QR Revolution for Recycling Success

In today's episode, we dive into the wild world of recycling, where we unmask the age-old debate of who's really responsible for recycling properly. But fear not, for we unveil a shiny new hero in the form of QR codes, coming to the rescue with hyper-local recycling instructions on product packaging. Plus, we dish out tips on supporting brands that match your sustainability swagger and reveal the secret hotline (spoiler alert: it's 311) to get all the recycling info you need.

Useful Resources
Recycling is about to get much easier
Recycle Check
Solving Consumer Confusion with Dynamic Local Information - The Recycling Partnership
recyclingpartnership
How2Recycle
GreenBlue

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Music and beats mixed by A. Sarr.
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Transcript

Shane (00:02.05)
Hello everyone, Shane here. Welcome to a special episode of Carbonly Conversations. Today we're gonna unpack two distinct approaches to improve American recycling rates and actually getting the right item in the right way stream because we know that can be a little confusing sometimes. And we'll split the conversation into two streams ourselves before, by the way, before we dig into it.

Chadwick (00:24.366)
Bada Bing!

Shane (00:29.782)
We wanna remind our listeners that we are a podcast where friends examine the intersection of community, lifestyles and consumption in our lives. We've created this in the hope to share our stories and curiosity to motivate actions that lessen our carbon footprints. And we wanna use our platform to create a space for listeners, community members, to share their carbonly journeys as well. And please never forget, whether you're a first timer, carbonly deep diver, just one of our loyal fans,

We've made it easy to listen to us on your favorite podcast app and also watch our episodes on video via YouTube. Literally all you need to do, scroll down, show note, click on show notes or find show notes and click on find and join the conversation. There you'll be able to explore all of our conversations and catch our future episodes which we release every Wednesday and listen to that on your favorite podcast app.

So also we are kind of rocking the social medias right now. So please support, find and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, whichever one of those apps that you frequently use. Give us a little shout out, follow us, share with friends and family. We really, really appreciate that. And let's get today's carbon lead conversation going.

What do we have on the docket, Chad?

Chadwick (02:01.346)
Well, pal, for me, I think for you, for many of us, we're in reflection mode post Halloween, post maybe like a little guiltiness of all that candy, how did we recycle it, did I eat too much? I don't know about you, but I did avoid the clearance candy shelves in my local CVS and Target. I really wanted to go in there, but I didn't. So big wins there, but in this reflection mode, and then thinking through

Shane (02:20.227)
same.

Chadwick (02:30.97)
prior conversations we've had about how to have a carbon-free life during the holidays, which I mean we've explored extensively with, you know, from the additional things that are created that go on the waystream, all that extra food waste, to that traveling, like there's just a big impact on the environment for us to have a great time with friends and family, or not so great time with friends or family, depending on your holiday disposition.

But all that thinking and reflection routed us back to the reduce, reuse, and recycle mantra, which we pretty much disguise conveniently and confidently as carbon-like conversations. And we narrowed down because we wanted to have two conversations here about recycling because there was a couple updates that hit our radar here in the last month. And for those that have known, we've talked about different ways. Vote.

robots and local waste stream projects and just how hard it is to get recycling right. I think we all learned a lot when we talked about all what do those numbers on the plastics actually mean. So with all that being said in my rambling recycling intro, we have two topics. One we're going to cover in topic A and then we'll create another episode and create for topic B. But topic A for today is who should bear the brunt.

of solving our recycling problems? The consumers or producers? Should we make it easier for us to know how to recycle? Should the producers just be making all their stuff out of recyclable components in the first place? Big existential capitalistic questions there. And then topic B, tech and robots. Will they use AI and sensors to quote, get smart sorting all of our waste appropriately? So we just don't have to, is that another solution?

My gut tells me after these two episodes I'll probably think a little bit of both. But now that we've set this carbonly table, Shane, I do have one question for you. Is there anything in the last week, maybe post-Halloween, that you learned or thought or did to be more carbonly?

Shane (04:39.786)
Yeah, yeah, you actually inspired me. You sent me some pictures of a local pumpkin smash thing going on in your neighborhood where people could bring their Halloween pumpkins that instead of throwing them out in the trash and kind of polluting the landfill, it seems like there was a space that was created where-

People could bring it and literally there was some tarps set up and people could have a little bit of fun, you know, actually instead of just turning it in, you know, smashing the pumpkin. There was some kids having fun from the pictures you sent. So that really was inspiring to where I would like to copycat that next year and kind of do that here in my neighborhood with Franklin's and farms. I think it'll be a perfect.

Chadwick (05:13.767)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (05:35.626)
Perfect event, especially with all the little kids that we have in the area.

Chadwick (05:40.778)
Yeah, like that's literally when we walked by, we walked by it once in the morning when it was getting set up and they had that whole area and all the compost bins ready. And they actually collected all the pumpkins from the park that there was like a pumpkin Halloween fest on Hall for the kids to carve. There's some cool carvings there. But then yeah, when we came back later after the gym class, like all the kids are out there smashing pumpkins and jumping around and there's this piles of it.

Shane (05:56.046)
Hmm.

Chadwick (06:08.75)
But one thing distinctly sticks out. So I remember in our spooky sustainability, spooky Halloween carbonate episode last week, you specifically called out, don't paint your pumpkins. Don't decorate them with like all this chemicals. And there on the table, next to all the pumpkin smashing was like two or three pumpkins that were all painted and like, you know, just fancied up for Halloween that.

Shane (06:14.741)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (06:36.628)
Yeah.

Chadwick (06:38.25)
weren't part of the Jimbery of smashing. So could call out their shade. Just can't put

Shane (06:44.118)
That's good. And do you know, do you know like who was running that? What's gonna happen to the pumpkins?

Chadwick (06:49.038)
Yeah, so it's the same group, it's a nonprofit group that composts for New York City. So in essence, they're set up on most of all, I'm not going to say all, but most of all the major farmer markets across the boroughs. And they're a drop off point for New Yorkers to put all their compost. So in addition to collecting compost on these farmer market days, they've actually set up on a pumpkin smashing event so they can collect all that.

Shane (06:56.932)
Okay.

Chadwick (07:18.166)
turn it into the compost refuse cycle or the waste stream. Well, I thought was most interesting is for those New Yorkers and beyond that know on the east side of Manhattan in the East River, there's what they call Roosevelt Island. It's actually this giant islands community. That's where the biggest collection of pumpkins took place for this compost event on Saturday across all the boroughs. So I can just imagine all these families with kids either taking the subway and

Shane (07:23.51)
Yeah.

Shane (07:33.14)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (07:47.534)
taking the elevator 200 feet back up to the street level or maybe in the ferry, because it's an island, you gotta take the ferry over. And then also the tram carries over, like, you know, I don't know, 100 feet above the river. So it's the only way to get to Roosevelt Island. I mean, unless you have a helicopter, but please don't be using the helicopter to like bring your pumpkins to Roosevelt Island by just imagine all these pumpkins coming to Roosevelt Island to make this happen. So.

Shane (07:47.67)
Yeah.

Shane (07:56.325)
Right.

Shane (08:08.69)
Yeah, that's very uncarmenly.

Chadwick (08:16.654)
Cool, yeah, sounds like an adventure.

Shane (08:18.434)
That's cool. Yeah. How about you? What have you done?

Chadwick (08:23.39)
Um, so the number one thing if wasn't necessary for me, but I was sharing carbon Lee knowledge, so a couple of our friends, friends slash neighbors have come back into the city, post the compost bins and the little app. And I know we've added some social media, you know, content around this. We talked a little bit about it in an episode a few weeks back. Um, but I just made sure they knew about it and could download the app and make it really easy. Cause at least in our city, they're, they're going to make it.

Shane (08:39.191)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (08:53.262)
Like by law, you have to as a resident, you have to compost all your food scraps, which we can talk a bit more about one of them quipped after I shared, she's like, oh yeah, that's what Europe does everywhere. Glad they're figuring that out here. I was like, yeah, we're always a little behind.

Shane (09:06.162)
Yeah. Got it.

Definitely, that's for sure. Well, it's nice to see, because I mean, I don't, I mean, you've lived in New York for quite a while. Do you remember seeing that pumpkin, like, pumpin' recycling program going on in past years?

Chadwick (09:29.97)
No, I did it. I don't. But it doesn't mean it didn't. I didn't actually look though. But I will say the New York City Compost crew, the people that like sponsor this and make sure that happens, since the pandemic, because they've more or less shut down most of their operations during the pandemic, they've come back in a way that I haven't noticed with like a weekly or bi-weekly email newsletter, more like social media content.

Shane (09:35.309)
Yeah.

Shane (09:59.521)
Yeah.

Chadwick (09:59.834)
They're really driving the usefulness and I think they're wedging themselves into this space because of that regulation that's coming up. So I can see that as being like, I mean the more you get kids involved with things, the more plausible they carry those memories into their adulthood and do those same behaviors. So it's a good thing, good educational opportunity.

Shane (10:07.66)
Yeah.

Shane (10:21.33)
Yeah, I mean, that's awesome. Like, so speaking about waste and sorting out waste, you wanna introduce topic A?

Chadwick (10:31.306)
Yeah, so I kind of like introduced topic A as like this capitalistic control over who's actually responsible for recycling. And you and I've covered this in the past on the EPA is very clear on their data. Americans consistently recycle about 32% of the waste stream. I mean, that may vary from year to year, but not by much. And that's been like that for 20, 30 years.

And when you start to unpack these numbers, which we've done in the past, and I'll add a link in our useful resources, is that most of the things that get recycled that keep us at that 30, 32%, it's like paper, cardboard, that's easy. Most places have that already as a stream to be collected. And it's a lot easier to actually manage that. And then it's like metal cans, aluminum cans, because they have value. Those, I think, aluminum cans are just aluminum products.

90-some percent of everything gets in the way, the recycle stream. And then glass, I think, has a higher impact or a higher rate of recycling. But it's plastics and all those designees of plastic. I think in this article, we're gonna quote a bunch, Axios said about 6% plastic reliably get recycled. So knowing that Americans are stubborn and kind of are in their ways, how do you start to impact that? And one approach that...

Shane (11:42.977)
Yep.

Chadwick (11:59.926)
Multiple outlets have reported on there's like nonprofits built around. You know this design is Companies should be responsible for the things they produce getting to the right recyclable or compost or Reusable stream Then we've highlighted different arm like and regenerative business practices in our episode there We talked a lot about different ways businesses can do that

Shane (12:29.649)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (12:29.862)
have been doing that. But when you just think about all this consumption, you know, like we go to the grocery store and there's like how many yogurt containers and butter containers and milk curtains are there? Which ones are recyclable? Which ones aren't? And if we know consumers are about 32% likely to do it and if producers are just continuously producing this stuff, like we could argue all day over who should do it and who should be responsible for it. But in the end, like my

Back to the basics, economics class tells me like, when you think about, you know, successful, you know, business successful economic, I'm thinking also with simplicity and knowledge and information as power. So if we made it a lot easier for consumers, I think that's a good addition. And that's where I think we'll dive in here is that Axios reported out this interesting article in the last couple of weeks that QR codes.

with hyper local recycling instructions, which I think is key, hyper local, will soon show up on your milk cartons, ice cream tubs and more, meaning you'll be able to scan an item, type in your zip code, and see if it's eligible to go in the blue recycling bin. And the problem that I think they're really trying to solve for is just because a product says it's recyclable doesn't necessarily mean it's recyclable where you live, which was quoted by someone who's the director of the Consumer Brand Associations.

Shane (13:29.525)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (13:48.258)
Right.

Chadwick (13:54.694)
Smart label program, which is what the Axios article really dives into is this nonprofit called smart label that's building brand partnerships with Boy, we'll get to them here in a little bit, but like with multiple products that Make sure the QR code just goes on whatever it is that you're trying to whatever you buy And then you can just scan it quickly and know if it if your way stream for refuse provider can actually do it so what

Shane (14:15.566)
Mm.

Chadwick (14:23.231)
That's a lot to unpack Shane, but like what's your take on that? How's that making you feel?

Shane (14:27.786)
So, I mean, I think it's, when it goes, going back to the question of like, whose responsibility is it, definitely I would say the brands, these brands, they have more responsibility because they're the ones making the product. They're the ones deciding, do we use glass? Do we use plastic packaging? You know, things like that.

And then it also, there's also responsibility on the consumer. Like if you've listened to any of our episodes, there's always options out there. I think that, especially in America, we're so stuck in our ways of like what brands we buy and things like that. But our buying power, the power of the dollar speaks louder than...

Chadwick (15:05.867)
Yeah.

Shane (15:20.946)
anything and if you truly aren't, if you're trying to be more carbonly and a specific brand that you support just refuses to use better materials or give better options when it comes to being able to recycle their products, then there's products out there that you can support. It's just taking the time. So it's taking the due diligence as a consumer to be like, okay, I don't like this anymore.

Chadwick (15:40.851)
Mmm

Shane (15:49.11)
what's the alternative to it? What else can I support that aligns with my carbonly journey? But I do, it is interesting, especially, they speak about like clothing retailers. Like I think that that's, I think using the QR codes is would definitely be a really positive change. A, because it will help people.

Chadwick (15:57.55)
Totally.

Shane (16:18.69)
take care of the clothes better to where they last longer. People wanna wear them longer. Cause that, I mean, that right there is like the, when it comes to clothing, it's not like you can just throw your old t-shirt into the recycling bin. So the way to be more carbonly when it comes to clothing is wearing it more, you know, keeping it longer. So I think that would help because I think we've all had that experience where we're like, we go to look at the tag like, oh, how should I?

Chadwick (16:21.6)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (16:41.347)
Yep.

Shane (16:47.938)
How should I wash this or whatnot? And the tag is just faded away to where you can't read anything. You know what I mean? So I think that would be an interesting addition to some of the clothing brands.

Chadwick (16:54.727)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (17:02.922)
Yeah, um, and they like the so I've done, you know, I took that article from Maxio's dug into the smart label the recycling partnership, um, there's just a lot of different like Nonprofits around this supporting this happen supporting this to happen And just like a quick list of brands that are already participating is like, you know lever, you know lever um, which makes like most of

Shane (17:19.33)
Yeah.

Shane (17:28.598)
Yeah.

Chadwick (17:32.13)
Like a third of the things you see in your Target or CVS or Walgreens, Horizon Organic is on the list as an early adopter. General Mills, I mean like Pillsbury Chex, Betty Crocker, like there's a lot of General Mills. But if you go specifically to the homepage, smart label, smart label homepage, they say that a hundred and two thousand individual products and over a thousand and ten brands.

Shane (17:53.975)
Yeah.

Chadwick (18:00.642)
use are starting to use QR codes. And they actually have this quick search brand, retail brand that has all thousand of them, I guess listed. So, mostly it looks like food, but like pick a brand. What's something that if you're at Kroger's, you would be buying in the snack aisle.

Shane (18:21.918)
Yeah, so I was actually when we're prepping for this episode, I typed in Pepsi. Um, cause yeah, I enjoy a nice ice cold Pepsi from time to time. And I mean, it literally lists. Every option you can think of when it comes to the bottling of Pepsi.

Chadwick (18:28.218)
Okay.

Chadwick (18:33.882)
Well, there it is.

Chadwick (18:43.092)
Oh yeah.

Chadwick (18:46.906)
There you go. Yeah, which I mean, it does put the onus back on us to go and find out more, but at least those, to your point, those QR codes will be there, especially on the plastic products, making it simpler and easier.

Shane (18:53.208)
Yeah.

Shane (19:00.214)
Yeah.

Shane (19:03.594)
And what you mentioned also is like them. So eventually, I guess the goal of that is to, like you said, you can type in your zip code and it's hyper local to where it's like, oh, okay, you live in Columbus, Ohio. This is where you can, you know, this is, you can't, yes, you can recycle this or if it's a novelty product, maybe it'll give some options of like, you can take it to this place to have it recycled, you know.

Chadwick (19:31.85)
Yeah, and I think that kind of leads us into like the next section of this conversation is like, so maybe there isn't a QR code on your product and you actually don't really know because you never looked. Like, how do you find out? Right? If you're like, I want to be more carbon lane. I want to make sure I'm recycling the things that I can recycle in my refuse waste stream. It's like, how do you just go take that hour, 30 minutes to do a little bit more digging about your own?

Shane (19:44.663)
Yeah.

Chadwick (20:00.97)
Shopping habits or even more importantly, what is your municipality or your private? Garbage collecting recycling collecting company is doing right and we did a little bit, you know Dig it into that and we'll list these websites, but there's three websites called one's called recycle sec Oh my god, recycle sect that'd be that'd be a cult based on recycling. I think um recycle check org

Shane (20:11.818)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (20:21.71)
Heh. Heh heh.

Hehehe

Chadwick (20:28.142)
And I like that website a lot because I got this really cute mascot birdie, I think. It's like, hello, recycler, so glad you're here. Simple, they use AI chat GPT to like, you can start asking questions and I'll start helping you. They're connected to the smart label and other products. But their Instagram page is kind of fun, so if they have a lot of some of these carbon like tips.

Shane (20:49.386)
Hmm.

Chadwick (20:55.534)
that we've been having or been sharing around benefits recycling, how to recycle in green blue or another two. And those are really just good places like upskill your own carbon lane knowledge on recycling. But I think the simplest way for anyone listening to our podcast to find out, oh my God, where does my actually my garbage go? How do they recycle it? What has been recycled? Just pull up your app, pull up your website, call it, like, cause it's designed this way, just dial 311 and ask the question.

Shane (21:22.93)
Yeah. 3-1-1.

Chadwick (21:26.01)
Because 311 will point you in that direction to who and what because all the waste services are connected there. And then all of a sudden you'll find out, like we've talked about, what's Waco, like dozens of times. And that's Shane's, Franklin County, and it's a fatality, like waste stream, sorter, collector, refuse, get rid of our provider, like just, you know, the garbage collectors, recycling collectors. So I think if there's a nothing you take from this episode today, carbon late listeners.

Shane (21:33.174)
Yep.

Shane (21:37.448)
Yeah.

Shane (21:46.817)
Yep.

Chadwick (21:55.382)
other than QR codes are showing up on your products, scan them, find out how and if they recycle, and B, 311 if you don't know. It'll get you going. Yeah, I know you're a.

Shane (22:03.918)
311, best friend. It's one of my best friends. I literally, just in the past week, I could have said that in my Carmelite this week, but just in the past week, I've had them come up and come out and pick up two piles of just random trash that people left in the alley, tires. Someone dumped like a dozen tires in the alley. Just, yeah.

Chadwick (22:30.01)
And they could have called 311. They had to go there to dump them. They could have went to where the tires could have been collected. 311, listeners, 311. Awesome. Well, I feel like that's a good place to end. Topic A, you know, who's responsible for this. And then like just commit those 30 minutes to learning a little bit more. Get smarter, get that QR scanned, that website stays up. Just listen to us.

Shane (22:33.19)
Exactly. Yep.

Shane (22:53.006)
That's it.

Or just listen to us. Listen to our episodes, you know?

Chadwick (22:59.89)
We'll help you along the way. Yep, Shane. Well, how about we take like a well-needed break and come back and talk about topic B. Can robots make better recyclers than us? Maybe we shouldn't worry about any of this.

Shane (23:16.169)
True. See you next time.

Chadwick (23:17.696)
Well, in that spirit, have a... see you next time. Have a great Carbon Lay Week!