Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovic on Bloomberg Radio. So you
Speaker 1: know all of you been listening and watching throughout the week.
Speaker 1: We've had a focus an honor of birthday that is
Speaker 1: this Saturday. All this week we've been tapping into our climate,
Speaker 1: talking about sustainable food production and agriculture, eliminating food risk
Speaker 1: and as a result, helping to reduce the massive negative
Speaker 1: contribution that agg and food waste make to climate change.
Speaker 1: Waste generally, you know, Maddie, it is a big risk
Speaker 1: to our planet. We all make a lot of garbage
Speaker 1: and it's just really hurting us.
Speaker 2: No, it's so true, and I think there's a lot
Speaker 2: of misconceptions about recycling, and the Recycling Partnership has some
Speaker 2: thoughts on how we can all be better stewards of
Speaker 2: our planet. So here to tell us all about it
Speaker 2: is the CEO of the Recycling Partnership, Keith Harrison, joining
Speaker 2: us in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for coming in person to sit with us.
Speaker 3: It's great to be here today, loving this.
Speaker 2: How are you doing.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's been beautiful day in New York City. I've
Speaker 3: been walking all around glad to be here.
Speaker 2: Well, we were so excited to have you in person
Speaker 2: with us. Give us like the top line here, recycling
Speaker 2: does it work?
Speaker 3: So worth the effort, also worth the effort of improving it.
Speaker 3: Recycling Partnership is a nonprofit and I built us nine
Speaker 3: years ago because I knew we needed a better option.
Speaker 3: We needed a better system in the US, and that's
Speaker 3: what we're after.
Speaker 1: We'll go backwards because I remember growing up in our
Speaker 1: grade school, we did paper drives all the time and
Speaker 1: my family, we you know, stored our papers, tied them
Speaker 1: up and brought them in, you know, a huge station
Speaker 1: wagon full of papers. What is it that hasn't been working?
Speaker 1: Because we've been doing this for a long time.
Speaker 3: We all have.
Speaker 1: Offices where we separate out garbage. Go to different states
Speaker 1: and they separate things multiple ways depending on the state
Speaker 1: that you live in. What hasn't been happening? So take
Speaker 1: us back there and give us kind of a snippet
Speaker 1: of what's going on.
Speaker 3: We all learned about recycling in third grade. We understood
Speaker 3: that it was good for the planet, good to do.
Speaker 3: Put your your bottle, your can in the bin take
Speaker 3: your papers back for the drive. So why are we
Speaker 3: still talking about this? Well, I have a quiz for you.
Speaker 3: You're ready, Okay, I'm ready. How many recycling programs are
Speaker 3: there in the US?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I have no idea to.
Speaker 3: Nine thousand different recycling programs. So when you're like, why
Speaker 3: can I recycle that here but not there? What happens?
Speaker 3: Why is that nine thousand? Now? I bet a lot
Speaker 3: of people listening to this story think about supply chains,
Speaker 3: thinks about business. If we pull back and we understand, like,
Speaker 3: what is recycling? At its core? It's a feedstock for manufacturing.
Speaker 3: What feeds feedstocks starts at nine thousand different points. That
Speaker 3: is a really tricky supply chain. So when we ask
Speaker 3: ourselves why isn't recycling working like we want? We have
Speaker 3: to ask have we really built it? Or has it
Speaker 3: organically grown? The answer is a second, Right, it's grown
Speaker 3: over time?
Speaker 1: Is it basically because states could do what they want,
Speaker 1: cities could do what they want. Is it just a
Speaker 1: simple as.
Speaker 3: Nine thousand different do what you want? And that's the
Speaker 3: way that we work.
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Communities are different. We travel from one place to another
Speaker 3: and some do some things better than others. And we've
Speaker 3: put recycling on the backs of communities, and I think
Speaker 3: it's time to ask should they be paying for that?
Speaker 3: Is that their job? We all want it to just
Speaker 3: work better? So what would make it work better? Well,
Speaker 3: there's an important role for policy to play here.
Speaker 2: So what would be the dream if you got to be,
Speaker 2: you know, the president tomorrow?
Speaker 1: What would it look like?
Speaker 3: I have written that down. I think about that a lot.
Speaker 3: So what does good recycling look like? It means a
Speaker 3: couple of things. One everyone can. Right now, forty million
Speaker 3: American families cannot equitably recycle. They have to drive it,
Speaker 3: they have to pay more. They just can't do it
Speaker 3: that forty million households. So one everyone can. Two everyone does,
Speaker 3: and they know what to put in. They trust it.
Speaker 3: They know what to do with those yogurt cups, those boxes.
Speaker 3: They understand.
Speaker 1: We don't. I still don't know whether I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: rinse them out. I still do it.
Speaker 3: And you feel stressed out about it?
Speaker 1: Right, I'm really serious, Like I'm like, oh, this isn't
Speaker 1: going to be recycled, so like you know, but so.
Speaker 3: So in the future, everyone can. Everyone does, because you know,
Speaker 3: clean and dry in the bin, don't overstress about it
Speaker 3: and what goes in. That's the goal of what we're
Speaker 3: working towards. But we're not there yet. We can go deep.
Speaker 3: What is your question?
Speaker 1: In the but clean and the dry does everything that
Speaker 1: should that is divided up, that is clean and dried
Speaker 1: in the bin? Does it actually get recycled?
Speaker 3: That's the big question, and I think that's on the
Speaker 3: mind of public. Can I trust that this is worth
Speaker 3: my effort?
Speaker 1: And can I ask you? Can I just tell you why?
Speaker 1: Because our kitchilll and team wrote a Bloomberg BusinessWeek's story
Speaker 1: I think it was last month. It tracked Plastic Bag's
Speaker 1: two thousand mile journey across season continents quote revealing a
Speaker 1: nether world of contractors, brokers and exporters and a messy
Speaker 1: reality that looks like a less like a virtuous cycle
Speaker 1: and more like passing the buck. Those were the words
Speaker 1: of our Kitchiel who wrote this story. It was incredible.
Speaker 1: So it didn't go where we all thought it.
Speaker 3: Was going to go. In that case, it did not
Speaker 3: go as smoothly as anyone would want it to go.
Speaker 3: Is that the ideal? No, So in the system that
Speaker 3: we design, everyone can everyone does, and we know the
Speaker 3: fate that you can trust that it turns into something new.
Speaker 3: So for every one story of things not going well
Speaker 3: like that, there are a zillion stories of things going well.
Speaker 3: Yogurt cups turning into car parts, cans turning into more cans,
Speaker 3: plastic bottles turning into carpet. But the public here's one
Speaker 3: story about that, and they think, WHOA, I've been tricked.
Speaker 3: And everyone is so careful, you know, has their ear
Speaker 3: open for a trick right now. So it's a scary time.
Speaker 3: So why did that bag turn out that way? I
Speaker 3: think it's because we don't have a system. We have
Speaker 3: this loosely connected, highly dependent network that we think of
Speaker 3: as one thing recycling, but it's actually a whole bunch
Speaker 3: of stuff. Now, the fact that it left the US
Speaker 3: to go get recycled somewhere is that innately bad noe?
Speaker 3: Not at the not necessarily. There's lots of recyclables imported
Speaker 3: and exported, just like there are purses imported and exported everything,
Speaker 3: So recyclables function like that too. But do we need
Speaker 3: more oversight into how things are designed for recycling, how
Speaker 3: the systems are run, and who pays for them. One
Speaker 3: hundred percent. That's policy, and that policy.
Speaker 2: Is that something that you would hope for at the
Speaker 2: federal level or where do you expect to see that shift?
Speaker 3: Well, right now we're seeing it at the state level.
Speaker 3: Four states California and Colorado, Oregon, and Maine have passed extended,
Speaker 3: well even bigger extended producer responsibility. And so what that
Speaker 3: means if you're a producer a company that makes packaging,
Speaker 3: you are responsible for putting money into a kitty that
Speaker 3: makes sure that the system in that state can take it.
Speaker 3: And there's variable fees, so if it's designed for recyclability,
Speaker 3: you pay less. If it's not, you pay more. But
Speaker 3: what it's doing is shifting the economics to say, one,
Speaker 3: we need a better system, two we need a stuff
Speaker 3: designed for that system, and the economics of it need
Speaker 3: to deliver the returns both for the planet and our pockets.
Speaker 1: Keith, I want to ask you, Oh, I'm sorry, good.
Speaker 2: No, it's it sounds like the pain that is on
Speaker 2: the company, not the consumer.
Speaker 3: Right, we're shifting. We're shifting that. We're saying, company is
Speaker 3: not just enough to design it to be recycled. Company,
Speaker 3: we need you to be there to make sure that
Speaker 3: it actually happens, and and and putting.
Speaker 1: How do we do that though as a company.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's through a network. This is why I
Speaker 3: think the Recycling Partnership is pretty interesting. So we're a
Speaker 3: nonprofit and we're funded almost entirely by corporate entities, and
Speaker 3: a lot of times you could say, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: then who's calling the shots here? But I think we
Speaker 3: need more nonprofits like the Recycling Partnership because we were
Speaker 3: designed to insist and assist. Now what does that mean?
Speaker 3: When a company makes a pledge to recycle more? We say, great,
Speaker 3: we want to help you do that, but we don't
Speaker 3: we know that that's not your subject matter expertise, that's
Speaker 3: our So we're going to insist you get there, and
Speaker 3: we're going to assist help you do it. We bring
Speaker 3: in subject matter experts. So I think you need transparency,
Speaker 3: you need data, you need open books to really see
Speaker 3: that the material is going where it should be going
Speaker 3: in the recycling system.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like and we're talking with Keith Harrison,
Speaker 1: CEO of the Recycling Partnership here in studio. We've got
Speaker 1: about a minute and then we'll come back and talk
Speaker 1: some more. But I do wonder you know ESG certainly
Speaker 1: under the microscope and for good reasons. As we try
Speaker 1: to really create more transparency, are we moving? Is there
Speaker 1: a will to move towards greater transparency when it comes
Speaker 1: to things like recycling, whether what a company is doing,
Speaker 1: and really the impact of understanding versus just you should
Speaker 1: be recycled. We create products that can be recycled, but
Speaker 1: you know once it leaves, you know, a company or manufacturer,
Speaker 1: it's out of their hands, right.
Speaker 3: I think that that call for transparency is across the board,
Speaker 3: and it's not just how is a product design, but
Speaker 3: what's the system there and how do you follow? Just
Speaker 3: like you said earlier that they follow those plastic bags,
Speaker 3: we follow it all the way through and make sure
Speaker 3: what we intend to happen happens. And that's how you
Speaker 3: present prevent greenwashing. But that's also critical to a healthy system,
Speaker 3: which is what we want. Recycling will protect the natural resources.
Speaker 3: We all need this to happen, but it's calling out
Speaker 3: for better controls and better oversight.
Speaker 1: We're going to continue this conversation because I am curious
Speaker 1: about what are the conversations you're having with companies because
Speaker 1: they can do a lot but again, if you don't
Speaker 1: have one kind of big system, it's still going to
Speaker 1: be tricky to really provide the efficiencies and the impact.
Speaker 1: We're going to come back with Keith Harrison. See you
Speaker 1: have the Recycling Partnership here in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio.
Speaker 1: I'm still not sure our do I runs everything.
Speaker 2: I think we need to ask a couple more like
Speaker 2: do's and domes in the next In the next go
Speaker 2: around here, we'll bet well, we'll tease that.
Speaker 3: Ahead for people.
Speaker 2: We're back with Keith Harrison, the CEO of the Recycling Partnership,
Speaker 2: and in the break we were talking a lot about
Speaker 2: those instant delivery grocery services. I use Instacart, there are
Speaker 2: plenty of them. But your groceries, Keith, they come in
Speaker 2: those reusable bags that are supposed to be great for
Speaker 2: our environment. But we were saying, I am personally drowning
Speaker 2: in these reusable bags. I know that's an incredibly privileged,
Speaker 2: privileged position to be in, but what do I do?
Speaker 3: So? I think this is the very nature of this conversation. Right,
Speaker 3: people want to do the right thing, but it's pretty
Speaker 3: easy to say I don't want to choose the plastic container,
Speaker 3: So I'm going to choose paper. I don't want to
Speaker 3: use the single use bag. I mean use the cloth one.
Speaker 3: But then the sticks actually get higher when you get
Speaker 3: up up the chain on heavy duty materials, and so
Speaker 3: the responsibility of making sure that you do something is
Speaker 3: there with those reusable grocery bags. I would have to
Speaker 3: look for a donation place for that.
Speaker 1: But I think the so I guess the question is like,
Speaker 1: have we exchanged a bad problem for an even bigger problem.
Speaker 3: I think we have. And it's all rooted in the
Speaker 3: we want to buy our way out of this or
Speaker 3: we need We're not we're looking for the quick fix
Speaker 3: when really what our society relies on is convenience and
Speaker 3: serving busy people. Every person listening to this show right
Speaker 3: now has a million things going on between their company,
Speaker 3: their family, their next steps, and they don't need to
Speaker 3: be spending time worrying about do I need to rinse
Speaker 3: my peanut butter container or do I just put it
Speaker 3: in the bin. And that's why that's why the recycling
Speaker 3: partnership exists, is we're trying to pull together the public
Speaker 3: and the private sectors and overhaul this whole system. So
Speaker 3: this public doesn't have to think about recycling all the time.
Speaker 3: The system exists. The system exists, so you can just
Speaker 3: recycle without thinking. And here's how you get here. Okay, One,
Speaker 3: you pass legislation that you changes the economics, that communities
Speaker 3: aren't carrying the bill, carrying this on their backs, that
Speaker 3: they're not paying for this, that the economics are paid
Speaker 3: for by the same companies that are producing it. Make
Speaker 3: that whole system better organized, to make sure that what's
Speaker 3: designed for recycling is recovered. So we're going to not
Speaker 3: just hope for the best, but we're going to make
Speaker 3: sure that it's designed and recovered there. Now, we did
Speaker 3: a report. We answered this question, what would it take
Speaker 3: to fix the US recycling system? Now, how do I
Speaker 3: define that? Can people recycle? Do people will recycle? And
Speaker 3: is the infrastructure there? The price dig seventeen billion dollars?
Speaker 3: What we can find seventeen billion dollars And here's the deal,
Speaker 3: thirty billion dollar return, A thirty billion dollar return in
Speaker 3: resource conservation and US jobs. I think that's an investment
Speaker 3: we can't afford not to make. And you know what,
Speaker 3: we could do it in five years and talk about
Speaker 3: something else. What would you like to talk about.
Speaker 1: Well, what I'm curious is would you go to Washington
Speaker 1: or talk to somebody in Washington. Is there any will
Speaker 1: to do something like this? It's not expensive, but I'm
Speaker 1: just curious.
Speaker 3: So I've worked in recycling for twenty five years. I
Speaker 3: ran a recycling program, I worked for the state of
Speaker 3: North Carolina doing grand Site. I was a contractor with
Speaker 3: Boozellen working on EPA stuff. So I've worked all across
Speaker 3: the different sectors. And what I found is that everyone
Speaker 3: wants the same outcome, just make it work, but everyone
Speaker 3: wants it for a different reason. And so we need
Speaker 3: a marriage counselor like someone who's saying, this is what
Speaker 3: our words mean. And for the first time though in
Speaker 3: this twenty five years of working on this, it's only
Speaker 3: been the last two three years that federal policy makers
Speaker 3: have been saying, hey, what's my role in it? And
Speaker 3: I think that's great. So there is a huge role
Speaker 3: for federal policy because, as I said before, break four
Speaker 3: states have passed state level policy. But that's a hodgepodge
Speaker 3: approach that's better than the nine thousand different programs we
Speaker 3: have now. But think about what happens if we have
Speaker 3: one one where things are designed for system things are recovered,
Speaker 3: and we get to address things like equitable access, the
Speaker 3: environmental justice component of equal services.
Speaker 1: So is the marriage counselor potentially the EPA and or
Speaker 1: the SEC. So you kind of dealing with publicly traded
Speaker 1: companies that there's a component that they're measured on, which
Speaker 1: is something we talk a lot about when it comes
Speaker 1: to environmental impact and kind of doing it right and
Speaker 1: recycling certainly could be a big part of it, probably should.
Speaker 1: And then the EPA. I don't know, like, how do
Speaker 1: you see it that it plays out.
Speaker 3: I think there's a there's probably a lot of marriage
Speaker 3: counselors here. The Recycling Partnership as a nonprofit is one
Speaker 3: that pulls together the public and the private sector, big company,
Speaker 3: small companies, every human in this country. But I think
Speaker 3: there is a role for regulation. There is a role
Speaker 3: for standards. I'm really interested in data. How do we
Speaker 3: measure progress transparency for the flow of material. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm keeping an eye on the UN Global Plastics Treaty
Speaker 3: that's going to be a legally binding instrument to align
Speaker 3: for some common standards. I think that if I was
Speaker 3: running a company that made stuff, I'd have my eye
Speaker 3: on that because it's gonna have what is that? So,
Speaker 3: the UN Global Plastics Treaty. I'm headed to Paris next
Speaker 3: month for the second I incs that the International Negotiating
Speaker 3: Committee of this globally binding Plastic and Plastic Pollution Reduction Instrument.
Speaker 3: And what that means is we can't just keep trying
Speaker 3: to solve things here and there. We need to have
Speaker 3: a common approach across countries. And so will the UN
Speaker 3: have something that's really his teeth in it? That's yet
Speaker 3: to be seen. But what is happening is that companies
Speaker 3: are paying attention of do I want to wait to
Speaker 3: be told what to do or do I want to
Speaker 3: do that now? And that's the questions we get. So
Speaker 3: we work with nearly one hundred major global companies that
Speaker 3: either make stuff we use every day or sell stuff
Speaker 3: we use every day, and they are aligning on common goals.
Speaker 2: What are they doing? What is the biggest change you're
Speaker 2: seeing that make?
Speaker 3: So the biggest change is that they're understanding it's not
Speaker 3: just what they do inside their four walls, but what
Speaker 3: they do outside of their four walls, meaning what happens
Speaker 3: to the bags inside your apartment or what happens with
Speaker 3: your paper that your family makes, that it has somewhere
Speaker 3: to go. So the biggest shift I see is our
Speaker 3: companies who are saying, Okay, I need to make sure
Speaker 3: that the infrastructure is there. Otherwise my goals will not
Speaker 3: be met. Not because I didn't design something, but because
Speaker 3: those forty million American families just can't do it. If
Speaker 3: we can't do it, then don't tell the public to
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 1: So is it going to mean ultimately we continue kind
Speaker 1: of doing what we're doing, but just amp it up
Speaker 1: and maybe there's more divisions of plastic glass I don't know,
Speaker 1: and then and then there is a place and just
Speaker 1: got about thirty seconds. I'm just trying to well.
Speaker 3: So out of ESG, you know, the thing that worries
Speaker 3: me most out of ESG is just this hot pot
Speaker 3: of opportunities where people are throwing money at, you know,
Speaker 3: venture ideas here and there that don't ladder up to
Speaker 3: system change. I think we have to stop and pause,
Speaker 3: use things like federal policy and the UN Global Plastic
Speaker 3: Streaty to create consistency and shine a light on measurable
Speaker 3: transparent parency for change.
Speaker 2: Can we do like biggest mistake consumers make.
Speaker 3: Oh quick, all right, I'm right, oh the biggest Yeah,
Speaker 3: well I think, uh, let's do some real fast so
Speaker 3: pizza boxes. Put them in caps on bottles, leave them on,
Speaker 3: clean and dry on your materials, but you don't have
Speaker 3: to run them through the dishwasher. And the number one
Speaker 3: thing is, if you're in New York City, you use
Speaker 3: bags to recycle outside your apartment, but in most places
Speaker 3: in the country, don't bag your recyclables inside your cart.
Speaker 3: Leave them loose. That's the best way to make sure
Speaker 3: that those all those beautiful recyclables get turned into something else.
Speaker 1: Just throw them in a can and just empty.
Speaker 3: Just throw them in your recycling bin, your recycling cart,
Speaker 3: keep them empty.
Speaker 1: Really cool stuff.
Speaker 3: Thank you, come back after.
Speaker 1: Paris Harrison, CEO the Recycling Partnership here in studio