No Sleep Till Zero Waste!

Join this week Crbnly Conversations podcast as we delve into the world of zero waste living, drawing inspiration from a Brooklyn shop owner, Precycle. From composting to auditing waste, they challenge listeners to join the 'no sleep till zero waste' movement and take actionable steps to reduce their environmental impact. What's your Crbnly update? Tune in for some witty banter and eco-friendly insights

Useful Resources
How to live a zero-waste life in a wasteful world
Capsule Collections | Fashion A-Z | BoF Education | The Business of Fashion | #BoFEducation
How It Works — Precycle
Precycle IG

Find and join the Conversation!
@crbnly on the IG
Crbnly Conversations on YouTube
Tik Tok
Buzzsprout for all the Casts
and X marks the spot

Music and beats mixed by A. Sarr.
Reach out to learn about the skills and beats you need in your life

Transcript

Shane (00:05.956)
What was that? For some reason it said, can't access your video. All right. Seems to be working.

Chadwick (00:12.27)
Something we delete. That's what it is.

Shane (00:20.588)
All right, welcome back carbon Lee listeners. Got two best friends here, Shane and Chad. Hope everyone's having a wonderful, wonderful day wherever you are in this world. Before we dig into today's episode, we wanna always remind everyone that, you know, we created this podcast in order to examine the intersection of community, lifestyle and consumption in our lives.

Chadwick (00:26.71)
That's right.

Shane (00:47.768)
And we hope to share our stories and our curiosity in order to motivate actions of all of you out there to help lessen our carbon footprints. And we want to also create a space for our listeners and our supporters and community members to share your carbon lead journeys as well. You might know by now, but if you don't, if you want to check out this episode and all of our other previous episodes.

All you need to do is go to show notes and click on.

Chadwick (01:31.658)
You would think by now we'd have it memorized. Number 66, right?

Shane (01:33.576)
I know, it's crazy. I'll start from after the Carbony Journeys as well. And as...

Chadwick (01:42.798)
Do you just want to start? Do you want to just start it over and then two minutes in?

Shane (01:46.632)
Yeah, that's fine. I'm a definitely I'm gonna re pre record this so that we don't have to do this every episode um

All right, welcome back, Carbon Lee listeners. We hope everyone is having a wonderful day out there wherever you are out in this world. My name is Shane. Got my buddy Chad here with me.

Shane (02:10.968)
Hold on, let me, that was, usually you say, all right, I'll just say, you know, it's Shane and Chad here. Welcome back, Carbondale listeners. We hope, welcome back to everyone. You guys were laughing a little bit because we had a few outtakes for the intro, but hope everyone is having a wonderful day. We wanna.

Chadwick (02:13.918)
Like, do I tell you? I know. Let's do it all over. Let's.

Chadwick (02:22.466)
for the, welcome back.

Shane (02:38.044)
Always remind you that, you know, we're two friends. I'm Shane. This is my friend Chad here and, um, we're besties carbonly besties. And, um, we've created this podcast. Um, basically. All right. One more time.

Chadwick (02:43.278)
We're besties, carbonly besties.

Chadwick (02:57.006)
Now it's just getting funny.

Shane (02:57.432)
I'm just gonna follow the script.

All right, welcome back, Carbone Lee listeners. We hope everyone is having a wonderful day wherever you are out in this world. As always, my name is Shane. Got my buddy Chad here with me.

Chadwick (03:13.79)
Hey Shane, hi everyone.

Shane (03:16.264)
and you are tuning into another conversation of, or another episode of Carbonly Conversations. We've created this podcast to examine the intersection of community, lifestyles and consumption in our lives. And we hope to be able to share our stories and our curiosity to motivate actions to lessen our carbon footprint and also use our platform to create a space for everyone out there listening, community members and supporters to share their carbonly journeys as well.

And if you don't know by now, hopefully you do, but we have made it pretty easy for you to follow us and be able to tune into every episode. All you need to do is scroll down to our show notes, click on find and join the conversation, and that'll give you a link to your favorite podcast app, whatever you use to listen to the podcast. That'll give you a link, and you can typically rely on us to have a new episode loaded every Wednesday.

Chadwick (04:17.442)
That's our goal.

Shane (04:17.456)
And if you're on social media, follow us on Instagram, TikTok, X. And also if you'd like to check out this episode and video, check out our YouTube channel, Carbon Lee Conversations. And we appreciate all the support.

Chadwick (04:36.462)
Definitely. And if you are a YouTube watcher, you can also see that after 66 episodes, Shane and I finally color coordinated. Ha ha ha. This burgundy red, I mean, we did it. 66 in and here we are dressing like twins. I just need a green hat.

Shane (04:45.08)
We did. It's a little like burgundy type of, yeah.

Shane (04:54.796)
Yep. Exactly.

Chadwick (04:58.302)
Awesome. Well, excited for number 66. Really excited for the journey we've been on to bring all these CarbonLay hacks, these CarbonLay tips, coverley thinking to the forefront, especially since we're doing them for ourselves anyways. We're gonna tell all of our listeners and beyond.

So thinking about last week episode, we had the amazing race to zero waste and we're keeping on that theme. Today's episode, I think we're gonna affectionately call it no sleep till, but I think we'd not say Brooklyn, but there's a theme to why we wanna go no sleep till zero waste. I'm not very zero waste. I'm very coordinated in this, but.

Shane (05:33.069)
Eh-eh.

Shane (05:40.804)
zero waste.

Hehehehe

Chadwick (05:46.162)
We can all laugh at that on the reels. Anyways, so before we highlight the video and the expert that we found to talk a little bit more about Zero Waste than just what Shane and I are doing, we actually wanted to set this conversation up with some of the things that both him and I and our families have been doing to just lower, lighten our footprint on the world, lessen the load on the planet, as we like to say here.

Shane (06:10.832)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (06:14.986)
So Shane, maybe you could share some of the tips and tricks that you've been doing lately, that you've always been doing, to help like in your own home, zero out the waste as best as you can.

Shane (06:27.3)
Yep, so everyone knows about my food scrap, my food, my composting journey. So I won't bore you with that. One thing that I've been really focused on personally in some of my carbonly goals is clothing wise. So there's a few things. I've kind of went through my whole wardrobe and decided to let some things go.

So I'm in the process now of finding a place to donate those, which has unfortunately been a little bit of a struggle, but we'll leave that for another episode. But in, but now when going out to purchase new clothing, I'm trying to be more purposeful and instead of buying fast fashion and things like that, I'm focusing on higher quality. So.

You know, I'm fortunate enough to be able to spend a little bit extra. I'm not going out and buying, you know, Gucci, Prada or anything like that. But I'm not looking for the, I'm not always looking for the five or $10 t-shirt anymore. I'm looking for something of better quality that can last a little bit longer. Um, and then also within that I'm looking for more quote unquote, capsules items. So like to me, capsules is just something more that.

can match with a lot of things. It's not really like this outfit where it's like, oh, I can only wear that with red pants or whatever. It's things that kind of fit together to where I can mix and match the clothing a lot more than I typically would. And then with, go ahead.

Chadwick (08:08.418)
So quick, just a quick, I guess, interruption. That capsule, that's a new word for me. So like, where did you pick that up? Where does that come from?

Shane (08:19.16)
I mean, I think it's a real fashion term. Chad's the Google guy, so he'll look that up, but I'm pretty sure that's like a real term, and I might even be giving the wrong definition of it, to be honest.

Chadwick (08:35.092)
Uhhhhhh

Chadwick (08:41.038)
How would you spell it? Because I got capsul-ly.

Shane (08:43.176)
CA Just like cap see a P s u le really capsule Maybe capsule clothing

Chadwick (08:49.898)
Okay, like Capsa. Cause there's a video editor. Maybe I'll, what, Urban?

Shane (08:57.976)
Cause usually when a clothing line comes out with like a new, let's say their fall line, it's usually like a considered like a capsule to where those things kind of go together.

But don't come to us with any fashion, for any of your fashion tips if you're listening. We're pretty simple guys.

Chadwick (09:17.269)
I mean, I was cool at one time because I just dressed like a hipster, not because I was being a hipster. And ironic, that's just how I lived. And I just happened to move from rural Minnesota out to Boston and New York and like, oh, everyone's dressing like all my friends do back home.

Shane (09:25.889)
Yeah.

Shane (09:34.958)
Yeah.

Chadwick (09:37.686)
We were just doing it because that's what we needed to do. That and you brought this up a while back and I know we've mentioned Carhartt meant different times with fashion and durability and especially like a brand being adopted by the African-American community. But I mean, I saw three of them today, like someone walking down the street in New York, wearing like a very beat up Carhartt tan work coat. And I'm like, and they were wearing it like fashion instead of like, this is the coat I've worn for.

Shane (09:44.9)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (10:06.134)
300 days outside working on road construction. You know, and I'm just.

Shane (10:09.612)
And in those conditions now, those can go for $300 to $500 on the resale market.

Chadwick (10:15.414)
Just drives me nuts because I'm like, I know some really, my dad probably still has his old car heart like jumpers, you know, like a thousand dollar, yeah. Never in my mind. Again, when we put it in the carbonly context though, like my dad off boarding his old work gear to people that will wear it as high fashion, it gives it another life. And it gives, would give my dad some money. So that would be a good thing too.

Shane (10:20.288)
Right. Your dad might have a half a million dollars worth of Carhartt, you know, so.

Shane (10:37.846)
Hmm. Yep.

Chadwick (10:44.906)
So I was, I interrupted you. We got done the rabbit hole with Capsulee. You said there is, besides fashion, what else are you doing with that, like that race to zero waste, like no sleeping until zero waste.

Shane (10:58.424)
No, just my, if you've listened to any other episodes, I'm still on my journey of like food, like lowering food waste, you know, composting, making sure I use up what's in my fridge and not kind of, my mom always calls it, your eyes are bigger than your stomach. Sometimes when you go shopping, you know, you're like, oh, I need all of this. And it's really, you just need, exactly. So how about you, Chad?

Chadwick (11:20.87)
Yeah, don't go grocery shopping hungry ever.

Shane (11:29.008)
What are some things you're working on?

Chadwick (11:29.562)
I would definitely say plus one to all the above like reducing waste through food waste like We compost the heck out of everything here. I was just remarking to So Lauren earlier tonight that so I think we did some social media posts I don't think we did an episode but New York has these new orange bins compost bins And you get the app and the compost bin will open up when you use the app We have one like not even a minute walk from our place. So

Shane (11:49.602)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (11:59.298)
Like I never have to like, oh, can I get enough compost in the bin I have at home? I just fill that sucker up and dump it off whenever I need to. Like so that it's just less stressful and it's easier to do. So I love that a lot. On the clothing, like try to find, like we've been piling up, like clothing we don't use, don't need, either gets donated, but we also have this program that we mailed in to a company that will either resell it.

and then like give us some money out of it or.

Chadwick (12:34.338)
donate it or shred it and help it turn into like, like some kind of compostable or like reuse it into another fabric in the future, right? So feel good about that. I'm actually looking at my kitchen right now and the view I have a lot of like the things that we use often, like our vitamins, some are like sauces and stuff like are in like reusable containers. So we like to fill those things up and buy in bulk as best as we can. But this is like a,

It's like an ongoing journey. I was just like literally looking at my garbage as I took it out to you and it's like, it's all plastic or almost all plastic bags, you know, just dumb things that can't get rid of. And that's why I'm excited about to introduce, like I guess our video guest, because she has some couple ideas of what you can do and that's really got me thinking since I've watched this video and that's why, you know, I wanted to bring it to you and share it with our listeners is, there was something that I didn't really think about it as like, oh, this is like a really good approach to.

how we actually start to audit our own waste streams and figure out what do we need to go after because I think that's kind of like the big piece of this anyways as like Shane said nothing really new we're still on our carbon lane journeys so takes time it takes a while to change those habits but we'll get into this a little bit so I actually found this on the BBC

Shane (13:42.16)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (13:50.7)
Yep, takes time.

Chadwick (14:01.326)
The irony is she's a shop owner in Brooklyn and her shop is called Precycle. And what she shares on our website is that she has opened her own store in Brooklyn where they quote, "'Precycle exists to empower customers to reduce their environmental impact by reducing food and packaging waste. We believe that every customer has the right to know where their food originates, to be given the choice of reusable instead of disposable."

In other words, full transparency. And like that resonates with me really strongly. I'm a big proponent of like LeShawna where our food comes from, you know, farmer's market when available, when price appropriate. Like it's a huge win because you can meet the farmers, see where your food comes from and kind of buy it in bulk versus a package, right? You know, I love Trader Joe's, it's affordable, but if I can only buy my peppers wrapped in plastic in a bag.

Shane (14:51.333)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (14:58.238)
versus going to the farmer's market and get the same three peppers from a little bit more but no plastic. That seems like a win to me, right?

Shane (15:00.662)
Yeah.

Shane (15:06.14)
or even with her store idea, you can actually even get as little bit as you need. So if you just need a specific type of bean for one dish, instead of buying a whole bag, you go and get, yeah.

Chadwick (15:12.156)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh.

Oh my God, Shane, good track. It's huge, I didn't even put that together. It's like you can buy in the quantity that you want as well. I guess buying in bulk really matters. So we'll add some links to her shop. It's Precycle Shop in Brooklyn. She has an Instagram page you can like and follow her. It's like you like and follow us. And we'll just kind of go through this BBC clip and.

Shane (15:24.08)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (15:43.926)
add some commentary and learn from the expert ourselves. So let me share screens with.

Here it is.

Got that. Here we go.

Chadwick (16:17.006)
So that's one of the things I like a lot about what she's doing and what she's sharing is that, I mean that's what I like I paused it here in this video is you can use the jars that comes in. You can also like we were talking, bring your own jars, either wash them there or come clean and then they'll weigh them pre you filling them up so then you can just pay for the product that you're getting.

Shane (16:38.98)
Yep, and I didn't even notice how if you don't have that packaging, you can, I guess, take one of their jars, but when you go back, if you return it, they give you a dollar, it seems like. So that's a pretty cool incentive.

Chadwick (16:55.082)
Yeah, it's like the, you get to have her shop at Aldi's where you can get your own cart, but you gotta put a quarter in it, and then you get your quarter back. They never really have to manage those carts. If you give a person a dollar for that jar, that jar is coming back. I'm on a regular. But so we got to see who she was and what the store is functioning, just a little slice there, but she also had like three.

Shane (17:03.389)
Yep.

Shane (17:08.772)
Yeah.

Shane (17:12.592)
for sure.

Chadwick (17:22.478)
tips on how to live a zero waste life in a wasteful world. So let's hit play on that and go from there.

Shane (17:25.337)
Mm.

Chadwick (18:17.27)
which no strangers here, right? I mean, we've been talking about food waste. It just got done on COP 2023 and they talked about food waste and that, and methane, it's a big deal. So not a lot of surprise there, but I think it's the next two that I'm like to me, have opened my eyes. So anything you'd like to add on composting me before we go forward?

Shane (18:20.301)
Right, yeah.

Shane (18:42.364)
No, I mean, I don't think we can express it enough on how big of a game changer composting can be if we all kind of start to believe in it and try to do as much of it as we possibly can.

Chadwick (18:58.99)
Fair enough. Well, let's follow up with the next.

Chadwick (19:19.33)
So if you didn't catch that, it's auditing your waste. And she kind of follows that Patero effect of 80-20, like 80% of your waste is either compostable or recyclable and 20% of it isn't, right? And immediately when I first watched this, the vision I got is like, what's in my garbage can? What are the things that are constantly going in there? Right, because I can control what gets composted, right? I don't have to think about that.

Shane (19:23.692)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (19:44.363)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (19:48.27)
that's going where it needs to go. I know what can get recycled, we've talked about that, especially the paper, the cans, the glass, plastic, like it's iffy on some of that stuff. But then my own home, like everything that I can't reduce, reuse or recycle gets thrown away. And that's where you would need to go on it. And then in there, you know, like I found like my hair gel container, I was like, here's why I threw this way, because it's in a plastic tube that is unrecyclable. And I'm like, curses. So I need...

Shane (19:52.656)
All right.

Chadwick (20:17.706)
find new gel, right? Like, you know, we've talked about, you know, like that shampoo bar and all those other things, like how do you get rid of stuff that you don't need? And, but it's like until you actually audit your garbage, you don't really have the data to know, it's like, okay, so here's my choice for X and Y, but it's always leading into the landfill. That's where I can actually go make a difference. Let's go find a different version of X.

Shane (20:18.986)
Exactly.

Shane (20:23.524)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (20:37.187)
Yep.

Chadwick (20:47.166)
doesn't go to landfill. Let's go find a different version of why that doesn't go to landfill. You know for me a big example was the foaming soap like we did that I think carbonate commercial on those little tabs and you can buy those tabs in bulk in a cardboard box. The wrapper that the tabs come in it actually disses if you run it over water disintegrates. So like the whole thing it's like and so you just got to buy the foaming pumper once.

Shane (20:48.674)
Right.

Shane (20:57.596)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Shane (21:09.872)
crazy.

Chadwick (21:14.69)
And then you can just keep feeding it at water and those soap tabs. Like from there on out, everything like my soap is, other than like I can use that pumper thing for years, at least for a couple of years before we wear it out. But I don't know, what's your reaction to that audio of your waist and is that something you've thought about before?

Shane (21:14.809)
That's it, yeah.

Shane (21:27.428)
Right.

Shane (21:32.504)
That's it. I haven't. That's a really good tip and I could see it being overwhelming for some people, but I think that it's definitely something that I will try now that I've learned about it from this. And like you said, you can kind of audit and kind of see, okay, is this, I can't compost this, I can't recycle it.

Is this a necessary buy for me going forward? Or if it is, what are some other options out there? And you can do a quick Google search and be able to find other options for really anything, any product you use, there's another option out there that's more eco-friendly nowadays. So, and you know, kind of going back to

Chadwick (22:03.695)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (22:23.198)
Yeah

Shane (22:29.304)
the clothing of like starting to buy better quality, yes, you may have to spend an extra dollar or a couple of dollars for the product that you're trying to swap out to be more eco-friendly. But in the long run, it's worth it because it's better for the planet. And to be honest, the more we support those type of brands that are focused on...

more eco-friendly packaging and products, eventually the price will become more affordable. A lot of these products have to charge a little bit more because of even though they're using recycled packaging, sometimes it actually costs them more or they might not be creating as much product in bulk. The way, let's use toothpaste for example, the way a Colgate can go out and create billions of

Chadwick (23:24.782)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (23:26.68)
tubes of toothpaste. So of course you can go to the store and buy a $2 tube of toothpaste. But it's just better for us to begin to kind of support these. And it'll drive the larger companies to be like, hey, we need to start doing this because they always copy. Anything that's a trend always gets copied eventually. So, and they want their hands in everything exactly. So yeah, I'll have to.

Chadwick (23:46.934)
Mm-hmm. Yep, and they can start to replace it

Shane (23:56.317)
Audit my trash.

Chadwick (23:58.134)
Yeah, yeah. Two things, I think one is, I think that's kind of like what you just shared is the next thing that you kind of like, you know, pick where you spend your dollars because invest in that and companies will react to that. And two, I keep thinking about like, when my kids were little or like, if I had a household of five or six, like how would I help them be more carbonated, right? And I think the auditing of the trash, the waste stream makes so much sense in the...

Shane (24:08.816)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (24:27.766)
Like you start to find out all the things you're throwing away and you don't have to change it all at once But you can kind of go item by item or the pick the thing that you use the most, you know And is the trade-off and the price, you know, are you able afford it? But you can start like, you know by price and by like volume You can start moving the needle and then you could get on this carbon late journey, right? and I think that's the most powerful lesson I'm taking from this and to remind like you don't have to

Go live in a forest and be a hermit. Like that would probably be good too. You'd still have a carbon footprint out there, but you can participate in society and start to choose things in that way. It's so powerful. Okay, let's wrap this up here with our last.

Chadwick (25:21.55)
And that was a good way to end that video.

Shane (25:23.384)
Yeah, I like that. You know, me personally, I probably won't go and if you can't see the video, they were like painting old lotion bottles and stuff. Me personally, I probably won't do that. You know what I mean? But there's other things I can do. For example, I went to Franklin's and Farms has like teen potlucks every week and a couple of months ago, I went to one and one of the girls that works for the farm, she brought...

Chadwick (25:25.326)
Thanks, you're right.

Chadwick (25:37.466)
Uh.

Shane (25:52.952)
like a dip, a homemade dip that she made. But instead of using, you know, some other packaging or whatnot, she actually, they were old yogurt containers. So like yogurt, plastic yogurts that she already ate, she washes them out and then she kind of holds different things like that and put like her homemade dip in it and brought it. And then she's reusing it. She's not using it forever. Like I'm sure she has dishes at home. But if you can get one or two more uses out of it,

and then recycle it or throw it away, it still helps.

Chadwick (26:28.638)
Yeah, dampens the demand for that product because it's a good idea. Well, Shane, I think the no sleep till zero waste, I don't know, no, I just got this song on my head. I feel like the right place to close this out is a question for you, for me, and for all of our CarbonLay listeners of what will you do to audit your waste and what's one thing you can find at CarbonLay?

Shane (26:40.292)
Hmph.

Chadwick (26:57.898)
That's our challenge out there is like, you know, do an audit and what's that one thing you can like, you know, make that carbon my update and remove that from the waste.

Shane (26:58.192)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (27:08.376)
Good challenge. Till next time, we'll follow up on it.

Chadwick (27:11.822)
We'll follow up indeed. We'll talk soon, y'all.

Carbonly week.