Greening Up My Act

Mill Kitchen Bin: The Unfinished Horse Drawing of Composting

Kat Cox & Tiffany Verbeck Episode 22

Have you been marketed the Mill kitchen bin on Instagram and found yourself wondering, "What is this thing? Is it sustainable?" Well, maybe it will be in the future, but right now it's basically a half-drawn horse (which you should look up for a laugh). In this sustainability podcast episode, two marketing writers Kat and Tiff give you the scoop on what's really going on with this "sustainable" startup.

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I just wish it was finished. I wish it was like yeah, just took the product to market. It's like those pictures they have where it's like a drawing of a horse and it starts, you know, it's like really detailed. And then at the end, it's just like a kindergartener drew it because they were rushed to finish. That's what this feels like, you know, they started this really detailed idea. And then they had to sell it and it's like, a popsicle sticks. And it kind of makes you wonder like, how what it's like to work at the company. It's probably insane. Hello, hi, Tiffany. How are you? I'm exhausted. Oh, not as exhausted as you because I don't have a kid. Yeah, I also have vertigo currently. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I feel like I'm, and I took the meds for it. And so they made me very, very sleepy last night. It's been, you know, full 12 hours and I'm still, like, drugged. You know, one of my doctors told me and this is just, you know, the conspiracy against women in medicine that like, they don't dose those meds. Like, how can a 250 pound man get the same sleeping pill dose as 150 pound woman? You know, that makes a lot of sense. Because they change it based on toddler size. So yeah, like why? Why am I why is the adult dose 50 milligrams for me and 50 milligrams for a man who's 100 pounds more than me or even? Like, hormonally speaking, some some drugs stay longer and a woman system? Oh, interesting. I believe it because I am like, yeah, that's what that's my doctor was like, they just prescribe especially like, you know, sleeping pills like Trazodone and which is a mild sedative. But like any other really heavy hitters. Just, you know, women wake up eight hours later and still be there. And then they go to work and they're driving their cars to work. And it's dangerous. You know, and I don't have any idea that they're just drugged up. Yeah, I had to ask Joe. I usually drive Charlie in the morning and I was like, I can't there's no way. Yeah, so I'm good. I'm glad you didn't. I know. I think I'm coming off of it. But just in time for tonight. Exactly. To go to sleep. Yeah. I hope it helps. I hope they figure out what's Virgos awful? Yeah. So if I'm, like, slurring my words, that's why. Okay, good to know. Well, yeah, you want to draw, I'm just drugged. You know, I was gonna say, shall we just go for a glass of wine? Oh, yeah, that would not help. No. You're off the sauce for a while? Well, well, welcome to greening up my act is where we mostly deal with the other problems of the world, although we do. We do talk about feminist issues, like the medical system. Yep. Right. But in reality, we're devoted well, that in reality, in this podcast, we are devoted to the tenets of green living and how we as individuals can make a difference in climate change and global warming and pollution, even though we do believe ultimately is the responsibility of the corporations that are causing the most damage. We can do our best to support companies that are mitigating the damage, at least, and hopefully, reduce or eliminate our own contributions to these things. So we review products and services every week, and then rate them on a system of one to five granolas five being crunchy break your tooth off. While the crunchy is a regular office. A crunchy is one being soggy because soggy granola is gross. And we're good hippies and we like crunchy granola. And then this is all based on whether or not they actually work. So their effectiveness and efficiency, their cost because if only millionaires can afford to be green, then we're all going to die and their practicality as well as their actual eco impact. So if it's something that doesn't actually do the thing it says it's supposed to do in terms of green, you know, eco friendliness then we call it green Hui? Yeah, we throw it we don't throw it in the trash. We recycle it or composting. We throw it out or we upcycle it or yes, we use it and reduce and don't buy it in the beginning. We don't buy it in the first place. Yeah, and we are two marketing writers. So we are able to look through the marketing fluff and the greenwashing and just see what the reality is. Because these companies love to throw around big words like compostable biodegradable, compostable, natural eco friendly green Yeah, We know better. And also, you know, we're big readers. So we do all this research, so you don't have to let the nerds do it. Yes. So what are we nerding? out about this week? Okay, so this one I'm super pumped about even in my drug upstate. So we're talking about mil Have you heard of this? I have not. I'm excited. Ah, okay. So this is funny because I was marketed this product on Instagram. And I was like, Huh, what is mil? And the target market? Yes, yes, I know. I'm sure that other people have seen it. But it's basically a home kitchen. They call it a kitchen bin. But wait, I have seen this. Okay. Yes. I'm sure. Yes. So it's sort of like a replacement for home composting. And I was like, so I really wanted to talk about home composting because I wanted to try it. And I was like, huh, is this a product that is worth my money and my time? So it's really interesting because it comes from startup people. So some people who work for Google nest crew this. Really? Yes. And I will say honestly, it shows. Oh, well, okay, so that's kind of like when we talked about Bridwell. And it was kind of the same thing where it's like he is in marketing. So he was a tech marketer. Yes. I think Radwell did a much. Well, I don't want to give away the spoiler, but Redwall did a really good job. And I'm not necessarily sure that this is the same status. All right. Well, I'm intrigued. Yeah, so Okay, well, I can just get into my sources chart real quick. I didn't use a million like normal. So this is good. So I use the mill website. Obviously. There was a review of mill from honestly modern they do oh my gosh, this woman I think it's just a woman running this by herself. But this website is amazing. I have to shout it out because she's kind of doing a lot of the stuff we're trying to do. And she does a great job with it like she does all the research behind all those sorts of things. So got a shout her out. She reviewed kitchen composters and Bill so I use a couple of her ratios as she our new St. Nancy. I think so. Second Secretary sorry, American, I think she's American. I might be making that up. I don't know. I just like her name is Jen. St. Jen. Take Jen. Honestly modern, okay. Yeah, she did a really good job. Um, and then there was a slate review of the mill of mill, just a product review. The EPA talks about food waste in landfills. And also they have a food recovery hierarchy hierarchy chart that I used. The USDA talks about industrial composting facilities. And there's a UCLA study on carbon sequestration, which we'll get into. And also I looked into this, this is this is the part that I'm really excited about. But I looked into the city of Tacoma, their food waste program, really is to come up partnered with mill. And I was like, huh, I want to know more about what they have without mill. So we'll get into that for sure. All right. So mill, what the heck is it? Yes, it is. Okay, this is just so funny to me. It's an in home electric food bin that you keep it in your kitchen and it dehydrate your food scraps. So it's a startup created by Google nest alums, Harry Tannenbaum and Matt Rogers, okay. It's about it's, I would say the thing is gigantic. I mean, compared to what you think of It's big. It's like a standard trash cans size. And coming from someone whose kitchen is the size of two postage stamps. That's way too big for me, but other people might be able to fit it. So you throw in your food scraps, and presumably you can throw in anything. Food wise, even bones and cheese and meat and all all these things. You can't compost at your house, like outside. And then you press a button and it turns the scraps into dried food and the bin functions to every night. Well, you can do it every night. To D they call it D smell of phi and dehydrate the food. Okay, So it's basically it's not advertised as a composter though, which is in smart of them, because it's not really compost. But people think of it that way. So that's, that's the hard thing is it hooey? No, I will say that we're getting to a, I will say it's a we will find out. And then the cool idea that they have, which is different than other because this product kind of exists, there's a couple other options. But you actually take those food scraps that you make, and you mail them back to mill. Oh, such a long pause. It's like, you've mailed them back. Okay, mail them back. So, yes, because the plan is to turn it into chicken food and send it to farms. And so their plan is to make this whole thing closed loop, which we talked about closed loop. Last week, or not last week, I think when we're talking about plastics, but it's basically how do you describe it? It's basically so you aren't wasting it's like a concept for stopping waste. Okay. So yeah, so the idea is to turn it into chicken food, send it to farms, chickens eat it, and then it doesn't go into the landfills. But this is future tense. So that is the plan. Okay, we're in the future. So are they just like storing it in a warehouse somewhere? I don't know. But what it says on their website? I mean, I think they have to be because it's currently operating, you can sign up, you have to be out and get on a waitlist. So I don't know how many bins are actually out there. But there are bins out there. And you can send your food scraps in. So I don't know where they're putting them right now. But apparently they don't go bad. I don't know. Because on the website, it says currently, we're working through the necessary scientific and regulatory processes to establish a safe and nutritious chicken feed ingredient that we can distribute commercially. We'll share more on our progress later this year. So those folks are building the damn plane as it flies. I was like, I was like, shouldn't that have been done before? You started collecting my dehydrated food scraps, too? Okay. Yeah. Okay. So that is very Google sounding. You're right. That is like, right. Let's really say heard up. Yeah. I'm like, hey, maybe they won't mind if we use all of their data and likenesses. And, you know, it's like, wait a minute, what are you doing with my? Like, it's gonna end up at the end or like, right, I actually didn't develop food scrap this is Soylent Green? Soylent Green is not people though. It's people's food scraps, you know, like, No, exactly. It's gonna be like, Theranos like, yeah, no drop of blood can definitely get you all of the things and then you're like, just a warehouse. No, no, these are all speculations. I don't know what's gonna happen in the future. And they probably are really trying but you know, right now, it's like, they just built this really pretty bin. So it is pretty he's like this Apple White. You know, like, the company. It's clean wood grain lid, there's an app of course, but you know, there. You can monitor your dehydration process from your office if you feel from your bed. Oh, honey, I forgot to dehydrate the chicken food. Okay. Great. We can do it from bed turkeys turning the lights down to Hey. Yeah, so I just found that so fascinating. Because from obviously from Instagram, you would never know that it's not actually fully functioning and the way it's in the way it implies. Right. So, you know, if you look at their FAQ, I found these things on their FAQ, you often have to look at the FAQ on the website. So the final D are the truth. Yeah. Like Like, you mail them yours. They don't even have like, Okay, right. Okay, I'm just wrapping my head around this. I know. I know. It takes a minute. Okay, so while you wrap your head around it, so there are other similar electronics that are kitchen composters. I think these are don't quote me on this but I think these are possibly marketed as actual composters even though it's not really a composter but they're called lomi and the food cycler those are the two other ones and according to our new patron saint, honestly modern Gen. We're gonna have to tag or be like they these days All of these options are limited in the ways that you can use the dirt quote, unquote, because it's not technically compost. It's, as mentioned dehydrated food scraps. And it sounds like you create so much like imagine all of the scraps of food that you throw away, and you're creating this Dirt Every Day, whatever, you create so much that it's hard to use it all. Yeah, well, yeah. Hence, the middle subscription. I think that was sort of the goal. Their goal is to create this subscription trying to solve for what the heck to do with all of this, quote, unquote, compost that's created. It's just unfortunate that they haven't quite figured out how to do that yet. But anyway, we'll come back to that. So mill, as mentioned, is an alternative to home composting, and I wanted to back up a bit and figure out exactly why home composting or composting in general is a good thing. Because to be honest, I didn't know. And I feel like a lot of people are probably in the same boat. Well, it's yeah, it's like recycling, like we're supposed to do if we don't know really, how or why or what. Yes, exactly. So that's 1,000% where I was where I was, and I found it. I found some really interesting stuff. So what the heck is compost to start with? It is a because honestly, I didn't even I never use compost in my garden. Even that I buy from a store. I probably should, but I never have have you mix? Yeah, I've used some. Some composted? Yeah. Okay, we have some. I mean, I think it's very good for your soil. But yeah. So my roommate just takes his coffee grounds and puts them on his tomatoes. So okay, there's all these magic tricks you can do like that, that either help or kill. I don't know. Yeah, I would definitely everything. But we haven't had a single tomato all summer. But I think that's five degrees. But well, yeah, you've been living in absolute hell. So yeah, yeah. My God. And it's not better yet, is it? No, it's 107. Oh, my God. Yeah. My friend lives there, too. So yeah, yeah, it's August 8. And we're still it's been, what, three weeks? of 100 degrees. For we just, I think we, a few days ago, we tied the record for most consecutive days over 100 in a row. And that was it was 27 at the time, so we just hit 28. I think we're at 31 days in a row of over 100. So you're blowing past the record. And that is, yep. Yeah, nothing to brag about. No, not a good record. And we haven't had rain in two weeks. So everything's dead. Yeah. Anyway, I live in hell. I do. I know. Everybody's like, ha ha ha Las Vegas is like the Las Vegas was prepared for our grid just shuts down. You know, right. We're not that my friend Blair said that. This, the son wakes up every day and chooses violence. That is exactly what it feels like. Like, I'm so sorry. Yeah. Yeah, we were at 30 days in a row. Yesterday, so today was 31. All right. Well, for the love of God. Hopefully it ends soon. I know. I know. But I mean, that's why compost is important. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Okay. I mean, that's exactly it. Yeah, question mark. Yeah. So, alright. So to create a less hellish future. Yes, you can add compost or regular soil to increase the nutrients rather than using industrial fertilizers. Okay, so yes, it's great. It's good for the dirt. Yeah. And it's created by combining organic material. So you're gonna combine food scraps, wood leaves, grass clippings, and you let it just sit down, sit there, Mother Nature takes over. It gets super hot. These worms I think this was a Nancy's book because I use Nancy's book as a reference. Oh, dad put that here. I might not have oopsie at it. Yes, I used clean and green her or not actually, I think was her other one about gardening, but I'll add it to the I'll add the link. And she says that worms just come like a specific type of worm comes because they know that it's time to eat. And yeah, coming break it all down for you. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I mean, nature is neat. It truly is. So yes, so I found from the EPA, the Food Recovery hierarchy graph that I mentioned. Okay. And it's basically like an upside down food pyramid. Yeah, okay. Um, and they say, alright, so the interesting thing about this one Was that composting was pretty low on the hierarchy. So it was actually just right above landfill. So it goes, it starts at source reduction, go figure. So number one reduce, you can do reduce the volume of surplus food generated. So you have mill coming in here think like marketing themselves as if they're solving something, but they're actually like way like 112345 steps down on the pyramid. Instead of solving it way higher at the pyramid, which would be much more effective. The second one is feed hungry people then feed animals, which, okay, technically, they're number three, if they do figure it out. The other feeding animals, right? Yeah. Okay. So if they do figure it out, then, okay, more power to them. That's fine. Okay, so that's composting, in terms of how effective it is how helpful, impactful it is. But it does help. This was the most interesting thing. And you might already know this, but I didn't know and I wish I'd known a couple episodes ago, but composting significantly reduces methane emissions compared to landfills. And how I did not fully understand this. But according to the EPA, microbes that produce methane are not present if there's oxygen around during decomposition. So it's the turning of the, like, the thing with landfills is that it just gets pie. There's no oxygen. Yeah, yeah. And it just rots like, lower and lower and lower. And so because it's deprived of oxygen, that's why the methane is produced in landfills. Interesting. I didn't know this. I didn't either. I mean, I'm, I don't really understand the biological factors that go into and chemical that go into decomposition. So yeah, but that was really interesting, because I was like, oh, that's why because I always hear about methane. But I'm like, but if you know, it's still decomp decomposing. So what's the difference in that's the difference? It's oxygen? Yeah. Well, there you go. We weren't meant to put things in plastic bags and throw them in landfills, and then pile tons of other things on top. Tires out. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah. So that was really interesting. Another thing that it might help do, it's not really proven yet is compost might help sequester carbon, which just means that it takes carbon out of the air and puts it back into the soil. I think, yeah, that I mean, that makes sense. Yes, it does kind of make sense. I found a UCLA UCLA study that says there's not enough definitive research to prove that this actually happens. But it's possible. Yeah, okay. I could see it. Yeah. And then using compost, helps reduce the need for chemical fertilizers promotes higher yield crops, enhances water retention in the soil, which is really big, especially if you're not getting very much rain. Hello. Yeah, it can help reforestation, in wetlands restoration. Instead of becoming compost mill will become chicken food, which is a different outcome, although, theoretically could be better than compost if you know if it actually gets there. Right. Um, so bit about food waste. We're going to gloss over this guest because that's my next episode. God Oh, yes, that's true. Okay, so I will just say, like, food waste. When it rot, as mentioned, when it rots without oxygen, it produces methane that is 80 times more powerful of greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So it's not good to have in the air. And even if this is from the EPA, even if fossil fuel emissions were halted, like stopped, completely done so today, current trends in the food system would prevent the achievement of our goals for like, not killing ourselves, right. food loss and waste represent 8% of manmade greenhouse gas emissions. Well, 8% That's a lot. I would say. One place quoted 11% know what I was reading Who? But yeah, okay. So it's but I think 8% is the typically the number they say, yeah. Okay. And then I found one thing that was interesting that I found is that I think this was EPA also, they said that roughly half of food is wasted during the consumption stage. So like households or food services. Yeah. And the most common wastes are fruits and vegetables and dairy and eggs. Make sense? It does. The fruits and vegetables definitely makes sense. I was kind of surprised about the dairy and the eggs, but maybe because they go, they do go. I mean, I think it's like, I'll get what a quart of milk or something. And like, I have a latte a day. So it's not like I don't have kids that are drinking milk all the time. It's easy for me to have milk go bad. Yeah, that's why I buy organic milk. But yeah, last longer. So okay, so back to mill. The interesting thing is that mill has a lot of these stats on its website, but mill isn't necessarily a solution to food waste. We will get into that in a minute. Well, we're kind of already gotten into it. But yeah. So back to mil. How easy is it to use? Because I kind of wanted to examine this as a product, right. Apparently, it's as easy as filling it with whatever, and pressing the button, and it works overnight. Okay, like any just any food, apparently. Even soup. I think someone threw soup. And I'm sorry. Can I throw a couple of water in my dehydrator? Okay. I found it a little nuts. But we'll get into why you if you don't use Miller, you don't want to do that later. But yeah, that's an option. Okay. Okay. So, um, does mill work? Technically? Yes. So the slate review called it kick ass kitchen experience. It just sounds so startup B, or paid marketing? Yeah. Well, that. I mean, yes. So for the slight review, they sent her a mail kitchen bin. And she say, okay, yeah, I mean, I'm not saying she's biased or anything, because it is very pretty. It is very easy to use. It's, it functions it. You don't smell your food, apparently. I mean, it like it does what it says it's supposed to do. So does it work overall? No, not yet. Because the system isn't figured out yet. Like it might work at your house, but it's not going to like it's not going to chickens. Yes. It's not being composted? Yeah. And it's interesting, because it still needs FDA approval. And as of April 2023, it looks like they hadn't gotten it yet. So unless something's changed in the meantime, I don't think they have it yet. So the whole product seems to focus more on the tech side of things, then the closed loop system, which to be honest, I'm not really that surprised about but it is a little disappointing. On it feels kind of wish likely, you know? Yes, it's just another way for Americans to get trash out of sight out of mind. Right? And it costs money all boils down to that. So it's not free. Okay. So even if they close the loop, I'm still not convinced to the product would be worth it. But mostly because we can't, you know, recycle our way out of this problem. Like you said, now, we can't wait to go our way out. So yeah. Okay, so how much does it cost? It is? Do you want to hazard a guess? Because I don't think it's not like insane, but I'm just curious what you would guess is it as much as like, we were talking about Redwall is like this? Well, Netflix went up. So it's $16 a month? Is it like a it's more than that? 25 A little more, really is 30 bucks, 33 per month, but that's when you pay annually. So it's more than that. It's cheaper. Yes. So it's that's 396 per year. Holy crap. Yes. Okay, it's 4545. Okay, so it's $33 per month when you pay annually, which is the cheaper option, and then you get the free bin delivery. If you pay monthly, it's 45 per month, and then you also have to pay a$75 bin delivery. And you must have the membership. So you can't just buy the bin. You have to send the foods or at least you don't have to send them but you have to pay to send them the food scraps back so you might as well okay. So it's a little bit ridiculous. In my opinion, Because how much would you say Red Bull was in 1614 1414? Okay, yeah, well, I'm that's it. They don't take food though, but yeah, well, sure. Okay. Yeah. Well, we'll get into a little bit more of like, yeah. Why this is a little absurd. Okay, this is kind of the crazy part. The slate review says that mill could save you on the cost of your garbage if your city or your location charges based on how much you throw out. And okay, the review says that Tacoma the review uses Tacoma as their example. And I found out that Tacoma and mill did a little partnership. Some cities like to do that. And interesting. Yeah, so they do Tacoma, I think does charge based on how much how, how many bags of garbage you have. But according to Tacomas website like their city's website, it says, quote, to come up provides food and yard waste service at no extra cost as part of your monthly garbage bill. Customers can request up to 290 gallon brown food and yard waste bins at no extra cost. A third food and yard waste bin can be requested for an additional $3 a month. Okay, well, so what the hell? Yeah, I was so confused. I'm like, why would anybody pay $45 a month? If they get it for free? Right? Well, yeah, I mean, I get it if you're in a place that doesn't do composting at all, like no snow collection. Okay, that makes sense. And even then, that's that's half the I feel like there's gotta be other programs in your city. Like some farm is gotta be willing to take you know? Yes. And actually, honestly, modern suggested that sort of thing. Like you could even if there's nothing you can ask a farm if they want your food scraps for their chickens because they might. Yeah, or for their compost heap. Yeah, yeah. And why are your neighbors Oh, we'll get into this. Well, yeah. When I hit bunny rabbits, because bunny waste is completely compostable and actually really, really good. Oh, wow. I had no idea we Yeah, people would ask for the bunny waste. So fascinating. Yeah. Meanwhile, like dog poop is the absolute worst. So you cannot use dog poop. You can't put it in your bed. You can't you do not want it in your garden. It is too full of bacteria. Yeah, frickin dogs. Why do we have dogs as pets? I'm going through with my dog right now. So I'm like my news. I just heard him juggle this collar outside my door. So cute. So yeah, no, my dogs cute too. She just paid me. I get you. I hear I hear you. So, okay, so there's all that and I was so confused. I'm still confused about the Tacoma thing. It feels pretty misleading. But hey, that's just my take. Yes, so is mill actually eco friendly? Honestly modern. My new favorite hero sweet angel they sweet age. She says quote for the majority of people in electric kitchen composter is a waste of money. More greenwashed than green and is not the best way to compost at home. Green Hui. Okay, not to mention there are more emissions created and packaging mailing in your food scraps in a subscription box. I was gonna say like, how do they like how to get past that? You know, because that's the thing with red. Well, they've read well, partners with local write London, not companies, and they pick it up from your door. They do a neighbor, one neighbor, you know, it's to your whole neighborhood and in one day, so they're not like, I mean, it, I get it. And they're using reusable bags, so you get like a paper bag. And then point that out last time. You're not like packaging it up. If they give you a canvas bag, that they then wash and reuse, you know, oh, cool. So, yeah, I think this one I'm not I don't know if I wrote this down anywhere, but I think it comes in one of those like recyclable plastic bags. Sure. Which of you listen to our plastic recycling episode, you know, is Greenaway Oh, yes, yes. Green essence of radio. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So yes. Yeah, so the EPA says like is the EPA if the EPA could review mill they would say something to the to the sent of environmental impact savings. Basically, lowering your environmental impact can only be achieved through prevention or source reduction of food loss and waste. Recycling of food waste cannot achieve these benefits since a substantial fraction of the impacts occurred during the primary production of the Okay, yes, we need dole to quit over producing food. And we need people and grocery stores quit throwing it away. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. The bin also uses electricity. Right? Did we mentioned I was gonna say yeah. Does it doesn't come with its own Tesla battery. It's not like solar powered or when powered. It's straight out of your coal power plant in West Virginia, wherever, you know, and mill on its website says that it's about the same amount of energy per day as an energy efficient dishwasher. But as mentioned before, it depends on what's what you're scrapping, because so soup for us to take long, take longer and take a lot more energy. It's really like the idea of throwing your chicken noodle soup and crazy. Yeah. I don't know, man. A lot of people just really want it to do just get out of sight out of mind. I don't blame him, right. Like every wish composting. Mm hmm, exactly. So I'm calling this green hui for sure. Mill claims that they are partnering with USPS to ship food grounds because they're already visiting almost okay. This is the other thing. USPS is already visiting almost every house every day. Yeah. And since middle households will on average send just one box of food grounds. Every few weeks, USPS vehicles will have the capacity to manage the load. Let's just give the USPS one more job to do because you know they're not underfunded or understaffed or overworked. Hey, could you pick up our food trash? Yeah. Well, yeah, literal box of trash. Right? Well, okay, at least it doesn't smell but yeah, I guess I mean, but still, it's simply could you imagine like, I don't know, it's kind of a slap in the face to it's like, I just had all this food. I just couldn't eat it. So I put it in my dehydrator, then put it in a box, and I'm shipping it off to be eaten by chickens. Can you take care of that for me, Sam? Like, it just feels so disconnected from I bought too much organic kale from the farmers market. You just couldn't read all of it? Which Hey, so do I mean I do that? Yeah. I do it too. But like, I also pay 36 $45 a month to have to have it like, so I don't have to. So I can keep doing this and not worry about it. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what it is. They're also kind of saying like, their main point about the USPS thing is that they're already coming to every house. So the emissions don't really count. Right? I'm like, Okay, I guess. Yeah, they don't come to my house every day. That's for danger while they drive out. I mean, they do my own neighborhood. So if I have family come to my house, but yeah, it's like, they're not picking. I don't know. I that would be, it'd be nice if they would say and we're gonna subsidize USPS because Amazon already does that they use the USPS, you know, and it's like, oh, because Jeff Bezos can afford to, like pay drivers for it, right? No, you're right. You're totally right about that. Like, yeah, that's already put it on our stress federal infrastructure. Right. And maybe if this Yeah, if it takes off, it could create more, a lot more. Right. And it's not like they're gonna get more federal funding. So I that bothers me. Yeah, I get that. It does make sense. It sounds cute. But it's like, are you contributing to the USPS? Or just like, I think that's one thing I like about red. Well, they're not like and then we have the overall US postal worker pick up your trash like Exactly. And that's actually honestly modern made that exact point that we should be shipping. If we're going to be doing this. We should be shipping it to local farms. Yes, like read well, yes. They figured it out. You can figure it out, too. Yeah, do a little legwork. It does sound very sorry to be yes. Like do we solve this problem? No, you didn't. Yeah, we're saving the world. Oh, wait. Not at all. Yeah, okay. I'm kind of angry. I know. I know. I was a little bit too. I found it really interesting. Okay, so the one other problem is that slate this the person the reviewer for Slate obviously really liked this product but Okay, they said, You don't have to use it forever. Try it for a few months get in the habit of doing something with food besides chucking it in the trash, which is exactly what you're doing. But that's fine, then switch to whatever strategy works best in your region and for your life. And the problem is that you have to ship this huge bin back to them. That's so insane to me. So you get this bin shipped to you. And they do take the bins back. So they are at least claiming responsibility for the lifecycle of the bins. But they don't yet. It sounds like they don't yet have a plan for what to do with the bins. That the used bins. I'm sure they could find it. I think it says that they're developing plans for working with nonprofits or something like they could find something to do with them. And you could probably sell it cheaper been for whatever for a reduced subscription price, whatever. But it's it's big. And it's shipping. Packaging. It's all the things so try for a couple months ship it the whole thing back to that like what? Yeah, yeah. So I think it would 1,000% encourage people to throw food away rather than actively trying to reduce their food waste. Yeah. So my rating is dented. And here comes the, the granola rating everyone. Yeah, so TLDR slash granola rating section. We rate as we mentioned, rate, everything. It's either soggy, sticky, Chewy, crunchy, or break your tooth off. You want it to be as crunchy as possible. This one I'm going to say sticky, which is the number two. So two out of five. Okay, so soggy, not soggy, which maybe you could argue with me. But there's not a local solution. So it requires a lot of shipping and packaging. It's not a closed loop yet. It's truly because it's not a closed loop yet. It makes you want to make it soggy, but it solves the problem at the bottom of the pyramid rather than the top. And it fails to encourage people to reduce their food waste and in fact might do the opposite. Okay. Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's similar to my I had a similar rating to fast fashion thread love. Yeah. Yeah. Or throw it out. Yeah. Throw it up. Yeah, yes. Yeah. Like, it just maybe it's a green bandaid, you know, yeah. It's like, a band aid. Yeah, it's, it's like a just kind of covers up the problem rather than actually solving it. Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. That's a bummer. But I just have like, this is such a San Francisco, you know, such a Google nest thing to do. Usually like Google, I think they have innovative products and stuff that's under Yeah, it's just like, well, actually, like my nest. Yeah, I love nest. But these people aren't. And I think they do have like a I don't I'm not sure this is true. But I think they have like a board of, you know, people who are actually experts in food waste, okay. Whatever. We, I just wish it was finished. I wish it was like you just took the product to market. It's like those pictures they have where it's like, a drawing of a horse and it starts, you know, it's like really detailed. And then at the end, it's just like a kindergartener drew it because they were rushed to finish this with the seals, like, you know, they started this really detailed idea. And then they had to sell it, and it's like, popsicle sticks. And it kind of makes you wonder, like, how, what it's like to work at the company. It's probably I mean, saying, you know, what, maybe, and maybe this is kind of a pilot. I mean, how many do they say how many people they have? They didn't say that I could find or how many cities? I mean, it's and yeah, I mean, that's one thing. It's any, you could do it from Montana as easily as you could do it from? Yeah, New York. Right. That's nice. Right? Yeah, it's um, they didn't say but and there is like a waitlist. I have no idea how long the waitlist is, though. So okay, well, but they do say that they're sending more out all the time. So they're definitely out there. I mean, it again, makes us as Americans feel better about how much shit we waste. So I wanted to look into other options for home compost. Oh, yeah. Because it's like, what do we do instead of this? Pretty but dumb product. Maybe the wave of the future and then the city will start offering it in a couple months. Probably. Yeah. So one really cool thing I found It was a local option that sort of like I mentioned, like we were saying, like find local composting options. There's this website called Share waste, okay? And it's a website where you can search for local home composters or chicken owners and you can and they basically sign up to become a host. And you can also sign up to become a host. And you can bring your food scraps there. So they volunteer to accept other people's food scraps. And I looked and there were several in my area, at least probably 10. Okay, wow. So that was pretty cool. So it's like your, your neighbor, if you don't even know them, they might be willing to take your your food scraps for their compost bin, so that's cool. Yeah. And I feel like that's like a really local solution. Yes. I love it. And also, I feel like it would create more community because you meet your neighbors like the Buy Nothing group. Yeah, yes. Yeah, exactly. Compost. Yeah, I love that. Throw nothing out. Yeah. Throw no food scrap, no food scrap left on dehydrated. No food scrap left, what is their next the next iteration, that's definitely going to be the name. In a lot of places like New in my area, they do do this curbside compost pickup, but I'm not my house is just outside of the pickup area, which you also you have compost pickup. I do it because I live in the magical city of Austin. Yes. It but if your government doesn't offer it like, you don't have that option. You can check for a local pickup company. I think this is a private company in Pennsylvania and Delaware. There's one called waste well, and they do basically exactly that. And you pay, I don't know, some amount of money. It's I don't remember it being exorbitant. But I looked that up in my area. And I see five companies that actually went for that. Yeah. So that's an option. Yeah. Um, again, the carbon footprint concerns me somewhat. But again, if they're just doing one, one car per neighborhood, it's probably better than you 40 People trucking it out to a farmers, right? Yeah. Well, and that's my next next option is you take it to your drop off site, which is an option for me. We have a facility that will actually process this stuff. And there are apparently 4700 facilities in the United States according to the USDA. Oh, the nice thing is that you can bring bio plastics a lot of the time. So that's like your the compostable forks, yes, your plant based boxes and stuff like that. And mine also accepts meat and bones. They accept pizza boxes, wooden chopsticks, paper towels that don't have chemicals or cleaning products. And lots of cool things like that. So that was like so that's cool. Yeah, I just looked up. Yeah, my, like an Austin and I didn't know that I could recycle chicken bones and they are not recycled, but compost cones and pizza boxes. So yeah, that's news to me. Yeah, that's really cool. And those things aren't super disgusting. So you get I feel like you could pretty easily take them without it being like super gross in your car. Yeah. Or tissues, you know? Yeah. It's not soup. It's on a bucket of soup. five gallon bucket just sloshing soup. Like soiled five day old suit. Yeah. Imagine handing it to them. They're like, really excited. I've talked to dehydrate it. So I really need to start doing this. I want to start doing it. But the other thing I started doing, which was really fun, and I'm slightly obsessed with it is I just set up finally my home compost system. Because if you have space in a little yard or space in I have a big yard too big. I'm not bragging. I hate it. But how dare you? It's well it's like just yard. There's the lady before us cut down all the trees and it's still want to cry about it. So yeah, we're trying to help it but anyway. Yeah, there's a lot of different options. Mine was really easy to set up. It's from Geo Ben. We can link it and it was 3599 on Amazon. I actually didn't buy it. My county provide it there's like a, it's at the library. It's a Master Gardeners program, but they give them away for free. So look into that, because you might be able to find one for free. And it is rudimentary at best, but it's totally functional. So like, it's it matters. Yeah, it's basically just like a little skillet. Well, it's not little, it's pretty big, but it's like a cylinder that you can actually choose the size. So that's kind of nice. But you just, it's basically a little round cage for your compost, and it's open on top. It took about 10 minutes to set it up. So I really so far like it. I've already thrown in like some lettuce, some corn husks, some berries that went bad I've thrown in. And then tons of leaves and stuff, but it was really fun because I was like, I weeded my garden. And I was like, oh, throw those in. Because apparently you can throw weeds and it's fine. Yeah, we do grass clippings here too. And weeds. Yeah. Yeah. And Nancy birtwhistle has some advice. Yeah, she and her in her gardening book. She has some advice on composting. And it's basically this is the very not meat and potatoes version is. That's not the right analogy. Anyway. It's like very basic version, but it's like you have to separate she calls it dry from wet and a lot of places call it green from Brown. But that she found that a little confusing. And so do I because it's like your something might actually be brown. But actually. Yeah, I mean, yeah. So yeah, her idea is like, if it's fresh, like a fresh plant or something, or I don't know, she separately separates it based on like dry. So dry is like your paper, your cardboard your sticks, your wood chips, that type of thing leaves. Dilute WC Yeah, brown again. But yeah, not always. But yeah. And yeah, and then you just create layers. So I'm going at it, like really haphazard, I'm not being particular about it. So we'll see where it goes. Oh, excited. But yeah, that's the I learned that again, because bunny rabbits we used a like the litter that I would use was like made out of old newspapers. So that's the dry and then they pee on to that, which makes it wet. And then their poop is wet. And then they have hay which is dry. So it's like the perfect compostable. Whoa, Bunny litters the perfect compostable material. That's amazing. Yeah. Charlie loves bunnies. Maybe we should get one. Wait till she's old enough to take care of it. I will talk you out of getting a bunny. Yeah, I agree. I love them. But not for little children for sure. Yeah. Well, and not for a dog that kills bunnies. Well, I don't know my dog. You had a separate indoor from outdoor. Oh, weird. My used I don't think would well he grew up with them. Yeah. Okay, that helps. So he used to protect, like, if another dog came over, he'd get between the new dogs and my bunnies. Those are my bunnies. Oh, I never left them alone together. But yeah. But well, that's okay. Yeah. Don't Yeah, composting is. Yeah, so there are there are reasons so home composting gets a break your teeth off? Just Yes. Composting in general. Great. But the mill been not so great. Work needs work. Finished the horse drawing. Yeah, so that's, that's all I have. Well, that was great. Thank you for that. I feel I do feel so I did the research for next week, which I can talk about. Now. Next week, we're gonna be talking about food waste, and the ugly food movement. And it these dovetail very nicely because part of food waste is just how much junk not junk how much food Americans throw away. So yes. You can't talk about food waste without talking about compost. Right. So yeah, exactly. That but Amma you know, I just can't help but laugh at how what a cute marketing effort the middle is and I know how unfortunate it is that it's not quite fully fleshed, I guess. Yes. I just I can just picture employees sitting at their desk like we have to launch this tomorrow. While some Yeah, so venture capitalists is like yes, I got a product it's like thoroughness. Right yeah. Like yeah, yeah, just takes a drop of blood. I mean, the the can dehydrate soup Yep. Yep, yep. All right, well, well, thank you for listening. And yeah, definitely leave us a review if you haven't yet because that is very helpful. And it's so fun The more people Yeah, so just scroll down wherever you're listening and just hit that five star button. Yeah, give us five. Breaker two's off. Yeah. I have nothing. Okay. All right. Well, didn't try to think of anything, but I got another good feel better. Yes. Thank you. I hope I made it, man. Yeah, you didn't. You didn't slur your words to not too many. Awesome. All right. Okay.

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