Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. Listen. We've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about the climate and climate change over the
Speaker 1: past year, some good blue skies that we started to
Speaker 1: see animals coming out seeing mountain ranges for the first
Speaker 1: time as the economy unfortunately shut down because of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and we've been talking a lot about the impact climate
Speaker 1: change is having on our world and how we can
Speaker 1: make some changes. So looking at how we can create
Speaker 1: better habits that help the environment and our climate is
Speaker 1: Shela Sheila Moravati. She is president founder of Habits of Waste.
Speaker 1: It's a nonprofit focusing on reducing environmental impact. She joins
Speaker 1: us on the phone from Los Angeles. Sheila, Welcome to Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Nice to have you here. Hi, Carol, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for having me. Hey listen. Like a lot of our guests,
Speaker 1: I've got to first ask you, what's your last twelve
Speaker 1: months been? Like? I mean and quiet. I have to
Speaker 1: say I've been um. I was living a very intense
Speaker 1: life prior to the pandemic. I don't even know how
Speaker 1: I at it. I mean, I was a classic person
Speaker 1: that was burning the candle at two ends, and the
Speaker 1: pandemic just forced us into a very different lifestyle that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, really made me think a lot of about
Speaker 1: a lot of things. So, um, the environment is definitely
Speaker 1: at the top of the list. Well, and it's interesting
Speaker 1: because of the pandemic, as I mentioned, uh, and the
Speaker 1: inswer to this is that, like all of a sudden
Speaker 1: we talked about with people not driving to work and
Speaker 1: planes not flying, uh, the environment got a lot cleaner.
Speaker 1: At the same time, we have been using a lot
Speaker 1: of single use items, whether it's uh, plastic cutlery and
Speaker 1: plastic bags or you know, masks one time. So it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of this dichotomy of different things going on. UM,
Speaker 1: tell us about what you are trying to do with
Speaker 1: habits of waste, especially when I feel like we've all
Speaker 1: had a past year to really think about our impact,
Speaker 1: our footprint on society. Absolutely, UM, So I come into
Speaker 1: environmentalism with a little bit of a different angle. I
Speaker 1: studied sociology you c l A. And found it fascinating
Speaker 1: to understand human behavior and how to shift the behavior
Speaker 1: of the masses. So throughout the pandemic, UM, food delivery
Speaker 1: applications went through the roof, so the increase in food
Speaker 1: delivery orders was about So what I realized is if
Speaker 1: we were able to convince people to only receive plastic
Speaker 1: cutlery upon request, how could we decrease the forty billion
Speaker 1: pieces of plastic cutlery that are entering our waste stream
Speaker 1: every single year. So I was able to convince Uber eats, Postmates,
Speaker 1: and grub Hub to swap that default setting, so it's
Speaker 1: no plastic cutlery comes out anymore unless you ask for it.
Speaker 1: We're still waiting on Doortosh to jump in, and it's
Speaker 1: imperative that they join us because they had about of
Speaker 1: all food delivery orders. In that being said, um we
Speaker 1: used technology to get to this point. We had an
Speaker 1: email campaign on our website at habits of waste dot
Speaker 1: org where users could come in, send an email and
Speaker 1: it would go directly to these food delivery applications. And
Speaker 1: I felt that if the food delivery apps knew that
Speaker 1: this is what we wanted. We have this junk drawer
Speaker 1: everybody has in the kitchen that they feel horrible about
Speaker 1: throwing away, yet it built to the rim with plastic cutlery.
Speaker 1: I mean, ask anybody they've got one. So luckily these
Speaker 1: emails worked and we sent about ten thousand emails to date,
Speaker 1: and now we're just holding out for door dash and
Speaker 1: then we'll have it all done. It's amazing. How now,
Speaker 1: like I've got to say, we've gotten used to it
Speaker 1: and not getting cutlery and don't miss it. I'm actually
Speaker 1: kind of grateful that we're not getting it, and silly
Speaker 1: for us for not kind of saying earlier on like
Speaker 1: don't you know, don't put it in. But it became
Speaker 1: such a habit right of all the takeout places, right,
Speaker 1: and it's really about choice architecture, Like how is it
Speaker 1: that we're just being bombarded with these habitual behaviors of
Speaker 1: waste without really getting a chance to even do better
Speaker 1: or bypass it. You know. I spearheaded the first plastic
Speaker 1: straw and cutlery band in history, which was in the
Speaker 1: city of Malibu, and unfortunately, banning plastic straws was a
Speaker 1: lot easier than banning plastic cutlery. So here we are
Speaker 1: trying to at least have it only upon request, and
Speaker 1: most people don't even want it, so it's a win win.
Speaker 1: And by the way, restaurants are saving a ton of money.
Speaker 1: I'll give you this one really interesting fact. Postmates announced
Speaker 1: that within a year they saved a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: two million packs of cutlery from entering the environment, and
Speaker 1: that was an equivalent of three point two million dollars
Speaker 1: in savings for restaurants. So, you know, plastic is really important.
Speaker 1: But the next most important thing that I've ever done,
Speaker 1: probably in my whole entire life, has been, um, trying
Speaker 1: to get more people to eat plans. Well, well that's
Speaker 1: the thing almost important thing we need to do right now, Sheila,
Speaker 1: let's talk about I'm up on your website and I
Speaker 1: was looking at it earlier today as well. There's a
Speaker 1: form you can fill out to join a challenge that
Speaker 1: you have. It's called hashtag eight Meals. What's that about? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so um, Actually it's a brand new app that we
Speaker 1: have and it's available in the app Store under Habits
Speaker 1: of Waste and eight Meals was basically born because you know,
Speaker 1: I'm very much involved in environmental work. Yet one thing
Speaker 1: I've yet to, you know, be able to commit to
Speaker 1: fully is going fully vegan and eating every single meal
Speaker 1: plant based. Is just something that I felt was impossible.
Speaker 1: If I feel this way, I can guarantee that many
Speaker 1: of your listeners probably feel the same way. And I
Speaker 1: felt very dissuaded by the whole thing, and always like I, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try this week, But then I'd fall off
Speaker 1: the bandwagon. I came across the study by this University
Speaker 1: of Michigan and two lane talking about how Western cultures
Speaker 1: must decrease their animal protein and take by fort at
Speaker 1: the very minimum in order for us to even have
Speaker 1: a chance at climate change. It is the number one
Speaker 1: thing individuals must do to make an impact. So I
Speaker 1: thought about that and I said, okay, well, how do
Speaker 1: we translate that for the everyday person to be able
Speaker 1: to adopt this idea into their daily lives. So three
Speaker 1: meals a day time, seven days a week, twenty one meals?
Speaker 1: What's that that gives us eight meals? So that's the goal,
Speaker 1: is that we all want to try and increase our
Speaker 1: plant based meals by eight meals a week. And we've
Speaker 1: created this new application to help everyone do that by
Speaker 1: providing recipes linking your meals you want to plug in
Speaker 1: into your calendar. You can check out how much of
Speaker 1: a carbon reduction you're making because by eating eight meals
Speaker 1: a week, it's actually carbon that you're reducing, which is
Speaker 1: the equivalent of driving a hybrid car a week, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: a hybrid car for a year. So eight meals a
Speaker 1: week for a year is equivalent to driving a prius. Um,
Speaker 1: don't you don't you almost feel like like I think
Speaker 1: about this year where we as individuals, global citizens, learned
Speaker 1: a lot about obviously a health pandemic, but also what
Speaker 1: it takes to create a vaccine, Like we peeled back
Speaker 1: the layers, and I almost feel like food production is
Speaker 1: a thing where I don't think we all really understand
Speaker 1: where a lot of stuff comes from or the impact
Speaker 1: it has. We've we've done a lot of stories here
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg about meat, meat production and what it does
Speaker 1: for the climate and the environment. Um, you know, what,
Speaker 1: what do you think about in terms of what we
Speaker 1: need to do though to also educate people about food?
Speaker 1: I mean, we understand organic versus not and things like that,
Speaker 1: but the mass production of food, you know, not so much,
Speaker 1: although we've got a glimpse of it. Right when all
Speaker 1: of a sudden the supply chain started coming undone during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, right you know, one fact that always sticks, um,
Speaker 1: is when you keep it really simple. So for example,
Speaker 1: creating one pound of beef is the equivalent of eight
Speaker 1: thousand gallons of water. So just thinking about these small
Speaker 1: things that you know, just like tidbits of information. And
Speaker 1: by the way, eating a plant based meal eight times
Speaker 1: a week is not so you know, impossible for many people,
Speaker 1: and in fact, you feel better and it's less expensive.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of winds in there for your health,
Speaker 1: for your wallet, for the environment. So if we can
Speaker 1: just look at it like, Okay, I'm not going to commit, fine,
Speaker 1: maybe you will. You never know. After eight meals, a
Speaker 1: lot of people are like, I'm kind of grossed up
Speaker 1: by me. I don't even need it. Great, but my
Speaker 1: my whole mission is to edge kate with as much
Speaker 1: small bits of information that would interest the everyday person
Speaker 1: that's not in the environmental world, because people are living
Speaker 1: their lives. They're busy, they just got to get dinner
Speaker 1: on the table, and they've got work in school and
Speaker 1: a million other things, especially this past year. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is my philosophy that you know, if you can
Speaker 1: just give small bits of info, it's great. What do
Speaker 1: you think it's holding people back the most from doing things.
Speaker 1: Little things like you say, these habits, uh, you change them.
Speaker 1: If everybody starts to change a little habit, that's a
Speaker 1: significant one, you can you can kind of alter the
Speaker 1: outcome of our climate. What's holding people back? I think
Speaker 1: people just aren't aware that their impact matters. So it's
Speaker 1: just that everyone says I'm just one person. I'm only
Speaker 1: one person. But if we all said that, then nothing
Speaker 1: would get done in the world. So this is an opportunity.
Speaker 1: Our whole website, our whole mission on Habits of waste
Speaker 1: dot org is really about inspiring people to know you
Speaker 1: do matter and your actions do add up and so,
Speaker 1: and then taking away obstacles. So, for ex ample, the
Speaker 1: eight Meals app is an opportunity for us to make
Speaker 1: it really easy and fun um and interactive to try,
Speaker 1: you know, increasing your plant base meals or cut out cutlery.
Speaker 1: It's taking away a default setting that we were unable
Speaker 1: to communicate properly with the restaurants and the food delivery applications.
Speaker 1: But we were being bombarded with plastic that we didn't want.
Speaker 1: So we're we're here um as an organization to help
Speaker 1: alleviate some of those obstacles in the way, but also
Speaker 1: to inspire the individual to know that every single day
Speaker 1: you wake up in the morning till the time you
Speaker 1: go to bed, you have decisions to make, and those
Speaker 1: decisions add up, you know, by the billions of people
Speaker 1: that are on this planet. What do you think is
Speaker 1: the necessary um collaborations we need? We need to be
Speaker 1: seeing maybe more style between private and public sectors on
Speaker 1: this matter. Well, I believe that if we are able
Speaker 1: to basically give ourselves a little bit, just a little
Speaker 1: bit of wiggle room, that it's not an all or nothing,
Speaker 1: that there's no shame involved, that there's no it's really
Speaker 1: just about do in your very best. I believe that
Speaker 1: that is the most important way to move forward on
Speaker 1: on progress, and that is you know, and listening, listening
Speaker 1: to each side. It really does make a difference because ultimately,
Speaker 1: companies want to do the right thing for their consumers
Speaker 1: um and if the consumers speak up and are heard,
Speaker 1: then it's a beautiful synergy. So with again back to
Speaker 1: the you know, cutout cutlery campaign that we did. The applications,
Speaker 1: you know, they're like these emails, can you stop sending them?
Speaker 1: To us, so they're listening. It's not it's working. It's
Speaker 1: just a matter of again not shaming, and it's just
Speaker 1: positive and just the understanding that we all, we all
Speaker 1: can make an impact. All right, well, good stuff and
Speaker 1: please keep us posted on some of the work that
Speaker 1: you're doing as you got as you continue to move forward. UM,
Speaker 1: really inspirational. Sheila Moravati she Morovoti, excuse me? She is
Speaker 1: president and founder of Habits of Waste on the phone
Speaker 1: from l A. You can find out more by going
Speaker 1: to Habits of weights dot org and you can also
Speaker 1: find out more on Twitter at how Changers