The Mercast | Plastic Free Mermaid talks Change Making

What if the future isn't about inventing something new—but remembering what already worked? In this episode of Beautiful World, I sit down with Arielle Crawford of the Realness Preserve and Texas Cob Company to explore natural building, healthier homes, regenerative living, and the practical skills that create resilient communities. We discuss cob homes, lime plaster, mould-free construction, home...

What if feeling better starts with looking a little closer at the food we eat every day? In this eye-opening episode of the Beautiful World podcast, Kathryn Nelson sits down with Blair Beattie, Executive Director of Farmers Footprint Australia, for an enlightening conversation about food, health, farming, and our connection to the natural world. Together, they explore the impact of glyphosate (the...

In the 1930s, Australia's Government Shark Control Program planted baited drum lines and shark nets around its beaches to protect swimmers and surfers. But what if the true killer isn't sharks but the very same program that claims to protect us?     In this episode, I'm joined by Andre Borrell, director of Envoy: Shark Cull; a documentary that exposes the ugly truth behind Australia's shark contro...

When we begin our move into a more sustainable life, we can be so quickly reeled into the idea that consuming animal products and byproducts are bad; that we should be into much more plant-based food, but what if that isn't the big picture? In this episode, I have Ryland Engelhart, producer of Netflix's Kiss the Ground, which is a documentary that focuses on our soil health situation. He shares wi...

As a mixed fair-skinned Bundjalung native born in Australia, Ella Noah Bancroft always felt like she was challenged about just how pure she was as an indigenous person. With growing up to words and notions like that, Ella knew she needed to pay homage to her lineage and respect to the stolen generation by continuing their culture and bringing it to the modern era. Ella is now the founder and pione...

Plastic pollution is a problem that affects so many animals, habitats, and people. Turtles have come into the spotlight in recent years though, thanks to the rise in social media awareness for their protection and preservation; with a big factor to that being the viral video of the straw stuck up in a poor turtle's nose. This video hit the world hard, but we cannot stop at feeling bad for what is...

Periods, something so natural for our bodies as females are oftentimes considered taboo to talk about. In this episode, we have Michele Wilson, co-founder of a sustainable and carbon-offset brand of period-proof underwear named Awwa. She's here with us to talk about her Maori roots and how she's taken inspiration from their innovation and made it widely available to the world. Periods don't have t...

To conclude my five-part series with the amazing Helena Norberg Hodge, we discuss reclaiming our power of choice by making the switch to using local products and reducing our emissions. We bring to light the faults of industries, proposing a new way to tackle our overall impact on the planet. For the youth listening in-- Helena has a special message for you, addressing the quality of life corporat...

Corporations and businesses ferry across the world goods just for one part of their value chains-- much like being shipped from England, processed in China, then packaged in Thailand. We must ask; do we really need to move food and goods around so much? In this episode, Helena and I go in-depth about the importance of making sustainable choices to uplift our local farmers' markets and support the...

In our global society today, multinational corporations remain faceless and nameless to us as consumers to the point where it affects our mental health greatly. We strive for fame, for being known, and in this increasing globalization of the world, our likelihood to rise slim down immensely. In this episode, Helena talks about what we can do, from our conscious choices to how we treat the world at...

Climate change has been in people's minds since Al Gore's efforts to expose the truth with his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" from a little over a decade ago. But what a lot of us don't know is that there are larger forces with far greater impact than us individuals. Corporations produce so much waste that even the great former U.S vice president had failed to address or even acknowledge it....

With the world moving at such a pace, it's easy to make the decision to choose convenience over consciousness. These seemingly small individual decisions only rear its ugly head when we look at the much bigger picture-- one we call pollution. To share with us today her 45-year journey in the making, is Helena Norberg-Hodge, a woman with a mission to revitalise cultural and biological diversity. We...

Solving the ocean plastic pollution won't be easy but we have no choice since the ocean is littered with million metric tons of plastics every single year. This problem is a great threat to all the marine species and their habitats. Everyone can do something to reduce the amount of plastic that enters the ocean and our guest for today is contributing in reducing the plastic waste that's being thro...

Plastics not only destroy our planet but also degrades our health. Harmful chemicals like endocrine disrupting-chemicals can be easily found in today's products. To have a better understanding of these hazardous chemicals, Dr. Leo Trasande returns to talk about the impacts of chemicals on hormones in our bodies! Dr. Leo Trasande is a physician at NYU and the author of Sicker, Fatter, Poorer and an...

Plastic pollution is emerging as a top threat to ocean ecosystems and no one knows how much un-recycled plastic waste ends up in the ocean that is killing millions of marine life every year.  To make sure Australia takes responsibility for its waste, the Recycling and Waste Reduction Bill was put into place! It's designed to ban the export of waste glass, plastics, tires, and paper. And this is a...

Our guest for today is a surfer who's been fighting against plastic pollution for 30 years! Hugo Tagholm is the Chief Executive of SAS (Surfers Against Sewage), a community dedicated to protecting our oceans, waves, beaches, and wildlife. They bring people together and empower communities to create positive change for the ocean and our environment. In this episode, Hugo will share with us his year...

Imagine you're on a cruise ship enjoying the beautiful view of the majestic blue ocean until you see floating garbage of plastics and waste. Sucks right? Not only did it ruin your experience but also the ocean and the aquatic life in it. Sadly, there's actually a huge plastic garbage out there in the ocean floating called the Great Pacific Patch. And this is continuously damaging ocean life since...

In today's episode, Sean Doherty joins us to further talk about The Fight for the Bight campaign. He is a Surf Journalist and has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, and for the Surfer and Surfing magazines in the United States.  He talks about the #fightforthebight campaign and explains the climate change performance index. He also shares his opinion on the issues that currently surround Austr...

Today's coral reefs our on a major threat due to the ongoing impact of climate change. To prevent coral reefs from further dying, many organisations are on a mission to recover degraded coral reefs through the process of reef restoration. In this episode, we are joined by Azri Separwan, a Marine Biologist and Conservation Professor her at Fisher Island for the Restoration project. He's going to sh...

One of the most unspoiled marine environments in the world is the great Australian Bight. And we all know that an oil spill would ruin the pristine coastline and threaten coastal homes and livelihood. Unfortunately, the Australian government is trying its best to sell the rights to drill more oil to just any foreign bidder. BP and Chevron has already pulled out, but Norwegian company Equinor remai...

Today's episode will surely make you crave for food as we talk about the best burger for our health and planet, the weed burgers! Join me in this conversation about healthy foods with Mark Kulsdom, the co-founder and CEO of The Dutch Weed Burger! Today we're going to try the famous "Dutch Weed Burger", which is one of the healthiest hamburgers in the world! It's packed with proteins, more than in...

We're all experiencing the stress and effects of climate change. But how we communicate this emergency is critical in motivating collective action. If we manage to come together to mitigate the crisis that we're in, then we'll surely achieve our goals. Our guest for today is Linda Moreland, she works in corporate finance and she's also a very active rebel within the Extinction Rebellion, a global...

Our birth canal is chock full of bacteria. Newborn babies get their first microbiome from their mother. During childbirth, they are completely covered with bacteria, giving them a brand-new microbiome. In today's episode, we are joined by Ara Katz who is the Co-CEO and co-founder of Seed. She explains the gut microbiome and her journey through pregnancy and life which led to her discovery of seed....

You might think buying and eating organic food is good for you, which it is. But, what happens then if that organic product is put in a plastic container? In today's episode, we are joined by Linda Birnbaum, the recently retired director of NIEHS, an institute dedicated to learning more about how the environment affects our health. In our conversation, Linda explains how the environment affects th...

Don't you just enjoy the popping sound of popcorn as it sits inside the microwave, ready for your relaxing movie night? But what might be scarier than your horror movie (if you're watching one), is knowing that there are chemicals from the packaging of your microwaveable popcorn transferred into your movie snack which you already ingested. Today we are joined by Researcher, Maricel Maffini. She di...