Sustainability In Your Ear

Subscribe to receive transcripts by email. Read along with this episode . The raw material for a $2 trillion circular economy is already flowing through recycling facilities. But how do we capture and use it? Rebecca Hu-Thrams, co-founder and CEO of Glacier , is deploying AI-powered robotic sorters at material recovery facilities (MRFs) across the country, processing recycling for one in 10 Americ...

Subscribe to receive transcripts by email. Read along with this episode .Americans dispose of approximately 1.3 billion gallons of used motor oil annually, but only about 800 million gallons get recycled, and most of that is burned as fuel rather than re-refined into new oil. The plastic packaging oil comes in is more problematic: most curbside programs won't accept them because residual oil conta...

Read along with our transcript . What if the solution to winter's  infrastructure corrosion and environmentally benign home sidewalk de-icing was an invasive starfish being thrown back into Korea's coastal waters? Hando Choi, president of Star's Tech , joins the conversation to explain how one region's invasive species problem can become another's environmental breakthrough. The company developed...

Subscribe to receive transcripts by email. Read along with this episode . What if the solution to the retail industry's $890 billion returns crisis wasn't better logistics, but better logic? Disney Petit, founder and CEO of Liquidonate , is proving that the most sustainable return skips the trip back to a warehouse and goes directly to a community in need. Americans returned nearly 17% of all reta...

Can the industry that taught the world to consume help us learn to consume more responsibly? Luke Purdy, Director of Sustainability at one of the world's leading creative agencies Wieden+Kennedy , is betting his career on it. After 13 years working on major accounts like Nike and Corona at one of the world's most influential creative agencies, Purdy did something unusual: he wrote his own job desc...

Most Silicon Valley CEOs who cash out their stock options start another tech company. Yishan Wong planted trees instead. After helping build PayPal, Facebook, and serving as Reddit's CEO, Wong concluded that humanity's biggest challenge wouldn't be solved with algorithms or network effects—it would be solved by restoring the planet's forests at an unprecedented scale. Mitch Ratcliffe sits down wit...

Ten years after the Paris Agreement, the world's climate negotiators will gather in Belém, Brazil this November for COP 30, a summit many are calling a critical juncture for global climate action. After COP 29 in Baku ended with what developing nations called a woefully inadequate $300 billion annual commitment—far short of the $1.3 trillion economists say is needed—can multilateral climate negoti...

Every solar array, battery system, and EV charger installed over the past decade will eventually need to be decommissioned. Yet there's no unifying system to handle that flow of materials—no operating system for the reverse supply chain that the circular economy depends on. While Americans recycle 97% of vehicles, we recycle less than 20% of electronics, leaving valuable critical minerals like lit...

Read a transcript of this episode . Subscribe to receive transcripts. Turn on any faucet in America, and chances are the water meets federal safety standards. Yet Americans buy 50 billion single-use plastic water bottles annually—enough to circle the Earth 200 times if laid end to end. The bottles take 450 years to decompose, and recent research found that a single liter of bottled water can shed...

Read a transcript of this episode. Subscribe to receive transcripts. For decades, our relationship with waste has been defined by disposability and denial. The disposability of everything from coffee cups and cigarette butts to smartphones, and the denial about where it all goes when we're done with it, means that humans generate over 2 billion tons of waste globally each year, with Americans alon...

The global food system stands at a crossroads. Climate change is reshaping where crops can grow, trade disputes threaten supply chains, and smallholder farmers who produce much of our food often have the least power in the system. Meet Heather Terry, founder and CEO of GoodSAM Foods , and discover how the company is transforming the traditional smallhold farm model by putting people and regenerati...

Every summer, the same devastating story repeats across America: lakes that families have cherished for generations suddenly turn toxic green. Half a million people in Toledo lose their drinking water when Lake Erie blooms with poison algae. Or, Florida's red tide costs the state billions in lost tourism. But some of the most damaged bodies of water in America are getting a cleanup. Meet Dr. Mark...

Solar and wind have become the cheapest sources of power in human history, but political headwinds threaten to derail the fastest energy transformation ever recorded. At this crucial juncture, how do we ensure America doesn't surrender its technological leadership in clean energy to nations more willing to embrace the future? Meet Bill McKibben, legendary environmentalist and author whose four dec...

The carbon removal industry stands at a crucial crossroads. While cutting emissions remains essential, avoiding catastrophic warming now requires pulling billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere permanently. But as this nascent field grapples with questions of legitimacy, scalability, and accountability, a critical challenge remains: How do we build the infrastructure needed to track, verify, a...

What if Earth is developing a planetary collective intelligence emerging from the convergence of ecological crisis, new global information systems, and the data-crunching capabilities of artificial intelligence? This provocative question drives economist Topher McDougal's book, Gaia Wakes: Earth's Emergent Consciousness in an Age of Environmental Devastation . On this episode of Sustainability In...

The scale of agriculture's environmental impact is staggering. According to the EPA, agricultural runoff is the leading cause of degraded water quality in rivers and streams. Today's farming practices lead to 1.70 billion tons of U.S. topsoil annually, and agriculture produces 31% of human greenhouse gas emissions. Tune in to meet Kelsey Timmerman , author of the new book, Regenerating Earth, from...

The scale of our plastic waste crisis is staggering: the U.S. alone uses over 100 million plastic utensils every day, most of which are used once and tossed into landfills where they'll persist for centuries. From ocean pollution to overflowing campus dumpsters after lunch rush, single-use packaging defines modern food service—but universities and businesses are under mounting pressure to embrace...

The scale of our climate challenge is staggering: humans have pumped 1.6 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air and oceans since 1750, and we're adding another 40 billion tonnes every year. Even with dramatic emissions reductions, we're still on track to blow past 1.5 degrees of warming, the Paris Accord target first breached in 2024. Tune in to a conversation with Dr. Julio Friedmann, Chi...

What does it take to stand on the front lines of one of the most dangerous and increasingly common realities of our climate crisis era? Discover the intense world of elite wildland firefighting with Kelly Ramsey , the first woman in about a decade to join the Rowdy River Hotshots, a pseudonymously named, California-based crew of highly trained wildland firefighters. In this episode of Earth911's S...

What if the solution to our plastics crisis isn't just about individual behavior change but building entirely new marketplaces that make plastic-free living accessible and transparent? On this episode of Earth911's Sustainability In Your Ear, discover the grassroots approach with Simona Paganetto, founder of Implasticfree.com , who has transformed her search for plastic alternatives into a curated...

As climate change accelerates and traditional crops face mounting pressures from drought, extreme weather, and soil depletion, innovative solutions are emerging from unexpected sources. Explore the soil-restoring potential of the pongamia tree with Marc Diaz, Chief Commercialization Officer at  Terviva , an agtech company that has spent over a decade unlocking this hardy species’ dual capabilities...

What if the ingredients discarded daily in food production could become the foundation of a more sustainable food future? On this episode of Earth911's Sustainability In Your Ear,  discover the pragmatic vision with Yousuf Ahmed, founder of B-SIDES , a Brooklyn-based startup, proving that upcycled snacks can be delicious and environmentally responsible. Inspired by tasting a single slice of spent...

As the world confronts the urgent challenge of removing billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, breakthrough innovation is essential to scale solutions fast enough to meet global climate goals. On this episode of Earth911's Sustainability in Your Ear, discover the groundbreaking results of the $100 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition , a four-year competition among 1,300 team...

On today's Sustainability In Your Ear, meet Brenna Simmons-St. Onge, a systems strategist, regenerative futurist, and founder of B the Light Consulting, as we explore her family's extraordinary three-year journey around the world. The Regenerative World Quest isn't your typical travel adventure; it's a deliberate mission to identify, amplify, and help replicate Earth's most promising regenerative...

Energy is required at every step of the food and beverage industry supply chain, from growing grapes to bottling and delivery, making it a significant source of emissions and a prime target for climate innovation. On this episode of Earth911’s Sustainability in Your Ear, we explore how wineries and other producers are turning to clean, renewable energy to cut costs, reduce emissions, and future-pr...