Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Mary, what's that mango? Do you know?
Speaker 1: There are around two hundred cities on Earth that have
Speaker 1: trash flying underneath them at speeds of up to forty
Speaker 1: three miles per hour. What I know? It sounds totally bizarre,
Speaker 1: but it is a very real innovation. It's called a
Speaker 1: pneumatic waste collection system and they've been installed in cities
Speaker 1: all over the world Stockholm, Soul, Singapore, Dubai, even Disney
Speaker 1: World uses one.
Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, of course disney World one of my favorite cities. Wait,
Speaker 2: so how does this work? Exactly?
Speaker 1: So, the systems have these above ground waste inlets, which
Speaker 1: kind of look like pipes or mailboxes, but with round
Speaker 1: doors that people open to insert trash, and there are
Speaker 1: separate ones for recyclables as well. But when an inlet
Speaker 1: gets full, a trap door releases its contents into underground
Speaker 1: pipes and the trash gets sucked through the pneumatic tubes
Speaker 1: to a waste station thanks to the force of these
Speaker 1: spinning industrial fans. Isn't that incredible?
Speaker 2: It's also a very whimsical way to deal with garbage.
Speaker 1: It also feels like the future, and this tech is
Speaker 1: actually good for the environment. The company that first built
Speaker 1: these tubes, ENVAC, claims that the system can lower the
Speaker 1: distance driven by garbage trucks by ninety percent, and this
Speaker 1: of course reduces air pollution, diesel emissions, and hardest of all,
Speaker 1: especially if you live in a place like New York City,
Speaker 1: local traffic, which gets slowed down tremendously by these trucks.
Speaker 1: According to locals in Bergen, Norway, which began building a
Speaker 1: pneumatic waste collection system in two thousand and seven, it
Speaker 1: has also lowered rat sightings.
Speaker 2: Well that is a bummer for rat fans though.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, Well rat fans can always come to New
Speaker 1: York City to get their fixed I think last. But
Speaker 1: these systems are not cheap. Bergen has spent one billion
Speaker 1: kroner on the system so far, which is one hundred
Speaker 1: million US dollars, and they estimate it'll take another thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars to complete it. But the city officials say
Speaker 1: they've already saved twenty two million dollars on waste collection
Speaker 1: since the system launched, so in time, actually this investment
Speaker 1: will pay off.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, that's really good news because one of
Speaker 2: the things I learned in my research this week is
Speaker 2: that humans generate two billion tons of municipal solid waste
Speaker 2: every year. Now, if we packed that amount of garbage
Speaker 2: into standard shipping containers and lined them up, it would
Speaker 2: wrap around the equator twenty five times. And yeah, no,
Speaker 2: it gets worse. Municipal solid waste is expected to rise
Speaker 2: to three point eight billion tons annually by twenty fifty.
Speaker 2: So today on the show, we're talking trash, what we
Speaker 2: can learn from it, why we have so much of it,
Speaker 2: and most important, what we can do with it.
Speaker 1: So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius. I'm Mongish Articular, and today I'm here
Speaker 1: with super producer Mary Philip Sandy, and over there in
Speaker 1: the booth is our pal and producer Dylan Fagan, who's
Speaker 1: wearing quite the outfit. He's got a long yellow coat,
Speaker 1: red button down, clear tie, yellow pants, and the most
Speaker 1: amazing thing is the silver sunglasses he's wearing. There's no
Speaker 1: way he can see through those, but obviously I think
Speaker 1: he's channeling, right Doc Brown?
Speaker 2: Is that right? Very Yeah, that's what it looks like.
Speaker 1: Back to the future as he powers his Delaureate up
Speaker 1: with trash to go exactly, he's going back to the future.
Speaker 2: You know, I wonder if Doc Brown got into podcasts
Speaker 2: when he landed in twenty fifteen. I would love to
Speaker 2: hear his take on cereal. Actually, I think Doc Brown
Speaker 2: would be a reply all fan.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, anyway, here we are in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: and we are still waiting for some of the inventions
Speaker 2: back to the future promised. You know, every year I
Speaker 2: think this is it, this is the year we finally
Speaker 2: get hoverboards, and every year I'm disappointed. But you know what,
Speaker 2: using trash to power cars would be even better than
Speaker 2: a hoverboard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially since we generate what would you say, two
Speaker 1: billion tons a year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, two billion tons of municipal waste a year. But
Speaker 2: that term municipal waste, it only refers to waste generated
Speaker 2: by individuals, schools, and businesses. You know, things like food
Speaker 2: contain used paper, worn out clothes basically the stuff that
Speaker 2: you put out and it gets collected by the garbage truck.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I mentioned worn out clothes because
Speaker 2: textiles are a huge source of waste. Globally, we throw
Speaker 2: away an entire garbage truck's worth of clothing every single second.
Speaker 3: That is insane, it is.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing, Mango, all this municipal waste, it's
Speaker 2: actually only three to five percent of the total waste
Speaker 2: people create every year.
Speaker 1: So so where's the rest of the waste coming from?
Speaker 2: So the rest includes waste for mining, farming, construction, not
Speaker 2: to mention human waste and pollution. Right, all of that,
Speaker 2: and when we factor all of that, in the United
Speaker 2: States alone creates around twelve billion tons of waste every
Speaker 2: single year. But listen, I could give trash statistics for hours.
Speaker 2: I'm going to cut myself off. Yeah right, let's go
Speaker 2: back to the beginning. I know you looked into this,
Speaker 2: so tell me when did people start creating trash?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there has always been some level of waste
Speaker 1: created by humanity. But I really like the way that
Speaker 1: Wilson Hughes, who is former co director of the Garbage
Speaker 1: Project at the University of Arizona in Tucson, puts it.
Speaker 1: He said, quote, our forefathers created waste with stone chips,
Speaker 1: but it didn't become a problem until they settled down
Speaker 1: and began living in one place. That's when societies had
Speaker 1: to start thinking about what to do with it, which
Speaker 1: is fascinating, right, Like you don't think about the evolution
Speaker 1: of garbage. But one place our ancestors settled in was
Speaker 1: this place called Chattel hu Yuk, which is located in
Speaker 1: modern day Turkey. It was a Neolithic settlement and it
Speaker 1: dates back to around seventy four hundred to sixty two
Speaker 1: hundred BCE. This is one of the earliest cities we
Speaker 1: know about, and people tossed waste between their houses until
Speaker 1: those houses merged together, and then they built structures on
Speaker 1: top of that waste, and this practice continued for generations.
Speaker 2: That's really I guess that's feasible if your waste isn't
Speaker 2: mostly made up of like fast food wrappers and industrial
Speaker 2: chemicals like ours. Yeah, yeah, okay, So when did people
Speaker 2: actually start doing something to dispose of the trash other
Speaker 2: than just throwing it out the door?
Speaker 3: You know, I had the same question.
Speaker 1: It turns out people started burying their waste as early
Speaker 1: as three thousand BCE, so we know the Minoan people
Speaker 1: who lived in the city of Naussus on Crete did this,
Speaker 1: and in five hundred BCE, Athens actually created this law
Speaker 1: that waste had to be disposed of at least a
Speaker 1: mile outside of town, which is, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: incredible when you think about it. Still, this didn't immediately
Speaker 1: become the norm. Plenty of historic cities were known for
Speaker 1: their trash and wastefilled streets. You think about places like
Speaker 1: ancient Rome, POMPEII, Victorian London right. In fact, many cities
Speaker 1: today are built on mounds of trash. In sixteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: you could buy what was called a water lot in
Speaker 1: New York City, which actually cost one twenty fifth price
Speaker 1: of landlot. And these water lots got turned into land
Speaker 1: thanks to you guessed it, crash. So builders piled up
Speaker 1: silt and waste from ships and straight up garbage until
Speaker 1: there was land where the river.
Speaker 3: Used to be.
Speaker 1: And this actually wasn't a practice just in New York.
Speaker 1: Many US cities use this method to create space, including Seattle,
Speaker 1: New Orleans, Chicago, even Oakland. Of course, there was one
Speaker 1: other historic way that New York used to deal with
Speaker 1: trash that I really think is worth mentioning. In eighteen
Speaker 1: forty two, the New York Daily Tribune estimated that there
Speaker 1: were ten thousand loose pigs running around the city just
Speaker 1: gobbling up trash.
Speaker 2: That is about ten thousand too many loose pigs, if
Speaker 2: you ask me.
Speaker 1: I know. But they were so good at eating up
Speaker 1: the garbage is that anytime politicians suggested getting rid of them,
Speaker 1: the public was completely outraged.
Speaker 2: Okay, well you got to listen to your constituents, right,
Speaker 2: let them have pigs.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is it was a pretty effective strategy too,
Speaker 1: So by nineteen oh two, about twenty five percent of
Speaker 1: US cities we're getting rid of garbage by feeding it
Speaker 1: to livestock. Not everyone loved the trash pigs though. Actually,
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens visited the US and in his travelog American Notes,
Speaker 1: he devotes multiple paragraphs to the scavenging New York pig.
Speaker 1: He writes, quote, ugly brutes they are having, for the
Speaker 1: most part, scanty brown backs, like the lids of old
Speaker 1: horsehair trunks spotted with unwholesome black blotches, which just feels
Speaker 1: like an esthetic problem more than anything.
Speaker 2: His body shaming the pigs.
Speaker 1: It also feels weird that, like with that many pigs,
Speaker 1: like that none of the New York teams are named
Speaker 1: after pigs, right, I know, Oh my.
Speaker 2: God, someone needs to do that. Bring back the trash
Speaker 2: pigs as a mascot completely.
Speaker 1: But you know, it is worth noting that there was
Speaker 1: way less household trash in the US back then compared
Speaker 1: to today, So like, maybe pigs wouldn't be the most
Speaker 1: effective solution today.
Speaker 2: Right, right, Even one hundred thousand pigs couldn't keep up
Speaker 2: with the amount of waste wegenerate now. I mean even
Speaker 2: just in my neighborhood. And I assume the reason we
Speaker 2: have more trash now is because our consumption habits have changed.
Speaker 1: Right, absolutely, so, until very recently, most Americans couldn't afford
Speaker 1: to just toss things out, so things like clothes were
Speaker 1: mended over and over again until they finally became rags
Speaker 1: which you could use or sell. People knew how to
Speaker 1: fix furniture and glassware and tableware, and if they didn't
Speaker 1: know how to fix something, you'd take it to an
Speaker 1: expert for repair. Pretty Much everything got used up. Food
Speaker 1: scraps when to soup or were fed to farm animals.
Speaker 1: Lots of waste could be returned to manufacturers. Even coal
Speaker 1: ashes were mixed with manure and used as fertilizer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something really appealing about that kind of lifestyle.
Speaker 2: It's like I saw this person on TikTok who had
Speaker 2: all of her garbage for a year and fit in
Speaker 2: one Mason jar.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah completely, But.
Speaker 2: It's really not realistic for a lot of us anymore. Right, Okay,
Speaker 2: So as people began buying more stuff and all that
Speaker 2: stuff became more disposable, I imagine waste management had to
Speaker 2: keep up with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this change really took off in the early
Speaker 1: part of the twentieth century. For example, in Pittsburgh, the
Speaker 1: amount of trash in the city rose by forty three
Speaker 1: percent between nineteen oh three and nineteen oh seven. So
Speaker 1: by the early nineteen hundreds, most American cities had implemented
Speaker 1: some forum of municipal trash removal service, which meant pigs
Speaker 1: weren't required anymore.
Speaker 2: I love that you found one statistic here, and then
Speaker 2: it was just about Pittsburgh. So shout out to Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: I've never been there, but I have always wanted to
Speaker 2: go there. Okay, mag Well, I mean.
Speaker 1: It's land of mister Rogers. It's not far from Falling Water.
Speaker 1: I like pittsfrog Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: The Warhol Museum, if if anyone lives in Pittsburgh, tell
Speaker 2: us what we should go see there? Okay, okay, So
Speaker 2: obviously the next question is what do you do with
Speaker 2: all of this trash once you've picked it up? Well,
Speaker 2: incinerators were an early solution, inspired by European ones that
Speaker 2: had been around since the eighteen seventies, but that practice
Speaker 2: started to decline during the late thirties when we borrowed
Speaker 2: yet another idea from Europe, the landfill, and since then
Speaker 2: that's been our primary method of garbage disposal in the
Speaker 2: United States. And landfills are everywhere, but unless you live
Speaker 2: next one, you probably don't notice them. They're typically located
Speaker 2: far outside cities, and they look like these big, treeless
Speaker 2: mounds that just blend into the landscape. But do not
Speaker 2: be fooled. These boring hills have a serious downside. They
Speaker 2: emit landfill gas, which is fifty percent methane and fifty
Speaker 2: percent carbon dioxide, so the bigger they get, the more
Speaker 2: they contribute to climate change. One thing we can do, however,
Speaker 2: is we can turn landfills into parks with vegetation and
Speaker 2: animal habitats, and that's the plan for Freshkills Park in
Speaker 2: Staten Island, here in New York. It was once the
Speaker 2: world's biggest landfill, and eventually it'll be a two two
Speaker 2: hundred acre public park that is three times larger than
Speaker 2: Central Park.
Speaker 3: That is really incredible.
Speaker 1: Actually, have you been to the Hirley Chisholm Park in
Speaker 1: it's in South Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's on a former landfill and it is so gorgeous.
Speaker 2: I have not. It's very far from where I live,
Speaker 2: but I've heard about. It's the largest state park in
Speaker 2: New York.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We drove out there and it was stunning, Like
Speaker 1: there was stunning bird watching. You can't believe how beautiful
Speaker 1: is and you kind of forget you're in New York.
Speaker 3: It's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's a really great use of a former landfill.
Speaker 2: And the only problem is this process of converting landfills
Speaker 2: to parks. It takes a long time and a lot
Speaker 2: of environmental engineering. Landfills can take decades to settle, meaning
Speaker 2: their foundations shift over time, and to avoid public health risks,
Speaker 2: you need to figure out how to vent the landfill gas.
Speaker 2: So you can't just slap some turf on top of
Speaker 2: a garbage pile and call it a day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'm sure it takes a ton of
Speaker 1: work to make. But if we want the landfills to
Speaker 1: be small, I'm wondering, like, could we go back to
Speaker 1: burning the waste first and then burying it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is actually an option. This method has been
Speaker 2: adopted in a bunch of places in Europe, where the
Speaker 2: process is also used to generate electricity. Right, so that's
Speaker 2: a bonus. So some advocates are calling for the United
Speaker 2: States to do more of this too. The problem, of course,
Speaker 2: is that burning trash creates air pollutions. It'sually not perfect fix.
Speaker 2: So at the end of the day, we have the
Speaker 2: same options we've always had for dealing with garbage. We
Speaker 2: can toss it on the ground, we can put it
Speaker 2: in a hole, we can light it on fire, or
Speaker 2: we can find a way to reuse it. And luckily,
Speaker 2: some scientists have come up with a way to turn
Speaker 2: garbage into something very valuable knowledge.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, it's true, I know, I know. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's the most valuable product of all. And after we
Speaker 2: take a quick break, we'll find out how garbage can
Speaker 2: counteract government propaganda, and we'll also talk about some truly
Speaker 2: amazing things that have been found in the trash, Go anywhere.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius. In just a moment,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you about one of the coolest
Speaker 1: scientific fields I've ever heard about.
Speaker 3: It's called garbology.
Speaker 1: But first I want to remind you to subscribe to
Speaker 1: the show on your favorite podcast app. Please leave us
Speaker 1: a nice rating and review, and if you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 1: share it with a friend. Okay, So back to garbology.
Speaker 1: The term was coined in the early nineteen seventies by
Speaker 1: aj Weberman, and it became a legitimate scientific pursuit in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three. This is when the archaeologist William Rathge
Speaker 1: launched the Tucson Garbage Project. This involved analyzing over fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand samples of trash, which revealed tons of information about
Speaker 1: residents of Tucson, from what they how much alcohol they drank,
Speaker 1: to how good they were recycling and Researchers on the
Speaker 1: project even learned that people tend to report eating a
Speaker 1: lot less junk food than they actually eat.
Speaker 2: You know, I actually did a garbology project of my
Speaker 2: own in fourth grade. Yeah, I've actually I have actually
Speaker 2: studied garbology at a university. I was nine years old
Speaker 2: at the time. But I was really into archaeology back then,
Speaker 2: and the University of Maine had these weekend classes that
Speaker 2: were open to the community. One of them was about garbology,
Speaker 2: and I begged my parents to let me do it.
Speaker 2: They gave in, and it was just so fascinating. This
Speaker 2: is what I did when I was nine on the weekends, right,
Speaker 2: everyone else was playing sports whatever. But I had never
Speaker 2: thought before about the fact that a lot of what
Speaker 2: archaeologists dig up is just ancient garbage, right, like broken pottery,
Speaker 2: things that people discarded. So it makes a lot of
Speaker 2: sense that modern garbage can tell us a lot about
Speaker 2: modern people. So I got really into it, and then
Speaker 2: I got in a lot of trouble for sneaking around
Speaker 2: my school and digging through the classroom garbage cans.
Speaker 1: I love that they just didn't get your vision. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about it, scientists study human
Speaker 1: activity in all kinds of ways that could seem invasive. Right. Besides,
Speaker 1: garbology has a unique ability to reveal super accurate information
Speaker 1: even when we're hiding the truth or covering it up.
Speaker 1: And I can give you example this. So a few
Speaker 1: decades ago, historians studying China's Cultural Revolution, realized that they
Speaker 1: could learn a lot from papers and documents that have
Speaker 1: been tossed out by households and also by government officials.
Speaker 1: So they started collecting these artifacts at flea markets, and
Speaker 1: when word got out, locals sifted through trash to find documents,
Speaker 1: which they then sold to researchers. And because of this,
Speaker 1: historians discovered concrete evidence about things that happened during the
Speaker 1: Cultural Revolution, like government officials who deported people from cities
Speaker 1: to rural areas with that whole.
Speaker 3: Sent down youth stuff.
Speaker 1: Garbology has also been used to track changes in North Korea.
Speaker 1: So if you think about trash that washes up in
Speaker 1: South Korea, like there was a recent increase in more
Speaker 1: colorful candy wrappers, that actually reveals how their culture and
Speaker 1: economy has evolved over time. Even corporate America has gotten
Speaker 1: into the garbology game. So before everything we bought was
Speaker 1: easily tracked by barcodes and online shopping, some companies conducted
Speaker 1: dust bin audits to see how well their brands were
Speaker 1: doing well.
Speaker 2: Speaking of fascinating finds in the trash, I was really
Speaker 2: excited to look into this for this episode, and you
Speaker 2: would not believe some of the crazy things people have
Speaker 2: discarded and then discovered.
Speaker 1: So give me an example, Okay.
Speaker 2: In twenty nineteen, an episode of Antiques Road Show featured
Speaker 2: a man who worked at a dump in England, and
Speaker 2: there he found a bunch of artifacts that once belonged
Speaker 2: to former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, including a top hat,
Speaker 2: a cigar case, and a signed photograph.
Speaker 1: That is an incredible three it of it is.
Speaker 2: And it gets even better because these items were verifiable
Speaker 2: as belonging to Churchill because they were accompanied by two
Speaker 2: hundred letters that he wrote to his cook, which it
Speaker 2: does seem like a lot of letters to write to
Speaker 2: one's cook, doesn't it. Yeah, but the show estimated that
Speaker 2: all these items that had just been thrown away were
Speaker 2: worth ten thousand pounds.
Speaker 1: I mean, in some ways, it feels like they should
Speaker 1: be worth more than ten thousand pounds, right like Winston
Speaker 1: Churchill's letters to his cook feels like a book that
Speaker 1: could deserve more of an advance in that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I think the guy he wrote
Speaker 2: a lot of letters though, if you.
Speaker 1: Think about it, right, Yeah, that makes sense. So do
Speaker 1: we know how all of this ended up in the trash.
Speaker 2: No, and we will never know because the guy who
Speaker 2: found the stuff refused to reveal the name of the
Speaker 2: dump where he wanted to keep it secret. But you know,
Speaker 2: ten thousand pounds worth of trash is chump change compared
Speaker 2: to this next one. In two thousand and four, a
Speaker 2: nurse named Melanie Steve found a plastic cello case with
Speaker 2: a cello inside, leaning against a dumpster in the Silver
Speaker 2: Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, and so she had this
Speaker 2: kind of quirky idea. She decided she'd have her cabinet
Speaker 2: maker boyfriend fix some of the cracks and scratches in
Speaker 2: the cello and turn it into a case for her CDs.
Speaker 2: This was two thousand and four. She had CDs. What
Speaker 2: she didn't realize was that the cello had been stolen
Speaker 2: three days earlier from the front porch of the lead
Speaker 2: cellist for the La Philharmonic Organ and it was an
Speaker 2: irreplaceable vintage instrument built in Italy in sixteen eighty four
Speaker 2: and insured for three point five million dollars. Luckily, Melanie
Speaker 2: saw a news report about the theft before her boyfriend
Speaker 2: started turning the cello into a CD case, so she
Speaker 2: was able to contact a lawyer who helped get it returned.
Speaker 2: And that is your lesson. If you ever find a
Speaker 2: priceless cello in the trash, have a lawyer handle it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm glad we give our listeners tips about
Speaker 1: what to do if they find but you know, maybe
Speaker 1: a rare Italian cello filled with Maroon five CDs would
Speaker 1: have been worth even more.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, come on, let's not assume the
Speaker 2: worst about Melanie's taste in music. It's not fair, Melanie.
Speaker 2: We know you're better than that. Okay. Here is one
Speaker 2: last story that also has a lesson for you. Always
Speaker 2: double check what you're bringing out to the trash. In
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, the jewelry store Jay Bernbock Incorporated here in
Speaker 2: New York City was undergoing renovations and some workers accidentally
Speaker 2: threw away three wooden boxes of diamonds worth five million dollars.
Speaker 2: The security guard spotted the mistake, grabbed the boxes, and
Speaker 2: brought them into the bathroom. He then put all the
Speaker 2: diamonds into one box and walked right out the door.
Speaker 2: But the store had surveillance footage from the night of
Speaker 2: the theft, so it was pretty easy to identify the culprit.
Speaker 2: The guard was caught and he was arrested.
Speaker 3: Oh man, that is rough.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like the security guard thought he
Speaker 1: had a short thing. It is always fun to hear
Speaker 1: about historical artifacts and stolen diamonds turning up in the garbage.
Speaker 1: And I always love when someone sees a print that
Speaker 1: they think is really beautiful and it turns out to
Speaker 1: be like a famous art piece or whatever. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: most trash is made up of something far less exciting,
Speaker 1: and that is styrofoam. So according to one estimate, styrofoam
Speaker 1: accounts for approximately thirty three percent of landfill volume and
Speaker 1: it takes five hundred to one thousand years to decompose.
Speaker 1: But Stanford researchers have found one potential solution mealworms. They
Speaker 1: can live on a diet of styrofoam and other plastic,
Speaker 1: which could help break it down faster. And not only that,
Speaker 1: but the researchers have also determined that yellow mealworm guts
Speaker 1: can break down the toxic chemical additive HBCD without it
Speaker 1: building up in their system, which is really incredible because
Speaker 1: that means that these same mealworms that feed on plastic
Speaker 1: could still be used for their other common purpose, which
Speaker 1: is as a food for other animals, including chicken, snakes, fish,
Speaker 1: and shrimp.
Speaker 2: What a sad life though, eat a bunch of plastic
Speaker 2: and then become someone else's snack.
Speaker 1: Henry had a pet mealworm in kindergarten which he named
Speaker 1: George Harrison, and I felt so sad to lose two
Speaker 1: George harrisons of my life.
Speaker 2: Rip George Harrison and also George Harrison.
Speaker 1: So here is another upsetting fact for you. Picture this,
Speaker 1: if every coastline on Earth had fifteen grocery bags filled
Speaker 1: with plastic trash sitting on each yard of beach. That
Speaker 1: is how much plastic waste goes into the oceans.
Speaker 3: Yearly, yearly.
Speaker 1: Isn't that so sad to think about? That is so
Speaker 1: depressing And a lot of the newer waste related innovations
Speaker 1: are focusing on that issue, so this bit will make
Speaker 1: you happy. One of these innovations is called mister trash Wheel.
Speaker 2: Is that an actual person?
Speaker 1: No, Mister trash Wheel is a fourteen foot tall trash
Speaker 1: interceptor that sits in the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland,
Speaker 1: and he does exactly what the name suggests. Trash in
Speaker 1: the water gets funneled onto a conveyor belt and then
Speaker 1: transferred to a dumpster. It's run by solar and hydro power,
Speaker 1: and this wheel is incredibly strong. It can even suck
Speaker 1: up things like tires or mattresses, so it's pretty formidable.
Speaker 1: The smart folks at the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore decided
Speaker 1: to decorate the wheel with big eyes so it would
Speaker 1: look like a cartoon character gobbling up the garbage. And
Speaker 1: they gave it, or excuse me him, that funny name,
Speaker 1: mister trash Wheel. And because of this great branding, mister
Speaker 1: trash Wheel has become something of a social media celebrity.
Speaker 1: He has over forty three thousand Instagram followers, probably more
Speaker 1: after this episode, but that's not his most impressive number.
Speaker 1: Since his debut, he's removed over four point three million
Speaker 1: pounds of t debris from the harbor. What's also interesting
Speaker 1: is that his family is expanding. There are now three
Speaker 1: more trash wheels in Baltimore which have contributed another million
Speaker 1: pounds of trash removal. Their names are Professor trash Wheel
Speaker 1: who got a PhD, Captain trash Wheel, and Gwinda, the
Speaker 1: Good Wheel of the West, who sits at the mouth
Speaker 1: of a stream called Gwinn's Falls.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know how much the people at
Speaker 2: the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore get paid, but I do
Speaker 2: know it is not enough.
Speaker 1: I agree, it's definitely not enough. Now, if you enjoy
Speaker 1: ethropomorphized wheels, I think you're really gonna like this next
Speaker 1: innovation as well. It's inspired by one of my favorite animals,
Speaker 1: the whale sharks. So whale sharks are known for moving
Speaker 1: slowly through the water and doing something called filter feeding. Basically,
Speaker 1: as they swim, they suck in a bunch of water,
Speaker 1: hoping to nab some food in the form of plankton,
Speaker 1: small fish, and fish eggs. And in twenty seventeen, a
Speaker 1: robot inspired by the whale shark called the Waste Shark
Speaker 1: was launched into the canals of the Netherlands. Like a
Speaker 1: filter feeder, the waste Shark floats through the water and
Speaker 1: collects debris. Unlike a filter feeder, this robot then disposes
Speaker 1: of that debris on land. It can help remove about
Speaker 1: a one hundred pounds of unwanted material in the water
Speaker 1: every single day, and it operates autonomously or with a
Speaker 1: person remote controlling it. Now, when the battery is low,
Speaker 1: it heads for its shark pod, where it charges up
Speaker 1: for more crash guzzling, which I just love.
Speaker 2: I love that the charger is called a shark pod.
Speaker 2: That's really great idea. But now I'm wondering what other
Speaker 2: animals could we use as inspiration to help deal with waste, right,
Speaker 2: Like a litter rat, trash raccoon, a garbage seagull.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean all those would be incredible, although I
Speaker 1: do feel like a trash raccoon is just a raccoon.
Speaker 2: I was just brainstorming. This is a starting point as
Speaker 2: we go, you know.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: As fascinating as these waste disposal innovations are, the fact
Speaker 2: is our only way out of a garbage choked future
Speaker 2: is by generating less trash in the first place. The
Speaker 2: zero waste movement has cut on in many communities, including
Speaker 2: the city of Keel, which in twenty twenty four became
Speaker 2: Germany's first certified zero waste city. They've implemented a bunch
Speaker 2: of policies aimed at cutting waste by fifteen percent per
Speaker 2: person per year by twenty thirty five. For example, they
Speaker 2: give new parents grants of up to two hundred euros
Speaker 2: to buy cloth diapers so they don't have to buy
Speaker 2: disposable and garbage fees are based on the weight of
Speaker 2: the waste that each household throws away, so residents are
Speaker 2: coming up with their own ways of contributing, like restaurants
Speaker 2: that now give uneaten food away to people in need,
Speaker 2: or a local hairdresser who collects hair trimmings and this
Speaker 2: is true, turns them into mats that are used to
Speaker 2: absorb oil from sewers.
Speaker 1: Oh, I love that for a whole city to be
Speaker 1: able to create zero waste is remarkable. It does remind
Speaker 1: me of the old phrase reduced reuse, recycle, which you know,
Speaker 1: makes me think that we haven't actually talked about recycling yet.
Speaker 2: Ah well, don't worry. I learned some truly shocking facts
Speaker 2: about recycling and I'll tell you all about it after
Speaker 2: this quick break. Welcome back to Part time Genius. Now,
Speaker 2: before the break, I was telling you about Kiel, Germany's
Speaker 2: first certified zero waste city, and that is an actual
Speaker 2: standard that was created by a nonprofit called Zero Waste Europe.
Speaker 2: And what I find really interesting about this is Germany
Speaker 2: was already known for its commitment to recycling in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one, Germany recycled over two thirds of its municipal
Speaker 2: solid waste, more than any other country in Europe, and
Speaker 2: according to Bettina aust, the president of the Keiel City Council,
Speaker 2: that actually lulled people into a false sense of complacency.
Speaker 2: She told her reporter from The Guardian that a lot
Speaker 2: of people are so focused on recycling they forget about
Speaker 2: reducing the amount of stuff they buy in the first place,
Speaker 2: or finding ways to repair or reuse it. Which is
Speaker 2: not to say recycling hasn't helped with the trash problem
Speaker 2: right here in the United States, recycling is a relatively
Speaker 2: new phenomenon. Curbside recycling didn't become a thing until the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies, when we realized our landfills were starting to overflow.
Speaker 2: In the nineteen eighties, about ten percent of municipal waste
Speaker 2: got recycled, but these days it's over thirty two percent,
Speaker 2: and thanks to recycling programs, we're sending about half as
Speaker 2: much waste to landfills as we used to. But here's
Speaker 2: the dirty truth. A lot of American recycling just ends
Speaker 2: up getting shipped overseas, where it piles up and causes
Speaker 2: serious problems.
Speaker 1: That feels kind of depressing because we spend so much
Speaker 1: time recycling. I guess what you're saying is that recycling
Speaker 1: doesn't get recycled.
Speaker 2: Not always. And we could probably do an entire episode
Speaker 2: just about this phenomenon. But it has to do with
Speaker 2: a global waste trade. So approximately one third of United
Speaker 2: States recycling gets sent overseas, and for a long time
Speaker 2: most of that plastic and metal scrap went to China,
Speaker 2: which used it to fuel manufacturing. But in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: China banned foreign waste imports, citing public health and environmental concerns.
Speaker 2: With our biggest customer gone, many US municipalities had to
Speaker 2: cut back on recycling or they scrambled to find other
Speaker 2: places to send stuff. As a result, Malaysia, Indonesia, and
Speaker 2: other parts of Southeast Asia were quickly flooded with our
Speaker 2: discarded yogurt cups and takeout containers, and it's way more
Speaker 2: than they can handle. The author Alexander Klapp, who wrote
Speaker 2: a book called Waste Wars The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash,
Speaker 2: described seeing remote areas in the highlands of Java that
Speaker 2: he called quote hellscapes of Western waste, toothpaste tubes from California,
Speaker 2: shopping bags from the Netherlands, deodorant sticks from Australia, stacked
Speaker 2: knee high as far as the eye can see. And
Speaker 2: because it is literally impossible to recycle it all, local
Speaker 2: Javanese street vendors have taken to burning it for a
Speaker 2: cooking fuel, filling the air with toxic fumes.
Speaker 3: That is so horrifying.
Speaker 2: And it's what former Kenyon president Daniel Larotmoy called garbage imperialism,
Speaker 2: and he coined that phrase in the nineteen eighties when
Speaker 2: countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America were angry
Speaker 2: at the United States because we were dumping our toxic
Speaker 2: waste on their land. But as Alexander Klapp points out,
Speaker 2: back then it was easy for people to realize that
Speaker 2: hazardous waste is bad. Today, the stuff we dump can
Speaker 2: be just as dangerous, but we don't consider that because
Speaker 2: if it's labeled recyclable, we think it's good for the planet.
Speaker 1: I mean, the truth is we really have to emphasize
Speaker 1: the reduce part of that reuse recycle slogan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the words are in that order for a reason. Reduce, reuse,
Speaker 2: recycle is the last resort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: And now for our last resort, why don't we turn
Speaker 1: to the fact off.
Speaker 2: I'll kick things off with the Trail of a Thousand Trolls,
Speaker 2: a project by the Danish artist Thomas Dambo which definitely
Speaker 2: leans into the reused part of that slogan. Along with
Speaker 2: his team, Dambo creates massive troll sculptures made from discarded
Speaker 2: items like wooden palettes, old furniture, and wine barrels. These
Speaker 2: trolls can be up to forty feet tall. Dambo installs
Speaker 2: them in places like forests, jungles, and grasslands. There are
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy of them now around the world,
Speaker 2: everywhere from Australia to South Korea to Chile. And each
Speaker 2: trash troll has its own lore, its own backstory. Yes, so,
Speaker 2: for example, Little Bibby, who's located in Dayton, Ohio, comes
Speaker 2: with a story about how she wanted to learn to
Speaker 2: fly like a bird. The statue of Little Bibby, which
Speaker 2: at seventeen feet is not little at all, holds winglight
Speaker 2: contraptions and has one like up in the air to
Speaker 2: show that she is about to take flight.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I've got to look these offs now, So
Speaker 1: we talked about garbology, and I'm going to take it
Speaker 1: one step further, which is virtual garbology. In twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: Jared Hansen published a paper titled quote an Abundance of
Speaker 1: Fruit Trees a garbology of the artifacts in Animal Crossing
Speaker 1: New Leaf. So I'm sure people out there know about
Speaker 1: Animal Crossing the video game from its massive popularity, especially
Speaker 1: during the COVID nineteen pandemic. New Leaf was the twenty
Speaker 1: thirteen edition of the game for the Nintendo three DS,
Speaker 1: So in his research, Hanson visited a random selection of
Speaker 1: Animal Crossing towns to see which items players had left
Speaker 1: lying around like trash, and he found that the most
Speaker 1: likely items to be discarded were fruit with pairs and lead,
Speaker 1: which makes sense if you've ever played the game. There's
Speaker 1: definitely a lot of fruit. But he also discovered that
Speaker 1: there wasn't much litter in Animal Crossing in general, and
Speaker 1: he concluded quote, it seems as though the economic systems
Speaker 1: of the game, which encouraged the player to pay for
Speaker 1: upgrades to their home and public works, lead many players
Speaker 1: to forego conspicuous consumption, and the waste or trashing of
Speaker 1: items related to accessories and clothing instead, items of trash
Speaker 1: and garbage are those with utility and economic value instead
Speaker 1: of personal meaning.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Oh, that is so wholesome, unlike my next fact, which
Speaker 2: is not wholesome at all. In two thousand and one,
Speaker 2: contractors hired by Procter and Gamble, which makes Panteen and
Speaker 2: head in Shoulders shampoo, were caught doing corporate dumpster diving.
Speaker 2: They were going through the trash of the Chicago offices
Speaker 2: of Unilever, a rival company that also owned haircare brands
Speaker 2: like Finesse, and they retrieved eighty pages of confidential planning documents.
Speaker 2: Procter and Gamble confessed to the espionage, although they claimed
Speaker 2: that they hadn't used the material the contractors took, but
Speaker 2: either way, the whole debacle culminated in Procter and Gamble
Speaker 2: paying a ten million dollar settlement.
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: That's in two thousand and one, right, that's nuts, and
Speaker 1: it's like a watergate but for Dandriff shampoos well. Another
Speaker 1: rivalry with trash at the center is the one between
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan and the New York City writer aj Weberman.
Speaker 1: So during the sixties, Weberman became a huge Dylan fan.
Speaker 1: In fact, some say he was completely obsessed, but over
Speaker 1: the years he grew dissatisfied with Dylan's music and persona,
Speaker 1: saying he turned his back on radical politics. In nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy one, he tried to confront Dylan by knocking on
Speaker 1: his door, and Dylan slammed the door in his face.
Speaker 1: So Weberman took it to the next level. He started
Speaker 1: going through his trash and if you remember from earlier
Speaker 1: that I teased Weberman as the inventor of the word garbology,
Speaker 1: this is actually why. So he started publishing pictures of
Speaker 1: Dylan's garbage, including private letters and photographs. He did this
Speaker 1: in an underground paper called The East Village Other Now, unsurprisingly,
Speaker 1: Dylan stopped putting personal items into trash and asked Weberman
Speaker 1: to stop invading his privacy. Weberman alleges that this issue
Speaker 1: came to a head with Dylan attacking him on Elizabeth Street,
Speaker 1: and he claims the event was memorialized in Dylan's song
Speaker 1: where Are You Tonight. According to Weberman, this lyric is
Speaker 1: about him getting beaten up by Bob Dylan quote, it
Speaker 1: fell out of place, my foot in his face, But
Speaker 1: he should have stayed where his money was green Wow.
Speaker 1: It's poetic. I guess it is.
Speaker 2: I guess okay. I think by bringing our conversation about
Speaker 2: garbage all the way around to Bob Dylan lyrics and
Speaker 2: for telling us about mister Trashwheel and his entire family,
Speaker 2: you've earned today's trophy. Mango.
Speaker 1: I think it's more about mister Trashwheel than anything else.
Speaker 1: But okay, I promise I'm never gonna throw this this
Speaker 1: trophy away. So that is it for our dumpster dive
Speaker 1: into the world of trash. Research and writing for this
Speaker 1: episode was done by our friend Meredith Danko. Thank you, Meredith.
Speaker 1: But now we want to hear from you, and specifically,
Speaker 1: we have a very odd question that we need answered.
Speaker 1: We want to know what your favorite or least favorite
Speaker 1: type of pasta is. It is for an episode we're
Speaker 1: working on. Give us a call at three oh two,
Speaker 1: four oh five, five, nine two five. We want to
Speaker 1: hear your very strong pasta opinions. You can also send
Speaker 1: us an email at high Geniuses at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Do not hold back. We cannot wait to hear your
Speaker 1: hot takes on pasta and big news. Next week we're
Speaker 1: going to have five brand new episodes for you. It
Speaker 1: is a week long series all about curiosity. If you've
Speaker 1: ever wondered why do I wonder so many things? Then
Speaker 1: this is for you. We'll also have daily activities contests,
Speaker 1: so follow us on Instagram and blue Sky at part
Speaker 1: Time Genius so you don't miss out on all this fun.
Speaker 1: We'll be back on Monday to kick that off, but
Speaker 1: in the meantime, From Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
Speaker 1: a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
Speaker 1: by Will Pearson and me Mongashtikler and researched by our
Speaker 1: good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and
Speaker 1: produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norbel
Speaker 1: and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
Speaker 1: Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shoring. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.