Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry'll be here eventually, but for now, all
Speaker 2: you got is Josh and Chuck. But really, what more
Speaker 2: do you need? Ton of stuff you should know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, in our world, in about two or three minutes,
Speaker 1: Jerry will just come in and go, hey, I'm here, gos, Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm late.
Speaker 2: I feel like she's learned not to do that. She'll
Speaker 2: just sit there on mute for a while. Really, yeah,
Speaker 2: she hasn't done it in a little while. She's really
Speaker 2: turned over a new leaf. All right, we'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 2: We should leave it in if she does come in, Yeah,
Speaker 2: we should do that. We'll share with everybody.
Speaker 1: Except they'll just hear our ends. Although here is oh god, Jerry.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I think as she chimes in on riverside,
Speaker 2: we could edit that into the final all.
Speaker 1: Right, edit. This will be a fun test.
Speaker 2: It will be and there's a little peak behind the
Speaker 2: curtains for everybody of how we do our thing slap dash,
Speaker 2: that's right while making fun and Jerry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hey, I just noticed we were not on the
Speaker 1: list of time magazine's one hundred greatest podcast of all time?
Speaker 2: What really?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was funny because I saw that list and
Speaker 1: my first instinct was, I mean, top one hundred, Like
Speaker 1: that's a lot, Like, surely we cracked the top one hundred.
Speaker 2: They probably haven't heard of us, is what it is.
Speaker 1: Now. We're not on there. Literally all of our old
Speaker 1: time colleagues, you name it, Radio Lab ninety nine percent invisible,
Speaker 1: Ira Maren like every podcast of note of the past
Speaker 1: eighteen years except for spe Wow.
Speaker 2: That's very stuff you should know, isn't.
Speaker 1: It It is? It is very fitting.
Speaker 2: We don't let that stuff get to us.
Speaker 1: So do we know Time magazine who cares?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And even though they put out a stupid podcast list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, watch, we're going to be Men of the Year. Now.
Speaker 2: The headline on the cover will be like, oh gosh,
Speaker 2: we forgot.
Speaker 1: Well you'll be Man of the Year, but I won't
Speaker 1: be mentor That's how it would work.
Speaker 2: That's what Time does. They tinker with relationships by dividing.
Speaker 1: That's right. Speaking of tinkering, I think we could all
Speaker 1: tinker with our worldwide economy a bit and perhaps make
Speaker 1: it more circular.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Well, Josh, I'm talking about our topic at hand, mhm,
Speaker 1: talking about circular economy.
Speaker 2: My friend, Oh, I got I didn't get the reference.
Speaker 2: M So have you heard of this before? Uh yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: I ran across it. As far as I know, it's
Speaker 2: fairly new from the two thousand aughts. I didn't see
Speaker 2: that it was an idea that was laying around already
Speaker 2: in this exact form and then was picked up and promoted.
Speaker 2: So it's possible it was generally created by the Ellen
Speaker 2: MacArthur Foundation.
Speaker 1: Hats off to Ellen MacArthur.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, Ellen MacArthur, as far as I know, still
Speaker 2: holds the world record for the fastest solo sail trip
Speaker 2: around the entire world, twenty six thousand miles of circumnavigation
Speaker 2: circular in seventy two days. Yeah, she loves circles and
Speaker 2: apparently on her trip. I was reading about it. It
Speaker 2: sounds just insane. And by the way, whenever I read
Speaker 2: of like world sailing trips, I can't help but think
Speaker 2: of one of the best documentaries of all time, Deep
Speaker 2: Water about Donald Crowhurst. I believe you've seen it before.
Speaker 2: I know we've talked about it. Oh, if you haven't
Speaker 2: seen it, I actually envy you.
Speaker 1: Is this the guy h the diver?
Speaker 2: Nope, he's a sailor. There was about like a nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy five World Sailing competition.
Speaker 1: So he was, mi, is it deep water if he
Speaker 1: wasn't deep in the.
Speaker 2: Water, because he's he's sailing over deep water.
Speaker 1: Oh, over DeepArt. They should call it over deep water.
Speaker 1: You sailing over deep water?
Speaker 2: You should actually all wait, but let's just pause recording
Speaker 2: and go watch it. Is that good?
Speaker 1: I'll look into that. I've been on a documentary kick lately,
Speaker 1: so I'll I'm ripe.
Speaker 2: This is time. Would put this one on their top
Speaker 2: one hundred documentaries of all time probably, so yeah. So
Speaker 2: while she was sailing around the world, she just started.
Speaker 2: She had, I guess, a lot of time to think
Speaker 2: and saw a lot of waste and junk and terrible
Speaker 2: stuff and realize that there's a better way. And a
Speaker 2: lot of people have thought like, Okay, there's a better
Speaker 2: way to do this. There has to be. And what
Speaker 2: she promotes, what she's kind of come up with is
Speaker 2: this idea of a circular economy. In a very short
Speaker 2: back of the envelope sketch of it, the outputs, the
Speaker 2: waste of the economy get reused as inputs as basically
Speaker 2: turned into aw materials, and people say, oh, recycling, that's
Speaker 2: a big part of it. But as far as the
Speaker 2: circular economy is concerned, we idealize recycling like we're like,
Speaker 2: that's the best you can do. They're like, that's actually
Speaker 2: the least desirable out of all of them. There's a
Speaker 2: bunch of other stuff we can do instead. So circular economy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it sort of aligns with the whole reduce, reuse,
Speaker 1: recycle ethos. I think we could best explain it by
Speaker 1: maybe starting with what we generally have now, which is
Speaker 1: linearar economy. And that's who helped us with this. Dave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dave helped us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's smacks of Dave, but Dave calls it and
Speaker 1: Dave didn't invent this term. But it's a take make
Speaker 1: waste economy system where you take resources and you know whatever,
Speaker 1: like cotton or any kind of raw material, you make
Speaker 1: something into that to a product to sell to people,
Speaker 1: and then that thing maybe generally quickly wears out and
Speaker 1: you throw it away and it goes into a landfill.
Speaker 1: It's very I mean, it's kind of the worst possible
Speaker 1: scenario you could ask for if you care about planet
Speaker 1: Earth and people in the world and animals in nature.
Speaker 1: And it's linear because it goes in one way. You
Speaker 1: have something, you make something, and then that thing wears
Speaker 1: out and you throw it in the landfill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you take the cotton that you grow, you make
Speaker 2: it into a car. You drive the car into a
Speaker 2: landfill and jump out right before it goes over the cliff.
Speaker 2: That's what everybody does.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: So you left out, kick back and watch the money
Speaker 2: roll in, because that's ultimately what the biggest challenge to
Speaker 2: implementing a circular economy is. One of the biggest ones
Speaker 2: is that the linear economy that we have set up
Speaker 2: that's been around since the Industrial Revolution is a money
Speaker 2: making machine. And it's easy to criticize when you sit
Speaker 2: there and look at all of the terrible waste and
Speaker 2: pollution and inequality that's been generated from it. You can
Speaker 2: also say, yeah, this wealth has funded a lot of science,
Speaker 2: it's improved a lot of living conditions. Even the poorest
Speaker 2: people in America are living high on the hog compared
Speaker 2: to the poorest people in other nations, like the wealthy
Speaker 2: nations have really done well for themselves with the linear economy,
Speaker 2: and again that's a big reason why there's a lot
Speaker 2: of reticence to transition to something different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, there are some you know, notable I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think of a term we could come up
Speaker 1: with that labels instead of a gold star, like an
Speaker 1: industry that gets the opposite of that, like a turd
Speaker 1: pin or something that.
Speaker 2: You wear that worn't so much tird. But yes, that
Speaker 2: would work very well.
Speaker 1: Do you know what makes turd worse is that it's
Speaker 1: spelled t rd.
Speaker 2: Yes, that definitely does make it worse. Everything about that
Speaker 2: word is so bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, totally. So the four sectors that are sort
Speaker 1: of the worst are food, electronics, consumer goods, and construction.
Speaker 1: Food obviously, and we're going to get into these, you know,
Speaker 1: more specifically as we go on, but generally speaking, food
Speaker 1: is a pretty terrible sector. And we've talked about food
Speaker 1: waste before, but it's not just the food waste that's
Speaker 1: like tossed by grocery store and restaurants and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but it's also you know a lot of places still
Speaker 1: are just using those single use bags and people are like, sure,
Speaker 1: double back it triple back it. I don't want my
Speaker 1: tube of two face to fall through that thing into
Speaker 1: the parking lot, and then all the packaging that goes
Speaker 1: into it. And we've you know again, we've covered all
Speaker 1: this stuff in various forms here and there. Unsustainable farming, electronics.
Speaker 1: Don't even get me started on electronics. Recycling and electronics
Speaker 1: that are basically impossible to repair or get repaired.
Speaker 2: Well, they're designed that way. If we did an entire
Speaker 2: episode on that planned obsolescence.
Speaker 1: And nothing gets me more mad. Almost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when a company purposefully designs a product to break
Speaker 2: in a short amount of time, like they'll put some
Speaker 2: sort of sensor or electrical component next to something that
Speaker 2: generates a lot of heat so that it degrades faster,
Speaker 2: Like it's designed to break for you to throw away
Speaker 2: and then go buy another one. That's a big problem. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like you said with electronics, But clothing is another one too.
Speaker 2: It's designed to just be worn. You buy it cheaply,
Speaker 2: you wear it for a little bit, you throw it away,
Speaker 2: and we'll, like you said, we'll talk more about this
Speaker 2: stuff later. But my eyes started popping out when I
Speaker 2: was reading about clothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one for sure. And then construction. A lot
Speaker 1: of resources used in construction and you know, basically construction
Speaker 1: materials anytime we've done any sort of like renovation project.
Speaker 1: Because you know, we live in like a hundred year
Speaker 1: old house, so we instead of moving, we kind of
Speaker 1: stayed and fixed it up over the years, at first
Speaker 1: by ourselves and then with you know the help of
Speaker 1: contractors and such. And as you know you've been through
Speaker 1: stuff like that, it's like when that construction dumpster pulls up,
Speaker 1: we do everything we can. We fight tooth and nail
Speaker 1: to give stuff away, Like, hey, can you put all
Speaker 1: these awesome hundred year old bricks out by the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: Someone will take them and you know they will acquiesce.
Speaker 1: You know, they hate dealing with us because they just
Speaker 1: want to throw that stuff in the dumpster. But we've
Speaker 1: managed to get rid of a you know, we're going
Speaker 1: through a little thing now. And I had this really
Speaker 1: awesome screen door and they were literally throwing this really
Speaker 1: nice screen door. It was like a good one. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just like a forty dollars screen door.
Speaker 2: It was like a Prada screen door.
Speaker 1: No, this is Gucci, I think, no. But it was
Speaker 1: like a from like a craftsman company for craftsmen homes.
Speaker 1: It was sort of like an upscale screen door, and
Speaker 1: they were throwing at the trash and almost tackle the guy.
Speaker 1: And I put that thing out there and it was
Speaker 1: gone in an hour, you know. And I bet just
Speaker 1: little things like that make me feel like, oh God,
Speaker 1: I saved one little thing from the landfill.
Speaker 2: Nice work man.
Speaker 1: Not for a pat on them back, but you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, It.
Speaker 2: Just it's a conservant.
Speaker 1: It just kills our consciences, just burning up when they're
Speaker 1: throwing away, even old wood and stuff. You know. I
Speaker 1: try to take that stuff to the camp and burn it.
Speaker 2: You know what I found. When you're dealing with contractors
Speaker 2: and subcontractors, if you want them to do something, you
Speaker 2: have to tell them directly, yeah, and a kind of
Speaker 2: an authoritative voice and then finished also with chop chop.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also stand there and watch them because as
Speaker 1: soon as you leave, they'll just say like whatever, dude.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure, yeah for sure. Okay, So you guys
Speaker 2: out there listening probably have bloody crescent shape fingernail marks
Speaker 2: on the heel of your palms from hearing all this stuff.
Speaker 2: So just settle down, relax a little bit, because now
Speaker 2: we're going to tell you a little bit about an
Speaker 2: alternative to that, the closed loop model, not linear circular,
Speaker 2: the circular economy, and it basically says it takes a
Speaker 2: look at everything wrong with the linear economy and fixes
Speaker 2: it one by one. And it's like there's a lot
Speaker 2: left open. It's not like this is just a like
Speaker 2: a completely ready to go economic model. It's going to
Speaker 2: solve every single problem and it's not going to create
Speaker 2: any other problems. It's more we're at the most conceptual star. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that is being presented to people to say, hey, there's
Speaker 2: another way, and here are some of the ways we
Speaker 2: can do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's sort of just the opposite of everything
Speaker 1: we were just saying. Instead of planned obsolescence, there's a
Speaker 1: planned Permanen's like, hey, let's make something that lasts for
Speaker 1: a long time. That's one. Makes something that's repairrable. That's another. One.
Speaker 1: Really kind of brilliant thing that we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about later is this idea of instead of owning something
Speaker 1: like sharing stuff, renting things, sharing things, paying for the
Speaker 1: use of things that you don't own, right, like, you know,
Speaker 1: splitting that up and then if something finally does reach
Speaker 1: the end of its life, because not everything will last forever,
Speaker 1: even the most well made thing. Those components then you
Speaker 1: can take down and hopefully most of not all of
Speaker 1: that can be recycled or remade into something else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you'll notice, reduction of consumption isn't an
Speaker 2: emphasis of this. I didn't see that talked about much
Speaker 2: at all. So no one's saying like, hey, you can't
Speaker 2: keep growing. It's just that the stuff that you're creating
Speaker 2: needs to last much, much longer, and the greatest thing
Speaker 2: you can do is to keep it as close to
Speaker 2: the consumer as possible. Right, So let's say you have
Speaker 2: a hammer. Everybody knows a hammer breaks, like the second
Speaker 2: time you ever use it.
Speaker 1: Would you hammer in the morning more of the evening
Speaker 1: for me?
Speaker 2: Okay, but I would do it all over the land, right,
Speaker 2: So when you take a hammer, I was kidding about
Speaker 2: it breaking. But if you have a hammer and you
Speaker 2: don't use it a lot, the best you could do
Speaker 2: is give it to somebody else who is going to
Speaker 2: use it more, rather than throw the hammer away. That's
Speaker 2: a terrible example. I know people don't really throw hammers away,
Speaker 2: but keeping it it reused, so that there's no inputs
Speaker 2: or very little inputs. That's the ideal. The more inputs necessary,
Speaker 2: taking it apart, transporting it somewhere, putting it back together,
Speaker 2: refurbishing it, that is the least desirable, even though that's
Speaker 2: still within this scope that we currently have in the
Speaker 2: linear model. That that's like the best you can do.
Speaker 2: The you know, like recycling, recycling is the last thing
Speaker 2: you want to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and hammer's not the worst idea, my friend, because
Speaker 1: I'd say ninety nine percent of the people out there,
Speaker 1: if they're hammer handle breaks. Let's say you have a
Speaker 1: wooden hammer handle and that breaks, people just throw it
Speaker 1: in the trash and you can fix that. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite things to do is I follow a few
Speaker 1: Instagram accounts where people fix things in front of your
Speaker 1: face like that, just simple everyday things. And it's incredibly
Speaker 1: rewarding to see someone take something that would normally be
Speaker 1: in the trash and they're like, Oh, you need to
Speaker 1: do is get another piece of wood. Get that other
Speaker 1: piece of wood fully out of there, h and shape
Speaker 1: it like the broken piece. And then you've got another hammer.
Speaker 2: How do you shape it like the broken piece? What
Speaker 2: tool do you need for that?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, these people do this for a living,
Speaker 1: so they may have a lath or something, but like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't even have to be pretty. I could I
Speaker 1: bet you give me a broken hammer, buddy, with my
Speaker 1: limited tools and skills, I could make that hammer new
Speaker 1: again if I really wanted to.
Speaker 2: Okay, here's a challenge. I challenge all stuff you should
Speaker 2: know listeners to mail Chuck your broken hammers and he
Speaker 2: will show every single one of them for you for
Speaker 2: free and mail them back out of his own pocket.
Speaker 1: That's right. Send it to a top one hundred podcaster
Speaker 1: at one two three Lane, Atlanta, Georgia. Should we take
Speaker 1: a break, Yeah, let's.
Speaker 2: Take a break.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2: So okay, so far basically what we've been saying are
Speaker 2: all good ideas. Very few people are like no, I
Speaker 2: want to throw my hammer away. I get the deep
Speaker 2: satisfaction throwing that broken hammer away. Most people just don't
Speaker 2: want their hammer to break, which again is addressed like
Speaker 2: making products planned for permanence, making them just better rather
Speaker 2: than cheaper. But all of this stuff like is going
Speaker 2: to take a complete shift in how we view economics,
Speaker 2: how we view growth, and also how we view consumer
Speaker 2: behavior because we're in a linear model right now, and
Speaker 2: the basis of the linear model is making it as
Speaker 2: easy as possible for you to buy and use and
Speaker 2: throw away get rid of whatever product it is you're buying,
Speaker 2: whether it's potato chips, a hammer, a cotton for a car, whatever.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get me every time. By the way, I
Speaker 1: could keep going back to that. Well, yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: there are examples of things and companies that are and
Speaker 1: have been doing this. You know, Dave looked down on
Speaker 1: his kitchen table and saw an aluminum can, was like, hey,
Speaker 1: there's a good example right there. Aluminum is a very
Speaker 1: recyclable thing, and thankfully it's it's being recycled and at
Speaker 1: pretty good rates. It depends on where you are. If
Speaker 1: like you're in Brazil, that's about one hundred percent, if
Speaker 1: you're in the USA about sixty five percent. But the
Speaker 1: average aluminum can that you're gonna purchase in the United
Speaker 1: States is made from about seventy one percent recycled material.
Speaker 1: So we're doing okay there, it's a good example.
Speaker 2: We're doing great. It's a great example. It's the probably
Speaker 2: the top example as far as the United States goes.
Speaker 2: People tend to recycle cans, and they're easy to recycle,
Speaker 2: So we have a process in an infrastructure that makes
Speaker 2: the whole thing fairly low hanging fruit. And because aluminum
Speaker 2: cans are light enough but also compactable, you can transport
Speaker 2: a bunch of them, so it's worth your while to
Speaker 2: transport them from a pickup site to like our actual
Speaker 2: recycling centers. It's just checking all of the boxes. Even still,
Speaker 2: though you see, with as easy as it is, thirty
Speaker 2: five percent of those aluminum cans just get thrown away
Speaker 2: in the trash.
Speaker 1: Who's doing that?
Speaker 2: A lot of people? I mean, I'll do that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, it's it's kind of nuts, but that is
Speaker 2: the case. So that right there just kind of goes
Speaker 2: to show you like that's where the consumer behavior needs
Speaker 2: to change. Everything else is basically in place for us
Speaker 2: to recycle all of the aluminum cans that we have,
Speaker 2: we're just not doing it. So that's like kind of
Speaker 2: one pillar or an example of one of the pillars
Speaker 2: that has to be adapted to go to a circular
Speaker 2: economy making people more thoughtful.
Speaker 1: I guess, good luck, buddy.
Speaker 2: I know, I think that's probably more than anything what
Speaker 2: makes this a pipe dream, I should say. The most
Speaker 2: cynical side of me says that.
Speaker 1: Is, getting everybody on board with a single idea these
Speaker 1: days is not possible, basically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because all it takes is one schmo to throw
Speaker 2: his can away in the trash and you just lost
Speaker 2: you one hundred percent recycling status and then everybody goes,
Speaker 2: what's the point of a circular economy anyway? And goes
Speaker 2: back to the linear economy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the stat that could throw out then is
Speaker 1: one hundred percent except Gary, mm, you.
Speaker 2: Know, and it would be a Gary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sorry Gary's. You know, it's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not all Garys are bad, but all bad people
Speaker 2: are Gary's.
Speaker 1: There's the stuff you should know shirt, not all Gary's.
Speaker 1: Just that's it, okay. There are also some examples of
Speaker 1: companies that, you know, I'm a big Shark Tank fan
Speaker 1: of that TV show, and it seems like more and
Speaker 1: more companies are coming through there that are that are small,
Speaker 1: and obviously they're small because they're on Shark Tank and
Speaker 1: looking for initial investments, but they're trying to do the
Speaker 1: right thing here. Getting corporations on board is the big problem.
Speaker 1: But I've seen a lot of companies come through Shark
Speaker 1: Tank where they're like and the reason I mentioned this
Speaker 1: is because Unilever is one of the examples of a
Speaker 1: corporation that's partnered with the Ella MacArthur Foundation. They're reducing
Speaker 1: plastic waste and they sell a ton of stuff. But
Speaker 1: like when they're selling detergent and stuff like that, or shampoo,
Speaker 1: now they have programs where you're like, hey, send in
Speaker 1: your empty shampoo bottle and we will fill that thing
Speaker 1: up and send it back to you or get it
Speaker 1: and concentrate stuff like that. And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: like shark Tank companies that are doing similar things, including
Speaker 1: cleaning products, where they're like, hey, there's a better way
Speaker 1: to do this, where you're just not even if you're
Speaker 1: recycling that plastic, just burning through these things on a
Speaker 1: daily and weekly basis and tossing it in the recycling
Speaker 1: or worse trash.
Speaker 2: For sure, right, And I think like entrepreneurs creating small
Speaker 2: businesses and focusing on like one thing that is sustainable, reusable, whatever,
Speaker 2: that's how larger corporations start doing that stuff because they
Speaker 2: buy those smaller corporations for that idea and implement it
Speaker 2: company wide hopefully. So that's great that those people are
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 1: Or they squash it, yeah, or they squash it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Lord, I just wanted to tell everybody we should say hi, Jerry,
Speaker 2: Jerry's here everyone.
Speaker 1: Oh I was I was wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that there are I did not see
Speaker 2: a single shampoo refilling station in the US there. I
Speaker 2: found them in Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, and Pakistan so far.
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's even better because then you're not,
Speaker 1: you know, mailing stuff, you know, because that's another type
Speaker 1: of ways. It's like just mailing the empty bottles and
Speaker 1: having that mail back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I mean, if you're going to the
Speaker 2: store already and they're like, they're attractive little shampoo refilling centers,
Speaker 2: and I guess if you were really hard up, you
Speaker 2: could go just put your head under the nozzle and
Speaker 2: do a little little squirt and then run home and
Speaker 2: wash your hair.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean they've been doing that with the big
Speaker 1: five gallon jugs of water forever, you know, at most right,
Speaker 1: I thought of that too. Yeah, that's a good thing
Speaker 1: because those things are are huge, and just swapping those
Speaker 1: out and refilling them just it only makes sense. Yep.
Speaker 2: There's also there's a Dutch company called Niaga, which is
Speaker 2: again backwards. You'd never know that unless someone told you,
Speaker 2: or you happen to be wearing a Niaga T shirt
Speaker 2: in front of a mirror.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is the word again. I think just the
Speaker 1: way you said that might be confusing.
Speaker 2: Okay, I got you. Yeah, I'm sure it was confusing.
Speaker 2: Can't you just hear like a time podcast monitor going
Speaker 2: and like checking some box that keeps us off the list?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like one on one.
Speaker 2: So if we're lucky. So this company, they're Dutch, they
Speaker 2: targeted carpets and mattresses and those are two of the
Speaker 2: worst offenders as far as at least as far as
Speaker 2: textiles go, but maybe as far as all products go. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because they're big, they're essentially impossible to recycle. They're very,
Speaker 2: very hard to recycle, and people throw a lot of
Speaker 2: them away. I think twenty million mattresses are thrown away
Speaker 2: in the United States alone, thirty million in Europe. And
Speaker 2: we tossed about two billion pounds yeah, of carpet away
Speaker 2: every year in the United States into landfills. Only five
Speaker 2: percent of carpet gets recycled. I couldn't even tell you
Speaker 2: where you would recycle carpet.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Is there a place called recarpet Maybe
Speaker 1: that's what it should be called, right.
Speaker 2: Or carpets again, right, or all of that backward. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean the other reason those two they're targeting those
Speaker 1: two a is because the people of the Netherlands are great.
Speaker 1: And hey, if you live in the Netherlands and you
Speaker 1: would go see a live podcast of us there in Amsterdam,
Speaker 1: let us know. Sure, let's go ahead and just say
Speaker 1: that we're putting out feelers for Europe, so we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from people about where we might could get
Speaker 1: an audience. Sure, is that okay to say that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should probably tell everybody it won't be for
Speaker 2: two years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're targeting twenty seven, but we're going to get
Speaker 1: back on the road next year, coming for you Canada
Speaker 1: in a big way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, So you better close the borders.
Speaker 1: That's a little Well, they might hope it will be
Speaker 1: welcome to get a pass.
Speaker 2: I hope it's up in the air.
Speaker 1: But long way of saying, the reason that they are
Speaker 1: targeting those specifically is not just the lifespan, but they
Speaker 1: actually have a name. They're called Medium Life Bulky Products.
Speaker 1: They you know, this stuff lasts about ten years, and
Speaker 1: they're just full of nasty chemicals, and so all of
Speaker 1: that leads to them being the two of the worst defenders.
Speaker 1: Mattresses and carpet full of chemicals don't last long, and
Speaker 1: they're fairly large.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially if they're stained mattresses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, good luck recycling that.
Speaker 2: I saw eighty two and twenty years for a mattress
Speaker 2: to degrade in a landfill, which actually seemed a little
Speaker 2: fast for me. You know, it's still not fast enough.
Speaker 2: So this company is like, Okay, we're actually going to
Speaker 2: make this stuff out of recyclable materials. But even better
Speaker 2: than that, we're going to make it so that every
Speaker 2: part of the mattress is replaceable.
Speaker 1: Imagine that or repaarable.
Speaker 2: Yes, so you're like, I got just a gallons of
Speaker 2: urine staining the cover of my mattress. I need a
Speaker 2: new mattress cover. Rather than throwing out the whole mattress
Speaker 2: and waiting one hundred and twenty years for it to degrade,
Speaker 2: you just call up Niaga and you say, hey, send
Speaker 2: me another mattress cover, and they say, hey, we didn't
Speaker 2: know that you could call direct from the United states
Speaker 2: to the Netherlands. But that's new for us. We'll send
Speaker 2: it to you straight away and they send it to you.
Speaker 2: You put it back on and there's no yearine whatsoever
Speaker 2: until the next time it happens.
Speaker 1: That's right. But they say what's the magic word and
Speaker 1: you have to go bug in like it's like a
Speaker 1: two year old.
Speaker 2: Again, that's the actually do that.
Speaker 1: It's great, And we'll look at other Dutch companies because
Speaker 1: they they're they're doing the right thing. It seems like
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. One key to all of
Speaker 1: this is, uh design. If you have a linear economy,
Speaker 1: which we do. Like we said, it's it's purpose it's purposeful.
Speaker 1: It's designed in such a way to make it, you know,
Speaker 1: either obsolete or just you know, a mattress that can't
Speaker 1: be recovered or whatever. So you have to start with design.
Speaker 1: It has to start on the very conceptual phase of like,
Speaker 1: how could we make a mattress that could last you forever?
Speaker 1: And then you design it that way because it's possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and design doesn't just apply to products, although that's
Speaker 2: the easiest thing to do, is to say, Okay, how
Speaker 2: can I design this product to fit into the existing
Speaker 2: recycling infrastructure, or design it to be reusable or repairrable.
Speaker 2: That's the easiest one. We also, though, need to design
Speaker 2: our recycling infrastructure to make it easier to recycle products
Speaker 2: that aren't designed to be recycled. So there's a lot
Speaker 2: of design that has to go. But you're right, like,
Speaker 2: it has to be a conscious choice, and Dave points
Speaker 2: out something I think is important too, Waste is a
Speaker 2: conscious choice too, Like when your little like mini bag
Speaker 2: of lazed potato chips, when you're done with it, you
Speaker 2: throw it away. It was designed to be thrown away,
Speaker 2: like that was a decision that was made by the
Speaker 2: package designers. They didn't do anything to try to make
Speaker 2: it recyclable. They decided that the best thing for you
Speaker 2: to do with that package is to throw it away.
Speaker 2: And as much as you hate it, you have no choice.
Speaker 2: Your choice is to buy those those lazed potato chips
Speaker 2: or not buy them. And some people are starting to
Speaker 2: based on the packaging. So people so some companies are
Speaker 2: starting to wake up. But for the most part, people
Speaker 2: are like, I don't want to think about but the
Speaker 2: packaging that my potato chips come in. I have so
Speaker 2: many more bigger pressing issues right now that if you
Speaker 2: can just make it so that the people don't have
Speaker 2: to think about recycling it, then you're onto something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: And I was talking about myself. I don't want to
Speaker 2: think about what I'm supposed to know on a potato
Speaker 2: chip package. And I'm not being judgy, like I'm including
Speaker 2: myself in this like I I mean, I would like
Speaker 2: to think I'm more conscientious than say the average person,
Speaker 2: but I'm certainly I'm not at like Chuck level.
Speaker 1: I'm not like the Emily level. You know me, I'm
Speaker 1: on her coattails right well. I mean when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, we had the Charles Chips driver come around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that, and we would give them our I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're of a certain age, you might remember this.
Speaker 1: There was a literal potato chip delivery company. They were
Speaker 1: called Charles Chips, and they came in a big metal
Speaker 1: ten and you would finish with that ten, and your
Speaker 1: chip person would come by and you would give them
Speaker 1: the ten of empty chips and they would give you
Speaker 1: a full ten of chips.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They'd reach in with the cuff of their shirt,
Speaker 2: wipe the tin out, put the chips in the tin
Speaker 2: sometimes I saw.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And obviously again there's still waste with the delivery
Speaker 1: truck and stuff, so save the emails. But we're talking
Speaker 1: about you know, we're not idealizing it as perfect. We're
Speaker 1: just saying like it's a better thing than what we're
Speaker 1: doing now, which is those little foil bags sitting in
Speaker 1: landfills for sure.
Speaker 2: And yeah, that's another thing too, is because this is
Speaker 2: kind of conceptual and not every issue is being tackled
Speaker 2: right out of the gate with it. Like energy uses
Speaker 2: a big part of it. So they obviously are like, well,
Speaker 2: we need more renewables. That's kind of a no brainer.
Speaker 2: But it's important because not everything can be done with
Speaker 2: renew with renewable resources. Some stuff just requires fossil fuels.
Speaker 2: Some stuff, say, requires nuclear, So you have to be
Speaker 2: able to design those power plants or those industrial smoke
Speaker 2: stacks so that that stuff's being captured and reused as
Speaker 2: an input somehow.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. And you know you talked about educating the consumer,
Speaker 1: but and it's not educating the corporation because they know
Speaker 1: this stuff. They do it on purpose for a reason,
Speaker 1: like you said, But it's more about like companies coming
Speaker 1: along where the end user isn't the single focus. They
Speaker 1: take a more macro view and say, well, there's something
Speaker 1: bigger at work with these products we sell, and that's
Speaker 1: Planet Earth and Mother Nature. And while the consumer is
Speaker 1: important and we want to give them a good product,
Speaker 1: we can start from the beginning and design something that
Speaker 1: has less of an environmental impact, designed to fit within
Speaker 1: these recycling networks, like you know, aluminum, like you were
Speaker 1: talking about, like once those are up and running, and
Speaker 1: a big one that I didn't even think of that
Speaker 1: day pointed out was like do you need this new product?
Speaker 1: Does the consumer need it or is it just like, hey,
Speaker 1: I think we could boost sales in Q three if
Speaker 1: we released a slightly different version of this dumb same thing.
Speaker 2: Right, So you kind of mentioned something where like using
Speaker 2: something like leasing or renting something can also be applied
Speaker 2: to things we don't normally think of is what we
Speaker 2: lease or rent. Right. One of the again a Dutch
Speaker 2: company called Bundles is basically they come to your house.
Speaker 2: They'll bring you your dishwasher or your washing machine, or
Speaker 2: your dryer, or your coffee maker, or you can bundle
Speaker 2: it all together. It's the name, and they're going to
Speaker 2: bring you a really high end Mela sustainably manufactured appliance,
Speaker 2: and you're going to have this thing in your house
Speaker 2: and you don't have to lift a finger other than
Speaker 2: to use it. This company brings it, they install it,
Speaker 2: they come by and maintain it when it's done. When
Speaker 2: you're done with it, say you're moving and you can't
Speaker 2: use it anymore, they're going to come pick it up.
Speaker 2: They're going to refurbish it. They're going to bring it
Speaker 2: to somebody else. It's like really circular. And the way
Speaker 2: that you are charged for it is by the number
Speaker 2: of washes you I guess carry out. I guess that's
Speaker 2: how you talk about launder you carry out a wash.
Speaker 2: It is called a paper wash model, and the whole
Speaker 2: basis of it is Wi Fi, like your washing machine
Speaker 2: is connected to their servers, so they're tracking how many
Speaker 2: times you're washing. And then from what I can tell,
Speaker 2: you get a monthly bill based on the amount of
Speaker 2: washes you did, the amount of use you did for that,
Speaker 2: or you use for the washer or the dryer or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It might take away here is what You've never washed
Speaker 1: your own clothes? Have you?
Speaker 2: That is not true. I'm actually kind of good at
Speaker 2: my own clothes. I had to get good because I
Speaker 2: don't know how I do it. But there's not a
Speaker 2: day that goes by that I don't get a spot
Speaker 2: on one of my T shirts. So I've gotten good
Speaker 2: at salvaging T shirts.
Speaker 1: Same, same. It's incredible how stained my T shirt gets
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. And I do believe you can
Speaker 1: carry out a wash like nobody's business.
Speaker 2: Shout. That's what I use. I shout it out. It
Speaker 2: works really well.
Speaker 1: I use and I hate having to use it. But
Speaker 1: my friend from that has been working in wardrobe departments
Speaker 1: in Hollywood for thirty years said, zout is the one
Speaker 1: I've not heard of.
Speaker 2: Zout? Why do you hate to use it? Is it
Speaker 2: made from coal?
Speaker 1: It's just one of those disgustingly smelly products.
Speaker 2: Is it naptha?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but no, I mean they mask it.
Speaker 1: It smells like, you know, just really really really really
Speaker 1: heavily fragranced. Yeah, and you know we're not down with that.
Speaker 1: So it gets out of spot. But it'll it'll taint
Speaker 1: you gotta wash it by itself. It'll it'll taint your
Speaker 1: whole load. Should we take a break, Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: We'll take a break and be right back. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back. I did want to mention one thing. We
Speaker 1: had to take a quicker break. We were laughing too hard.
Speaker 1: But on bundles and that renting appliances, you have to
Speaker 1: do a lot of education in the United States to
Speaker 1: overcome the perception of what the rented appliances means. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we grew up in and you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: probably still the same way as gen xer is, where
Speaker 1: you know, appliance rental was something like you did if
Speaker 1: you couldn't afford to buy stuff, like you rented your
Speaker 1: TV or whatever. You're like, oh, man, that means you
Speaker 1: don't have much money to buy a TV. But there
Speaker 1: is a better way. And I wish they had the
Speaker 1: here man, because we've had some really bad appliance luck
Speaker 1: and it makes me so mad because this stuff's expensive.
Speaker 1: I would love to rent washer and dryer.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll rent you mine a bird.
Speaker 1: They can carry out a heck of a watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's part of the American dream to own your
Speaker 2: own washer and dryer.
Speaker 1: And I mean, man, no, I hate those things.
Speaker 2: The government can take it from your cold dead hand
Speaker 2: if they try, Uh, Yeah, that's definitely. It's definitely part
Speaker 2: of American cultures. You own your stuff. Yes, you will
Speaker 2: talk about food though, Okay, you own that too. If
Speaker 2: you buy that, you own it here in the United States.
Speaker 2: Not sure what it's like in other countries. But food
Speaker 2: is a huge problem. We've done an entire episode I
Speaker 2: think on food waste before. I know, we've talked about
Speaker 2: it extensively because I remember, and what's sad is we've
Speaker 2: been talking about this for decades now and the stat
Speaker 2: remains the same. A third of all of the food
Speaker 2: grown in the world gets thrown away every year, about
Speaker 2: a trillion dollars worth, and mindless amounts of water and
Speaker 2: fertilizer and labor inputs just wasted. Not just in the
Speaker 2: face of all that loss of like money or resources,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't even get diverted to the poorest people
Speaker 2: in the world who are starving.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And that's a great episode, So I
Speaker 1: encourage you to go listen to those. But one thing
Speaker 1: I don't know that we've covered on any of these shows.
Speaker 1: While we were you know, beating those horses.
Speaker 2: What dead horses, skinning those cats, is.
Speaker 1: The nutrient cycle. And you know obviously, you know, wasting
Speaker 1: food is a is a moral problem, an ethical problem.
Speaker 1: But one thing we haven't talked much about is that
Speaker 1: it disrupts that nutrient cycle. If you look at nature,
Speaker 1: the system they have is is a closed loop system there.
Speaker 1: You know, things grow naturally out in the woods and
Speaker 1: it is from soil that is being you know, if
Speaker 1: it's just literally out in the forest, just being treated
Speaker 1: naturally by the natural processes of Mother Earth, and then
Speaker 1: an animal eats that thing and then poops it out,
Speaker 1: and that poop goes back into the soil and feeds
Speaker 1: the soil. That animal falls over dead one day, hopefully
Speaker 1: a very old age, then their bodies decompose and release
Speaker 1: those nutrients back into the earth. And it is a
Speaker 1: dare i say, elegant system that humans have come along
Speaker 1: and completely disrupted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we make food part of our linear economy where
Speaker 2: the food waste doesn't just get tossed on the ground
Speaker 2: and biodegrade into it. You don't want to do that anyway,
Speaker 2: just the annual PSA. Don't throw apple cores and banana
Speaker 2: peels on the ground because that's not a good thing
Speaker 2: to do. What's the best thing to do is to
Speaker 2: compost them and to some degree or some way. The
Speaker 2: worst thing you can do, though, is to throw them
Speaker 2: in a trash can and have them taken to the landfill,
Speaker 2: because then those nutrients that were put into that food
Speaker 2: have been taken out of the nutrient cycle for Earth,
Speaker 2: at least for however long it's gonna take for that
Speaker 2: entire landfill to degrade, which I can't even imagine how
Speaker 2: long it takes an entire landfill that just turned back
Speaker 2: into nutrients and stuff. So it's disrupted in that way.
Speaker 2: Then we also disrupt it because we don't tend to
Speaker 2: collect our waste for reuse. It's an output, pure and simple,
Speaker 2: we don't we don't put it back into the system.
Speaker 2: So there's two ways that we disrupt the nutrient cycle
Speaker 2: with our with the way that we treat our food.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. This may be part of a suite, like
Speaker 1: a playlist one day, because I just realized, we've done
Speaker 1: things on sewage recycling or sewage treatment plants, we've done
Speaker 1: them on landfills, So maybe we should do like a
Speaker 1: little green playlist one day.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We got one on permaculture that was pretty great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: Before we move on though, I should say some of
Speaker 2: that those what are called biosolids treated sewage. They it
Speaker 2: does get reused in some cases. Have you used malorganite? Uh?
Speaker 1: Why do I know that word. I think we've talked
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: It's a miracle fertilizer. It does wonders for your grass,
Speaker 2: especially if you pair it with an inch of water
Speaker 2: flooding your grass. But it's these little particles and they smell,
Speaker 2: but not smell the way you would think because they
Speaker 2: actually are treated sewage from Milwaukee's municipal sewerage system. Huh,
Speaker 2: but they it's like a nitrogen boost for its fertilizer
Speaker 2: for your lawn. It's insane how well it works. It's cheap,
Speaker 2: and you're reusing waste from the good people of Milwaukee.
Speaker 1: Well that's great, and you can get.
Speaker 2: It almost anywhere. It's very it's very abundant and easy
Speaker 2: to get and I highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: I'm down to zero grass now.
Speaker 2: Oh, you could use it on basically any plants. So
Speaker 2: if you have plants that like nitrogen, you can toss
Speaker 2: a little milorganite on there.
Speaker 1: I'll pass out along to Emily Sheep. I'm sure she
Speaker 1: knows about it.
Speaker 2: Zero grass is your entire lawn just or your entire
Speaker 2: yard just covered with high end antique screen doors. That's right,
Speaker 2: it's a good look, I'll vet it is. I'll bet
Speaker 2: they it's a little wobbly though, right walking around?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Or are they just for looking?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, you walk on it, okay. So Ellen
Speaker 1: MacArthur's foundation is looking to correct this and making like
Speaker 1: basically investing in the biological cycle of the circular economy,
Speaker 1: like making this a part of it too. And composting
Speaker 1: is an obvious win. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: is pretty amazing is called cascading, that is reusing food
Speaker 1: waste to make other things. And there's a what a
Speaker 1: Dutch company called Peel Pioneers because you know in those
Speaker 1: in fruit peels like orange and lemon and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: that's the best stuff is in that peel, the zest
Speaker 1: of those things and the essential oils that you get
Speaker 1: from those peels, like that's the goal man. And people
Speaker 1: are throwing that away or composting it, which is okay.
Speaker 1: But how about taking this essential oils and actually making
Speaker 1: other products out of them? And that is what Peel
Speaker 1: Pioneers out of the Netherlands is doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's I mean, you can find cascading in
Speaker 2: a lot of different food companies, but that's a great
Speaker 2: example because those that orange essential oil is in particular,
Speaker 2: are used in a lot of different other products. So
Speaker 2: you can have a pretty successful business just harvesting the
Speaker 2: scraps off the floor of an orange juice processor, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, converting stuff to biofuel is another pretty obvious one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then anaerobic digesters I have. I'm putting a
Speaker 2: lot of like hope on anaerobic digesters in the future
Speaker 2: where we just figure out the microbes that eat this stuff,
Speaker 2: or these microbes eat this kind of plastic, these microbes
Speaker 2: eat this kind of oil, and like just unleash them
Speaker 2: on all sorts of stuff and then reuse their byproducts
Speaker 2: as inputs. I really hope we reach that future. That
Speaker 2: to me is like the greenest of green.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've talked about that too. I can't remember what episode.
Speaker 2: I can either. We'll we'll have to use that stuff
Speaker 2: you should know transcript search tool to find.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like it was like someone was using
Speaker 1: worms to do something than that ring a bell.
Speaker 2: It might have been a biofuel app.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe, So we'll look at up. Can we talk
Speaker 1: about fashion?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is just crazy to me. I think we
Speaker 2: should do an entire episode on fast fashion, but we
Speaker 2: can hit some high points. I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fast fashion is sort of an environmental nightmare and
Speaker 1: a humanitarian nightmare because they're made in sweatshops for very
Speaker 1: little pay by people you know, making very little pay.
Speaker 1: They are sold very cheaply. Cheap synthetic materials are used,
Speaker 1: so all the inputs are bad, they don't last long,
Speaker 1: and it's an environmental nightmare. Basically, I think the fashion
Speaker 1: industry is the second largest consumer of water. That has
Speaker 1: to be behind the factory farming, right, Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: produces ten percent. The fashion industry produces ten percent of
Speaker 1: the global CO two emissions total.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and eighty five percent of all the stuff that
Speaker 2: the fashion industry makes ends up in landfills, not recycled landfills.
Speaker 2: Eighty five percent of all the clothes made in the
Speaker 2: entire world. There's another issue with it too. When you
Speaker 2: wash just washing, just using these things, washing them in
Speaker 2: your bundles least washing machine, you're releasing microplastics into the ocean.
Speaker 2: Because a lot of clothes, even recycled clothes, are made
Speaker 2: from plastics or contained plastics and those things get flushed
Speaker 2: out and it's a huge plastic pollution problem too, which
Speaker 2: is I mean, it's ironic. Like Patagonia is always hull
Speaker 2: up as a great example of a company that tries
Speaker 2: to make sustainable circular clothing, and one of the things
Speaker 2: that they you is there. I think their line of
Speaker 2: responsibility t shirts super cute. They're made from fabric scraps. Cool,
Speaker 2: but also plastic bottles also cool because we want to
Speaker 2: recycle plastic bottles. But the problem is is that plastic
Speaker 2: gets transferred to the ocean. So it's one of those
Speaker 2: things where it's like we're so far from figuring the
Speaker 2: stuff out that even the people who are trying to
Speaker 2: do something are still having inverting effects that you know,
Speaker 2: I'm sure keeps them up at night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And you can also, man, you can
Speaker 1: send a ten year old pullover to Patagonia that had
Speaker 1: a collar that ripped or something and they'll fix that
Speaker 1: thing for you, probably for nothing. Yeah, And you can
Speaker 1: buy you can send stuff back to them that they
Speaker 1: will resell, and you can buy like, you know, gently
Speaker 1: used things from Patagonia online. They are also working with
Speaker 1: a startup called Infinitive Fiber, And what they're doing is
Speaker 1: they're they're working on the on the waste on the
Speaker 1: front end. It's a process to recycle that textile waste,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's not like, all right, we've got
Speaker 1: this much cotton and every single fiber goes into making
Speaker 1: that T shirt and there's zero waste or that car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry about that that car. There's you know, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be some textile waste on the front end. And
Speaker 1: so what they're doing is they're they're taking that stuff
Speaker 1: and they're recycling that textile waste into a new fiber
Speaker 1: called Infina.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that stuff is one hundred percent recyclable. So eventually,
Speaker 2: over time, if this loop were allowed to really kind
Speaker 2: of take hold, eventually all the cotton would be put
Speaker 2: into or transferred into the Infina circle. And since it's
Speaker 2: one hundred percent recyclable, you could conceivably never have to
Speaker 2: put new cotton in again. Yeah, for sure, I don't
Speaker 2: think it's gonna happen anytime soon. I'm just saying conceptually,
Speaker 2: that's kind of how this stuff works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's even compostable.
Speaker 2: It is, so you would have to put some new
Speaker 2: cotton in once in a while, because Gary would go
Speaker 2: compost it just to be a jerk, right, But yeah,
Speaker 2: for the most part, you could. Once it really kind
Speaker 2: of took hold and got going, it could can it
Speaker 2: could overtake the existing cotton stocks and make them one
Speaker 2: hundred percent recyclable, and then you wouldn't need more cotton stocks,
Speaker 2: which is again an issue we'd have to deal with
Speaker 2: because then all the cotton farmers are out of.
Speaker 1: Work, that's right, and we have no more new cotton
Speaker 1: cars on the road.
Speaker 2: But one other thing that I found that really got
Speaker 2: to meet Chuck. I found a stat that said that
Speaker 2: most of the returns, like if you try something on,
Speaker 2: like a clothing, especially if it's mail to you and
Speaker 2: you try it on and send it back, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: most of those things are thrown away into land. Yes,
Speaker 2: what nine point five billion pounds of just clothing returns
Speaker 2: alone were put into landfills in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: Unconsionable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and the reason why is because companies are like,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to pay somebody to fold this thing
Speaker 2: back up, put the pins back in it, put it
Speaker 2: in the plastic, and make it new again. So that
Speaker 2: I can sell it. It's cheaper for me to just
Speaker 2: throw it away. And there are programs that divert that
Speaker 2: stuff to like developing countries so that those clothes are donated.
Speaker 2: But I guarantee that's not as cheap for the company
Speaker 2: as it is to just throw it away. That's a
Speaker 2: huge impact that the fast fashion industry has on the planet.
Speaker 2: That's crazy to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't been this upset about something I've heard
Speaker 1: from you in a long time.
Speaker 2: And I say some upsetting stuff. I know you usually
Speaker 2: text them to me, but those are upsetting pictures, all right.
Speaker 1: One last thing we can talk about is the right
Speaker 1: to repair movement, which we talked about in the Planned
Speaker 1: Obsolescence episode. But you know, it's exactly what you think it's. It's, hey,
Speaker 1: we need to be able to repair our whatever's our
Speaker 1: small appliances. That's a big offender. A lot of companies
Speaker 1: are saying because you know, I don't know if we
Speaker 1: covered this part, but because I don't remember why companies
Speaker 1: didn't do it, or at least why they say they
Speaker 1: don't do it. One thing they'll say is like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what with electronics, if we publish like how
Speaker 1: to other people can fix these things and basically give
Speaker 1: repair companies repair manuals. Like it's it leads people vulnerable
Speaker 1: to hackers that they can get information from that electronic device.
Speaker 1: And I just call foul on that. That sounds like
Speaker 1: a bunch of bs to me.
Speaker 2: They're like, don't forget hackers. Hackers are going to get
Speaker 2: you more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you want your whatever your iPhone.
Speaker 2: Fixed, right and you can't. I have an Acer Swift
Speaker 2: laptop that I love, but it's I've tried to replace
Speaker 2: the battery before and it's designed to not replace the battery.
Speaker 2: You cannot replace the battery, and obviously the battery is
Speaker 2: the first thing that goes out.
Speaker 1: It's infuriating.
Speaker 2: It is infuriating because it's like he made it so
Speaker 2: that you have to get rid of your laptop and
Speaker 2: get another one. It drives me nuts. So if you
Speaker 2: put all this together, chuck like electronics companies successfully lobbying
Speaker 2: against right to repair laws, companies using planned obsolescens left
Speaker 2: and right, people like Gary just throwing their stuff away
Speaker 2: to be jerks like, how can this even be implemented?
Speaker 2: I can't see it happening, at least in the United States.
Speaker 2: I know the EU is really taking some strides towards
Speaker 2: this stuff, and hats off to them. But in the
Speaker 2: United States, I can't in the foreseeable future, like as
Speaker 2: far as I can think out, I can't see this
Speaker 2: being implemented.
Speaker 1: No, I mean certainly not now with what's going on
Speaker 1: in our country, and that I'm not trying to get
Speaker 1: too political, but that's just the fact. It's not a
Speaker 1: not only a priority for our current administration to invest
Speaker 1: at all in something like a circular economy, but it's
Speaker 1: not even on the radar, right, or or its outright
Speaker 1: being squashed right.
Speaker 2: Even more disturbing is that even outside of the United States,
Speaker 2: globally speaking, recycling or secondary materials being put back in
Speaker 2: as inputs is actually on the decline by significant numbers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're headed in the wrong direction, right, even though
Speaker 1: Day points out that like social media posts and articles
Speaker 1: about the circular economy are have tripled in the last
Speaker 1: five years, so there's more awareness. But we're going in
Speaker 1: the wrong direction as far as actual you know, feed
Speaker 1: on the floor kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and consumption keeps growing and growing and growing. Apparently
Speaker 2: from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty four, we consumed five
Speaker 2: hundred gigatons of material. That's everything raw material, finished material,
Speaker 2: fossil fuels, and that is twenty eight percent of the
Speaker 2: total amount we consumed in the last one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty five years. Yeah, so it's just growing exponentially. So yeah,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of stuff to overcome. You might say
Speaker 2: it would take like an authoritarian government to implement this
Speaker 2: kind of thing. And it turns out China has committed
Speaker 2: to creating a circular economy for themselves back in the
Speaker 2: two thousands, and apparently they're focused right now on automotive
Speaker 2: re manufacturing, which is essentially taking old cars and refurbishing
Speaker 2: them and their parts, selling them like new at a
Speaker 2: discountant price because they're refurbished. Oh okay, so I guess
Speaker 2: keep an eye on China and the EU to see
Speaker 2: where things go. Chuck laughed a little bit, but his
Speaker 2: laugh was dripping with Okay, let's go to a listener mail.
Speaker 2: So he just unlocked listener mail.
Speaker 1: This is a correction on a correction. So we heard
Speaker 1: from quite a few people about the most famous brand
Speaker 1: Fortian people wrote in, said Alexander Graham Bell Forget Gretzky
Speaker 1: and Phil Hartman Alexander Grahm Bell was not born in Branford,
Speaker 1: so this is from Joel. Hey, guys, probably not the
Speaker 1: first person to say this, but I'm correcting your email
Speaker 1: correction that claimed Alexander Grambell was born in Branford. He
Speaker 1: certainly lived in Branford, so they claim him he was
Speaker 1: born in Scotland and move to Branford as a young man.
Speaker 1: I guess at one point in his life he would
Speaker 1: definitely say he was from Branford, but that's not where
Speaker 1: he's from. Love the show. That is from Joel Dawson.
Speaker 2: Very nice. So I guess Phil Hartman moves back up
Speaker 2: to number two.
Speaker 1: I guess so. And you know what, whenever someone sends
Speaker 1: in their business or something and it seems pretty cool,
Speaker 1: we like to tout them. Yes, and Joel signed his with
Speaker 1: Free Spirit Tours dot c A. So I'm looking now
Speaker 1: it looks like paddling and stand up paddle boarding, caving,
Speaker 1: forest therapy, wine tastings wouldness wellness.
Speaker 2: Also, I want to shout out which bolt again? Did
Speaker 2: you see which bowl got in touch with this to
Speaker 2: say thanks for the mentioned on the Alchemy episode. I
Speaker 2: did not see that they did. He did. I should say.
Speaker 2: He got in touch to say, hey, you guys want
Speaker 2: some T shirts? Thanks a lot. He's been listening for
Speaker 2: fifteen years. His name is Nick. He's been a listener
Speaker 2: for fifteen years. Which Bolt has, Remember the Dungeon synth guy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So he wrote in and I was like, I'm actually
Speaker 2: a little starstruck right now. So there's like this big
Speaker 2: circular love fest going on, not a circular economy, but
Speaker 2: a circular love fest going on between Stuff you Should
Speaker 2: Know in Which Bolt right now?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: All right, Well, if you want to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us, like Joel or which Bolt, you can send
Speaker 2: us an email too, send it off to stuff podcast
Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.