you know?

I mean, you can't speak to a heart surgeon about brain surgery.

You know, you can get the basics.

So I'm really open to learning more about solar.

As of now, as I said, I'm just washing for the recycling, or like we'll bring our own mugs and wash them and...

Yeah, so I'm picturing......hasn't taken us up on the offer to wash it.

And that's probably why it's such a real...

You just have to do a very realistic balance, you know?

So I'm trying to paint a picture in my head.

I show up to this event, and I've got organic beef or coffee that's in chicken, that's free range chicken and coffee that's farmer, the farmers were...

Yeah.

That's right.

Catering.

If the catering lets me do this, you know?

And yeah.

And then what else have I got?

Finish painting the picture for the eco-friendly...

Okay.

Yeah, I'll focus more.

I've focused a little on my ideal.

And the catering will do it some.

They've definitely been willing to use reusable cups sometimes, they've been willing to use reusable plates.

And so then for food, like we offer this food service, people can always pick just one of our services.

For example, we have a food service.

Now for the food service, we work with a compost company, we bring compost buckets on set.

That sounds starting to sound kind of gross.

Yeah.

Well, that's why we have our staff.

But it's so don't let it like, Oh, but it's in the rough, sir.

It's gross, sir, if you put it in the garbage.

I mean, that's lock with a tight lid and you can't smell it.

Good point, good point.

And as soon as it's full, even when it's not full, once you stop between meals, we'll close them because yeah, you can't smell a thing.

I'd forgotten.

Thank you.

That's what I was like.

Yeah, the garbage is worse.

So you're just separating what can be composted and not thrown away.

Right.

And then for the leftover food, we also donate to soup kitchens and we have reusable boxes that we put all that food in and then we'll find a soup kitchen.

We tend to work.

One we found the easiest to work with, and we take the reusable boxes to the soup kitchen.

And now here's where things will never be perfect.

We take a cab because we can't carry it onto the subway.

Take a what?

Cabs, a taxi to bring it, you know.

That's why I'm saying things will never be perfect and you can't.

I think New York might be the only place.

New York might be the only city left with cabs.

It would be Uber normally, Uber or Lyft.

Lyft.

I prefer Lyft to Uber.

So for ethical reasons, I have to go into what people want, but not climate related, just other ethical.

But if someone wants to take a Lyft or Uber or whatever, but I like to support the old school New York taxis.

And we have an app curb where you just order them.

So yeah, we'll take a taxi to drop it off and then go.

I like the cab drivers too.

Liz, I respect them more than especially Uber.

Uber will do anything to make a buck.

It's just most people don't even know.

It's kind of like a CD.

What's a cab?

C-A-B-U-S, cab.

Oh, that's so funny.

Yeah, I guess I didn't even think of it because it's still so embedded here.

Oh, you're in New York, yeah.

Yeah.

In other cities, I've spent time in like, I mean, I guess I've lived in LA some and I've lived in Austin, but I've also lived in London and Paris and those are very taxi-based cultures too.

I actually felt bad for the cab drivers in New York.

It was years ago when they came out with the new ordinance, like made it so expensive to get a license to be a cab driver.

I had heard about that, something crazy and it was kind of like a scam or something.

It was ridiculous amount of money for what you make as a cab driver to have your own business, the fees that the city put on them to get licensed.

Probably from Uber, probably from Uber.

Somebody's.

Yeah, it's horrible.

And they're, I mean, they're such hard workers, you know.

I've 95 percent of the time only had good experiences with cab drivers here.

So I guess I was just adding that we have to take a cab because I think people get so caught up that you have to do climate perfectly.

You just can't, you can't have a life that you enjoy and do climate flawlessly.

I mean, some people, there's always like the off the grid person and they thrive that way, the majority.

Since you brought it up, I use the term greenwashing.

For example, there's this organization Green Sports Alliance and they have a green sports day and from what I can tell, they're still spraying the green field with pesticides.

Their idea of green being green, well, you buy a cup from them and you can reuse the cup.

But you see what they've done, Liz.

Yeah, selling cups.

Exactly.

You got it.

Why are you and me the only, there's nobody else see this.

It's like they're making a new cup, making you buy their cup.

And that's their huge green, the label on why they're green, green sports day.

And what are the cups made of?

How are they made?

Yeah.

Well, they can't be compostable because you're supposed to bring them back if you remember.

So there's all this information.

The reason I brought this up is you're right, it's so stressful for people trying to figure out what's greenwashing, what's baloney, and what can I really do?

I say keep it simple.

It's common sense, right?

Aspects of it are, but there's a lot of misinformation.

And, you know, I mean, we're used to living one way and it's really, it's not convenient in a lot of places.

It's really hard.

I mean, actually, I'll say it's basic.

I don't think there's anywhere it's really convenient to become sort of an embedded hobby.

Like, we grew up with our parents, like, grabbing plastic bags when we went to the grocery store.

We grew up, like, going to coffee shops, just throwing out our cups, you know?

And we just didn't necessarily always think about it.

And it's really-

It's actually going in a cycle.

If you ask my grandmother, she'll tell you they didn't have plastic cups or plastic bags.

And they saw that coming.

And then it became a convenience you got used to.

And now we're realizing, as you say, the effect on the climate or the effect on the waste.

Like, not every good new invention is-

might make your life easier, but it's not good for the planet.

Right.

And again, it's a balance.

Like smartphones are terrible for the planet, and there's so much ethical issues with them.

But like, the average-

You mean people buying a new phone every year?

Smartphones?

So having a smartphone in general, like I buy second-hand smartphones.

They're still ridiculously expensive, you know?

But-

Well, it's absolutely true.

People, it's ironic, people who think they're being eco-friendly, they go buy the new iPhone every year.

They have no idea what it took to make the computer chips in that new phone.

Right.

And then they think, well, I'm giving it to be recycled.

Who wants your old phone?

I buy like the cheapest, oldest ones.

Like, I'm not going to lie, I buy ones like two years old.

Do you know?

I mean, it's better than some.

But like, yeah, computers, iPhones are really bad for time.

Your life is set up, but I'm not willing to live a life where I don't want.

Like, my life would be very-

If the software engineers, now I'm speaking of Apple, Google, Google and Apple, if they were really eco-conscious, they would make software that doesn't become obsolete in three to five years.

At one point, you can't use your phone because you can't call a cab because the app doesn't work, because the software doesn't work.

The computer chip is perfectly capable of probably landing a man on the moon still.

But because your browser doesn't work and the app, the programmer software guy had some new line of code that he can do animation better with.

You got to throw it away.

That's-

Because they want you to buy more.

I mean, it's really unfortunate.

Well, they do want you to buy more.

Absolutely.

But it's also as the app developer, the person writing the app to call the cab, the phone, just even dialing the number on the screen.

Every year, they come out with more ways to do animation and AI, and do things different in the code.

And that requires an update for the programmer to use that code.

And then when he writes that code, using the new line, kind of like doing a website with some new way of doing something different for the software engineer.

Now your app on your phone has to be updated.

And at some point, it can't be because they embedded in that software something in the hardware that's new, like a new feature in the phone, like maybe it's 5G or something.

Basically your software doesn't work, your browser, excuse who comes down to your browser, doesn't work anymore, and your app doesn't work, and a perfectly good phone still, but you can't run the software.

It's completely anti-green.

What would be some way to build the phones where you could just take them in and for like $50 just update hardware parts?

Could they be built that way in the first place?

You're thinking awesome, Liz, I love the way you're thinking more better than some of the people at Google to get paid millions of dollars.

So with Google needs to hire me for millions of dollars.

I'll take it, I'll take it.

Or here's what happens.

Well, here's how America works.

Take wash machines because the ones that use less water, they shrink my clothes.

People don't believe me because they spin with less water.

So where I'm going with this is it takes a law.

So when cell phones came out, some of the first manufacturers are like, for two cents a penny, we could put up a shield in there to shield the radiation from your head, a penny.

They didn't want to do it unless Congress passed a law to make every manufacturer do it for like two cents.

So nobody does it.

So it'd be that kind of thing.

Or you need somebody really innovative, like a Google or somebody to say, this is a great idea, by the way, Liz.

I hadn't thought of this.

That's a great thing to pitch.

It's kind of like your car.

Same thing with your car.

How come I have to throw my car away?

Can't I just plug in a battery, like a lithium battery?

Why do I have to throw the whole car away?

It takes a lot of energy to make a new car.

That's really the way we need to be thinking if we're really going to make progress.

And about everything, like I had a mini fridge in my apartment before, as well as my larger fridge.

And the mini fridge I needed both.

This was like my newest apartment like a few years ago, and shortly after school, I had like free roommates and I'm the one who eats all organic.

So like, I mean, I need to, I always have a lot of food.

And the mini fridge broke and it needed just one part.

Now, the repair man who came out to replace the part is $800.

To buy a new one is $200.

Yeah.

Or maybe it wasn't $200, it was like $300.

But, you know, it was a significant difference.

And if I was in a different position at that point financially, I would have just had them repair it because that's important.

And I would have like done a video about it.

And it was crazy.

And so that's just there needs to be.

I thought of a way that you could encourage Google and Apple and why not to do this.

Yeah.

It comes down to money.

So what they could do is start by getting the people who have money to spend on new Teslas and that kind of disposable calf.

I hate Tesla.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sell those people like that who want to do good for the planet and have the money to buy a brand of the phone.

Like, we'll still keep making phones, but the new one, it'll be reusable forever.

It's designed to be upgradable.

But to buy the original one is going to be really pricey.

So you have to be the one that would buy the Tesla.

It's a lot of money, but if you really care.

I don't know if any of us are buying Teslas.

I'm not, especially in New York, right?

Because you don't have the charging stations.

Well, Elon's just like, absolutely an evil person.

I wouldn't support him.

I used to love him, but yeah, I would never support him.

I don't know much about this, Eon, because I don't accept that I-

Musk?

You don't know about him?

Your life's better.

I wish I didn't know about him.

The only thing that I was asking a reporter on the war, the Ukrainian-Russian war, about Eon Musk, because it seemed to me with his satellites and technology, he could help the war.

And what they told me, the Ukraine reporter was, he doesn't care.

He doesn't.

Yeah.

And I didn't get that because I'm like, something this big, if I have a billion dollars, how could I not do something?

Plus, it's my stuff in orbit.

What should I know about Eon since I have Eon?

See, I can't even say his name right.

Eon.

Well, he first of all works with the Trump administration.

They're like best buddies.

Number one, I don't trust overall.

There's always exceptions.

I don't trust someone who would work that closely to Trump.

Did you know that Trump wants to have a tower in Russia too?

Another conflict interest that came up with the war conversation.

Yes, he has.

Elon did a Heil Hitler salute.

And yes, he's saying, oh no, I was sending love, but he hasn't really, I will give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe they did a gesture, not realizing.

But now look at how he's responded to it.

He's not really taking it back in any way.

He went to Germany and he just gave a talk to them and said, stop focusing on the past.

Basically, who cares?

He's speaking to a lot of alt-right groups.

And there's a recent article about people who gave him a tour of Auschwitz.

And it was very in the people who...

You think maybe he could just be like the reporter was telling me, Daniel, it's not he's evil.

He's just, his money can't buy you truth.

All right, well, this is...

Well, what the reporter, the people who gave him a tour of Auschwitz, it was, I believe, a son of survivors and his wife.

And they said it was just clear he had absolutely no emotion, no emotional reaction.

No empathy, yeah.

He threw us that robot.

I mean, if you're born physiologically that way, what can you do about it?

But he seems to crave power.

I mean, that kind of money could wipe out world hunger.

I mean, there's just so much you could do with that.

Yeah.

So, witch, let me ask you about this back to the eco-consciousness and the renewable stuff.

Just your opinion.

Yeah.

I'm an aerospace engineer, actually.

And I never got, I worked as an engineer for 10 years, 11 years, but I never really got into the aerospace because some of the stuff they'd spend money on, I would be exactly, we could solve world hunger, bigger problems.

I can't get behind this.

This is a passion.

What's your take on if you care about the global warming and the CO2?

Every rocket that goes off is creating it like a volcano's worth of carbon dioxide.

This is where it's so, so hard because science and space exploration, NASA, it's wonderful.

I'm so into sending robots to Mars and exploring what's out there and curiosity.

And this is where we really have to be honest with ourselves, that this isn't a purest, easy answer of how to solve climate.

There are certain things that seem pretty easy, like you can say plastics are easy.

We can easily end those.

We can really reduce single use culture except in hospitals.

I mean, I do not want things reusable in hospitals.

So there's always like, it's not simple.

It's not this is the one thing.

Do I think we should give up space exploration?

We should not.

So what do we do?

I mean, I think the big focus is...

You don't have to worry about my opinion because I think the trees and the flowers need carbon dioxide to breathe and they make it back into oxygen.

It's a magic how it works, really.

Think about it.

So as an engineer in my environmental testing, I have a carbon, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, all the...

I can measure everything.

It's amazing how it never changes the level of oxygen in the air, unless you go to Mount Everest or high altitude, that will change it.

You don't have to worry about oxygen.

Somehow it works out, is what I'm saying.

Right.

But yeah, it's a tipping point.

I mean, we're supposed to have some carbon.

That's how the whole planet evolved.

But it's the tipping point.

We have way too much.

Like, our planet cannot keep up with the way we're destroying natural resources, using other resources.

You know, I mean, polar ice caps are melting now.

And that's just a fact.

Like, the temperature, I do not ask me to quote the numbers, but we've hit that tipping point percent where we're not going to be able to go back.

And it's, what do we do?

We're going to have to live this way.

I mean, maybe in a million years.

But as of, like, now, we're not going to be able to reverse it.

You know, quite a few generations, so.

Back to your business, give me a recap on what you've got, a lot of ideas you'd like to do if you could work more with caterers in the kitchen and the establishment.

Yeah, all sorts of things.

So, yeah, that's what you're asking, like about, I had gone through the food.

Another thing we do is, like, let's say we're working with on set.

You know, there's so much leftover stuff.

So, we do creative recycling.

We work with the company Avid Waste that does work with others as well, like to do things such as fabric recycling.

Like, we will recycle everything we can and, you know.

Oh, because of like a fashion show.

They might have a lot of clothes.

Simple.

We'll do everything from a fashion show to like a concert, you know.

I mean, interestingly, the services are very similar.

Ideally, we want to have no waste in the first place.

You know, it's ideally eliminating single use, you know, seeing where most of this comes from.

We are actually working on a system where we're going to eliminate plastic bags for garbage and recycling.

You know, how you always use plastic bags in the companies, you know, the waste companies pick them up.

So we're eliminating plastic bags.

We're on our way there.

Is that right into the dumpster?

Yeah.

I don't think as of now, this won't work with city waste.

You know, it's something I'd love to bring to cities in general, but they dump it directly into the truck without a bag, return the bin to us.

We have like these soft collapsible bins, and then we disinfect them.

So what would be the hang up?

It'd be you're leaving filth, bacteria inside the dumpster unless everyone throws plastic bags in there to keep the dumpster clean.

Is the headache that you're just making the dumpster really nasty?

If you don't use a bag, it's really bad.

So I think so.

It's also much easier.

Yeah, that's my guess.

I haven't really looked into why with city dumpsters, because, you know, these are, we work with specialized companies.

So, you know, we put the bags directly on the street.

That's how they do it.

And again, New York is a little different.

We don't really have dumpsters overall.

I mean, a few places do, but in general, it's bags go right on the street.

So I'm talking from a very New York center.

Yeah, I'm trying to think back in like a hundred years ago, they had metal trash cans.

They did?

Yeah, they didn't.

You know, there wasn't before plastics were invented.

There was no plastic at all.

Be metal.

It'd be a metal trash can.

Probably.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we also realize that like we'll got sick more.

Like I'm ill for it.

We like disinfecting is great, you know, so we have to.

Yeah, the probably the smell it.

It would probably be the smell on the stench more than people, more than a pathogenic bacteria.

It would be the it stinks.

Yeah, it's dirty.

Again, if you're doing composting, food waste does not go in our garbage.

Good point, Liz.

And that's what garbage does smell in our events and the shoots and nothing smells with our garbage doesn't smell.

We don't even have much garbage because we have hard plastics, which are like the coffee cups, and those could get a little gross, but I hadn't even thought of that.

I hadn't even thought of that.

Yeah, there's no food waste, and that's a lot of people's trash really is the food waste.

And people, I think you think, oh, it's natural organics, how would this be bad in a landfill?

But it's actually terrible.

I mean, I'm in the beginning, you know, before I really learned about composting.

I thought, oh, big deal, you're throwing out lettuce, like it will just naturally compost.

I mean, I didn't know the word composting a while ago.

This is, you know, naturally break down, it's lettuce.

But because the way that our landfills are, it gets trapped.

Now, tell me, talk to me about that.

I'm not aware of that.

Just to explain this better, and explain it in my understanding as a non-actual scientist.

That's great, then we'll be able to...

Listening and tell, think I'm, you know...

This is......any correction.

So this is better.

This is better because I'll understand it.

I want to understand it.

So, okay.

So you think of a landfill, there's no air.

There's not all the resources that are needed for food to compost.

Like the way our world is set up, not like the way humans have set it up, but naturally how evolution and nature has set it up.

Things compost, like you throw banana peel in the ground, it's going to compost and return to the earth.

Orange peels, when it's trapped in landfills under everything else, it doesn't get the natural resources, like the sunlight and the air needed for it to break down compost.

So it just gets stuck under there and it also releases a lot of carbon.

And it not only never breaks down, it releases carbon gases and it's really toxic.

And yeah, and it will just stay in the landfill.

So it needs to go be brought into the center.

Right, so ultimately, like a recycled center, every city would have a composting center to take organic waste?

Yeah.

I mean, in an ideal world, we can go further with that.

And there'd be a lot of little local farms around the towns, or if it's a big city on rooftops and greenhouses.

I mean, that's an ideal.

I'd love us to move towards that.

Or the same cities would take it to a center that makes compost to give to farmers or whatever it can be used, or just like they ship off this plastics right now to a recycling center.

Yeah.

And plastic recycling, it's just, it doesn't work.

I agree.

Yeah.

Tell me, I agree.

Tell us why.

Well, first of all, I'll start with the part that does work.

And this is very, there's just too much plastic that's consistent.

Like, for example, they're building like bricks out of plastic.

They're building, you know, houses and roads.

I mean, this is, and this is like specialized plastic recycling.

This isn't the norm.

At the average plastic recycling, it'll be recycled down, but it can only get recycled to a certain level because it keeps getting thinner and thinner, and then you can't recycle it anymore.

And in all recycling, microplastics are released.

And microplastics are terrible for us.

They're now being like found in newborn babies.

They're being found in like the deepest...

I didn't know that when they were...

I didn't know the recycling process.

I knew there had to be some chemistry behind recycling or heat or pollution.

It wasn't like magic.

Like it goes to recycling centers, it's done.

How does...

What's the process of recycling that creates microplastics?

You know, again, a scientist would have to explain this, though.

But from my explanation, when things are recycled, they're broken down.

Like glass can be recycled endlessly.

So glass is broken down.

It's, let's say, crushed into, like, finite sand like glass, and then it's reused to build new glass.

Which is so good, listeners, by the way.

Glass is so perfectly recyclable.

It's the best thing ever to recycle.

Now, there's a problem, though, with glass.

This is where nothing's perfect, because it's heavier, it causes more carbon when it's flown.

But I still-

It also takes a lot of heat.

It takes a lot of heat to make glass, so it takes a lot of energy.

If you're worried about global warming to make, it's the purest, easiest thing.

Unlike a solar panel, you can melt glass down into bits and pieces.

It's beautiful.

Yeah.

I'm still pro glass.

I was just saying that to add to like...

And that's why also I really like the idea of not having, overall not having single use, because you can just buy a glass once and just refill it, bring it to the store, refill it.

Or there's some zero waste stores where you leave the glass when you're done, and they clean it, and you can re-take it.

So the microplastics and inches kind of...

Microplastics.

Oh, yes.

Let me re-explain.

So now, do the same concept where you're breaking down all these little bits of plastic and only, okay, it's only like 20 percent of plastic even gets recycled in the first place because...

It's a smoking mirror show.

Like a collar, if there's a sticker on it.

Again, specialized recycling places that you have to pay more for do this right.

But the city plastic recycling, if it's not put in perfectly, and each city and municipal area and town has their own regulations on this.

But most plastic doesn't get recycled.

But when it does, you know, that picture, the glass process I described, microplastics are released.

They're tiny.

They're like microscopic, hence microscopic and then microplastics.

And below that are even nanoplastics, which are even smaller.

They get released.

So they get released into the air.

They're now in our rain.

I believe they're in outer space.

I don't know how far out.

That's what I was thinking.

It would be the air, like you can't contain it.

It's not a clean room.

It's not isolated.

It's like Mr.

Micro.

It's just like dirt and dust.

Some of the dust is going to get out of the, you know, come into your house.

Some of your dust is going to go out of your house and you walk out of the house.

Yeah.

I get it.

That's not good.

That is not good.

You don't have to be a scientist to know that that's not, because we keep making more plastics.

So it's ubiquitous.

And plastics.

Plastic recycling was started by the plastics industry, actually.

First, when people first heard about the issues of plastics and were cutting back on using them, then plastics recycling started that.

So they don't want plastics eternally recyclable.

They want you to keep buying more because they want to keep manufacturing.

Yeah, they've got to make money, too, unless they figure out a way to do it like we're talking about with the phones, make them reusable.

Right.

Oh, by the way, I actually got the police called on me one time or recycling.

What?

Wait, how?

What?

So this is a good story.

Habitat for Humanity.

Before there were commercial recycling pickups.

In my town where I lived, I would be in a builder.

I would see all the waste they were thrown away.

They could be recycled from cardboard, plastics, you name it.

And I go, why you guys throwing all the stuff away?

Your habitat for humanity.

They're like, well, they don't, there's no commercial recycle pickups.

So I'm like, well, I'll come get it and I'll take it to, to my house, put it in my bin.

So when my bin was overflowing one morning, I got up like, you know, 4 or 5 a.m.

went out with my pickup truck, putting it in the neighbors.

And you know, I wouldn't stuff the neighbors.

I would like, if one was completely empty, I'd fill it half full and go to the next one.

So it's not like I was, you know, stuffing it.

So if you came out of your house, you'd see your bin full.

Well, one guy, he came out yelling at me and he was mad because I was using his bin.

So I called the police.

Meanwhile, Habitat also said, if you miss one pickup, we're never saving stuff for you again.

And because I missed one, because I was working or something, couldn't make it, they quit saving stuff for me.

So.

Well, God, that's bad.

I mean, all of that.

First of all, the guy in the bin, at least talk to you.

You know, it's too bad because we could have all, a bunch of the people could have worked together on that.

Oh, he's terrifying.

But in mine and that Habitat could have been like, that's great.

Hey, just give us a heads up if you have to miss.

And, you know, so much that that's just so bad because that's like, this is one of the big problems, all of us.

Like we need to just have a lot more collaboration.

I mean, that's what's caused so much of the problems from like, we just need to collaborate in so many ways.

I know it's not that simple, but that is part of that.

Also understand the microplastics.

Like, why do I want to recycle if it's just going to make microplastics?

I almost want to throw it in, should I?

Well, let me ask you, Liz.

Is it better to throw the plastics in the landfill so we don't get microplastics in the air or better to recycle still?

I don't think so.

I think they still will release microplastics.

Like they don't, you know, they'll still break down eventually releasing microplastics.

In the dirt and the ground?

Yeah, they don't.

For like 300 years in perfect shape.

And that's one of the problems with some of the things they call compostable.

Don't ask me which brands.

I have to research this a lot more.

This is why, like, I overall, aside from like specific situations, think reusable, like China is better than compostable.

There's definitely exceptions.

But a lot of things that are called like compostable plastics just means they break down into micro nano a lot faster, unfortunately.

So that's like the water based pesticides.

But some of them like, but we know it's water based, non-toxic.

Yeah, together.

But as soon as they break down, those individual chemicals are more toxic as toxic, it's just together and they're going to break down.

It's difficult, which gets us back to common sense.

You just use common sense and, and because otherwise you're going to stress out about this too much.

I mean, yeah, you have to make basic only do it some, but I don't know how much you can use common sense to an extent, because there is so much embedded in our habits and it's hard to go against that.

Information and confusion.

But what's really cool, like this is one single use, definite compostable, I think is cool.

I forget where, I think it's like in a lot of places in Central and South America, they'll use banana leaves for plates, like just banana leaves directly from the tray.

I'm like, that's pretty great.

Also, you could just ask Liz if you hire her for your event, and that's what you're paying for, right?

Yes.

You have to really research each brand.

Like if someone's like, I want compostable, I would do like a long research.

And then there's still trade-offs, because like, for example, let's take a compostable plate that really is compostable, like made with the best resources.

It still has to be flown in bulk.

Some of them are still wrapped in plastic because they need to protect them from getting a bit of water.

But then it's like, maybe it's better than using the commercial kitchen cleaning for the plate.

So it's like, it's all about trade-offs and mass, mass reduction, because we're going to have to have some impact.

But the cradle to grave.

The cradle to grave is looking at what you just spoke about.

That's what I do with every step, yeah.

So I think that's something I'd like all of us to get to have more information on.

That's a lot of work to...

Yeah.

Can you work with, besides New York, like if someone was in LA or Phoenix, say Phoenix, you could still work with them consulting virtually for their event?

Definitely.

We can also find them involved in, I have like a pretty big climate network.

Well, I do party in LA, so I've worked in LA as well.

But I also have people on the ground in so far, New York and LA, and I could do virtual consulting and I could easily find someone local in Phoenix or anywhere in Arizona or anywhere, and I could do consulting virtually and work with them virtually.

For a huge event, we can fly.

For smaller ones, we can consult virtually and send one or two on the ground wraps.

I mean, when I worked at Motorola as the engineer, and I was like, can I get a computer, not for me, but to hook up to the equipment to collect data?

We don't have the money at the same time where we're growing a party for our customers, $70,000, $100,000.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You see a lot of that.

That's old dollars.

So when it comes down to events and parties, and especially for commercial customers and stuff.

And in these days, it's important.

Yeah.

Definitely.

Is there anything we haven't talked about in terms of your go-down list of things you do?

Yeah.

So I was bringing that a little, like the ideal.

So again, we try to talk to everybody about not having waste in the first place.

Where can we go?

Let's say I'm talking to, for example, set designers.

Where can they get, or do they want to help resourcing from, you know, rental places where things are reused rather than building?

If they're building from scratch, let's find like eco woods.

And then afterwards, what do we do with all this stuff?

For example, sometimes they'll be like pieces of furniture.

I was on one where it was like all the, they used all these dolls and dolls clothes.

And it's so that we find creative places to give them.

For example, you know, I think these are all around the country.

I'm not sure if around the world called buy nothing groups on Facebook, where you post stuff and people will just take stuff for free.

That's something we do with a lot of things that otherwise would be put in a landfill.

There's something in New York.

I'll have to check other places.

I've looked at California too, called Curb Alert.

It's on Instagram and you post photos of stuff that's just sitting on a curb.

New York, you always see like beautiful furniture and really cool things sitting on a curb.

So you post it and where it is and people can run and get it.

So finding creative solutions like that.

That's a good use of the apps, of the technology.

That's a smart city.

Yeah, okay.

Well, it's not their idea of a smart city.

It's my idea of a smart city.

I'll agree with you.

Yeah, I'll call that a smart city.

Yeah, I think the smart city people wouldn't allow you to put the junk on the curb.

That they'd have their cameras or their AI tell you, no, that's not allowed.

Oh, like that's a spooky smart city.

Exactly.

I was picturing something cool before you said it, but smartphones, where everything is super technical, and the roads are reading and getting data from your cars, and in good ways.

I guess I was picturing everything.

I'm actually new to the term only a week now, and that is part of it, like integrate the transportation system and stuff.

Then I'm like, well, already on my phone tells me where the traffic is and not.

If I'm taking the bus, is it going to not pick me up because it knows I'm the only person waiting for the bus, and it's a waste of energy?

Yeah.

Well, call me an Uber then instead.

Now, that would be okay.

If it goes, instead, we're going to give you a free Uber ride.

But I don't think so, Liz.

I'm looking for a guest actually to talk about the smart cities so I can learn more about.

I want to listen to that.

I think this stuff is so interesting.

And I think all of it, people are like, oh, is AI terrible?

I think everything is going to be used in the worst ways and the best ways, just like the internet.

Everything can be used different ways.

So that's some of what we can do.

Let's say it's a concert.

We'll work with companies to find reusable cups.

And again, the cradle to the grave.

How are the cups cleaned?

How are they made?

How are they sent to us?

Is there a local place?

If ideally, could we use like a...

You should patent or brand your process, Liz, besides your company, because you're one of the few people I've met that actually understands the back end of where stuff come from, as well as the forward.

Algorithm for that, yeah, you should brand your little system.

They're doing like QR codes.

But the problem is I had an idea of doing like QR codes for brands of the full process, but they don't want that.

You know, what brand wants that, you know?

They don't want to dirty laundry.

Yeah.

Where do stuff come from?

Yeah.

Well, it's like the solar panels.

Who knew?

Most people did not.

But what do you think is the better choice?

Do you think that makes solar panels still the worst choice?

I have heard of windows that like bring in the sun and solar, like windows that like keep your house cool in the summer and hot in the winter using like solar windows.

Since you mentioned it, I think that's actually the most technically advanced way we would be.

We would live literally in glass houses, and your walls could change color for privacy.

I do know when I was a builder, you can buy different types of glass depending if you're in a cold climate and you want to allow sunlight in or if you're in a hot climate, you want to keep the sunlight out.

So and also for like triple pane, you know, for insulation.

So maybe there's a window out that can do both, kind of like your sunglasses.

Well, what do you do in a place that has all four seasons?

You choose windows differently for each side of the house.

Oh, so this will be like this is where we spend our summer and this is where we spend our winter in the house?

Which side of house gets direct sunlight?

Which side's facing north and facing the forest?

It's always cold and you want heat.

You have to pick those before you build the house, otherwise you're going to get what you get when you order the windows.

So careful planning because it's not just A or B type windows.

There's grades of each type.

There's a whole bunch of a lot of different, a lot goes into actually picking windows if you want to pick the best windows.

And that helps with the energy efficiency and the global warming that you're speaking of too, not just comfort.

It's both comfort, because you don't want glare, you don't want too much glare, too much heat in a room, especially if it's south facing.

Unless you want it to be a hot room.

Back to your question about which is better.

I was a little cautious bringing this topic up, because some people think I'm the devil, like how you don't think solar is...

Nobody, nobody has ever even listened to this idea, let alone done it.

Show me the cradle to grave in a spreadsheet, making a solar panel, every step of the process, building the solar panel, to where it goes into the landfill, what happens compared to nuclear power, compared to burning natural gas to make electricity?

Because same thing, you got to get the gas out of the ground, and then take it to the power company on the truck or the pipe, and then burn it, and then that makes CO2 a spreadsheet that shows all that.

Then we could answer that, because right now, all I can tell you for sure is, solar panels are toxic to make, which implies like, I think they're bad, and I kind of do, I mean, they go in the landfill and it's really toxic.

It's like throwing toxic batteries or whatever in the landfill.

It's not sustainable.

So when you say it's the answer, I'm like, it's not.

But is it how bad or worse is it compared to burning fossil fuels or nuclear power?

We need a spreadsheet.

Nobody has that.

It would be an awesome, super-duper project.

If you're a student or a researcher, I would love to see it.

Maybe I'll organize that.

If someone wants to fund it, I have people I work with who...

Oh, okay.

So really quick, here's what we would need.

So this is what's good we're doing on this podcast.

We need people embedded in the industry to know the dirty secrets and the step-by-step.

See, I know the solar panels because I was an engineer for that process.

I was in the company.

I hear that.

For the solar panels, I could find somebody else just as talented as me and knowledgeable.

You would need somebody in the gas and oil business the same way that knows all the little stuff and the truth, and the real truth, not what you read in the textbook or your professor tells you.

The stuff that's not common knowledge, almost not trade secret, but yeah.

And then on the back end, the same people, I guess, could help you figure that out.

But I think the front end is the harder part.

What did it take to make?

You don't break it all down.

Yeah.

To get into every detail, this is what people like.

How did your employees get to work?

Did they take cars?

Did you have to fly people in and use carbon?

Like there's so this is like you have to think of every single thing.

What are they fed at lunch in the office?

Like, yeah, that's where that's where that's why I hadn't known the term cradle to grave, but that's exactly how I think about everything.

But there's a problem.

Sometimes anti-climate people will use it as like a gotcha.

They're like, well, I'm like, yeah, because you can't do it perfectly.

So you have to-

What's an anti-climate person gotcha?

What's that?

What's that?

Gotcha.

Kind of people who wear things have to be so perfect, and they're always kind of trying to attack people who are trying to improve things.

And there's a huge anti-science movement now in our country.

So when you-

they sort of have a misconception where, like, if you don't have everything perfectly, it's all wrong.

Like, think about, like, COVID, for example, because things change, that's how science works.

You gather more information and you change the-

and you behave differently based on more information coming in.

And that's just-

I don't know how that's not so obvious to people.

It's like, type of mindset.

There's a huge portion of people and enough to have a dangerous effect where they say, well, see, then it's wrong.

And they kind of do a gotcha.

So if you're to take, like, for example, this is something I saw at one store that's great, where I buy things in bulk and I put it in glass.

And I got there really early one morning when they were opening right in time and they were filling their bulk bins and everything had been, they were filling it with huge amounts of stuff that was in plastic.

Now, that's where someone could be a gotcha.

They could be like, see, they use plastic, but it's all a trade-off.

They're using a lot less than if everyone's buying little individual, for example, like pretzels is one of the things they have there, individual pretzel bags.

It's not perfect and probably it's cheaper to use plastic.

Everything way benefits.

So, and it's also changing habits.

Like, that's a big thing.

And once maybe people, this spreads much more as a movement, people will start to notice the behind the scenes and be like, oh, well, that has to change.

It's like every little thing that's not done perfectly.

Well, then let's throw it out.

We have to work in steps and real with reality and change as we get more information.

And we just have to work within reality.

Yeah, or just call it like it is.

I'm going to put myself in the gotcha position.

I gotcha.

So what could we do better?

Or, oh, we can't do that right now.

Besides just saying, oh, it's like this.

I still have to work on this list.

Because I used to be really, really always problem, problem, problem, problem.

Oh, no.

Were you a gotcha person?

Oh, not so much a gotcha.

One time I gave a talk to some college students, class environmental studies about stuff like we're talking about.

And afterwards, like, what should we do now, Dan?

Just go, literally, this is what they go like, kill ourselves.

Like, so depressing.

Yeah.

And ever since then, I'm like, focus on the solution.

So from a gotcha, don't open my mouth until I also have an equal opposite gotcha.

Like, I see that plastic.

Could we do this instead?

And not focus on the gotcha.

Don't open your mouth unless you have a solution to the gotcha.

Because it is a gotcha, right?

That's true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or at least, I guess if we were a more, a lot of us are, but if there wasn't, you know, I'm talking about against the negative, also just say, hey, that's a problem and we don't know the solution yet.

Let's work on it.

I think there just needs to be a lot more understanding that things need to be figured out and they're not done perfectly.

And I think there's a lot of like, when something's not done perfectly, it's like, ha, see, it doesn't work.

End it all.

And I mean, I'm talking now about climate because that's what I'm spending time with.

But I think that's what people, a lot of people do with everything.

Now, what's another example that comes to mind a year?

In climate or in general?

Well, you pick in climate.

I'm open to hearing one about climate.

Kind of curious.

Yeah, okay.

So, like you said, the solar panels, well, ha, see, let's just not even bother anymore.

We can just use nuclear, see solar panels don't work instead of, oof, that's a problem with solar panels.

We're kind of working with solar.

Let's figure out that this is the problem.

Now, we have this part down.

How do we fix that aspect?

That's kind of what I mean.

So, nobody wants to hear it, Liz.

This solution is none of the above, not nuclear, not solar.

It's reduce how much energy you use.

What was it?

Sorry.

Reduce how much energy you use.

Quit using so much energy.

Okay.

That makes sense.

But nobody wants to do that.

Nobody wants to...

Does that involve individual, or does that involve technology that doesn't use it?

It involves the individual.

When you start to hear it now, how many kilowatts to the data storage, to store everything you do on the Internet, to use the Internet, even to use your phone for a second, the transaction it takes on the Internet, the power to do that, the servers, and so forth.

The ripple effect, that takes energy.

And if your solution is, well, I'm going to get a solar-powered phone.

Okay.

Well, now that wasn't free to do that solar panel either.

The answer is, don't do it.

Use less energy.

Part of the solution to that is to make stuff more efficient.

Light bulbs, for example, energy-saving light bulbs.

Thing is, energy-saving light bulbs actually have a chip in them.

We're back to a little semiconductor.

Yeah, it's more than a chip.

That thing's like a little electronic gizmo inside there, those energy-saving bulbs, a little computer basically.

It's not recyclable.

You can't throw it out.

Where's the cradle of the grave when making it?

Well, it uses less power.

Turn off the lights.

It's kind of like with the washing machines.

When they went to low-flow wash, when they made it a law, you can't have so much water in your washing machine.

You can only buy low-water washing machines these days.

Well, I used to do a full load, I closed shrink in these now, and I have to throw my clothes away half the time.

So, how, it's, you're saving water, but I was not using any more water than anybody else.

I was doing a full load.

You got to use less power.

Nobody wants to.

And so we come up with free energy, which I honestly think that's possible.

That's interesting, too.

So free energy, real quick, is the idea that there's a natural electromagnetic field around the planet.

It's what makes a compass move.

You know, it's not magic.

Your compass moves because there's a magnetic field.

And that what the device called a torus is what some people call it.

You could literally have one of those on your street corner, and it would be collecting powers.

The planet, you know, Earth goes through space.

This gets into a conspiracy theory, though, and that that technique...

Let's hear it.

Let's hear it.

Well, all the power companies wouldn't want it because all the utility companies would be out of business.

You would buy one of those, and you'd have free energy forever.

And there would be no waste, zero waste, because you're just grabbing as the planet's already got momentum going through the universe, tapping into that field that's already there.

The electromagnetic field is the same way they make power, whether it's nuclear power, except for solar, whether it's oil and gas burning.

You burn the gas and all of them make steam.

It makes a turbine move.

That turbine has an alternator, like coils on it, like your car coils and magnets that make power.

It's the same idea.

With the free energy, the Taurus, it's just that earth's moving through space.

Now, you don't need to burn stuff to make something move.

We're already moving.

You just put the thing out there like you're driving in a car and put your hand out the window.

And you would just buy one of those and put it on your house and be good forever.

That would be amazing.

I mean, I hope you're right.

I mean, I actually do think what I would guess is the real solution to all of this is you get really, really smart think groups together, say realistically, this is the problem.

Do some of the research for the immediate, like nuclear versus solar, what are the risks?

Also, like human cost, the treatment of children in minds who are sourcing the materials for electric cars, for example.

I mean, incredibly abusive.

So you have to look at all the costs.

Yeah.

What is the best solution for the immediate?

Now let's figure out for the long term.

Okay, so if you're right about this, that's absolutely amazing.

I'll encourage everybody.

How do we deal with like?

Especially young people question everything.

And everything, but also listen to, within reason while examining research, but also understand there are experts.

Because I think I also hate that there's been a death of expertise.

There are people who are like so much older, like 70 years old, who dedicate their whole life to really delving into something.

But you know, you can't be an expert in everything.

That'd be exhausting.

So there has to be some trust too.

So I think it's a balance, I would say.

Yeah, that's a good point.

The elders, the people that invented solar panels, like the guy that taught me and he's 80 and he's still alive.

And he's very green, very, very green.

He would love to talk about this stuff.

Those are the kind of people you need to find.

There's people out there who...

Because they're not writing blogs, you know, they're retired or they don't need the money or it's not what they do.

So you're not going to find them on the internet.

Yeah.

Well, it's been great talking to you, Liz.

It's been wonderful speaking with you again.

Thank you so much for having me.

Good conversation.

For those of you who are planning an event or just want to be eco-friendly at your next conference or show whatever you're doing with your company or personally, her website is whygetwasted.com.

Details will be in the show notes.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Liz.

Thanks so much for being on my show.

Sure.

Have a great day.

Good to see you.