05 - Gretchen Carey

Featuring Gretchen Carey from Republic Services

Join us as we chat about all things community engagement, education, and recycling! 

Terms mentioned: 

• Right sizing your waste collection/containers

Resources mentioned:

1. Mass Recycle - podcast
2. Mass Recycle - handbook
3. TRUE Waste Advisor - certification via USGBC

Transcript

Aparna: Hello, hello, everyone. Today, we're joined by the fabulous Gretchen Carey, who has 15 years of professional and volunteer experience in the environmental field. Gretchen currently works as the sustainability manager for New England with Republic Services providing recycling and food training and education for municipalities and commercial customers. She is also the president on Mass Recycle, a statewide non-profit organization dedicated to sustainable materials management and cofounder of Green Labs recycling, a hyper-local company for plastics recycling. Thanks for joining us on the pod today, Gretchen,

Gretchen: Thank you, Aparna. I am really excited to be here.

Aparna: And we are thrilled that you've decided to join us as well. To kick things off, we would love it if you could map out your journey to where you're working right now. So focusing at a high level, where to start, what were the twists and turns? How did you end up where you are?

Gretchen: I feel that my career path gives hope to other people who might end up in sustainability late in life. Okay. I started off as a geneticist. So that's my background. My undergraduate degree is in genetics.

And so I spent 10 years in the field doing that. Loved it. That's how I ended up in Boston and it was a great career, but really demanding. And, eventually I decided when I got pregnant that I would leave the field. It was also a lot of, I don't know, everything from radioactivity to blood to needles, you know, that sort of thing.

It's dangerous. It's a lab. It's a lot going on. But anyway, I left and at that point had our daughter and, she is a very busy child. And at the same time, being a mom at home, I had the distinct feeling I would need to do something with myself. Um, making a little money, whatever I could do to keep interacting with the outside world.

I ended up starting a costuming business. Which has nothing to do with genetics or anything else. But for 10 years I did costuming. So I, I kind of rode that whole, Lord of the Rings wave, the Harry Potter wave, all of that. So you could go to my website and order cloaks and all kinds of exciting things, and it was a great time.

It was a lot of fun. I. I know how to sew. It worked out and I certainly got a lot better than I started off at, you know, in 10 years. And then my daughter was eight and, we were talking about her science class and they were having a chapter, they're going over the chapter on weather. And I said, well, you know, we're in New England and we're lucky because mostly the worst weather we get is hurricanes.

And largely they are kind of spent by the time they get all the way up the coastline to us. And she looked at me and she said, but we just had a tornado in Sturbridge. And I thought, yep, you are the kid that would have noticed that. Okay. So yes, you're right. And that is unusual, but I think we're going to be seeing more of that kind of unusual weather.

And then I had to go on to explain climate change, global warming, all of it. Right. Or at least. 8-year-old version of all of it. And uh, and so she looked at me and she said, well, what are we gonna do? And I said we recycle and we turn the water off when we brush our teeth. And she put our hands on her hips and looked at me like I was an idiot and said, no, mama, this is a big problem.

What are we gonna do? I swear, like I just… my life just went, eh? And I stopped and I said, can I get back to you on that? I have no idea. Yeah, so that was when I got into sustainability. I, I wanted to save the planet for my child and so I went out and joined my conservation commission and I became chairman of the recycling committee of my town and I did a carbon footprint project with the high schoolers benchmarking the six schools we have in town. I did everything I could think of to say, okay, what, what makes the biggest difference, right? That was where my journey started.

At a certain point, uh, needed to get a paying job and ended up working part time for the town next door as their recycling coordinator. And that was the town of Bedford in Massachusetts. Loved that. Then eventually ended up at Republic Services, who was actually the hauler for the town of Bedford, so I knew them.

I've been with Republic for ten years now. So, I've done it from all sides. My daughter says that at this point, she's now 26 and just got married. So she's no longer small. And she said, I think you're doing it for yourself now, mom. You, you're not doing it for me anymore, but I'm doing it for all the kids out there.

Kiersten: I love that story. I can't imagine having an eight year old as essentially my project manager, because I'm sure that she had boundless energy, and keeping up as her mom, and also someone suddenly trying to change the world and single handedly defeat climate change. It's a big ask. Props to her and props to you.

Gretchen: Thank you. Yeah, she came to recycling meetings with me and she would like, draw logos for our recycling committee in crayon and stuff. It was adorable. I have to say, you know, involving your kids is absolutely the best way to go, and I started working in the schools at first.

And that started when she came home and said, "Oh, we're, we're recycling paper. And I said, great. Why do you say that? Why do you say it that way? And she's like, well, the fifth graders are doing a project. So we're all recycling. I said, "you weren't recycling paper before this?" and she said, "No, only when the fifth graders are doing a project."

I said, “well, what about after?” and she said, “no!” I thought, “Wow. Okay.” So recycling, it was something we do sporadically and I don't understand the message that you're getting there. So I started trying to kind of roll that out in the school systems. I have a great appreciation for anybody trying to roll out anything in a school system.

I'll just say that. It's really challenging. I think one of the biggest things we can, and should be doing, is educating at that early age so that it becomes just everybody's way of life, rather than trying to hit adults later on and say, "No, no, I'm adding more to your workload by asking you to do this", you know, and workload as in put it in separate bins, but if it were something that everybody grew up doing, nobody would be thinking twice, and we'd be in better shape for it.

Kiersten: Absolutely. Kids, uh, they're an excellent motivator for a better tomorrow. So if I put on my, kid hat, my doubting Thomas, I think a lot of people, when they hear that you work in waste are going to want to know if you have any insights on recycling. I think a lot of people interact with it in a way that's a little bit confusing. Everybody's had a coworker tell them, you know, "I was here late last night and I saw the lady put the trash and the recycling into the same bucket. So why should I even sort it?" So that sort of skeptical mindset, I would love to know if you have any response to that or any education you can share with our listeners.

Gretchen: So I do a lot of presentations for public services in businesses in particular and I definitely get that when I do the presentation for the, let's say it's the staff, the office staff or the tenants, and they say, “yeah, but, even if you get us doing the right thing, the custodians are throwing it all away.”

And then when I present and train the custodians, they say, “yeah, but people are throwing in their lunches on top of their recycling at their desks.” And, and so it's, you know, it's definitely a two sided story. And I will say that people on both sides are doing it wrong. I'm not saying that every custodial staff is getting it right.

When I speak to them, I say, look, I don't want you pulling things out of the trash. I don't want you pulling things out of the recycling because I'm always concerned about things like hypodermic needles or sharps or anything else and so I, I say if you pick up the bag of recycling and I try to explain that the best system is a black for trash clear for recycling and then food waste is usually green compostable bags. If you are picking up that clear bag and you're looking at it and thinking, okay, there's some sort of liquid running all over this and I can see food. That's not really recycling and the best thing they can do is to say I'm going to trash this rather than throwing it in on top of all of the good clean recycling that's also going into the bin, and in Massachusetts at least, the idea is that we don't want bags anymore anywhere, so you really are contaminating all of it when you throw in somebody's milkshake, for instance, that that got thrown in with the recycling in one bag.

It's now going to be all over the place when you throw it into the dumpster together. And so I say, please throw away the one bag rather than us having to sort through all this trashed recycling.

I think too, that it's interesting because I've gone in and asked the custodial staff, “right, so are there certain places in this building where you're having problems?” and I, it always starts off with the people who ask me in saying, “how, how in the world would we know, you know, where the contamination is coming from? Where's that coming from in a 30 story building?” And I say, “do you talk to your custodians? Because they totally know where it's coming from.” 

So they're a great resource, a great source of information. And then you need to recycle on both sides. You need to educate on both sides, so everybody's part of the system. If you don't include your custodial crew in the conversation, you're missing half of the equation.

Aparna: Would completely agree with that. I've done my fair share of waste audits, I'd say in the past year and a half. quite literally dumpster diving, and honestly, very fun, but also really insightful. Especially if you ask the custodial staff to sort waste by floor, actually talk to them, hold interviews and understand the mindset of everyone like employees who put things in garbage bins and also folks who are trying to collect and, they don't want to be there for 10 hours picking everything up. So like, how do you make things efficient, but also correct?

Gretchen: Yeah. And Make sure that they have the right containers for it. A lot of times they say, here, you get one barrel to push around and you're going to pick up trash and recycling. Well, how's that going to go? Right? and a lot of times they have that, what they call a bag inside a bag where they've got a clear bag on the inside, they're throwing the recycling.

Looks like they're throwing it right into the trash, but in fact, there's a clear bag hanging on the inside of the trash can. You have to make it transparent so that people know that all of their good work is not getting trashed because otherwise you just get animosity on both sides.

Aparna: As transparent as a clear bag. I would say.

Gretchen: There you go. I like that. Very good.

Aparna: The last audit I did it, it was almost like the Russian nesting doll of plastic bags. This is a bag that keeps on bagging. Both parties want to be right, the folks who are throwing things away, the folks who are collecting it, so in an effort to get both parties to get things right as often as they can, do you see the intersection of waste and sustainability really evolving to help create that economy of tomorrow?

Gretchen: I think that people are more interested now than ever as to what is happening to the recycling. And I think that a passionate person is almost in danger of burning out in this particular climate because of the misinformation in the media. Most articles that you read, I can't even count the number of, you know, “recycling is a hoax”, “recycling is all being trashed” and, I meet these people who are despondent, they want to do the right thing, they want to recycle, they want to know that their stuff is ending up in a good place, and yet the media tells them otherwise all the time.

With MassRecycle, I finally went on, on what I called a media rampage last year. Basically instead of telling people what to think, I invited them into our recycling facility at Republic Services, another one in Springfield. MassRecycle got out in, in lots of different places and invited the media in to see it for themselves.

Like, we're going to answer any question you have. We're going to be fully transparent and you write the article. And it came out really well. So, you know, Boston 25 News, WBZ TV, NPR, you name it. We talked to them and it went really, really well and people saw it. You know, I couldn't believe by the time we got done doing the math on that, it was probably a million and a half people who saw it, but we really wanted to get it out, not in the industry magazines, because that's preaching to the choir. We wanted to get it out to the people who are just watching TV over dinner, you know, like, the folks who are wondering, because especially after some of those really bad articles in the beginning of 2020 it was tragic, you know, there, I would walk into a meeting and they would say, well, I understand there's no point in recycling now because it's all just being trashed anyway. And I'd say, okay, well, the good news is I'm here to tell you that that's not the case, you know? And in fact, I'd like you to come in for a tour.

Free, anytime, you know, pick your afternoon, pick your morning, whatever, and we'll make it happen. That really helped. I always say, I'll answer any question you have, just please, when you are done here, seeing it for yourself and getting all your questions answered, please talk to other people and tell them what you've seen.

Because the average person would tell you that 10 percent or 9 percent or 5 percent of what goes into a recycling facility is actually getting recycled. And the fact is that in Massachusetts, it is closer to 80 percent and our recycling facility to 85 percent of what comes in those doors gets a second life.

The 15 percent that we trash and they always focus on that in the media where we're trashing plastics. And the fact is: there are plastics we want, and then there are plastics we did not ask you for. So if you have containers with lids, that's kind of the standard at this point, that's a bottle, jar, jug, or tub, you know, it takes different forms, and you don't have to have the lid to be, to be specific, but the plastic that we're looking for is a container with a lid.

And if you give us plastic bags, it ends up as trash. If you end up with styrofoam, we don't want that either. you know, If you're throwing in PVC pipe, that doesn't help. So you know, there are plastics we do not want. Um, you know, they're, they're labeled and the truth, there is no truth in labeling when it comes to, manufacturers being able to write the word recyclable upon something, and it's not necessarily at all. In the end, at least in the state we're in, we have statewide guidelines now called Recycle Smart, and that's very helpful in terms of educating. It means you can give out easy messages because they've simplified it.

Kiersten: I think there's almost a mythology around the best way to recycle, right? Like, I've heard people say, “Oh, if, you have the cap, that actually is counted as a pollutant. So don't include that.” And I noticed you said you don't even need the cap. So it seems like we've stumbled upon a myth right there.

But I would love to ask as a waste insider, if there are any emerging trends that help kind of navigate this waste ecosystem and make that simpler or any innovations that you've seen are really effective?

Gretchen: All right. So I have, like I said, spent a lot of time educating, so I'll give you, you know, my, rules that make it easier. Let's put it that way. And if you follow them you'll be right 95 percent of the time, which is a really good number as far as we're concerned!

So one is you know, we're looking for plastic containers with lids. Okay. And that's it. No dog toys, no Legos, no, you know, if the item is smaller than a credit card, it will fall through our system and end up as trash. So it's a size thing. So therefore that's your Keurigs, that's your plastic utensils, which can turn sideways and are skinny, you know, and I know they have a triangle on them, but um, they're not containers with lids. And that's it. You know, hang tag, shredded paper, stuff like that. Uh, that's because the glass is broken into pieces that are two inches or less. All that stuff will end up in my glass pile, which is not where you intended it. And the last thing is with paper and cardboard, if you can rip it, you can recycle it.

And that is like I said, 95 percent of the time, correct. You are going to be able to rip your average office paper and cardboard boxes. You're not going to be able to easily, and no heroics please, you're not going to be able to easily rip into things like wax cardboard or, the carton that held your ice cream or even your coffee cup because they are actually paper lined with plastic and we don't want that plastic.

We want paper and plastic to go in different directions in the recycling facility.

Some states like you to have lids on, some states don't want lids, that's kind of really small fry compared to the big picture of, just put in the container clean and empty, please.

And I always say quick rinse with a scrubby brush because I don't want you rinsing and rinsing and wasting resources to save resources.

I will say that what people don't generally know is that the goal of the recycling facility is to take this material that you have given us, sort it into piles, make one of those piles into a bale. So maybe it's water bottles or maybe it's paper and you're going to put that into a machine that crushes it all up, wraps a wire around it, and makes it into a bale, like a bale of hay, but it's usually like a 2,000 pound of paper, for instance. And then we're going to sell that to a manufacturer who's going to make something else out of it.

This is where, you know, if you're trying to support the recycling system, we would also love it if you would buy things made out of recycled material. So, when you go to buy paper for your printer, whether it's your printer or whether it's the work printer, please consider buying paper made out of paper.

You are saving trees. If you are buying things made out of recycled plastic, you are saving oil. Metal is huge savings, okay, energy wise, it's enormous. There's, uh, aluminum cans always go on to become aluminum cans and it takes 95 percent less energy to turn a can into a can than to strip mine a mountaintop and pull the bauxite out and turn it into aluminum.

And things like steel cans or, you know, we call them tin cans, soup cans, dog food cans. Those can go on to become anything from other cans to engine parts to bulldozers. Okay. So huge second life there. So when you're buying something, including water bottles, those can get turned into new water bottles or, polyester fiber, which becomes hats, clothing, polar fleece, shoes, and carpeting. There's lots and lots of second life for that, and, while everybody is trying to move away from single use plastic, and I am totally cool with that, if you do end up with a water bottle, please throw it into the bin and we'd be happy to recycle it.

Aparna: That was a lot of good stuff you just dropped.

Gretchen: No problem. You asked about trends that I'm seeing in the industry, and, one that I'm seeing is that, there's a lot of recyclable material out there, particularly glass. I'm seeing a lot of interesting things happening where there's a lot of glass available.

It is, heavy, therefore we don't ship it very far so we want to use it as close to home as possible. But what to do with it? It ends up getting made into a processed glass aggregate, and then it can be made into new items, but it can also be used and like, it's getting used in concrete, I believe, is what it's being used for. Instead of coal ash, glass is getting used, which has a much better carbon footprint because it is recycled and it is, it is better in general in every way. I just think there's a lot of creativity going on around glass right now and what it can be. It's getting used for a lot of department public works projects, for instance, wherever you use sand, you can use glass. I've also seen it used for reclamation of beaches, things like that.

You can't tell processed glass from sand, except that it maybe is different colors, but it still ends up looking kind of grayish.

Aparna: Yeah, I'm remembering the scene from the fifth Harry Potter movie right now where Voldemort, collapses this large glass sends it to Dumbledore, he puts up his little shield and it just sands on Dumbledore and Harry, so any Harry Potter fans out there will

Gretchen: There you go.

Aparna: know that glass breaks down into sand. I'm outing myself and I will be going to your website to buy a cloak later. But

Gretchen: [laughter] Thank you.

Aparna: Of course happy to share the love. You've just dropped so many very interesting ways that folks can switch up their small habits from buying paper to preferring recycled content, honestly, just buying tin, steel, recyclable aluminums wherever possible. So, I'm wondering how these have affected your life, how you've incorporated these into your personal sustainability.

Gretchen: For instance, when I went to buy a laptop bag, I thought, okay, how can I do this best? Right. So I Googled laptop bag made out of recycled water bottles. And seriously, I had so many options, so many options. It looks like a laptop bag, you can't tell. At this point it's a very beat up laptop bag because that was a while back, but also in the midst of doing my job, I found that, I was looking to see what water bottles become and this is now nearly 10 years ago, but carpeting was one of the things that surprised me.

And so there I am. And they, they gave me some of their carpet samples, this lovely carpet place that I worked with. Then I start looking at it and going, this looks like regular carpet, except that it has that quality of water bottles. And that if you, if you spill something on it, it doesn't soak up that liquid. It kind of lays there and waits for you to go get a paper towel, you know? It was great. And I now have it across the entire top half of my house. So buying carpet made out of water bottles. I also think too, okay. My two favorite things that I spend money on are books and clothing. And both are used.

I go with consignment stores every time. Far more interesting stuff there. You know, you don't, I don't feel bad. It's guilt-less shopping. I'm buying it. It costs less than it usually would and I can return it when I get tired of it, I bring it right back. And basically someone else gets to use it for a while and I love that. 

I joke that I single handedly keep my used bookstore in business around the corner here. I don't feel bad there either. I go in with a bag that I'm returning and then, I buy another bag and bring them back later. It's kind of like the library except I just feel like I can hold on to them for as long as I want or keep them if they're my favorites, you know.

Kiersten: Can definitely relate to the guilt free part of, of thrifting. My husband jokes, if I won the lottery, I would still be a thrifter. And I'm like, yes, because it's not just one thing. It's a win, win, win. You get something secondhand. So you're saving something from the landfill and you're saving money, and it's like a treasure hunt. I mean, what's not to love? 

Gretchen: Absolutely. And you can tell how it's going to wear because it's already been worn. So, you know, if it's going to pill or something else, it's already, it's already happened. Right. That gives me some comfort that I'm not spending my money on something that's cheaply made.

Kiersten: That's so true. It reminds me of my other favorite part. I'm always afraid if I buy something really nice at the store and it says dry clean only that it's gonna get ruined because I'm gonna accidentally wash it at home. Well, I kind of assume somebody's already washed whatever I bought at the thrift store and I can just wash it at home as well. We want to make sure we also provide value to our listeners in a professional sense, so we know that you have your TRUE Zero Waste Advisor certification, as well as your LEED Green Associate. Do you feel like these have been well utilized in your roles? If yes, or no, depending, would you have other recommendations for someone that wants to follow in your career footsteps?

Gretchen: I think depending on what it is you want to do, but in terms of straight sustainability, I think the true zero waste advisor is a really great learning process. I think that the, the things that you learn coming out of it is just a much more holistic way to look at waste.

So a lot of us focus on kind of the recycle end of it and it goes way upstream. That's where we should be looking. Honestly, it's not about handling things that have already been made. It's about talking to your vendor and saying, okay, you know, my recycling facility can't handle black plastic, can you possibly use a different color plastic for your catered events. How can I make it so that I have fewer cardboard boxes? If the vendor is dropping off reams of paper to you every week, can there be a reusable container that they take with them instead of me having to break down cardboard every time?

Or is there somebody locally that could use my boxes, right? Somebody who's got a business who might appreciate using my boxes before I break them all down and they just show up and take them? Or pallets or whatever it is, right? The question is how can you make less waste? How can you bring in less and how can you go upstream or educate the people around you as well? And I just liked that whole process. You know, even something as simple as right sizing your containers so that you're not paying more than you need to for pickup because the container is full every time you call rather than half full? I think a lot of people don't realize you know that that adds up.

Aparna: Yeah.

Gretchen: I hope that helps.

Aparna: I just got my TRUE Zero waste advisor. So I'd agree with pretty much everything you just said there. And I know Kiersten's getting hers as we speak. 

It's given a lot of really good examples and made you think outside the box a little more than maybe you would have so I appreciate the two cents there. 

You mentioned your love of books, which is something that both of us on the pod also share, with books, documentaries, you know, just resources. Are there specific ones that you've enjoyed and that have shaped your sustainability view or that you just recommend for listeners to take a stab at?

Gretchen: I have a guilty secret. I don't read much in the way of material, say books and things like that, that are about sustainability. That is because after my roughly 10 hour work day of reading everything possible to keep up with my industry. I am really big on my industry magazines and, you know, talking to people who are in the industry.

I, my brain just wants to stop. So I don't have anything good to encourage your listeners to read there.

I tend to go right into the sci-fi fantasy where my brain is just something entirely different. You know what I mean? And so that's my, that's my guilty secret. Uh, no, I am not enriching myself by reading at the end of the day. But, I will say MassRecycle, as mentioned, I am the president of the statewide nonprofit organization, MassRecycle, M A S S, and that's short for Massachusetts, for anybody who's not from Massachusetts and thinks that we're just talking about mass as in material. Massrecycle.org is a great website and a great resource for a lot of things, okay?

There's everything from if you're a municipality, if you're a business, whatever it is, we just came out with a handbook for sustainability professionals. So if you're looking, it has a ton of links and useful information. I am a co-host of a podcast there myself.

We are now up to 50 episodes, so it's cleverly named the Mass Recycle Podcast. If you, if you have anything from Spotify, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, just take a look on your favorite podcast platform, and it's probably there. We got voted by somebody I've never heard of, to be the number five recycling podcast in America.

Was very excited about that. But anyway, we do a lot of deep dive interviews with other professionals in the recycling world. So if you want to hear about food waste, or textiles, or compostable dishware, or just about anything, we have done a whole lot of podcasting. So anyway, there's all those resources for free.

We also do tours, which are, I think it's $25 to come or for a $60 membership, you get to go to all of them free. Those tours are the, the best way to see behind the curtain, in the recycling world or the reuse world or any, any sustainability facility that is opening its doors.

Go learn what is actually happening. Like I said, there's just so much misinformation and it's such a downer every time you hear about how we're trashing it all and throwing it in the ocean and it's so not true and it makes me insane. But these are people who are willing to open their doors and let you in to see what happens to glass, what happens to your recycling, all of the above so I I'm one of the people who gives these tours and I just have heard so many good things from people who have come because it's really appreciated when they actually get to see it for themselves. Please become one of those people if you're near Massachusetts.

Kiersten: Fantastic, we will definitely be linking to the resources that you shared. To close today we want to ask you the big question of what legacy do you hope to leave behind through your work?

Gretchen: I'm a connector and I'm a cheerleader and I'm a person who you can talk to when you're burnt out and you're trying to figure out how to go forward. And I feel like I help lay the foundation for other professionals. MassRecycle itself is, as I jokingly call it, a support group for sustainability people who, you know, need to know they are not the only person trying to save the planet.

There are so many people trying to save the planet. And once you get in a room with all of them, you are just lifted up. You are just feeling like, okay, I did not even know all of this was happening and I feel so much better now because I've only heard bad things about what's happening. I think that that is, that is what I leave, like that community, having built that at MassRecycle and I talk a lot to young professionals. Sometimes they're recent graduates. I am now in about 10 different schools doing guest lecturing, trying to explain what they could be doing, how they can fit into, you know, what they can do with their passion. Right. And that  matters a lot to me. I'll even, if I meet somebody and really click with them, I'll even send job descriptions their way or point out that something's happening because in our field, we want the best and brightest to be helping.

There's enough work for everybody. I learned the hard way, don't say “I'm trying to save the planet.” say, “I'm helping to save the planet.” That implies that there are other people out there. That you are working with, and that's really important. You're not alone.

Aparna: A necessary reframe. Yeah.

Gretchen: Yeah!

Aparna: Great. Well, thank you so much, Gretchen. That was a fantastic conversation we just had. Thank you for your time. Thanks for coming on here and giving all the listeners and ourselves something to chew on.

Gretchen: Thank you. It's been wonderful. I love that you're doing this, and I really appreciate being on, and it's been a pleasure talking with both of you. Thank you so much.