14 - Stacy Savage

Featuring Stacy Savage, the "Texas Trash Talker," we talk about the journey from slinging margaritas to lobbying for landmark e-waste legislation, starting her own business, and diving deep into circularity. 

Connect with Stacy on LinkedIn.

Stacy's website: Zero Waste Strategies

Resources:

• Books:
  • Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough & Michael Braungart
• Certifications: 
  • TRUE Zero Waste 
  • LEED 
  • WELL 
  • SITES
• Organizations:
  • Zero Waste International Alliance 
  • Ellen MacArthur Foundation
  • The Story of Stuff Project

Transcript

[00:00:00] Kiersten: Hello Pod people. Today we are joined by Stacey Savage, also known as the Texas Trash Talker. She is a zero waste consultant, public speaker, and founder of Zero Waste Strategies raised in southeast Texas among oil refineries. Stacy transformed her passion for environmental justice into a career spanning grassroots advocacy policy wins and corporate sustainability. Her early work helped pass landmark producer Takeback laws for electronic waste recycling and established multiple Austin recycling ordinances. She's worked with major clients like Dell, Nestle, and the city of Austin, known for her bold communication style and deep expertise in waste reduction and green operations. Stacy's journey is a powerful example of how purpose, policy and business can align to drive real change. Welcome, Stacy.

[00:00:47] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: Hey, thanks. Appreciate you having me.

[00:00:49] Kiersten: We're so glad to have you here, and we're excited to learn about your journey. In your full bio, you mentioned that you started out slinging fajitas and margaritas before moving into environmental work. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you moved from the service industry into co-founding the Austin Zero Waste Alliance and serving on the city of Austin Zero Waste Advisory Commission. Was there a defining moment that made you pivot into sustainability?

[00:01:13] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: Yeah, so I worked at a very well-known Mexican restaurant. Like you said, slinging fajitas and margaritas as a server and a bartender at Chuy's here in the Austin area. Yeah, I see Aparna, she's fist bumping. People have a deep love for Chuy’s here in Austin, but, yeah. You know, I just, I worked in the back of the house, so I, in front of the house, back of the house bar, you know, everywhere, and I could just see all the waste, the food waste that was going into the trash can. and I was just, I really didn't understand you know, where it went or why there was so much, but I was just kind of taken aback and appalled whenever I got the whole view of how a restaurant operates in the back. And I was like, something needs to change around this. And the managers, uh, at the end of one of my shifts wanted to pull me in the back and say, Hey, I, I think you should become a manager.

And I was like, oh, no, I, I'm not doing this for, you know, my career. There's, there's gotta be something else out there. So I went home that night and I opened up the Austin Chronicle, which is our weekly circular here. And I just started reading through on the back there was an ad that said, get paid to fight the man. And I was like, awesome. But wait, who is the man? And that just brought me back to, I was raised in an apolitical household. We did not talk about politics. We didn't talk about human rights. We didn't talk about, really anything. I was just kind of clueless and I was 26, 7, 8 years old at the time, and all of a sudden I found activism and it was a door-to-door grassroots community campaign where we went door knocking all across Austin and multiple cities across Texas.

And I went to my first interview and went out into the field and, before I had any experience, the first door I knocked on, I raised 60 bucks from someone who cared about the, issue that we were talking about, which was electronics, recycling, getting companies like Dell and HP and Apple to take back their own obsolete or busted products and recycle them responsibly and for free for Texas consumers. They already have legislation like this in 24 other states. So why wouldn't Texas join the ranks and be one of the takeback programs states? And since Dell is located in central Texas just north of Austin, we were like, that's prime target number one.

So we started knocking on doors all over Austin, Round Rock, the Cedar Park area. We found people who were actually, you know, employed by Dell and they're like, oh, we don't wanna sign, we don't put our name on anything. We're like, it's all confidential. This is going to state lawmakers, it's not gonna go to Dell.

You know, we started getting petition signatures and raising money and getting people to sign letters to Michael Dell specifically, we worked about seven years on a campaign to get Dell to the table to start speaking with us, and we finally got them to embrace a state law or a draft of a state bill that would hold these computer manufacturers responsible for their own products.

And Dell helped us draft the bill, lobby for the bill and it passed with 100% "yes" vote. Through all 181 districts in the state of Texas back in 2007 . We repeated that victory in 2009. We got a TV Takeback Law passed. Unfortunately then governor Perry vetoed the bill. and so we went at it again for the 2011. Legislative session and we made the bill more robust around television recycling and we got a 90% passage rate the house and the Senate. It was a really big deal to kind of join the ranks of these other states and set the precedent for take back legislation here in Texas. Many, many other products can now follow suit if you will. So, doing that door knocking is what really changed my, you know, entire, I got entirely politically activated. I knew finally knew something about human rights, environmental protection, indigenous rights, the black and brown communities being disproportionately affected by pollution as well as, just general, aquatic issues as well as marine life and, and that type of thing. So these, this was education that I did not get in my little podunk town in southeast Texas, underneath the brown hazy skies and rotten egg smells of the Texas oil and gas industry.

[00:05:25] Aparna: What a journey, Stacy. That's incredible. Chuy's a beautiful restaurant. They finally opened a couple up in the DMV area and every time I make it out to Shenandoah, I do make it a destination to stop at Chuy's, get the enchiladas, get a bean and cheese burrito, and the queso obviously, it's incredible to hear that you also had your start at beautiful little Chuy's. In addition to Chuy's or Fajita love We also know that in 2013 you founded Zero Waste Strategies. What led to you striking out on your own as opposed to staying with the door knocking and the experience that you've been having with them.

[00:06:00] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: I was just driving home from my JOB and I was sitting at a stoplight in South Austin just waiting for the light to turn green, and I was gonna turn into my neighborhood and, you know, it was five o'clock traffic and I was just dazed and not thinking about anything. And then all of a sudden something shot threw me like a bolt of lightning.

I'm telling you, I sat straight up and it stiffened my spine and I was like, oh gosh. I need to start a business. That was the moment that everything changed and I wasn't expecting it obviously, but I was like, Stacy, you know all the waste haulers, the recyclers, you know the composters in the area, you know the city council, you know the state lawmakers, you know all the environmental nonprofit heavy hitters in the state.

Like why aren't you the hub and the go-to gal for zero waste resources? So the very next day I went down to the Travis County Courthouse. I dropped my $17 and I got my DBA, and it was the best money I have ever spent because almost 13 years later, here we are working with companies like Dell and City of Austin. So, you know, people in my activist days are now you know, my clients as a, an entrepreneur and business owners. That was the moment and I've never looked back.

[00:07:12] Kiersten: Really quickly, we do cater to a pretty wide audience and not everyone has the entrepreneurial experience that you have. So you did mention DBA. Can you just tell our listeners what that stands for?

[00:07:23] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: Yeah, so that's "doing business as" that is kind of the bare minimum business license that you need to start taking on clients and to start building your business so that you have a legal entity and that you can start you know, building the funds that you would need in order to pay taxes as a business. And believe me, I did not have an entrepreneurial spirit. I literally thought I would have a JOB till the day I die. I did not see myself becoming a business owner. And yeah, that's just where the universe had different path and ideas for me.

[00:07:55] Kiersten: Fascinating stuff. Well, now that you are an entrepreneur and you have amassed some of that experience, despite starting from scratch, can you tell us a little bit about what a day in your life looks like as an entrepreneur in the circularity space? 

[00:08:08] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: Yeah, so as a solopreneur and I run the business with my husband John, who's our company VP, and my VIP we run the company together and it varies from day to day. I not only do a lot of the business aspects, but I also do the marketing and the legal and the taxes and, you know, the podcasts and film, you know, doing all the, the article interviews and kind of the face of the company client acquisition and getting the proposals together and the contract signed and. And all of that that comes with it on the back end so that we can onboard those clients and that we can create that relationship with them. So it could be, a number of, any of those pulled together for different clients that are interested in, bringing us onto their projects. But you know, it could also be having the freedom of going to pick up my grocery order, at two o'clock in the afternoon because. I make the rules. I'm my own boss and I make my schedule. So it's really freeing, it's a lot of freedom. But that comes with responsibility as well to make sure that your deadlines are met and that your clients are satisfied, and that you are also balancing the, the work schedule with the life schedule as well.

[00:09:22] Aparna: Lots of flexibility, a lot of hats for sure, and it sounds like an immense learning curve, Stacy, but it's excellent that you had your partner to help on that this journey, and You'all could tackle this whole thing together.

Wondering if you could talk us through how you gained this industry knowledge. So did the contacts and understanding the waste sphere come from door knocking? Was it Chuy's? Was it a different experience that we haven't gotten into yet?

[00:09:48] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: Well, I clearly developed my gift of Gab in the service industry. I can talk to anyone about anything basically and find common ground. So my slew of customers and regulars that I would have at the restaurant allowed me to develop my speaking skills and my relatability. But also, you know, moving into the activist realm after my service industry positions and moving into more of a professional legislative lobbying position and door to door. You know, front, front porch conversations that I was having with everyday Texans allowed me to understand how to not only present the issues that people really cared about, but also: how to fold in empowering language so that they felt part of the solution that they felt like if I take this action that she's presenting me with right now, if I sign this petition, if I can you know, donate any money to their nonprofit. If I can get a letter signed over to my lawmaker, they'll hand deliver it for me at the state capitol during the legislative session.

Like I really feel like I'm doing what's necessary. And, you know, we delivered. You know, for Texans over and over and over again. Not just at the state level, but at the local level as well. There is a lot that, that kind of layered in there with all of my experience that allowed me to have the confidence to actually go and become a business owner.

Believe me, when I first started, I had no idea what I was doing. It was all gut-based. It was all intuition and doing a lot of research and listening to my mentors as well, having loads and loads of meetings, interviewing people, finding out what a potential client might need in services and them helping me understand how I could develop my business model. What that looks like today is that we have onsite services and we also have online services where we can do onsite waste audits to where we're up and up to our elbows for six hours and somebody else's trash sorting and weighing and tracking and cataloging.

And. You know, finding out what the composition of all the waste streams are and then developing a deep data analysis report for them. It could also be, in person or online employee training to where people come and do kind of a lunch, and learn online. And we do an hour zero waste 1 0 1 basic training kind of thing.

We're also qualified to administer the rigorous standards of the True Zero Waste Facility Certification program, which is under the US Green Building Certification Program led by Green Business Certification Inc. Under that organization's authority, we have the ability to administer the true zero waste protocols, which helps those businesses at those facilities get their their waste stream down to 90% waste diversion. So having a 90% recycling rate and composting rate for their food waste or yard waste.

[00:12:49] Aparna: I feel like since we've heard a couple cool catchy phrases from you so far, you'll appreciate this. But I do waste audits as a part of my job as well, and I always like to call them my raccooning sessions. I'm like, oh, I'm going raccooning this week. We'll see you guys soon.

[00:13:02] Kiersten: Aparna has recently been raccooning, so we've traded some great memes about it. Speaking of digging through things we care a lot about helping our listeners identify their skills and then sort of sifting through where they best fit within the green economy, So I am a little curious because you mentioned a quite lengthy skillset, and it makes a lot of sense coming out of door knocking and really finding your environmental passion that those are the skills you acquired. But is there a reason that you chose to start a business versus going into politics?

[00:13:32] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: Yeah. You know, the legislative work does not happen unless the grassroots organizing happens first and in Texas, every legislative session is only every other year on odd numbered years, and it only lasts for five months. It usually takes three to four legislative sessions for a bill to get through the entire process, onto the floor discussions and votes, and then onto the governor's desk for a signature, or not, or a veto, depending on what he wants to do on that day. But the, the organizing piece really helped me understand the lay of the land, especially here in Texas. And then whenever I found out, we have over 200 landfills across the state, and a lot of them have 300, 500 year permits through our state's environmental agency, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. It's not the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality, it's Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. So those are two very different stances whenever it comes to the focus of a state agency. Is it on issue or is it for the issue and, for me, and from my experience, TCEQ is a rubber stamp agency, and we'll just allow these permits, you know, just kind of willy-nilly. And we're talking really about landfill development or expanding landfills across the state. So there's a lot of contention around these issues and whenever I, I found out that most of these landfills leak into our water table as well. I just kept thinking about what is actually hitting our landfills.

I mean, we're talking about bulky items. We're talking about construction and demolition debris. As well we're talking about these toxic electronics. We're talking about food waste, which is about 30 to 40% of the entire waste stream in the US that is putting off methane and carbon dioxide and, and really contributing to the climate issue. In fact, landfills are one of the top five global emitters. It's because of all the food waste and the yard waste that's hitting these, these landfill, all the organics. And so, you know, that just built up my anger around the issues. And I decided to channel that anger into much more positive approach to helping these businesses from the inside rather than point and shame them from the outside. And that's what I was doing in my activist career is I could see it from the outside, but what I didn't understand was, as a business owner now working with people who are on the inside, who truly care, who want these issues taken care of, who want to put their best foot forward as a company who you know, who want to have green marketing and have the numbers to back it up, who want to inspire their employees and their consumers who want to make their shareholders and investors happy, sometimes they are stifled by maybe the upper echelons of management or, the, the C-suite or whatnot. So it's, it's really about pulling all these aspects and all these people with all these different talents together and getting everything hammered out of what a program can and should look like to follow the basic zero waste hierarchy and the wasted food scale.

[00:16:39] Aparna: And no one better than the Texas top trash talker to talk trash, so very aptly named. You mentioned zero waste a few times, and I feel like a lot of your answers are really pointing us towards circularity, circular economy, more reuse, and. giving things a second life instead of dumping them in the landfill.

So, Stacy, for our listeners, could you define what zero waste is, what the circular economy is, and feel free to get as technical as you want.

[00:17:07] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: So zero waste is defined as 90% or more waste reduction from landfills and incinerators. There used to be a time attached to that by 2040 or sooner. But plastics pollution crisis is happening right now. And with the current state of affairs, at least here in America with the current federal administration and gutting of programs left and right. Sustainability is just kind of flapping in the wind right now, and it doesn't have that stable grounding in the EPA standards and those, agencies held the principles tight and, we could rely on getting state legislation passed on certain types of issues or we could rely on the federal government, enforcing laws, like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act and landfill standards, that kind of thing. But these days or at least in the past five to six months everything has taken quite a big hit whenever it comes to the stability of the policies and so I just feel like companies don't know what to do right now.

They are just kind of throwing their hands up and they just feel that their sustainability programs might come at a loss for them. And so unfortunately, some of these are taking a backseat to what they're dealing with that seem to be more priority, higher priority for them their business structure.

So, what, what many businesses don't quite understand is that reducing waste on any level is optimizing your business. When you optimize your business, you save money and that adds to your bottom line. You may not exactly be making money, although there are plenty of avenues to make money and extra revenue whenever it comes to selling your commodities, like bailed cardboard or all of your aluminum you know, plastics, that kind of thing.

But a lot of companies just see sustainability as a nice to have rather than an absolute priority that will not be touched. And, because it's not exactly a money maker, but it is a cost saver. A lot of times it gets kind of just bumped down.

[00:19:20] Kiersten: Definitely working in the industry, that is familiar that sustainability kind of has to earn its keep with ROI, I once read something about nobody asks the ROI of like Christmas decorations and it stood out in memory.

'cause it's true. Not everything should have an ROI. It's just good. And sometimes that's nice. That said, fortunately, a lot of times sustainability solutions do have a good ROI and can be an income stream. So what are the top three ways that you would recommend businesses save money by reducing waste?

[00:19:53] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: Yeah, I would say number one is conducting that waste audit and you can't figure out where you need to go until you measure where you're at. We've recently done one for the city of Springfield, Missouri, where we did 10,000 pounds in five days, nine subcontractors, and the city was wanting to, to find all this data so that they can enact a recycling program right, for their, their residence.

Or take, you know, Apple in northeast Austin did a, a huge waste audit for their campus and looked at all of their waste streams really coming to the conclusion once you've done your waste audit of where the trash is coming from, what it looks like, where you can reduce, things that you can get rid of or find alternatives for getting rid of single use plastics wherever you can. And you know, you can find all of this out with a well sampled waste audit. And then I would say. If you're a larger firm that does a lot of packaging, then look at a cardboard baler so that you can bail your cardboard and sell it to the highest bidder, and that's going to help bring in some revenue.

I believe in New York it was like 120 something per ton. It's kind of a regional pricing on the commodities market. A couple of years ago, whenever I looked at it for Texas, it was only like 60 bucks a ton. But we have so many landfills but New York, not necessarily many landfills at all, and I think they're basically, of 'em are closed. So there's a lot to be said about I. Finding the commodities that are already in your business and then, you know, reduction in reuse, it really has, has to be prioritized a above everything. Once you have your measurements from your waste audit, then you can look at your reduce and reuse tactics.

So where can we reduce, look at the procurement policies that your, your company is using in order to purchase things for internal use in the company. Do you have a collective process to pool all the money from all of your floors in order to do a larger purchase from a particular vendor, or do you have a decentralized platform where everybody just kind of orders whatever they need when they need? And are you losing out on the discounted rate because you're not purchasing in bulk? So you can always look at the the EPAs guidelines, which is called The Environmental Purchasing Practices Guideline book. It's called the EPPP. Just Google that. But the, the environmental purchasing practices guideline book from the EPA will help you understand what are the best practices around purchasing for your department, or purchasing for an entire office or floor or of your floors as well. So it, it will give you instructions on the, you know, the types of materials that are better than other materials and, and that kind of thing. And how to even purchase the recycled content, products as well. I would say those are the, the three things.

Do your waste audit, look at your reduce and reuse tactics, especially in your procurement department. And then look at what commodities that you have on site that you could sell 

[00:23:00] Aparna: Incredible. Thank you for sharing all this, Stacy. You've definitely seen a lot of different companies and seen how they operate, so it's great to be able to consolidate that knowledge and share best practices in this industry. So also with your work with all these different companies and you being a solopreneur as you call yourself are there any cool emerging trends in circularity that you've heard about any that excite you?

[00:23:22] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: Yeah. I've seen several companies come to fruition and they're starting to get a lot of seed funding and they're winning grants as well around food waste becoming clothing. I. And so I, I think that's really cool. There's, like fruit leather, you know companies that are using like coconut husks to make the upper soles of the, tennis shoe or, using kiwi peels to make some kind of fiber to where it can be woven and, and that type of thing. So really looking at, at companies like Adidas that are taking ocean plastics that local fishermen scoop up plastics that have washed up on the shores of their local beaches and selling it to them and making new athletic wear as well.

So these companies are really looking into and finding a lot of opportunities within the waste stream to fold it back into a circular economy principle so that it can be reused in a totally different format instead of hitting the landfill. 

[00:24:20] Aparna: And they're also giving us a little snack just in case you get hungry. You know, Kiwi peels. I'll eat things if I get desperate.

[00:24:26] Kiersten: I, I'm not with Aparna on this one. I wanna reduce food waste, but I don't think I would wanna eat a coconut husk personally. But wear some coconut husk tennis shoes for sure. Fashion icon? Certainly. Food entrepreneur? Maybe not. Those were really, really great examples and definitely something I know we jotted down to find some companies and maybe link in the show notes for listeners 'cause that sounds amazing. Getting back to you and your skillset for a moment, Stacy, if someone wanted to do what you've done, you had an interesting path throughout your career, right? But if someone wanted to kind of copycat you now, are there any skills or certifications that you think are very important? I know you mentioned TRUE, so that's probably one of them, but anything else there?

[00:25:10] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: I would say that getting the TRUE certification, especially if you want to work on waste reduction issues specifically, is great. If you wanna be more of a generalist and you can look at water, energy, green building and waste altogether you can do the LEED certification.

You can also become certified in WELL and sites, S-I-T-E-S. The US Green Building Council has a multitude of different certifications that you can go after. But also looking at "zero waste USA" has a great certification process as well. There's many out there that you can look at, but I would also talk to the environmental leaders in your community who's leading the nonprofits that are going to bat for you and protecting your air and water quality or fighting landfill expansions in your local community. Like sitting down with them and talking to them about what they're seeing. What are the trends?

What are they hearing? Who else do you need to talk to that they can point you in the direction of? I always went to the local city council meetings, especially on the agenda whenever they had waste issues, and it was such an important topic for me. So I went in person and I signed up to speak.

There's usually a three minute citizens communication. Part of that, if you don't wanna speak, that's fine. You can always fill out a card telling your lawmakers or your local council members where you stand on a certain issue and they get to read all of those before they go to a vote on that agenda item.

And so, you know, there's different ways that you can do that or even just volunteering to run for one of the boards. I was on the zero Waste Advisory Commission appointed by my city council members, so I served two years and we met every other week at the City Council Chambers and we were able to work on zero waste policies and iron out any kinks, make sure there weren't any clashes with other ordinances, that kind of thing before that policy would get to the city council desk for a vote. So we were kind of the buffer between what the community and the businesses wanted on zero waste policies. We would look at it holistically and then we would say, here's the final draft of what we think policy wise, that city council should vote on. And so that was a really great experience as well.

It helps you understand the legislative process too.

[00:27:30] Aparna: Yeah, and the importance of individual action, right? Like nothing really gets done unless someone says something, which then kicks off a chain reaction of events. So, very good lesson. Looking at pretty much all you've done in your career, Stacy, you've gotten involved in the public space, the private space, you've done door knocking, service industry, business and entrepreneurship, and you have made a lot of really important change in Austin.

So the question for you is, what kind of a legacy are you hoping to leave behind through this work? 

[00:28:03] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: I always said to myself. When I first started my business, is to raise the next generation of zero wasters because the people who mentored me have already been in the industry for 40 plus years. My mentors are the ones who came up with the global definition of zero waste. They set the zero waste hierarchy. They were able to build a, an international coalition. So these are the people who mentored me. What I want to do and leave a legacy is to pass it down to the next generation. Those professionals who are so passionate about these types of, of issues that they want to go on and start their own consulting firm like I did. So I've got a 12 week program that is the sustainability startup, and it's an online program where I'm basically encapsulating my 13 years of business ownership experience. How did I do it? Who did I meet with? What boards did I need to go to? What issues did I need to speak out on? How did I even start the business, right? So we go over all of these real technical issues about waste building up a, a waste business or a business around waste mitigation. And you don't have to necessarily be in it for waste issues, but if you just have a passion for sustainability, it all fits in. You know, it really helps people get that, that launch pad that they need, that I wish that I had 13 years ago to have somebody just kind of hold me by the hand and say, okay, this is your next step. You wouldn't think about but really affect you a little later on. 

[00:29:38] Kiersten: So for that next generation that you want to inspire and help raise. What books or podcasts or documentaries or other resources would you recommend?

[00:29:48] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: One of the books that really got me onto this path is called Cradle to Cradle, it talks about circularity. And, and this was, gosh, way back in 2003 or oh four, maybe five, where I started picking up this book and started reading about it. So it all started to click whenever I read that book. There's so many out there just regarding what food waste does to the planet and the plastic pollution crisis. I would say that people should look at the Zero Waste International Alliance. You can just go to zwia.org Also the Ellen MacArthur Foundation that really talks about circularity as a specific entity and how the next boon in our economy is going to be circularity. Bringing about millions of jobs across the world whenever it comes to the reuse, the repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing sectors as well as recycling and composting and putting people to work in well-paying jobs with dignity is really critical globally. I'd also look at if, if you have kids, this is really important too. Go to the story of stuff project and to look at their cartoon vignettes. There may be like 20 or 30 minutes, but it really takes very large issues like cap and trade or e-waste recycling and boils it down to very digestible, understandable cartoons for, for people and kiddos as well.

 Also, if folks want to sign up for our monthly newsletter. I put out a monthly Zero Waste Business Newsletter each month. Over specifically business wins and maybe some failures out there but also some new innovations that are coming up that people should be aware of. We also have a new substack as well under Stacy Savage. And you know, we are starting to just post wherever we can on all the social media, major social media platforms. I do a weekly environmental news on LinkedIn called The Good, the Bad, the Ugly. And usually on Thursdays is whenever I'll, I'll do that and I just go live for like 20 minutes.

And we talk about different topics and what's working, what's stagnating and what's really failing. 

[00:32:05] Aparna: Thank you so much for all of those. Resources cannot wait to link them all in the show notes and have more people check out the stuff that your company's doing. Have folks check out and see Zero Waste International Alliance. Read a book, Cradle to Cradle. It's been on my "to be read" for a while, so this will be a very good motivator for that.

Thank you Stacy, so much for your time on this podcast. It has been a very educational time chatting with you, learning all about what you do in the waste world, and also what we can do as individuals to impact our community and our neighbors. So thank you for your time. We're very excited to keep up with you in the future.

[00:32:40] Stacy Savage (@TexasTrashTalker) - Zero Waste Strategies: Awesome. Thanks. I had a great time!