The Trash Talk Podcast

Recycle Michael and Michelle Fox talk about MUSE and how their members make events a greener experience. As a grassroots environmental activist, Michele merged her passion for people and the planet with event planning by championing sustainable event management. Michele founded MUSE (Members United for Sustainable Events) in 2021. MUSE is a member organization providing the event industry in the USA with inspiration, education, and community to increase the positive impacts of our events. Website: www.museusa.org Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/muse.sustainable.events/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/72058316

Recycle Michael talks with Stephanie Miller about her new book

Recycle Michael interviews the esteemed Sally Brown, talking about bio resources, compost vs. anaerobic digestion, carbon sequestration using biosolids and more good s**t. Sally Brown is a Research Professor, in the School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, College of the Environment, University of Washington, Seattle. http://faculty.washington.edu/slb/ While her work is highly regarded in academic circles, she is also a terrific writer, featured columnist and editor for Biocycle (https://www.biocycle.net/). Her recent columns include: Compost and Methane avoidance : https://www.biocycle.net/2020/02/25/connections-compost-methane-avoidance/ https://www.biocycle.net/2020/02/18/connections-can-compost-draw-carbon/ Short term carbon cycle https://www.biocycle.net/2020/03/03/connections-compost-cant-decay-place/ Enhanced tree growth with organics: https://www.biocycle.net/2020/03/24/connections-hail-trees-biosolids/ Irrigation water savings with organics: https://www.biocycle.net/2020/04/14/connections-compost-cheapest-irrigation-system/ https://www.biocycle.net/2020/03/17/urban-compost-math-calculating-carbon-offsets/ Episode edited by Crystal Awareness

Recycle Michael interviews Will Zurier and Sam Yeoman to learn more about the new performance standard for waste, similar to LEED for buildings. SWEEP, (Solid Waste Environmental Excellence Performance)is a non-profit start-up developing a market transformation, environmental leadership, and sustainability performance standard for the solid waste and materials management industry. The comprehensive national standard identifies and rewards leaders in the industry for using sustainable best practices and policies set forth in the standard. SWEEP seeks to standardize methods, practices, policies, calculations, and programs within the waste management industry to help drive lasting results which are fortified by strong data to help verify impacts and push the industry towards a more sustainable future. Website: https://sweepstandard.org/ Youtube Page (with all our free webinar recordings): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkMeWe1t5x7EKjZI-HX-gsQ LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sweep-standard The company mentioned that you can list: Re-TRAC: https://www.re-trac.com/

Recycle Michael talks with Dieter Eckels of Cascadia Consulting Group on the absurd and fascinating topic of waste characterization; the process of sorting garbage to gather data to better understand it. Getting intimate with trash is important to understanding what it is we are wasting and recycling. This show talks about the brutal work passionate people do to work toward solutions to wasting. http://cascadiaconsulting.com Show engineered by Crystal Awareness

Recycle Michael interviewing Tracie Onstad Bills for International Women's Day. They discuss doing business outreaching the age of Covid19, California's SB1383 and other topics related to the journey towards Zero Waste. Tracie Bills has over 25 years of materials management experience, including working for a hauler, a county government, and a non-profit; she also has over 15 years with materials management consulting firms. She has provided commercial sector materials flow assessments, organics processing research and analysis, waste characterization studies, and recycling, organics and waste management technical assistance to government agencies, schools, multi-family dwellings and businesses. Ms. Bills has an environmental science degree from San Jose State, is the Past President of the SWANA Gold Rush Chapter, and a member of the National Recycling Coalition, and the Northern California Recycling Association. She is also the Executive Director for the California Resource Recovery Association. Engineered by Crystal Awareness

Recycle Michael interviews Nik Balachandran, Founder and CEO of Zabble Inc. and certified TRUE™ Zero Waste Advisor. During the Conversation, Michael coins the term "Garbology 2.0" as they discuss technology and waste reduction. Nik’s passion for hiking and open water swimming led him into the waste industry, after he kept encountering trash in otherwise beautiful natural areas. Driven to take on the growing problem of waste, Nik realized a crucial piece was missing from zero waste initiatives: data. In 2016, he founded Zabble Inc. to create a SaaS platform with mobile and cloud technology, to help large educational institutions and corporate organizations track their zero waste programs and gain real-time insights into their waste stream. Prior to this, Nik worked at seminal startups in the San Francisco Bay Area bringing new ideas to life in the areas of noise cancellation, clinical data analysis, patient medication adherence and indoor air quality. In addition to his role as CEO of Zabble, Nik also serves as a board member for Northern California Recycling Association (NCRA), and actively participates in zero waste advocacy. https://www.zabbleinc.com/ https://newswatchtv.com/2020/03/27/zabble-newswatch-review/ Download Zabble Zero: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/log-zero/id1435045530 Episode engineered by Crystal Awareness

Recycle Michael interviews Laura McKaughan of Envirolutions Consulting, talking trash, Large Refuse Generators and sorting it all out. Envirolutions Consulting was started in 2014 by Principal Laura McKaughan in Oakland, CA. Laura served as Associate Director of Green Programs for the SF Conservation Corps for nearly 8 years and also previously served as a Sustainability Coordinator for Stanford University Student Housing. She is the former President of the Northern California Recycling Association and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the California Resource Recovery Association. https://www.envirolutionsconsulting.com Podcast Engineered by Crystal Awareness

Recycle Michael interviews Green Mary on Earth Day. Mary Munat "Green Mary" tells her story about getting inspired to make events Zero Waste. Mary Munat entered the waste diversion world from her position as Human Resources Manager with The Health and Harmony Festival in Sonoma County in 2001. There, working in the role of volunteer coordinator, she heard environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill speaking on the urgency of all event-goers to heed their environmental impact out at public events. Green light bulbs went off. All systems aligned internally and socially to give birth to a local industry. Within three years, before “greening” was even a verb, Green Mary moved from one local festival to greening a dozen, to over 200 event-related dates in 2015. She helped shift the focus from recycling and throw away items to highly compostable food service wares, ensuring that everything that can be composted or re-used is diverted from the landfill. Find her at www.greenmary.com Links mentioned: https://dailyacts.org/ https://huffman.house.gov Podcast Engineered by Crystal Awareness

Recycle Michael interviews Gary Liss about the meaning of Zero Waste and his plan(s) to make it happen. Gary Liss has over 45 years of experience in solid waste and recycling and is President of his own consulting firm, Gary Liss & Associates. Mr. Liss is a leading advocate of Zero Waste and has helped more communities develop Zero Waste plans than anyone else in the U.S. including: City of Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Oakland, Burbank, San Jose, City of Alameda, Oceanside, Glendale and Del Norte County in CA; Austin (TX); Nelson (BC); Telluride (CO); the Big Island of Hawaii (HI), Arkadelphia (AR) and Fort Collins, CO). He led a team to develop a Community Recycling Ordinance for Fort Collins, CO. He just completed working on a Zero Waste Plan for the City of Boston, MA and an update of the Palo Alto Zero Waste Plan. He also has helped major businesses (e.g. Sandia National Laboratories and Nestle Purina) and colleges (e.g. California State University Long Beach and California State University Los Angeles) develop Zero Waste Plans. He helped USEPA develop a “Zero Waste community planning assessment tool”. He served on the Loomis Town Council and was Mayor in 2010. http://garyliss.com links mentioned: www.zwia.org Podcast engineered by Crystal Awareness

Recycle Michael talks with Randy Russell about the impact of COVID-19 on the waste and recycling industry in general, as well as other meandering topics. Episode engineered by Crystal Awareness

Recycle Michael Talking Trash with "Compost Guy" Matt Cotton https://mattcotton.com/ Topics include: What is compostable? How compostable products affect composters Reusables vs compostables Gap between organics generation and composting capacity Compost Normative Behavior Plugs mentioned on show: SRJC Shoan Farm - https://shonefarm.santarosa.edu/ BPI - https://www.bpiworld.org BPI study on compostable plastics - https://www.bpiworld.org/Resources/Documents/Portland%20Overs%20Sorting%20Study%20Final%20Oct%2012.pdf USCC - https://www.compostingcouncil.org/ Composter Training Program - https://www.compostfoundation.org/Education/COTC Marin Carbon Project - https://www.marincarbonproject.org UC Davis Compost Study - https://climatechange.ucdavis.edu/news/compost-key-to-sequestering-carbon-in-the-soil/ Biocycle - https://www.biocycle.net/ Episode engineered by Crystal Awareness

Recycle Michael Interviews Chris Brokate of the Clean River Alliance and Russian River Keepers about removing trash from the Russian River Watershed and beyond. https://cleanriveralliance.org https://russianriverkeeper.org/ Episode engineered by Crystal Awareness