Below the Radar Transcript
Episode 59: The Garbage Queen — with Louise Schwarz
Speakers: Paige Smith, Am Johal, Louise Schwartz
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Paige Smith 0:05
I'm Paige Smith with Below the Radar, a knowledge democracy podcast. Below the Radar is created by SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement and is recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. On this episode of Below the Radar, we are joined by Louise Schwartz, founder and co owner of recycling alternatives. Our host Am Johal talks with Louise, about how the culture of recycling has changed since 1989, when recycling alternatives first started. And what future possibilities could help keep more waste out of landfills.
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Am Johal 0:43
Welcome to Below the Radar. We're here with Louise Schwartz from recycling alternatives. Welcome, Louise.
Louise Schwartz 0:48
Thanks, Am. It's great to be here.
Am Johal 0:50
So Louise, the Garbage Lady. How did you get involved with trash?
Louise Schwartz 0:55
With trash. Well, I'll tell you, it's sad to say it's almost 30 years ago, before recycling was in. Really what happened was I had a wake up call, I had an epiphany around this whole notion of away, you know, when you say I'm going to throw it away, what does that mean? There's no away. And now we hear people speaking this way more and more but in 1989, people were not speaking like that. And so despite my background in political science, and Spanish literature, and a degree in education, I decided that I would get into my hatchback with my overalls. And I started driving around picking up, you know, paper from offices and businesses. And I started just with paper, but really, the wake up call was around away. Like, what are we saying when we say we're gonna throw it away? There is no away. And now we're really up against this? You know, this is so, it's absolutely so present in our conversations.
Am Johal 1:48
When you first started, you know, recycling wasn't really on the radar in quite the same way. And how did the economics of running a social enterprise work at that time? And then maybe talk a little bit also about like, how it's evolved over since you've really had a front row seat the last 30 years?
Louise Schwartz 2:06
Yeah. So think about this, like when we started, you know, a recycling alternative. And when I started Robert Weatherby, who's my business partner became involved, and we continued to run it together. He saw me in my first year and a hatchback and thought, This is ridiculous, I got to get in and help this friend of mine. But you know, this is before blue boxes, right? So people really thought we were out there. And in the early days, and it still works a bit this way, you know, you're working with your materials, can you sell those materials? Can you move them on to a market? And of course, we can talk a little bit about that later. I mean, there's huge challenges now that we're hearing about all this material that goes offshore. So in those days in the very beginning, you know, our first, we were sort of we sort of had a sliding scale, you know, could you pay $10 a month? Could you pay $15? Could you pay $20? And that's how we tried to sort of support it. And we literally used to take the hatchback or then there was a $2,000 van involved and we would run it over the scale. And you know, at that time, the main recycling plant was in the middle of the Olympic Village, in what is now that, you know, the salt building, The Red House, the craft beer place, great to go and have a beer. But you know, we spent that you know, those years in the 90s, driving over scales to weigh off the hatchback, take off the newsprint, then drive back over the scales, weigh off the days of computer matrix paper. That was very lucrative that stuff, that was the highest value paper that was like, you know, worth $100 or $200 a metric ton. And then, of course, you know, eventually we phased that out, because we went to our laser printers and thought we were going paperless. We're finally getting there. But you know, I'm only, we're only starting to see paperless offices really in the last four to five years. That didn't happen, you know, 10 years ago, when we thought it was gonna happen.
Am Johal 3:45
Now, walk me through how you go about your work now. I know you have a facility, United We Can is part of that. The Binners' Project is located in this building. But there's a whole series of different people doing this. I've seen you in conversation with groups around the circular economy. But how would you describe the situation right now?
Louise Schwartz 4:06
Well, a few things. First of all, you know what's happening, you got to keep in mind, there's kind of a big garbage world out there, meaning I'm talking big garbage, just like you talk about big oil. You know, the one of the largest land, the largest landfilling company in the world, you know, waste management, this is who we're competing against. And so for all our years growing, we were working very much individually with offices, a lot of early adopters, a lot of nonprofits that were taking this on, say, in the 90s, and then sort of when we hit the millennium, really more and more of an uptake. But when we're working now, you know, we're working with some large corporate groups, like we do property management companies who are running, say, Pacific Center, food courts, huge, you know, huge facilities, office towers. So we really have to be able to be competitive and compete with those large garbage companies out there. Coming from a recycling first perspective, which now that the public perception has changed is easier to do. People are, you know, that they're much more aware of what they're doing with their waste. But for many years, we were out on the side, you know, main business was garbage, garbage, with a little bit of recycling on the side. Now, it's the opposite recycling is the main course. And there's a bit of trash possibly, or waste on the side. So that's kind of the space we work. Our trucks are moving off to, you know, we're doing a lot that's going on in the bowels of Vancouver, under you know, under the towers, if, if you stand somewhere like the art gallery, and you look down towards the water, a lot of those office towers we’re stripping the material out from from those buildings. And so that's one side of it. And then the other side of it, as you've mentioned, Am is looking towards a kind of what does localized recovery look like? What is really taking responsibility for these materials, looking at Circular models, can we take them, we're working a lot with food waste, and how can we turn that into material right here right now and then put it back out into the local landscaping and urban growing? Same with paper. Plastics is tricky because when was the last time we saw plastics manufacturing going on in British Columbia? So where is that stuff going? So we all need to get, I think, pretty real with the public as to how we either have to minimize some of these materials, or start looking at infrastructure that supports the localization circularity.
Am Johal 6:09
Oh, we just saw the City of Vancouver come in with some policy changes yesterday around single use plastic, straws, to fees around coffee cups and those kinds of things. But wondering if you can talk a little bit about the City of Vancouver's approach in terms of what's working and what's not related to recycling and garbage?
Louise Schwartz 6:29
So we're behind those types of that type of regulation, we spoke to that, to those motions at Council the other day it was very long meetings, that motion itself went way on into the into the night, because it is tricky to start to look at how we're going to wean ourselves off this kind of addiction to our single use items. And so we applaud the city for starting to take that kind of leadership and looking at it, but it's going to be tricky. And there's a whole bunch of conversations around, okay, what are the materials, you know, accessibility is one topic around this where these materials are needed to be used, maybe maybe in either medical applications, or individuals with disabilities that need to use some of these items. But we we think it's a great strategy to start. But a lot of it is also looking at the quality of these materials. And you know, where are they being made? Where are they being circulated? How can we stop the leakage out and and hold these materials here? And of course, it's very tricky in a in a province like British Columbia, with such a resource extractive kind of economy, but we haven't done anything to develop the infrastructure. We've got all these plants that sit out now go, you know, closing down the the closure say in the pulp pulp industry, same in mining, and how could we look at re establishing some of that infrastructure for localizing our trash and keeping it here and doing something with it, and creating employment and opportunity out of that?
Am Johal 7:51
Now with a company like yours, Recycling Alternatives. What could the levels of government be doing better from a policy point of view that would allow you to do your work better, keep more waste out of the landfills and would actually allow businesses and organizations like yours to thrive in comparison to big garba? Or like the bigger organizations in terms of the policy frameworks that are limiting your capacity?
Louise Schwartz 8:19
Yeah, well, I think a big one is, and we've been advocating for this, is looking at requiring and regulating the requirement of recycled stock, recycled content in materials that are being produced. So that if you are producing something, that there has to be whether it's a paper product, a fiber product, a plastics product, that it is required, that there is a minimal I mean, substantial a 30-50%, minimal of recycling content, in that, because what's happened in our crisis, and this is why you're seeing all this material, we haven't stopped the bleed at the source, we're still consuming consuming a lot of this material with not very much market value anymore. Keep in mind, it's still cheaper to take oil out of the ground right now, than it is to make recycled resins for plastics. So there's something wrong with our model here. If it's economically more viable to extract from the planet than it would be to collect all our stuff, and recycle that, manage that. So recycled content regulation is key. We also think that in programs like extended producer responsibility that you hear about things like the computers, things like the tires, which are an EPR, extended producer responsibility means they go into a program, one of the criterion caveats must be that that material is managed here again, in a circular type of model, so that it's not linear, it's not going out of the system.
Am Johal 9:48
Louise, anything you'd like to add?
Louise Schwartz 9:50
No, just that Well, I guess really, that it's so critical. Now, what I think about trash is trash is one of the things that touches all of us. It's really, it's very visceral and it's, it's, it's really transformational if you can connect with your waste and I think this is what's happening now people in the zero waste movement, trash used to be at the bottom of the barrel. It's rising right up, it's something everybody can do something about, is their waste.
Am Johal 10:15
Thank you so much for joining us on Below the Radar Louise, the garbage philosopher Vancouver.
Louise Schwartz 10:21
Thank you Am. Thank you.
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Paige Smith 10:28
Thanks again to Louise Schwartz for joining us on Below the Radar. To learn more about the work that Recycling Alternatives does, you can check out their website which we have linked in the episode description. Stay in the loop with Below the Radar by following us on Twitter and Facebook and be sure to subscribe wherever you find your podcasts. We want to thank the team that puts this podcast together including myself, Paige Smith, Fiorella Pinillos, Kathy Feng, and Jackie O'bunga. David Steele is the composer of our theme music, and thank you for listening. Tune in next time for a brand new episode of Below the Radar.
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