- This planet is threatened with destruction
and we who live in it with death.
The heavens wreak the waters
below a foul. We are in a crisis.
- This is a CBS news special Earth Day,
a question of survival.
- Welcome to balancing life's issues,
the podcast, I'm your host, Kai.
And today we are here to celebrate Earth Day,
which occurs every year on April 22nd.
But why this date? Well,
as you just heard from a CBS evening news clip from
April 22nd, 1970, the nation came together
and urged our leaders to act
- Good evening.
A unique day in American history is ending Earth Day
a day dedicated to enlisting all the citizens
of a bountiful country in the common cause
of saving life from the deadly byproducts of
that bounty. The
- Fowled star reading from epa.gov.
In the spring of 1970,
Senator Gaylord Nelson created Earth Day knowing there were
no legal or regulatory mechanisms
to protect our environment.
At that time, you could legally dump toxic waste into a
local stream or spew black clouds of toxic smoke.
The establishment of Earth Day pushed the conversation
onto the national agenda.
It made it important and people reacted.
- Earth Day still came through, act or die.
We began our report with Bruce Morton in Denver.
- Bicycles at the state capitol were a Denver symbol.
Auto pollution is a major problem here in the country's 17th
most polluted cities. So
- 20 million Americans demonstrated in different
US cities, and it worked.
In December, 1970, Congress authorized the creation
of new federal agency
to tackle environmental issues aptly named the US
Environmental Protection Agency, or the EPA.
I wasn't one of those 20 million Americans.
This was before my time,
but I happen to know someone who was there. Hi,
- My name's Beth Pollock.
I am a corporate trainer on stress management, uh,
green trips for the homes and, uh, special needs parenting.
- I just wanted to find out from Beth,
what was it like back on that day in 1970,
because as I sit here today, I had no idea
that Earth Day 1970 was such a huge deal. Well,
- I was on Long Island Sound
and we were outside in middle school on a field trip, um,
and it had university students there.
So that was exciting seeing big kids,
and it was very hopeful.
I mean, pollution existed.
Yes, you're being responsible and you know, what can we do?
Let's fix and face the challenge.
Um, so not so scary as today as we hear with global warming.
- So I guess it's this sense of hopeful versus
where we are today, which feels more dire.
And as a new dad, I just kind of wanna get a better sense
of what's my role in preparing my son, uh,
for a world that he'll be growing into. Well,
- I think normal is just what you're used to.
So my normal was vegetable garden and giving to others
and getting cow manure, knowing
what plants lived together.
Well, my mother had a greenhouse, um,
and that really motivated some of the passive solar.
She didn't want her plants to die if we were out of power
because the sun did it.
Um, and that was like 1973.
Um, so it's, it's doing the talk, right? Doing
- The talk.
And it's clear Beth's parents put her on the right track
towards being more mindful about her footprint.
But what was the biggest difference between then
that time in 1970 to today?
- Now we look at how many Amazon packages do we get?
It's so easy to consume, you know, we look at our wants,
needs, and in the interest, uh,
that's the mediation part of my trainings.
If I look at the interest, I want an earth to be healthy.
Do we pick up more than the mess we know we made?
Because we're always making a mess. So, and
- The last thing I wanted to hear from Beth was
what lessons can we apply from that time in 1970 to
what we're dealing with today?
- There's power in collective people, as,
as Mr. Rogers would say, and hard times.
Look for the people who are doing good
and knowledge is power.
It was a national movement that worked
globally on the simplest level with children in mind.
Are the waterways and the pathways clean? Do they look good?
Would they be healthy habitat for animals?
How do we produce those habitats,
you know, and set boundaries?
Yeah, this is what is important to me. So as
- We look to the future on this Earth Day,
it's not about the world you and I live in today,
although it's clearly rapidly changing due to our impact.
The ramifications are worse for those
who we are bringing into this world.
Like my son Miles, who just turned nine months old.
So I wanted to bring on someone who I can empathize
with due the amount of time we don't have anymore,
because he is also a brand new dad.
And not only that, he's the multimedia
specialist here at BLI.
Welcome to the show, Greg.
- Hey, thanks for having me.
- Of course. This is your first, uh,
public podcast. How you feeling?
- Yeah, it good. I'm usually behind, uh, the scenes,
so this is kind of weird to be in front
of the microphone, but here we are.
- , well, no pressure.
Well, I should say the pressure is off,
or maybe there's a little bit of pressure.
I guess we'll find out. What does Earth Day mean to you?
- Um, earth Day is about to me, preserving,
uh, the environment and ecosystem
and a way of, um,
leaving a res a responsible footprint
on the earth as humans. Great
- Answer.
. We know the internet is flooded
with information and it's hard to separate
fact from fiction, right?
Even as I was preparing for this episode, I, I had
to peel back a few layers, um, but I just wanted to get you
and our listeners hip to a few resources that came across
as a good starting point. Does that sound good to you?
- Yeah, let's hear it. - All right.
So there are three great resources you need to know about.
Okay? The first one is the epa.gov, um,
and specifically for Earth Day slash Earth Day.
And then there's another great resource called Earth
day.org, uh, which is the foundation built around Earth Day,
which is every year on April 22nd.
And then the last one is,
you're gonna love this name tree hugger.com.
- Nice. Totally hippie vibes. I like that. Yes,
- Very much so.
But tree hugger.com is great
because you, there's a search function,
so you can type in something like plastic recycling
and it'll give you a list of articles that they've written
that are sourced scientifically.
So you can see the sources at the bottom of the page, which,
so if you need even further in depth dive into
what you're reading, you can go even
further. It's pretty cool. Right?
- Nice. Okay. Bookmarked.
- And so knowing all this, I kind of just wanted
to throw out three to four things that are really easy,
not very time consuming are
and are easy on the wallet sound okay?
- Yeah, this is, this is perfect.
- All right. So first one, how often are you dealing
with like your junk email?
- I'll go through like a sweep of like unsubscribe,
maybe like twice a year.
- Okay, cool. I mean, I'm, I'm more of like a daily rhythm.
Like, don't email me,
I'm getting rid of you, I'm getting rid of you.
Right. I just wanna keep my email clean.
But did you know there's a service where you can opt out
of your physical junk mail?
- I had no idea. Right.
- I didn't know either. I get all kinds of crap in the mail
that I don't ever read that goes straight into the trash.
Right. And it should be no surprise that the effects
of that are far reaching.
And according to the EPA well over 4 million tons
of junk mail is produced each year
and about half of that ends up in landfills. Mostly unread.
- Yeah. I'm just thinking about like how many times I go
to the mailbox and then to the trash can.
- Exactly. - And like that's a lot.
- So you can say goodbye
to those pre-approved credit card stuff.
All that can go away in a really simple step.
All you have to do is go to opt out pre-screen dot com.
- Okay. - Okay.
You're gonna provide some information and you're good.
However, Greg, I gotta hip you.
There's one small thing that might hang you up
and I want you to take a deep breath before I tell you.
Are you ready?
- Okay. - You have to mail in the confirmation
after doing it digitally, it sits totally.
I don't understand it, but
- Well, it's, it's like the nail
in the coffin, right? Exactly. It's like,
- Here's the little like it Exactly.
Are you sure? Are you really gonna send us your opt out?
So yeah, you gotta do the digital form.
Um, we'll put all this information, um, in the notes
of this episode so you guys have the links
- And it could just be like anything.
So it's just like, you know, the American
Express like offer card.
- Great question. This is specifically for credit companies.
Okay. It's gonna get rid, it's gonna get you
off their mailing lists.
- Okay. That's good. That definitely cuts down like at least
half of the junk mail. I'm
- More like 75% of my junk mail is,
is credit, credit related.
- I think like the other, the other parts are just like
silly, um, like food service thing.
Like I get like stuff from HelloFresh like all the time. So
- We're gonna get to that one next.
But first have you switched everything over to paperless
- Where I all your bills
and Yeah, there are a few that like,
like municipality things where that like have to be by mail.
But yeah, I'm pretty good about that. Cool.
- And when it comes to the local stuff,
that'll be the last thing we touch on.
So is making sure we're all going paperless, um,
with our bills and all that kind of stuff.
So the second one is, have you ever heard of Data
and Marketing Association?
No. Well, apparently it's the largest trade association in
the US devoted to serving all aspects of marketing.
And they basically control the mailing lists that
may be folks like HelloFresh are able to access in order
to send you information if you haven't necessarily
signed up for their services.
So in order to opt out of those kind of marketing lists,
you have to go to DMA choice.org and create a profile.
The great thing is you can add up
to five names per household on this profile.
The only ketchup here though, is it's a $5 registration fee.
So if you got five bucks
and you want to be opted out of those kinds of things,
definitely go for it.
I took a look at my junk mail.
I don't really get a lot of that,
so I haven't decided necessarily
to sign up for that service quite yet.
Okay. Alright. Cool.
Now you had mentioned local municipality stuff, right?
Yeah, I definitely get a lot of that,
especially election season
or utility bill from the village.
For those, you're gonna need to go straight to the source,
do a little Googling, find the website,
maybe even call your town hall
and ask them to make sure
that you are switched to paperless billing.
- Hmm. Or I could unsubscribe from billing
and they just don't have to bill me anymore.
- There you go. Yeah. I would love not to pay my water bill.
Right? , .
- Um, okay, cool.
- Alrightyy, so that, that takes care of like,
kind of like our junk mail.
And again, maybe 15 minutes of your time, Greg.
And you could eliminate most of the physical junk mail
that you'll receive in your lifetime.
Pretty neat, right? Mm-Hmm, . Cool.
Let's talk about recycling. Do you recycle?
Yes, I have some bad news. Okay. .
And it's named plastics. Uhhuh .
What percentage of plastics do
you think are actually recycled?
- Oh gosh. I think this all the time. Actually.
I would hope that you know, it's
above 50%.
At least
- 6%, bud.
- Oh, - It's brutal, right? Yeah. Yeah.
I, uh, that one hit me in the stomach
'cause I was kind of doing this research
and it's dropped from its peak
9.5%.
Um, so yeah, it's, it's not a good thing.
Um, and this includes things
that are exported to China, right?
Because we know that we export a lot of our plastic
to be recycled in other places,
but unfortunately plastic is about as bad
as it gets when it comes to things we use.
However, there is good news here, and it's called glass.
Do you recycle glass? Yeah.
One of the key benefits of glass recycling is its low amount
of energy required to melt it down for new purpose.
Um, glass is made from things like sand,
soda, ash, and limestone.
And once melted glass can be poured
and molded into the shapes
of new bottles, jars and containers.
Um, and it's estimated that 80%
of glass recycled becomes reused in new
products, which is pretty great. Okay,
- That makes sense.
And you know, like sometimes when you're on the beach
and you see like glass, like worn glass that's been like
around forever and it just like blends in with the rocks.
So that like , even
what you're saying makes a lot of sense
to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
- Absolutely. The problem is it takes 1 million years
for glass to actually go away.
So in a sense, I hear what you're saying,
but I think we should reframe it, um,
in, in two different ways.
Uh, first there's glass, you can recycle uhhuh,
, clear glass that's used in containers,
bottles and jars can be recycled.
Oh yeah. So there's glass that you cannot recycle
or you need to find out more information about.
Um, and that would be colored glass.
Your three main glasses are clear, amber and green.
Again, part of your research that you need to do
with your municipality is do these glasses need
to be separated in order for proper recycling?
Because the melting points of those glasses are different.
So if I have a bunch of clear glass
and some green gets thrown in there,
you're actually gonna spoil the whole batch.
- Oh no. - Yeah.
And, and, and if the worker who is I'm sure is
many hours deep into sorting glass, you know, it, it's just,
it's this idea of how can we help as much as possible
before it gets to the person.
Right. Who's recycling?
So I checked it out for my municipality.
Turns out all that glass can go in there together.
No problem. So homework for you.
Do some research to find out can all my glass go in
- To place?
Right? Because I'm thinking about it. There is an alcoholic
beverage company that I enjoy that does green,
a green glass, right?
And I'm like, oh crap. Okay.
And then there are some that are, yeah.
What, what's the word you used? Amber? Right?
Like the Uhhuh. . Interesting.
- Now Greg, I overheard
that you have a bag full of light bulbs over there.
- I do. I'm like, I'm like, what do I do with these
- Not recyclable.
Okay. In fact, they're sometimes considered hazardous waste.
So you need, again, contact your local recycling center
to see if they have an option, um, for recycling these.
Or like a local consumer store,
like a Lowe's or a Home Depot.
Mm-Hmm. should have, um, places for you
to be able to get rid of those things along with windows,
mirrors, all those kinds of products that we can't recycle.
- Okay, good. - Okay.
We're gonna be wrapping up here shortly, I promise.
But let's talk laundry. You ready? Yeah.
, how much laundry do you do now?
- . Oh my god. all the time. .
- You know, it's like my, our loads increased, you know,
probably two to three times and then folding time
exponentially increase.
'cause you're folding these little tiny things.
. Yeah. So I wanted to hit you
to something called earth breeze laundry detergent.
Eco sheets. Cool. Okay.
So we were able to get rid of, you know,
your big plastic laundry detergent thing.
Uh, we get in the mail once a month.
Uh, it's 30 sheets, um, of laundry detergent
that smell great
and are great for baby skin
too, so you don't have to worry about that.
And it comes in a, uh, paper envelope,
which is completely recyclable.
- Interesting. And so like, this obviously is not like the
liquid detergent that we're used to.
It is, it's just like a sheet? No,
- It just comes in like a, a sheet.
Yeah. And if, if you get it wet, it's gonna go away. Right?
It's kinda like cotton candy, I guess.
- Yeah. And how mu how big of a load does one sheet do?
Is that like one full load? Full load? Holy cow.
- So if you got a halfie, rip it in half.
- Nice. All right. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you can get up to 60 loads.
Uh, one a month is great for us. So
- Do you wanna hear something really silly?
Totally. I'll, I'll finish like a,
a liquid laundry detergent bottle
and I don't know how to recycle it.
, I don't know what to do.
So like the do, do you like rinse something like that
or like thoroughly before you throw that into the recycling?
Like what's the, what's the rule on like dirty versus clean
- In general?
Uh, the best practice for recycling anything really is
to make sure it's cleaned out.
Especially with food.
Food can really ruin, uh, the recycling process.
Um, it contaminates the process.
Um, and on that note, if you're putting plastic bags
into your recycling, that holds your recycling.
Mm-Hmm. gotta cut that out. The uh
- Oh good.
I don't do that. Yeah. And I thought that
that was, didn't know that that
- Affected them.
Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Plastic, plastic bags ruin the,
ruin the process as well for, um, for recycling.
So last one. Okay.
And I know I can hear my baby upstairs
and it's time for me to take over.
Um, do you use dryer sheets?
- No. - Nice. I love to hear it.
- It was not from an environmental perspective at all,
other than just I think
that there're a pain in the butt, but Yeah,
- Yeah, yeah.
Well you're totally right and they actually don't work.
It's just something that was pushed on to us consumers
and just kind of turned into something.
Oh, I'm just supposed to do that. Right.
Um, they absolutely don't necessarily work.
There's no hard evidence, um, on the effects
of the chemicals they use in the dryer sheets.
Um, they don't necessarily work at all, frankly,
but there's a great alternative
and they're, we're talking dryer balls.
You ever heard dryer balls? No. Dryer balls are amazing.
We've been using them for years.
Um, they usually come in a set of three or six
and they're felted wool balls that you put in your dryer
with your laundry and they bounce around.
It kind of help keeps fluffed
and it allows air pockets to be formed to make sure, um,
your dryer, your drying cycles are shorter,
they're more efficient and they get rid of static.
And if you really, really, really need
that dryer sheet scent that you love so much
as you're folding laundry, all you gotta do is put some
essential oil on those dryer balls
and bang, your clothes are smelling like
however you want 'em to smell, like.
Oh, wow. All right. Yeah, alrightyy.
So I hope those four dirty tips of getting rid
of your physical junk mail, you know, learning how
to recycle glass appropriately, getting rid of dryer sheets
and hopping on to the laundry eco sheet bandwagon.
I'm, I'm hoping I'm, I'm setting your household up
for some success over there. You're
- Blowing my mind right now.
These are all great tips. I really do appreciate it.
- . Alright. Well Greg, thank you so much
for being here and uh,
I'm sure I'll see you in like a teams meeting in
like a second .
- Sounds good. Thanks guy. - All right, see you. Bye.
This has been a production of balancing Life's issues
with your hosts, Kai Sorenson
and Wendy Wallner, produced by me Kai Rate.
Leave a review and subscribe to the podcast
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Got an idea for the show.
Email me, k i@balancinglifesissues.com. Anything to add?
Miles? No.