Our guest this week is Kreigh Hampel, recycling coordinator for the city of Burbank, a city of over 104,000 people within Los Angeles County. The title of this podcast, “The Tailpipe of Consumption” is from Kreigh’s own words. I think, after listening to the show, you’ll appreciate why Kreigh, who has to deal with the damaging waste of our consumer lifestyle, is so concerned about our consumption and about the changes we all need to make to our lifestyles.
During the show we discuss:
- The dangerous stuff people put in the recycling
- Producer responsibility
- How recycling enables waste
- Master Recycler Program
- Reduce, reuse, repair
- How plastics are recycled
- What the plastic number codes mean
- The problem with #7 plastics
- What happens to recycled plastics
- What happens to paper
- Styrofoam
Links:
Burbank Recycle Center website
Burbank Recycle Center on Facebook
If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to [email protected]. You can subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store and on Stitcher. The theme music is by Dr. Frankenstein. Additional music by Rho. A downloadable version of this podcast is here.
Such a good discussion. Thanks for keeping it real Craig and Kelly and Erik. Stop consuming plastics now! (Mostly)
Thanks for listening and for the feedback!
I learned so much listening to this. Wouldn’t it be great to have a take away place that would let you bring your own food containers that they would fill with the appropriate amounts. I’m sure there are health regulations about that, but I wish it could work. I would frequent a place like that.
Please have Craig back to discuss organics. What do I do with all the plastic plant containers and empty bags from my local gardening store? Plastic really is everywhere, isn’t it! Yuck.
Hey Dede, Thanks for listening to the podcast. We’ll definitely ask Kreigh to come back on and talk about organic waste. I’m not sure about the health regs with bringing your own plates, but a restaurant owner I talked to was more than happy to do this and said that she had a few customers who regularly came in with their own takeaway containers.
What a great guest. Thanks to Kreigh for answering questions I’ve always had about recycling.
Very exciting to hear he is a passionate advocate of building soils (with food and organic residuals) to help with CA drought. This is the guy I need to have a long chat with next time I am in L.A.!
Yes! From what Erik tells me, he is interested in setting up something like what you do–or maybe is already starting?? I’m miserably ill informed!! But we’re going to have him back on to talk just about this subject.
Can someone tell this slow person (me) why we must have a plastic still in use that CANNOT be recycled in Oz ? For crying out loud, they have had years to find an alternative- just BAN the bloody stuff !
Second question- I ponder getting plastic out of my life (you wish) – hardest one to chuck is plastic freezer bowls for my home cooking. What do the enlightened do to freeze food (soups, curries, stews, shanks, etc) that is intended to be nuked in microwave for using at a later date ?
Gracias 🙂