All right, so what's new between last week and this week since we talked?
Saving the planet off to fixing it all.
Yeah, I've, um,
I don't know. I can't, I can't think of it.
Steady on the course, huh? That's all right.
Yeah, steady as she goes. Absolutely. That makes sense.
It doesn't always have to be new to be exciting and good. So, um, we'll, uh,
we'll dive into some of the latest projects.
What clients are you working with right now?
Um, well, we're working with Boston university, uh, right now.
And, um, we are
enrolling in our, uh, eight week online zero waste business academy.
All right. Welcome in to vision pros live with Jackson Calame.
I'm your show host.
We will be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are
building fantastic visions out there.
What's up vision pros and welcome in to another episode of vision pros live.
I'm your show host Jackson Calame founder and CEO of first-class business.
And I'm excited to be bringing Stacy Savage on for our next episode.
We just took a short break. We're right back at it. Why?
Because we know how valuable these interviews are for those who are able to tune
in and listen. So I know you won't be able to catch them all,
but the segments that we grab,
the opportunities to discuss these principles of growth and leadership and
things that are needed in the world is just such a phenomenal opportunity that
we've decided to not just double down, but to go all out and have more of these
shows more regularly because of the amazing impact that it's had with so many
people's lives. So, um, with that said,
let's talk about some of these sponsorships of choice. So, uh,
cap show and icon maker life. Um, I'm going to feature cap show first.
Cap show is what we utilize to create our show notes.
So if you were to go to vision pros live, it's a, please drop the link for me.
I think it's go dot first-class business.io forward slash whatever.
I'm not going to finish it. You can click on the link and get there easier.
So go to vision pros live. And once you're there,
you go to some of those episodes, you'll see what cap shows we're using.
Caps show for so cap shows the fastest way to repurpose and market your expert
content. Go, I may go for pulling this on my screen. Um,
and you'll notice in the right hand side, it shows a screenshot of what you get,
but basically you upload your episodes or your video content,
your audio content of any type. And it will basically pull that information,
combine it with this AI,
which serves like a content creation machine for you.
And you just click buttons to be able to get access to LinkedIn, Facebook posts,
um, LinkedIn articles, Twitter, Twitter articles, Twitter posts,
um, sound bites.
There's so many different elements that it's able to give you so that you don't
have to create your content from scratch. Why should you,
you just spoke it into a microphone. You might as well capture it,
have an AI recirculate and put that together in a way that allows you to touch
more people's lives. It's super cool. And I can honestly just think cap show,
and my team, I've never touched this page you're looking at for Sheryl Ploof.
Um, it allows us to be able to do things more effectively.
And so if you think about it,
if you have somebody who's doing your content for you and you don't have a
system like this, it's kind of like giving them a toothbrush and saying,
go ahead and scrub the floors, right? And no,
we've now got a system basically like a Roomba going around and,
and, and doing that for us.
And it empowers the team to be much better at what they do and focus on higher
level tasks at hand with moving our podcast forward. So we love cap show very much.
I'm very grateful for it.
Icon maker live.com is coming up this coming week as well on Wednesday of next
week, you'll be able to, um, attend this event.
And as you look at the page,
Jaime's about to pull up and go through it, you'll see what it's all about.
It's about teaching people how to launch their podcasts profitably.
And we're talking about moving towards seven figures as podcasters. Um,
I'm on that journey and path myself. Um, I'm not there yet.
I want people to know that, be aware of that. I'm not shy about it.
We're not there. We look forward to being there.
It's one of the reasons why we got involved with this project.
I'm also grateful and honored that they allowed us to recreate the copy for the
pages itself.
Look forward to working more closely with Tom Mattson and Sheryl's.
We talked this morning about the lineup of activities of what's going on.
He just kind of blew my mind yet again with different,
different people that they're going to be hosting and putting on stage to help
people drive forward successful podcasts.
So if you're in the podcast world or you're considering getting into it,
and really if you're an authority figure and you're building your credibility,
this is one of the absolute best ways to do so and create an environment where
you not only got a community plugged into it,
but you've got a microphone or people are coming in and hearing you out and
trying to gain value from you. And how do I do that? Well,
my case for my podcast,
it's by bringing on other leaders who know way more than I do about the subject
matter at hand. So with that said, we're going to shift gears one more time.
Grateful for the woop, my fingers don't quite rise to it yet,
but the water project, um,
the water project is a opportunity to get involved with an entity that's
providing clean drinking water for those in need.
Please, if you're hearing this for the first time,
go check out the water project, go give a dollar,
go see how cool the experience is because they'll keep you up to date with,
with the project fulfillment and what happens with that.
It's one of my favorite organizations to support because of the transparency
that exists with that.
And Jaime will be dropping a link in the,
in the show notes for you guys to be able to access one of those projects that
needs funded now.
And just imagine being those children that you see right there and having to
drink water that looks like lemonade, that's not lemonade at all.
And what it could do to your health.
You have the opportunity to impact that and help them get what they need as do
I, um,
which is why we're constantly talking about this promoting this and
contributing to it. So we're going to bring out a special guest named Stacey
Savage.
She has a program designed to help drive zero waste to help companies
commit to, uh,
contributing in ways that will hopefully help this planet, um,
and in massively impactful ways that sometimes we just don't know how to
articulate. We don't know how to think of,
but whether it's for the sake of the ozone or for the sake of the animals or
the people affected by the deterioration taking place within our planet,
um,
I'm just excited to bring her on and hear her perspective and talk to her
because I grew up in a very conservative home where that wasn't thought of,
but you know, very, very much. My dad's in the oil field. So it was my grandpa.
So, um, you know, we've, we've done our fair share of, of, uh,
contributing to both probably the problem and the solutions throughout life.
And I think most of us could make more space to at least understand the subject
better, if not see how we can make an impact because it does truly matter.
And we'll be looking at that from different angles today. So Stacey,
thank you so much for being here today. And, uh, man,
I'm just really happy to have your expertise on this subject cause I don't
know a whole lot about it.
Well, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. And, uh, yeah,
we will definitely get into it.
For sure. Definitely. So talk to me first about this. Who should be listening in?
Why should they listen to you as an expert and what are they going to get out of
today's show? Do you think?
So the first part of the question, who should listen?
I think these are universal concepts that can be
practiced at home, at work, and at play where you recreate.
And this is all about keeping valuable materials out of the landfill.
And this is about saving landfill space as well. So the,
uh, sorry, the question.
Oh, that's okay. I'll pick up too. My bad.
I think I should highlight your name and your title, but you're right. So, you
know, why, why should we be listening to you specifically? And, and then, uh,
what are we going to talk about today? You covered that one.
So what's your expertise and all?
Yeah. So I'm, I'm an expert in zero waste and that is globally defined as a 90%
waste reduction from landfills and incinerators.
And we do that through a hierarchy of materials management. And if you think about an inverted triangle, landfill and incineration is the very, very, very bottom tip of the triangle. And that is actually a disposal method. But they're, you know, whenever you think about the three R's, everybody's heard of the three R's, reduce reuse recycle, but there's actually more like nine. There's like nine R's in there. Yeah. That businesses can utilize, um, with their, for their materials.
Within their business structure. And this goes for college campuses. This goes for nonprofit agencies. This goes for local government agencies as well. These are all key concepts that can be implemented because this is all driven by habit change through, um, habit change through our, um, our decision making at the, the bin systems within our, um, our business infrastructure.
Right. So wherever the bins are in your hallway, on your floor, uh, at the elevator within the four year foyer area, you know, where are your bins located and, uh, are they accessible? Are they convenient to people know how to use them? And, you know, a lot of times the answer is no.
So about educating people on how to properly handle their materials, because we are the waste generators. Um, you know, we're, we're kind of the crux, if you will, because if you think about it, how did you get that product in your hand? Somebody made it. It came from the earth, a resource, whether it's petroleum, uh, or wood or bauxite for aluminum.
Something was mined and refined and produced and made into a product, transported and ended up on your store shelf. You bought it and it's probably going to break in about six months and you have to go buy a new one. So what, how did that material end up in your hands? And you're the, the kind of the crux, um, of handling that material responsibly at the bin system.
So we normally, you know, the ideal, uh, measure would be having a three bin system of trash recycling and food waste composting, but a lot of services aren't available like that in some areas across the U S. So if you don't have the services, you know, or the infrastructure locally, you know, then, then you're not going to be able to offer that at your business or to your internal employees.
So it's all about driving the habit change and you and I, as the materials generators are the crux about what happens to the materials. Are they getting into the right bin? Um, you know, and then you have to think about who's handling those materials downstream at the recycling plant or the composting facility or the landfill.
It just depends on who's doing what with the materials that are in their hands.
One of the things that struck me most regarding our audience, um, about our conversation pre-show was about how you came from a grassroots, um, effort of, of door knocking and, uh, maybe didn't come from it, but it sounded like there was an opportunity where you were kind of coming at the companies and saying, hey, this is your fault. You need to fix this.
Um, you know, and there's really no benefit to you, but make sure that you're playing by these rules or else. Um, that's what a lot of people imagine when, when they think of, uh, protests or people who want to create this change.
But when we talked, you talked about how your plans, your strategy has shifted or, um, actually empowers the brand to see the opportunity at hand with, with, um, with moving towards zero waste. But you have a deep respect for how much they, how much impact they want to create.
And you're aware of the challenges they face as business owners and leadership, you know, trying to divide their time between how do I provide for my family? How do I provide for the world? Um, and how do I also make sure to, you know, keep it all clean as I do so?
That really struck me. So I'd love to know, what's your vision for those that you're serving in terms of the businesses that, that you work with?
Um, my vision is habit change. And, you know, it really starts with the, the key, uh, education piece of it and helping. Let's think about what is a company. It's made up of people.
And the company that is made up of those people are usually the people that work there in the local community. They live there, they have homes and, you know, their, their places of worship and their local parks and their school. And these are places that they cherish.
And so, you know, they, they don't want to pollute their own neighborhood. So it's, it's important to have these habit changes at work and at home in order to normalize the, the, you know, the zero waste concepts as well.
Because, you know, if you're, if you're mishandling these, these materials, then we're losing jobs in the local community as well. A lot of times these materials, if they're too contaminated because they weren't handled properly, a lot of times if it's 25, 30% too contaminated, the, the whole load is going to go to landfill because it's just too costly to, to separate all that material.
And to re-clean it and to process it. So the, the hauler and the processor is going to descend it to the dump. So if we, as the generators of these materials are not handling these materials as a valuable commodity, there's no such thing as waste. Ever.
We live on a circular planet with finite resources and there's no such place as a way. You can't throw something away because it always ends up downstream or, you know, in the downstream economy. So it ends up somewhere. Maybe that's your, you know, in our oceans.
Maybe that's in, you know, the, near the, the school where a landfill butts up against a, you know, a school. So there's, there's no such place as a way. We have to handle these materials in a more sustainable, sustainable manner.
And, you know, keeping those materials local in the local community helps drive those green jobs with dignity. Well-paying green jobs with dignity is, is a key driver economically. And that's going to happen with the habit change that you and I as individuals can, can exhibit.
I love that. So why is that important? Why is all this important to you specifically? And why should it be important to the, the leaders that you work with, the brands considering to bring somebody like yourself in?
Yeah, you know, just like you, I, I grew up, you know, Southeast Texas, Louisiana border and the Golden Coyote area near the Gulf coast. So,
that's the oil and gas Mecca of the country. And my parents worked at oil and gas refineries for a collective 75 years. I still have cousins, aunts, uncles that work at these refineries. So,
in a nutshell, my family's complicit in the pollution of these brown hazy skies and rotten egg smells, but you can't blame them because it's the only lucrative business or industry in the area that will allow you to send three kids to college,
which is, you know, I have two sisters, pre-internet. I've got two sisters. I'm the classic middle child and a Cajun on top of that. So,
there's, there's a lot of defiance against these institutions that I've instilled upon myself through my education and through me being able to have these lived experiences. And knowing that family members have died of weird cancers, people have died of cancer.
People that are very impactful in my life. So, it's really important to me to help the businesses from the inside out, help them, not harm them. Because again, these are people that make up these businesses. They're run by people just like you and me. And if they don't know better, they don't know that they don't know better.
So, we have to do the education. We've got to help them understand that, you know, going green as a business is no longer a request. It is a demand of investors, shareholders, consumers, your employees as well. So, I think it's important for them to get ahead of the curve. And it's really important for them to get the assistance from experts in the field like, like myself.
I love that you highlight that. You know, it is, it is one of those things that the world is adopting, you know, in, in stride right now. And so, you mentioned some very key components. And if you're irresponsibly not listening, right, it's not even about the matter of like, if this matters to you personally, it should if it matters to those who you serve.
You know, and we need to take time to hear people out on that. So, I try not to get into science because I don't know the science, but I do know the thing, you know, of of what it means to keep a clean house. I do know the feeling of what it means to, you know, to, I do know what germs are. And I know, I know what it means to me when somebody washes their hands properly before leaving the bathroom, and what it means when somebody goes to the bathroom, you know, that they're out of the bathroom.
of what it means to, you know, to, I do know what germs are. I mean, I know, I know what
it means to me when somebody washes their hands properly before leaving the bathroom
and what it means when somebody doesn't like those things. They, they strike me. You mentioned
the placement of bins. I'm going to, I'm going to rant a little bit on this one. My health
teacher in high school said, if you go into restroom, he taught us how to wash your hands,
experiment style, like where everybody got to try. And then at the end, he showed you
exactly how you all get it wrong and getting each other's germs. And, and you grab the
door handle with the napkin, you know, the paper towel as you go out and then there is
no trash bin right there. Then throw the towel on the ground right where they should be putting
a waste bin as a form of peaceful protest that this is, this is not acceptable. And
it means every single worker that just finished, you know, peeing or whatever else just walked
out of that bathroom, having touched everybody else's hands that didn't wash their hands.
And I was like, you know, we're like, ah, this is awful. Um, you know, and, and he's
like, you know, so anyway, that that's, so everywhere I go, I see that lack of truth.
I see lack of traction. I do the same thing. Not trying to be a mean person. Um, you know,
but that's one example. Um, what are some overlooked examples in the world, you know,
that seem common sense to, to perhaps you, but that maybe others are missing that we
can improve, uh, you know, in our workplaces. I'd say that one that you just mentioned is
the prime example is there's no bin there, but you know what? It shouldn't be a trash
bin. It should be a composting bin because paper towels for hand washing is not recyclable
and it shouldn't go to landfill because it's compostable. So there should be, if you have
composting services in your area, like an industrial composting facility that can come
and pick up your food waste and your, you know, your hand towels. Absolutely. There
should be a composting bin right next to it. It should be green. There should be signage
all over the place of what can and can't go into that bin. And it should be, you know,
hand towels only use hand towels only. And you know, that, that way the janitorial crew
at the end of the night that comes and cleans the office space can pull that and put it
into the composting bin outdoors. And that way it gets to the correct facility. But yeah,
that's a, that's a prime example right there. And, um, I think another kind of trend that
businesses are doing that are going kind of the zero waste route is they are taking all
the small trash cans and recycling bins out of individual offices and desks. And they're
doing larger bins out in the hallway so that people have to get up, walk over and they
have to decide what goes where. And you can't just, yeah, if you're at your, your, if you've
got like a side desk recycling bin with a little trash can on it or whatnot, um, then
you can handle those materials however you want. But if you're out in the open in a public
hallway, uh, yeah. So you're under a little bit more scrutiny.
System of accountability.
It is all about accountability because people under their desk can do what they want and
the janitorial staff is not going to come through and start separating, you know, desk
side containers.
Materials, right.
Yeah. What they will do is, is, uh, you know, take items that are more properly sorted in
the bigger containers in a more public area, um, that have the proper signage and the color
coding, you know, black for trash, blue for recycling, green for your composting and having
the signage with graphics and English and Spanish and making sure that everybody understands
what goes where. Um, an apple core in any language is an apple core, right? So if you've
got the graphics on there, people understand what goes where. Uh, it's just an example.
So yeah, that bin placement is really important and so is the, um, getting a little bit more
scrutiny about your habits and having some more public accountability among your workers.
Yeah, I know. I love that. And that's, you know, there's some other trends and maybe
I'm shooting off in that field here, but I'm thinking, I imagine that if, you know, if
we have, I don't know, a hundred employees in a room, they've all got their own trash
can, there's quite the expense as well on the trash bin itself that each person has,
especially if they get broken once in a while. Um, right. There's an additional cost there
and then all the bags, um, you know, you got a new janitor who decides to just throw all
the bags away every day instead of every week, right? The, the cost on that as well, um,
would likely be higher. Am I wrong about that? Would it be more costly?
You're spot on because those bags can be pretty costly. And, uh, not only that it's more labor
costs because it takes the janitors a lot more time to go through and each individual
office. So you're more labor expenses there. Um, but also janitorial crews have extremely
high turnover rate and to get them properly trained up and to stick around for a while,
um, you know, it's, it's a thankless job. And even, you know, even our, our trash haulers
that come up and down our street or services, our business, those are thankless jobs, but
they're absolutely vital to a clean society, right? And how we operate in public and within
our office and workspaces. So, you know, it, if you can't, if you're making it more difficult
for the janitorial staff to keep the materials properly separated, then you're going to get
mixed bags out in the outdoor dumpsters. They're going to be all jumbled. They're not going
to be sorted. They're not going to be separated correctly because they're just chucking because
they need to get back inside, right? They need to get back to the next floor and they've
only got a set amount of time to do X, Y, and Z. And if you're making it difficult,
then, um, you know, there's going to be less care in keeping the materials separate and
these bags make sure to go to trash. These bags make sure to go to, to, uh, the recycling
bin and then these bags go to the composting then you're going to get cross contamination
because it becomes an urgency of their time. They're, they're feeling the urgency of needing
to get back in to serve as the rest of the building.
Correct. Okay. And the other, the other benefit that I would say comes along with this too
is the byproduct of having a trash can, um, that everybody has to kind of walk to is you're
encouraging people to, I know it shouldn't be called exercise, but move, you know, their
body, get up from their workstation and all that. You know, I think some people would
be like, Oh my gosh, that's counterproductive. That's going to slow me down. Like, Whoa,
you're like addicted to like, you need to chill. Like there's nothing wrong with going
to a trash can. In fact, there's everything right with getting up from what you're doing,
going and changing, you know, like thinking about something else for a minute and then
coming back to work. So, uh, I think a lot of times we create these conveniences that
are just ridiculous. Um, and we don't realize they, they inhibit our own personal performance,
um, let alone contribute, as you mentioned, to ways that, that hurt that they create,
they create, I don't want to call it waste now. You said there's no waste, but create
waste. Um, you know, yeah, it's not the waste of the material, but you waste your time,
you waste the energy, waste the company's resources and the process. So that's neat.
Yeah. What's a powerful lesson that other visionaries can learn, um, from your experience
in terms of having launched this company that it seems like this is probably a very hard
company to launch. Yeah, we, uh, we launched in 2013. So we're coming up on our 11 year
anniversary and yeah, I mean, but I think that we were a little early to market, um,
because the term zero waste was not, uh, very well known among mid midsize and small businesses.
The big guys really knew it was coming. They could see it from a mile away. Right? So that's
when they started getting their facility certifications for true zero waste, um, through the U S green
building council, kind of like lead for energy and water, but true is, is for zero waste
and waste reduction. Um, so they, they started getting these, these, um, facilities, their
facilities, uh, certified and implementing, you know, the, the changes that were necessary,
but I really think the mid level, uh, or, you know, midsize and small size businesses
are really caught off guard. And especially when local, especially when ordinances, local
city ordinances started to come into play. And so I'm here in the Austin area and you
know, in 2010, the city of Austin passed the universal recycling ordinance and the URO
states that all commercial properties in the city limits of Austin must divert recycling
to at least 50%. And if you have a food permit, um, a little, a couple of years later, this
part of, of the ordinance rolled out. If you have a food permit, you also had to reduce
food waste, um, by a dramatic, you know, amount. And, um, that could be through composting,
but it could also be through, you know, better and higher uses like, um, food, food waste
reduction and, uh, reuse and repurposing and donations to like farmers and ranchers, um,
or donations to local food banks, legal food donations, um, where you get a tax write off.
So there's, you know, these local ordinances started rearing their heads and businesses
were like, Oh my gosh, what is this? I've never even heard the term zero waste. And
so, you know, we, we decided then, okay, this, this is coming. These companies are understanding
that they can't just keep throwing everything into a, uh, you know, a landfill bin and be
done with it. You have to be a lot more, um, intentional, curious about it, intentional
about it, but also tracking it. And you got to track your materials and your, your waste
stream and train your, your staff to use these programs correctly. Um, so I would say the,
the thing to do for, you know, for these businesses is to get ahead of the curve, um, and to go
ahead and start implementing these processes. And as far as starting my business and what
other visionaries can learn. I mean, I can think of a few things. Go ahead. When we first
started, it was really hard to gain traction because of the lack of knowledge of the market,
the industry too in marketing. This is called a blue ocean. And it's something that some
marketers say is the best thing ever. You want to be in a blue, no, it is a hard thing.
Very big heart. If you stick with a blue ocean process. Well, I knew the, I knew it was coming
down the pipe and I was like, okay, we need to position ourselves as the go to zero waste
company in Texas. We have over 200 landfills across our state. We have a lot of work to
do and there's a lot of room for improvement. So I said, I'm going to be the green gallon
Texas and you know, and then I became the Texas trash talker, right? So, you know, I,
that's all I do all day is I talk trash. But, um, as far as this provisionaries, it was
hard for us to gain traction because businesses just didn't know where to begin or if they
had a director from their company, they weren't given any funding or enforcement mechanisms
or, you know, it was a high priority, but it just kept getting pushed back to the back
burner because of the daily overwhelm of their normal business operations. So, you know,
that's whenever I decided, I was like, okay, it's time for me to design a consulting firm
that can help these businesses. And the first contract we got was with Nestle Purina. And
let me tell you, I had no idea what I was doing. And I actually, I got, um, two of my
mentors in Nestle as in, as in the chocolate, uh, St. Louis, Missouri, under the name of
the arts Nestle Purina Pet Care, the largest employee of St. Louis. They, um, they reached
out and said, our CEO has given us a zero waste mandate. We have no idea where to start.
Can you help? And I was like, Oh no, I just started my business. But what I did was say
yes to the contract and I figured it out later. Good for you. Well, once I said yes to the
contract and then I had my team, you know, of zero waste elders who have been in this
space for 40 years, and they're the ones that help set the global standards and definitions
of what zero waste actually is. Um, I brought them on my team and I said, let's do it on
paper. I was leading the entire process in the background. I was learning. I was scrambling
to learn and to pull in, you know, all the spreadsheets and the analysis and the waste
audit and how to do X, Y, Z and all these things. And then I would calmly present our
findings. It was the steepest learning curve I had ever had, but it was, it's kind of what
gave me the invigorations, the push and the confidence to move forward, to go get these
other big contracts, um, like Dell and Apple and AT&T and, uh, Kohler. So how did they
find you? They found me. They just fell in my lap. Some of it was, you know, word of
mouth, referral, business to business kind of thing. Or, you know, my mentors that I'd
used in previous contracts brought me in and I would help them or they would say, Hey,
my schedule is too packed. Can you take on this company and help them with their true
certification or do a waste audit for them or do a training? Um, okay. You downplay it,
but those things that you did, those, you were playing nice in the sandbox with others.
You were actively working with other people. You were seeing the opportunity of the win-win
at all times, whether it was your contract or their contract, you were available and
you're obviously a doer. You're a hustler. You get things done. Um, and you don't see
problems. You see opportunities for solutions. Um, so all of those little characteristics
are going to be easy to overlook. Like any visionary listening in right now, you know,
that's, that's what wins the big contracts is that go get it done. Um, attitude and the
ability to say, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to make this happen. So well done.
One key piece of it was that I told myself, you know, especially on our first contract,
I'm here to learn and I'm going to keep my mouth shut until so I can learn from the masters
because there's someone, they're the ones who set up the entire program. Yeah. They're
the ones I need to learn from. And I'm so grateful to have them on my team because they
could have easily just said no. And then I would have lost that contract to be like,
sorry, I can't handle this on my own. Or I would have had to seek out other people who
may have not had had as much experience. So I was able to learn from the best and to take
their strategies and implement them into my business. The way I was able to do that was
to check my ego. I was like, I'm up and coming. I know what I'm doing. No, you know, I didn't.
I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know how to run a business. I had to deal with
legal taxes, you know, financial, social media, you know, everything, all these hats that
I was wearing. And then I have to fly to another state and learn how to actually do my business.
Yes. And so it was very eye opening, very humbling. But it was such a strong collaboration
between the four of us, the three of us, because the end goal was to get the results for the
client. And if I wasn't able to check my ego, then I would have, you know, vomited nonsense
all over this project, whenever I needed to sit down and zip it. And that's hard for me
to do.
Well, you did it well. I mean, it got you to some of the biggest clients in the world.
So that's pretty awesome. And you know what? There's one thing if I died today and I can
make one impact in terms of zero waste and you've already nailed, you've already alluded
to it, and it would be my invitation, Stacey, to improve the signage, improve the instructions.
If we can optimize, optimize, optimize the signage. And I'll show a little example on
my screen here. You mentioned it. And if your company takes full control of improving this,
you know, like this bin system over here on the right hand side, I'm not going to use
it. I don't even know what those pictures are. You know, like, that's just scary. You
know, and this one is a little bit clearer, right? But I do optimizations for living.
That's what I do is optimize everything I can. And so, you know, if the consumer doesn't
get it, well, like, you know, maybe this is clear enough. You know, a pear should represent
a banana as well. But do people really get that? I don't know. I mean, like it's, but
there's, there's lots of ways to test and make sure that the instructions we're providing
are as clear as possible for anybody to take the right action without extensive training.
Right. That's our ultimate goal. To piggyback off of that is every recycling program in
every single city is completely different. Right. Exactly. So when you say cities, I
mean, we both live around the San Antonio, Austin area, you know, like my recycling program
from Cibolo, the little outskirt of San Antonio to Castroville, which I'm not even in, I'm
still in San Antonio, but, but we've got different rules, different laws, different fines, different
realities. Does the box go in? Does it not? Do you have to break the box down? Do you
not? It gets so, it's so painfully difficult for both leaders.
Always break the box down. Always break the box down. Period. Save that space. Yeah.
So it's not just the recycling programs through your municipality or your county government,
or even if it's a private hauler, I live on the outskirts of Bastrop. Right. And, and
I'm where your kids, you know, lived there for a couple of years. I found out. And, you
know, I'm not even in the city limits. I'm in the county and I pay an arm and a leg just
to have recycling services out here because it's, it's a little bit more rural and it's
not as densely packed as the city. So, you know, I have to walk the talk, of course.
So I, I, I budget for what I need quarterly in order to pay my recycling pickup bill.
So it's not just, it's not just. So you take proactive measures that normally people wouldn't
even be aware that they can do. Yeah. I've got a compost. I've got a spinning compost
thing on my side yard too. I figure that out or. If you want the, if you wanted to recycle
the recycling program and you don't have one. Oh, do you usually call the, the. Oh no, I
lost you Stacey. We're on a good, good part here too. We're solving problems that we often
overlook. I will see if Stacey's internet reconnects soon. As she mentioned, she's in
a rural area. So it could be that as soon as she's back in, I'll, I'll pull her back
up. But this, you know, so happy that she's, she shared with us about those bigger contracts.
Like who can claim that? You know, like your first client is Nestle. You know, your first
client, you know, one of your first couple of clients is Apple and Dell. That's amazing.
So entrepreneurs listening to this, like go make your connections to reach out to your
network. Hi mate Stacey is back now. So let's bring her back on and we'll pick up where
we left off so you can contact the city. Is that what you were going to say? Yeah, you
can, you can contact the city or. Oh man. There it goes again. So something's, something's
happened on that internet, but again, I'll, I'll keep going in the meantime. And again,
just feel free to keep taking notes on the processes at hand. You know, if you're trying
to get your business established and you're not working with your network, your community,
you know, the, and you're not showing up. I heard her talk about reaching out to the
best of the best, being willing to include them on the contract. Did she give the bulk
of the contract away? Did she keep it? We don't know those little details, but are you
creating win-win situations to where people who are great at what they do want to work
with you? You should be if you're not. All right. Let's see if you're back. Yes. That's
all right. That's all right. So conduct the city. How do you do that? Through like a three
one one, or you can usually find them on online, the city's website, the utilities department,
or it's usually the solid waste services departments. And it's important to find out what your local
hauler will take. So if they take, you know, come and pick up your recycling bin, make
sure that, you know, that they recycle glass and if they don't, don't put glass in your
bin. So that's what I mean by different programs are completely different city by city or,
you know, government by government or hauler by hauler and processor by processor. So it's
important to find out what they take, what they don't take, and then act accordingly.
Jaime, do me a favor, pull up some B-roll, if you will, of landfills in the US, you know,
let's get an idea of what this looks like, you know, and or ocean trash to like just
say, you know, again, just a visually, you know, or trash in corporate offices to, you
know, there's lots of different opportunities to showcase what we're talking about in the
gravity of it. You know, do you do you typically go to companies and dire needs? Or is it like
an everyday company that you wouldn't expect to have that you would expect to have perfect
waste management systems? Who do you normally work with?
I work with the companies. Well, you know, obviously, we've we've been working with larger
companies since our inception. But I really think my target market is more the middle,
the mid level businesses who may not be able to afford employing a sustainability operations
manager or a sustainability engineer or have a sustainability team. If they can employ
our consulting services that we can come in and we can train their staff, we can do a
waste audit, we can, you know, help them find all those money leaks within their business
because we're optimizing their operations and we're renegotiating their hauler contracts
to right size their dumpster space and fill levels and their frequency of pickup. You
know, we can provide all these services to get them a dialed in, you know, business specific
plan for implementation and help them implement it as well. So we provide that kind of white
glove service. Do you look at how it financially benefits them
and kind of provide them a breakdown of how it impacts their their costs and their
Yeah, if I can, if I can look at a, you know, if I can look at a month's worth of your your
waste hauler bills, we can usually find about 20% cost savings month to month.
Awesome. Okay. So let me let me throw some company names out there. So like, is is Buc-Ease
like the type of level that that wouldn't perhaps do it in house? Or do you think they
have a sustainability director in house? I don't I've got a Buc-Ease of less than a mile
from me. I can go and knock on their door and find out.
Would that be like an ideal style of client? What about a Topgolf? You know, or I don't
know. What's the chain Torchies Tacos, right? They're starting to spread and have quite
a few stores throughout the throughout Texas.
Torchies got started in Austin, that means they have to comply with the business recycling
and food waste diversion standards of the Universal Recycling Ordinance.
Is that the level and style of you're referring to though?
Um, yeah, I mean, you know, we can do restaurants, we can do chains, we can do, you know, office
parks, we can do medical facilities. It's you know, if you create materials, and we
can help you divert them from landfill, it's it's really. But again, we customize your
approach because you have to implement it within your industry. And you have to implement
it within the spot that your business is located. So that municipality doesn't offer recycling,
we probably, you know, can't help you with recyclables. But if you're in an area where
there's a, you know, a local construction and demolition kind of crusher type plant,
and you've got those kinds of materials that you need to get rid of, let's connect you,
right? Let's let's find those out outward alternative avenues in order to get your materials
away from landfill. It may not be municipal recyclables, but it could be other types of
materials within your business that aren't the typical recyclable materials. There's
a lot of reuse and remanufacturing options around other kind of harder recycle materials.
All right. Following concept, MNC, MPI. Okay. If we had, if we could choose the entities
in the world right now, the idea ones for you that were, were you able to put the minimum
necessary change possible to create the maximum possible impact, right? Minimum necessary
change for the massive, for the maximum possible impact. What would that, what industry, what
brand or what, what companies? I would say food permitted businesses would be the biggest
impact because about 30 to 40% of the entire US waste stream is food waste when one in
seven Americans go hungry. Okay. So having that disconnect is an absolute travesty. Yeah.
Perfectly good food, consumable foods are being landfilled and not donated because businesses
still think that they can get sued. And that's not the case. The 1996, it's not the 1996
with Samaritan act under Bill Clinton gave, you know, legal relief from any business.
So they can't be held legally liable if someone gets sick from donated food from their establishment.
If it's held to proper time and temperature standards through the state's health department
and it is donated to a food risk redistribution nonprofit organization that has the food handling,
you know, safety and food handling requirements met of their volunteers or employees that
do the actual redistribution. So this would be your local food bank or another kind of
organization like keep Austin fed, which is a good one here in the Austin area. If you
keep it to proper time and temperature standards and if those donations are made in good faith
that you were trying to help the community, then you can't be legally sued if somebody
happens to get sick. And if you keep a manifest of everything that you've donated and the
weight you can receive a 15% fair market value return on your taxes for what you've donated.
Wow. Okay. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm he's not the president of the United States,
but I do look forward to introducing you to how we in Estelle and Santoni of sharkmatic
advertising. He is good friends with the San Antonio food bank director, as well as the
mayor of the city. And he's, he's got some clients that he's worked with that, you know,
he may be able to have a pretty massive impact with. So I'd love to introduce you. I'll do
that after the show. Visionaries. This is what it's all about is finding those strategic
partnerships collaborations that because it's the right thing to do, you know, make it happen.
And the byproduct of doing the right thing is Marisha talked about in the last episode
is that you there's profits that come from that in many different forms. So if that ends
up being a value to of course, they see happy to make that that introduction and see where
it goes, it would be the best thing I could do, you know, to make an immediate impact.
And we appreciate you sharing your story today, helping us see, you know, what how we could
open our minds to contribute better the cause. And I wish you the best of success as you
continue to make a difference in ways that so many of us often overlook.
Thank you. I appreciate you having me. And, you know, I just want to encourage people
that we do make a collective difference if everybody is making the small change in their
everyday lives. But one thing that we can do is to hold the the companies accountable
that are making these products and ask them them to make them in a more sustainable way
with more sustainable products, phase out toxins and also hold government accountable
to enforcing the laws or strengthening the laws that are already on books.
Awesome. Thank you, Stacy, so much Vision Pros. You guys have an excellent day. We will
see you soon. Everybody take care.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll
invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and
attention. Have an excellent time building out your