1-800-GOT-CRBNLY?

Is it Fall Cleaning already??? Well, the Crbnly crew has your back on today's episode. We explore how to declutter and destress your life with Fall Crbnly actions.

Want to watch the episode instead? Here You Go

Useful Resources
1-800-GOT-JUNK Wiki
Items we recycle
Forbes review of 1800-GOT-JUNK
Can You Help the Environment by using 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
1-800-GOT-JUNK IG
How I Built This 1-800-GOT-JUNK episode
1-800-GOT-JUNK self audit

Find and join the Conversation!
@crbnly on the IG
Crbnly Conversations on YouTube
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and X marks the spot

Music and beats mixed by A. Sarr.
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Transcript

Shane (00:00.19)
recording. All right, there we go.

Chadwick (00:06.218)
Oh, I love the floral print underneath the New York Yankees hat.

Shane (00:09.638)
Yeah, this is like their pollinator hat. So

Chadwick (00:12.374)
the palm. Oh, that's cool. So

Shane (00:21.294)
All right. Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Carvenly Conversations. Got your boys, Chad and Shane here this morning. How's it going, Chad?

Chadwick (00:29.838)
Now that you do, I'm well.

Shane (00:33.446)
hear you. Blessed, never stressed.

Chadwick (00:37.294)
Bless NeverStressed, I love that one. That's gonna be my new hat.

Shane (00:42.43)
As you know, this is a podcast where friends examine the intersection of community lifestyles and consumption in our lives. This podcast was created for us to share our stories, motivate actions that lessen our carbon footprint, and create a space for listeners and community members to share their carbonly journeys as well. Please follow us, like, comment, subscribe on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter.

Pretty much any of the major social media platforms that you use, you have access to some of our content. And if you're wanting to listen to more episodes of our podcast, just scroll down and click the link that says, or no, scroll down to the show notes, click on find and join the conversation and that'll give you access to all of our episodes. I believe we're at.

This will be about number 52, if I'm correct. Maybe a little bit more. Yeah, closer to 60, but.

Chadwick (01:44.438)
Maybe a little bit more, closer to 60. Yeah. I think after 50, do you keep counting? That might be an age question. Ha ha.

Shane (01:52.542)
No, that's that might be age, but yeah, let's I don't want to be. Yeah, I don't want to stress myself out and trying to remember the number. But yeah, check, check it out. Join the conversation on all of our episodes that we have and please, you know.

Contact us, leave us comments, any ideas that you may have of topics you wanna hear us discuss, we're all ears.

Chadwick (02:19.062)
Definitely all yours. Well, Shane.

Shane (02:20.846)
So this, yeah, I was gonna say this episode is about junk. So.

Chadwick (02:25.478)
junk in the fall. We wanted to put them together. Yeah. As some of you may be experiencing, at least I'm going to just say selfishly, I know I am the season has officially turned here in New York. And I woke up Friday morning. I'm like, Oh my god, it's cold. It's 58 degrees. Like, I can't sleep on top of my covers. You know, I need to actually use a blanket, which was amazing. It made me really happy.

Shane (02:28.122)
And the fall, that's true.

Chadwick (02:55.634)
And then it got me thinking about like the turn of the season, the changes in the times, and reflected a little bit on like what that meant for me as a kid growing up and as an adult. And it's like fall cleaning, the fall clean out session, you know, the junk, the removal, the junk removal. So we wanted to do a quick little carbon late ditty on the feelings of fall around cleanup and what are some ways that you can do that in a carbon late way.

Um, so Shane and I are here today to share a little bit about 1-800-GOT-JUNK, um, because lo and behold, a good friend of mine was sharing that she just used them to help alleviate primarily stress that she had in her life, but also a bunch of junk in her house that, like, she was sharing, like, I got this thing and never installed it and it's been sitting there or she lives in, you know, further south, so she uses dehumidifiers.

and AC units and after they break she doesn't have a place to put them so they were able to come and pick those up amongst other things. And again like the big stress reliever, but then while we were chatting about it she's like and did you know? Like they the majority of the stuff they collect they divert landfills. They're not just like a straight from we you pay us to pick up your stuff and we dump it in a landfill. They actually have um created some systems to donate it.

Shane (04:14.302)
Yeah.

Chadwick (04:19.886)
to resell it, to upcycle it, to bring it to like thrift stores or churches or other local nonprofits that they partner with in that community group. Cause a little bit of what I think Shane correct me here, but we learned that 1-800-GOD-JUNK it's a privately held company, but they franchise out across Canada, Australia and the United States. And then those of you that aren't familiar, you've probably seen their jingle or maybe seen an ad, but it's usually like two dudes.

next to a big 1-800-GOT-JUNK truck dumpster that's all blue. And all you see is 1-800-GOT-JUNK. I have a feeling that they named themselves in the era before the internet, just like 1-800-FLOWERS did as well, but now it's 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. It's 1-800-GOT-JUNK.COM. Anyways, I'll stop rambling here, but it just made me wonder, like, how sustainable are they? What are other sustainable things or?

Shane (04:52.646)
Yeah. Yep.

Shane (05:07.69)
Yeah.

Chadwick (05:18.37)
like in our parlay, some carbon like things that we can do to get in that fall season and clean up.

Shane (05:26.086)
Yeah, and what came to mind when you mentioned 1-800-GOT-JUNK, and when actually you, I think you sent me a text message saying like, hey, did you know that they recycle and things like that? I recently had my bathroom remodeled, and I remember the crew, when they first came to start the demolition, they brought a big trailer and then just basically threw all the...

Chadwick (05:26.243)
So.

Shane (05:55.906)
old drywall flooring, everything in this trailer, filled it up over the couple of weeks that they were here. And I remember when they were about to take the trailer to the landfill, they're just like, Hey, is there anything else you've been wanting to throw out? Like we can throw it in and just add it to the land, you know? And so they, they also explained to me how they pay. Um, I think it's by the yard to drop off stuff at the landfill. So they found.

Chadwick (05:58.702)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (06:21.581)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (06:24.51)
They have this one closer out to where they live, deeper in the country of Ohio, and it's a lot cheaper. But these guys were just, they're of course not picking through any of this stuff to recycle. They're not spending their time. Exactly, it's straight landfill. So when I read about 1-800-GOT-Junk doing this, I'm just like, that's pretty cool because I mean, just think of how hard it is to skim through

Chadwick (06:37.898)
No, it's, it's Lanshell. Yeah.

Chadwick (06:50.062)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (06:54.046)
these loads of who knows what they're pulling out of people's homes and actually taking the time to eliminate some waste and donate and recycle these items.

Chadwick (07:07.702)
Yeah, I have to imagine that it's a feel good thing, but it's also probably makes them money. Because to your point with your, the construction debris and material, like there's a charge per yard that the land, the landfill charges. 1-800-GOT-JUNK is not a landfill operator from what I researched and understood. So they got to pay a per yard charge as well. So my guess is all these diversions from the waste stream.

Shane (07:14.835)
Yeah.

Shane (07:22.42)
Yeah.

Chadwick (07:37.482)
are actually just better business practices. And lo and behold, like I do want to disclaim, like did a bunch of research, there are privately held companies that didn't have a lot to share other than, like, I mean, if you start Googling one in or got junk, like it's a lot of ads about them and how to use them and their services and where to find them, which is really great search engine optimization. I mean, kudos to you. 1-800-GOT-JUNK, I think we got to stop saying that. We'll call it the junk guys, maybe.

Shane (07:58.058)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (08:06.633)
Yeah.

Chadwick (08:06.846)
Um, maybe not. Um, but anyways, so what I did find was that in early 2010, 2012, they voluntarily undertook an environmental audit of its services in the U S and Canada, and found that during the sample period, which I couldn't find out how long that was, um, the, it's the company diverted over 60% of the junk from landfills.

at least 40% of the salvage junk was recycled and 16% was converted into energy and 4.5% was reused. So that means out of 100% of the things that they picked up, 60% didn't make it into a landfill. Of that 60%, almost half of it was recycled. A bunch of it was sent to like an incinerator is what I imagine like converted to energy.

Shane (08:58.367)
Hmm.

Chadwick (09:03.838)
And then for almost 5% of it was like donated, like meaning like either a thrift store or someone picked it up or they resold it. Cause I can only imagine they find some good stuff that are like, I mean, might be an actually the best place to work if you wanna like curate a space or open a restaurant, you know, or have a thrift store, you know, like this becomes like your supply line. But I found that interesting, is like that's like, and that was in a Wikipedia page.

Shane (09:16.991)
Yeah.

Shane (09:20.318)
Seriously, yep.

Shane (09:25.47)
Yep.

Chadwick (09:32.414)
about 1-800-GOT-JUNK, right? So, like, after we post this episode, I'm gonna put myself out there, or carbonly, extend a carbonly olive branch, and we'll just ask. Like, maybe a local 1-800-GOT-JUNK person will talk to us, maybe they have a distributor that'll talk to us, but it'd be great to see what other research they have published, or what they do share with the public about this, and if they have any carbonly hints and tips to help make it. But...

Shane (09:50.41)
Hehe.

Chadwick (10:02.07)
We have certainly said what a hunter got junk way too many times in this first 10 minutes. So it's still fall cleaning. It's still like, what do we do to get ready for like to clean out our home, feel less stressed, like do you got any tips and tricks for a shake? Some carbon late tips and tricks.

Shane (10:05.256)
Yeah.

Shane (10:19.507)
Well, I was gonna ask you what's your favorite, or not even your, what's a memory you have of like your mom doing the fall cleaning and like what's one of the memories you have of that?

Chadwick (10:34.974)
I have a few. One of my, it's chilling and this is why. Like right around this September time she would like wash all those the sheets, the curtains, like the whole household of stuff that's been collected in the summer, whatever, right? And we had clotheslines, which we've talked about in the past, how carbon-link clotheslines are to dry stuff. And because it's colder, she'd go hang that stuff out there and then she'd come in with these cold hands.

Shane (10:39.643)
I

Shane (10:48.575)
Yeah.

Chadwick (11:01.034)
and she'd find us and run her hands down our back as kids. And you'd just be like, ah! Which is a good memory now, but I mean, when you knew she was in and you heard one of your siblings screaming, like you ran, like this is not what you wanted. But just, I think the dedication my mom had to, it's the fall, it's time to do this list of things, which included like, we don't need this, or why is this hanging on?

Shane (11:01.075)
Yeah.

Shane (11:11.935)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Chadwick (11:28.674)
I mean, back, this is in the eighties. So like, I don't think we recycled anything, but we probably donated it or found another home for it or threw it in the garbage. I'm not judging my mom on any of those things. I'm definitely about it. But it's, but those are my favorite memories. And it's definitely like, held strong for me, you know? And especially as I've lived around, like it's really important to declutter and keep clean your home because it's where you live. And it does create stress when you come home and see.

Shane (11:29.895)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (11:35.178)
Yeah.

Chadwick (11:58.762)
I don't have as much of my house to live in because these are the things that I haven't found a place for or know how to get rid of.

Shane (12:06.45)
Yep. For me, yeah, for me, I used to hate, I still to this day hate dusting. And I mean, my mom would just make us literally just dust everything, take everything down. She would even take the blinds down and like put those in the bathtub with hot water and like vinegar and, you know, wash the blinds and

Chadwick (12:08.854)
How about you, Shane?

Chadwick (12:32.753)
Yeah.

Shane (12:35.634)
and everything and then like you said, go through your summer clothes like, okay, you're not gonna fit this next summer. Like let's do something with this and kind of like get rid of some things. But yeah, just waking up early on the weekends, waking up to the sound of a vacuum and usually music playing and having to wake up and clean for hours upon hours. But yeah.

Chadwick (13:02.402)
Clean upon ours, yeah, yeah.

Shane (13:04.83)
But it instilled something, I think, in both of us to this day to where we at least keep a clean household. It feels good to go into the new year with like a really clean house. So yeah, dusting. Yep.

Chadwick (13:21.858)
Dusting, yeah, you've brought that up in an earlier episode, so much you hate to dust. So duly noted, I will never ask you to dust anything in the studio. What's interesting as we start to like kind of wrap this conversation up and we'll do a little bit more about what, we'll share in our useful resources, all the research we were able to find about the junk removal and like its benefits, but there are other ways for you to tackle it. So that's how I'd like to close this out.

Shane (13:26.01)
Yeah.

Shane (13:50.411)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (13:51.29)
a little bit Shane is like I actually got a letter was kind of funny. It's like, oh, this could be in our episode. And this is about getting rid of your harmful household products safely. So cleaning supplies or maybe there's, I don't know, conditioner you don't use anymore or just some type of like chemicals that you use for cleaning, you know, whether yourself or your house, those things kind of accumulate in your closets and you're under your sinks, et cetera. And.

Shane (14:14.251)
Mm.

Chadwick (14:21.238)
The cities really don't want you pouring them down the drain. They would prefer everyone not to do that. And this letter here indicates that on October 15th on Sunday, we can go down to Union Square and bring our bushel load of cleaning supplies that we no longer need or want or are useful to us or for whatever reason and drop them off. And they've set up a system to take care of it and recycle it or reduce it, get rid of it.

Shane (14:41.919)
Yeah.

Shane (14:47.914)
That's pretty cool.

Chadwick (14:50.75)
In the multiple cities I've lived in, I know this is a thing, whether it's an event to drop off or it's a, there's an actually a location. So if you have a car and you're able to bring stuff there and I mean, car batteries, tires, like you name it, these things that are hard to dispose of that you could pay a service to come and pick up. There are actually like community resources designed to help you do that. You know, and it may not be just.

Shane (15:04.202)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (15:14.687)
Yep.

Chadwick (15:17.89)
like the things I'm talking about, but electronic waste, you know, stuff like a whole bunch of cables, like they'll have assigned drop-offs. I mean, I remember a day in the small town Kimball where I grew up, it was drop your appliance off day once a year, and they used a big car company, I think a car salesman company as the drop-off point, and you would see it on that day, and there'd be a whole bunch of trucks and trailers there and people dropping off stuff, but there'd be hundreds, if not a thousand.

Shane (15:20.798)
Yep.

Shane (15:38.664)
Mm.

Chadwick (15:46.63)
old appliances now put in the value chain to reduce, reuse, recycle, and dispose of properly. So there are other ways that you can do for yourself, but it's just really important to have a plan and kind of start to investigate that. Maybe we could do a follow-up episode on what a list of all those things are. What do you think, Shane?

Shane (16:02.835)
Yeah.

Shane (16:10.426)
Yeah, we should. I mean, cause yeah, it's kind of like, uh, how I speak about 311 a lot. Like there's plenty of, uh, free tools out there, um, to help you with these things. So it's like, you just gotta kind of find them, support them is number one, because if people don't support them, they're gonna stop. So it's like, yeah, there's, there's plenty of, plenty of things out there and resources out there available to us. So.

Chadwick (16:28.796)
Yeah.

Chadwick (16:38.85)
Definitely. Well, feels like a good way to wrap up and maybe go do some of that cleaning ourselves. Tis the season.

Shane (16:46.534)
Yeah, I mean.

Shane (16:51.162)
Yeah, did you? We can cut this out. Did you want to go over what they recycle? Um, we can just, we can list. Yeah, we can even make a post about it.

Chadwick (16:58.226)
No, I think it's fine. Yeah. I think we should come back to this. Like, yeah, yeah. That I think we can explore more in our posts.

Shane (17:07.55)
Yeah. Okay. Let's see how should we end it.

Chadwick (17:20.342)
I can take a crack if you're ready.

Shane (17:22.323)
Go ahead.

Chadwick (17:23.934)
Okay, Shane, as we wrap up, a lot of ums in my words today. As we wrap up today, just the call out to our Carbondy listeners and our Carbondy family members, it is the fall season. So if you're doing some of this downsizing, this decluttering, this cleaning, share with us on our Instagram and let us know what you're doing or what system or what process you've used to donate in. Shane and I will also doing that ourselves.

We'll share some more of the research through our social media posts in the next week or two after this episode goes live in October. So be on the lookout for that. With that, Shane, I am going to wish you a carbonly Saturday and get us going on whatever we're going to do next.

Shane (18:07.178)
Same to you.

Shane (18:12.274)
Yeah. So next time, like I said, join the conversation. Let us know what topics you want us to cover, how you're being carbonly, and hope you're enjoying the podcast.