EFR 727: Sustainability and Greenwashing: A Guided Journey Beyond the Buzzwords Towards Conscious Living with Monica Richards

0:03:42 - Speaker 2 Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to Ever Forward Radio. I'm here with Monica Richards and we're diving into a topic I have not yet really covered on the show, fully talking about sustainability. We're talking about changing your world so you can really change the world. And with that, Monica, welcome to the show.

0:04:04 - Speaker 1 Hello, thank you for having me and thank you for allowing this space for sustainability to be featured on your podcast. I'm so excited. Thank you, my pleasure.

0:04:12 - Speaker 2 You're very welcome and this is definitely an area of life, of living, of. You know, wellness that when I look back at my life since making a conscious choice of I want to take better care of myself. Yes, I'd be lying if I said looking at ways of being more eco-friendly and green back back in my day, I like what it may be like 15 years ago, you know, going green was the big thing and it meant, you know, being more conscious of. You know, shout out these straws. You brought me up the Plastics and the metals and the recycling and the cleaners and the perfumes and all the things. So I'm really excited to kind of have an expert today dive deeper into sustainability.

0:04:53 - Speaker 1 Thank you. It's been a really cool journey to 15 years ago, being sustainable was like super hippie-dippy granola. Oh yeah, remember, it's like. It's like sustainability people just for TVa is like whatever you know. So I love TVa's, by the way, but you know what I mean. And now it's like we're coming to such a cool position In our lives. They say that this what are we like millennials? Are we millennials?

0:05:18 - Speaker 2 Gen Z? No, we're not Gen Z. Millennial.

0:05:20 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah so they say that this, the millennials, it's, it's really in, which is a cool opportunity, a great opportunity, but what we do for this era is going to Set the stage really for the rest of the future, basically. So this is a really important era and time that we're living in, which is an incredible opportunity.

0:05:43 - Speaker 2 So I got to ask, first and foremost yes, what landed you? I'm gonna be professional host and look at my notes.

0:05:47 - Speaker 1 Oh go ahead.

0:05:48 - Speaker 2 What landed you at this topic to champion? Why sustainability?

0:05:52 - Speaker 1 So I grew up on a farm in Michigan. If any of you know Michigan, you know the hand. It's like down here, like the glove, the mitten state. So I grew up on a little farm and you go from the farm. My dad didn't. He wasn't a farmer but he operated his business out of the farm and we had every single kind of fruit tree. Our garden was much bigger than this room, I'd say probably three times my dad had a rototilla with a Tractor. That's how big it was.

0:06:23 - Speaker 2 Oh, so yeah, I haven't heard that in forever. I grew up on almost 200 acres. Oh, you did. In the middle of nowhere, southwest Virginia, okay.

0:06:31 - Speaker 1 Yeah, oh, wow, I just got this flashback, sorry, well they could be hard. Yeah, did you do like rope forts in the trees?

0:06:40 - Speaker 2 This. Alright, we're dealing. I'm doing really my own show right here. It's kind of hard to see. I have little scar, my pinky, right here.

0:06:46 - Speaker 1 Yeah.

0:06:47 - Speaker 2 I almost lost the entire tip of my pinky because of a rope fort we had. I was swinging across the creek on my property and Slip. The rope slipped and I fell and landed. I was carrying like a tin can we're taking to the fort to hide all of our, of course, whatever. And I landed, crush the tin with my body and I looked down I'm just my pinky bone sticking out.

0:07:10 - Speaker 1 Yeah wow, where are you from home? Oh, oh, did you get back like across the field, just down the field? Okay, so you sprinted back home.

0:07:16 - Speaker 2 Well, I just actually, I say they're screamed for help. My brother went and got my stepmom and so, yeah, rush me to the yard.

0:07:22 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah well, luckily I didn't do any of that. I think you were a little more.

0:07:29 - Speaker 2 We're, we're, we're country, family, all right, all right, yeah, but I love it.

0:07:35 - Speaker 1 It's like this, this foundation in your heart, that, no matter where you live, you always go back to truly, yeah and truly so full circle. That's how I got into sustainability. Okay so I've always had that Connection with nature, connection with animals, like when I was growing up my chores were to collect chicken eggs, to weed the garden.

0:07:53 - Speaker 2 You got me be there, okay, yeah.

0:07:56 - Speaker 1 Wow, I really saw how, when we, when we put kind of an effort into the earth, what the earth gives back, and so that's always been a part of me. So fast forward. I went to college for biological anthropology. All I wanted to do was like build my own fort in Asia and study apes, but Dr Jane Goodall basically already had done that so I had a little bit, yeah, a little bit.

She pretty much discovered most everything there there is to know about the ape family. So I started doing interior design. I did interior design a practice, interior design in London for an eco-friendly boutique firm and then moved to LA and Did that there for an eco-friendly boutique firm, I.

I started pitching this show around Hollywood and it was like I still want to make it to this day. It's such a cool show, it's like it's a nursery show, but it's like the, you know, like the whole makeover show Mm-hmm. It was like nursery meets home. Makeover meets sustainability meets deserving family meets ABC.

0:08:52 - Speaker 2 Like a nursery makeover. Yeah, wow.

0:08:55 - Speaker 1 Yeah. So I started pitching that show on Hollywood and every time I was in a room They'd be like well, who do you imagine as your host? And I'm like me dot. And they're like you have zero credentials.

0:09:04 - Speaker 2 Oh shit, yeah, no, they were truth.

0:09:08 - Speaker 1 Yeah, which ends up me on a great path, because I started taking hosting classes, which are much like acting classes, did that for five years and one of my favorite Gigs to date was this online show for a well back in a well was a thing and I would host fashion and beauty shows. I would write, produce and host five shows a day. Woke up at 430 in the morning, yeah, but I loved it. So doing that for gosh, I want to say about three years. I Finally was like you know what I love talking about fashion and beauty and Kim Kardashian and Kate Middleton, but I just want to does it right.

0:09:42 - Speaker 2 Yes, exactly.

0:09:44 - Speaker 1 So I just wanted more, like I was yearning for more and within hosting classes, there's basically two types of host a reporter host or a branded host, and the the branded is where I wanted to go, so I Then created eco babe. All right, and that's how eco babe came along. So it was really just this again, like getting back to what my heart was telling me to do.

0:10:05 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I have a fresh question that wasn't on the notes, so kind of learning more about this background with you and the commonality.

I've come to this conclusion a lot over the years. It's something that I think when we're really reflecting on our lives, we don't give full credit to how we were raised, where we were raised. Now, a lot of people there could be some negativity there. Maybe you want nothing to do with how you were raised or where you were raised, but People who come from the salt of the earth. You know you grew up in the mountains, the country, the farm, whatever.

I Didn't fully realize how much nature and nurture Meant and what I mean by that is. Like I said, I grew up in almost 200 acres. We, we tilled the soil, we garden, we ate most of the fruits and vegetables that we grew, and also also was me, my brother, my sister or my family, my grandparents. There was a lot of like like village family kind of thing going on. Exactly how much do you credit that to? Kind of your perspective on the world right now and kind of having maybe a better relationship to the world because Correct me if I'm wrong a strong nature and nurture kind of upbringing?

0:11:10 - Speaker 1 Mm-hmm, 100%. I credit it for everything. Yeah, like every moment. I always say too it's so important to connect to protect one of my mottos.

So being sustainable part of it is self-sustaining, because the more you connect with nature, the more even if you haven't grown up in the country, if you're a city dweller the more you get outside, take your shoes off, run at the earth, touch a tree I'm just thinking of all the things we do in New York the more you want to protect and support the earth. So I think that connection is everything. Everything and anyone can connect.

0:11:47 - Speaker 2 And it's pretty palatable, right. We know, when we do leave a city, when we kind of slow down, when we surround ourselves more with nature, when we let the dirt, the ground connect with our feet and we feel that negative ion exchange happening, it's palpable, right. There's really there's great branding we can do, but also it's sensational, literally.

0:12:13 - Speaker 1 Did you know that trees I believe this is the correct stat humans and trees have 75% the exact same chromosome.

0:12:22 - Speaker 2 Wow.

0:12:23 - Speaker 1 Yeah.

0:12:24 - Speaker 2 Like just trees in general. Yeah, just communicate.

0:12:27 - Speaker 1 They keep their dead alive for tens and hundreds of years.

0:12:32 - Speaker 2 Wow.

0:12:33 - Speaker 1 They I mean like their system, like their root system is the foundation to earth.

0:12:39 - Speaker 2 Well, it reminds me of fungi, mushrooms.

0:12:41 - Speaker 1 Yeah.

0:12:41 - Speaker 2 We have about. There's some variations in the stat, but I think 60, 62%. Same DNA, same DNA structure as fungi. Yeah, we literally come from the earth and there's not a lot of difference in how we live and thrive and what supports us and nurtures us, as well as compared to nature.

0:13:00 - Speaker 1 Here's another one, Apes, which are do you know the difference between a monkey and ape?

0:13:06 - Speaker 2 I'm going to butcher it, so please, apes don't have tails. Oh, okay, so that's.

0:13:12 - Speaker 1 Bonobos, chimps, gorillas and orangutans. So, apes or no, it's chimps. Sorry, chimps have 98.4 or 6%, the exact same DNA as humans.

0:13:25 - Speaker 2 So if we just had a tail, maybe yeah we'd be there.

0:13:29 - Speaker 1 Like, our spines are a little different, you think about it. Yeah, isn't that crazy.

0:13:31 - Speaker 2 Damn.

0:13:32 - Speaker 1 Yeah, 98.6%, exact same DNA.

0:13:34 - Speaker 2 Well, I'm not even going to try to go toe to toe with you.

0:13:36 - Speaker 1 more fun facts, but those are some fun facts, it's just so interesting, like we're so connected to earth and the animal kingdom and all of our ecosystems.

0:13:46 - Speaker 2 Okay, with that in mind can you define our term's for us please here Sustainability, what is it?

0:13:52 - Speaker 1 So sustainability in general just means maintaining something at a certain radar level. Environmentally it's really the same thing as for us when we're like, is this job sustainable for us, Is this relationship sustainable for us? It's maintaining something at a certain radar level. So with environment it's not depleting the earth's resources. We can maintain at a certain radar level. So to be sustainable technically in today's society you have to benefit three things Environment, socially and economically. Okay, yeah, and for me sustainability really goes foundation level to consciousness, and that's just being conscious of ourselves and how we consume, being conscious of our planet and being conscious of one another, and to me that's sustainability.

0:14:39 - Speaker 2 Alright. So now, before we look at the outside world because myself included, I think when we think sustainability we think about the world, the earth, the environment, all these things. But I would like to kind of get the listener thinking internally first. I'm a big believer if we want to change the world, we need to change our world first. So, with the lens of sustainability here, how do we change our world with sustainability? What does that look like from the personal, in my four walls kind of perspective?

0:15:11 - Speaker 1 Sure. So I hold the same thought in order to change the world, you have to change your world first. My business partner, who is the climate optimist and Theresa. Janeri, we always talk about that and it's a big part of our teachings. We actually just launched a workshop, a corporate workshop, where we incorporate that as well.

0:15:29 - Speaker 2 I'm sure they could use it a lot at the corporate level.

0:15:32 - Speaker 1 Yes, and I think that's really missing from society in general. So you won't find this statistic anywhere, because it's alchemic. I practice alchemy. We have 672 senses inside 672.

0:15:49 - Speaker 2 Correct so what do you mean by that? How did you arrive at that number?

0:15:53 - Speaker 1 So it's my shaman.

0:15:55 - Speaker 2 Okay.

0:15:55 - Speaker 1 Yeah, so I mean she's like deep deep master of alchemy and she told me this, and, and she, literally, is never wrong.

So on the outside yeah, we have some people say seven senses, some people say five. Right, depending on what you believe in. But that being said, look at the juxtaposition. Everything that we're creating comes from the inside. That's where all our senses are. So and you think about like our thoughts create our beliefs, our beliefs create our feelings. Or, oh wait, I had the opposite thoughts create feelings, feelings create beliefs, beliefs create actions, actions create results.

So, it's from inside to outside. So I think one of the most powerful things a person can do which I know you're already doing is being in her space. And that means tuning in, meditating sitting and just getting comfortable with yourself and deep diving inward, because we really create everything around us from what is happening on the inside and I see it like if I don't tune in every single morning, I am like a chaotic disaster.

0:16:55 - Speaker 2 Oh, I know, I know what you mean, absolutely you feel you're just off, you're disconnected to yourself Absolutely.

0:17:01 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and when I'm tuning in, I come up with ideas, I come up with an action plan for the day, I come up with everything while I'm tuning in. So that's, that's a big part of sustainability and being a conscious person is is having a strong inner space, because then you know everything we touch and everything we feel. That was an idea and a dream. At one point. Someone had to like think of these things.

0:17:26 - Speaker 2 I think about this a lot. I look at the world around me and just go, someone thought to make this microphone. They had this vision, this idea, someone, this couch, this table, these clothes. It was just, it didn't exist. It only was like up in our head or imagination, some inward in eight cents to your point that then, you know, we manifested, we created, you know, turned into reality.

0:17:50 - Speaker 1 Correct, and I think what's so incredible about your community is that it's already wellness oriented.

You are as well, and so you're already like halfway there. Yeah, like the, the intersection between environment and personal is sustainability, because look at like food, for example, when you are wellness focused and you have a great inner space and you, you're all about like self advancement, self improvement, involvement, your first shirt, looking at your food and what you put into your body and what your body runs on. But that, in turn, is simply more sustainable because you are probably not eating so many processed foods, you're not ingesting so much palm oil which is crazy GMOs, you are probably buying organic whenever you can, which helps save the soil, which then, in turn, helps save human health. So it really is like sustainability is the the intersection between planet and people.

Yeah really cool and you think about it.

0:18:48 - Speaker 2 It just is so connected yeah it is, and you know, I think to your point and to to give ourselves maybe a little bit more credit. Let me even backstep there more what we're talking about here. If we want to become more sustainable, we're trying to introduce a new habit or expand a habit and make stronger, more chronic, more regular habit that we already have. We are most likely already doing a lot of things that we don't yet connect to this end goal.

0:19:16 - Speaker 1 Right.

0:19:17 - Speaker 2 I, oh, I'm not sustainable, I'm not green, I'm on all these things. But if you have any level of awareness, to your point, of any theme through line of wellness in your life, you are, just take a moment to pause and look at okay, why do I eat this and not that? Why do I go here instead of there? Why do I have this sustainable, this plastic straw, and you know, why do I choose glass over plastic? There's your sustainability, there is your, your, your leg up in terms of this new habit that you're trying to become more adherent with.

0:19:46 - Speaker 1 Right and, and speaking of inner to outer, one of my biggest pieces of advice for starting and sustaining your low waste lifestyle and your and your wellness and eco friendly journey is going from micro to macro.

0:19:58 - Speaker 2 What do you mean by that?

0:19:59 - Speaker 1 So when you think about sustainability in climate and environment, it's very overwhelming, especially when you get into it.

0:20:06 - Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. How can I possibly change the world Exactly?

0:20:10 - Speaker 1 and what do humans generally do when we're overwhelmed? We freeze.

Fight or flight or freeze Freeze yeah, and so, instead of freezing, going micro to macro. Micro means what I call eco swaps, which are sustainable alternatives to traditional items throughout the home. So you would start with just swapping out things in your kitchen and then, once you've mastered those which is like super fun to do, by the way then you move on to your beauty cabinet and your bathroom and your cleaning supplies and your laundry and then, before you know it, you're like looking into an electric car solar panels for your roof.

Moving to a commune yes, your gardening like like looking into food sovereignty. You're collecting rainwater for your, you know your gardening. So micro to macro, in word to outward, is the easiest way to let your your sustainability journey snowball.

0:21:01 - Speaker 2 That's so true and for me it always does come back to the foundation of you know, I think for most people in the show health and fitness, fitness and wellness. Yeah, if you look at your life right now, you prioritize my listeners definitely do this you prioritize training, physical activity, exercise. You prioritize taking care of your body, your mind. In some way you probably have a fair amount of habits that you have stacked up in priorities that you have. Now. You didn't just wake up with this One day, a week ago, a month ago, 10 years ago. You chose, you thought about one thing, you chose one thing to change, to make better, to introduce new or to eliminate, and then that showed you the next thing, and then that showed you the next thing. Next thing you know you're compounding and growing and growing, and all of these lifestyle changes are sustainable.

0:21:52 - Speaker 1 And you don't look back. I mean, how can you?

0:21:55 - Speaker 2 Once you feel good, knowing how good good feels, you can't go back. You can't go back.

0:22:00 - Speaker 1 That's right.

0:22:06 - Speaker 2 You've talked about a lot of things that we can change in our inside world. You know we kind of hit high level. You know of, you know plastic and glass, you know looking around your home just little things that we can do. I think a lot of us, when we look to the wellness industry in particular, we probably take a lot of it at face value, because if it's got the right branding, the right labeling, it says all natural, it says clean or just how it looks clean, whatever that means. Are we really embarking upon the sustainability journey? We think? Is the wellness industry lying to us?

0:22:41 - Speaker 1 The good thing about greenwashing is that it's becoming such a thing that consumers want that. Manufacturers are willing to fib Okay, but that means there's like a yearning for it, even if it's it just growing, like we talked about in the beginning of the show. So that's the cool thing and the good thing about greenwashing. They wouldn't do it if consumers didn't want it. Right, that's awesome. The consumers want it.

So the other good news currently is that the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, is working on a set of rules and guidelines to eliminate greenwashing and make the language have a strict set of rules, which is what we're missing in the States, quite honestly, right, and that's why there is a lot of greenwashing.

So that is underway, which is so great, right. I think that America puts a lot of responsibility on the consumer, which is why we have to self advocate, but people who don't have time to self advocate it's just not fair. So if you know a few certain things, I think that you're much better off. Like, for instance, a certification you should always look for if you're buying organic is USDA certified, otherwise it's not organic, right.

0:24:01 - Speaker 2 And does all natural really mean anything?

0:24:04 - Speaker 1 So natural just means. Here's why I don't love natural and I tell people like friends who are developing products, I'd say never put natural because now it just means that it comes from nature, so I could be selling a bucket full of crude oil and be like all natural comes from the ground right.

0:24:22 - Speaker 2 Exactly not wrong.

0:24:23 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, truly that one really irks me, but I think that here's a difference between maybe it'll help too like green and eco-friendly and sustainable. So green just means that it's okay for the environment.

0:24:37 - Speaker 2 Okay.

0:24:39 - Speaker 1 Eco-friendly means that it won't harm the environment.

0:24:43 - Speaker 2 Okay.

0:24:43 - Speaker 1 Sustainability takes it one step further, where it looks into the future. It won't harm the environment but, like we talked about beginning of the show, it's not going to withdraw so many resources that we run out, so it looks into the future. You just have to self advocate, which is so unfortunate, but that's, that's the way it is. But there are certain certifications, like, if we talk about skin care, leaping bunny certified is a huge one.

0:25:08 - Speaker 2 What about green tech? That's like the only one I'm familiar with. I think it's called green tech. Are you by chance familiar with the brand called Dera Lab?

0:25:18 - Speaker 1 No.

0:25:19 - Speaker 2 So they're a men's skincare line that I use and like and there it's all wild harvest of botanicals and what I can understand yeah, clean and amazing, and they have a green tech certification. I think that's actually. I think that's more to do with their packaging, now that I'm saying Okay, okay, yeah, is that good?

0:25:40 - Speaker 1 I would say so, okay, good.

0:25:42 - Speaker 2 I had that like almost which brands all of a sudden?

0:25:44 - Speaker 1 I know, no, no, no, it's good. But yeah, just look into the certifications. And there's also tips, like when you are purchasing food. For instance, some of the highest pesticide ridden foods are like strawberries, grapes, apples, spinach coffee. So is it coffee.

0:26:02 - Speaker 2 The coffee industry, one of the most heavily herbicide-ed one of the most infused with herbicides and pesticides, because globally we source it from all over the world and there is no global governing body of what these thresholds are Herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and then you even get into like mold as well If things are, you know, not freshly transported or they're not kind of, you know, flash frozen, depending on if it's gonna be whole-bean ground or insetized kind of thing. Yeah, coffee is another thing I think a lot of people should look at if they're really trying to clean up what's going into their body. Correct yeah.

If it's not, especially not organic herbicides, fungicides, the worst.

0:26:45 - Speaker 1 Also, fair trade is a big one.

0:26:46 - Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely.

0:26:47 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, and that's another certification we can look for across the board, whether that's food, clothing. That just means that farmers are offered fair prices for the trading their product. Okay.

0:26:58 - Speaker 2 So help us kind of understand, maybe, prioritization of sustainability. If I want to become more sustainable in the things I'm wearing, the things I'm putting into my body, the things I'm putting onto my body, is there a hierarchy in your opinion? Let's say, for the ultimate goal of our longevity and sustainability of our health, you know what maybe, is impacting us the most?

0:27:24 - Speaker 1 The most, okay. Well, while we're consuming, I always go back to one question, and it's do I really need this?

0:27:30 - Speaker 2 Powerful question. Okay, before we even get into the green or the natural, absolutely Wow.

0:27:35 - Speaker 1 Do I really need this?

0:27:36 - Speaker 2 Yeah.

0:27:37 - Speaker 1 Then you ask yourself, where does it come from and that's a big part of what you're saying. Then you ask yourself, how can I reuse this and where does it go at end of life? So those are the three key questions to conscious consumerism that I always educate on.

0:27:53 - Speaker 2 That's so straightforward and easy. That's amazing.

0:27:55 - Speaker 1 Yeah, number one. Do I really need this? Then I would say Because I'm a huge soil advocate. We only have I don't know if you saw the Time Magazine article that announced we have 60 years.

0:28:08 - Speaker 2 Yeah, a couple decades yeah yeah, so I laughed.

0:28:11 - Speaker 1 I heard the 60 year mark, probably six years ago. So I always say, like you know, 55, like top 50s, but either way, that's an insane. Either way it's a countdown, yeah Right it's a countdown, so I always say food, because it also affects soil health. So I would say for an individual person food. I would also say plastics. There's so many studies out on plastics, especially ingesting them like in utero.

0:28:40 - Speaker 2 Oh, I was diving heavy into fertility health recently and the through line for me that I found was microplastics, microplastics. What is affecting fertility. Male and female Microplastics 100%. Yeah, can you kind of expand on that a little bit for us? Microplastics what are they? Where are they?

0:28:57 - Speaker 1 Sure. So when something breaks down, a piece of plastic, it breaks down from the elements, whether that's sun, yes, so that goes. You throw that away, say. It gets slipped from the landfill to the beach or the ocean. By the way, a lot of ocean trash and a lot of cities comes from the. On the side of the. I'm like losing the word on the side of the road when the water goes in the.

0:29:22 - Speaker 2 The swarm drain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:29:24 - Speaker 1 Those lead directly to water sources.

0:29:26 - Speaker 2 Oh yeah, absolutely. For those of you not watching the video, I'm holding up a plastic water bottle.

0:29:29 - Speaker 1 Yes, yes. So this plastic water bottle in the elements sun, wind, water, rain will break down. Plastic never breaks down fully.

0:29:40 - Speaker 2 They say it's 500 years, it never completely just goes away.

0:29:42 - Speaker 1 No, and a lot of that is because the naturally occurring microorganisms in soil that break down materials will not ingest plastic.

0:29:50 - Speaker 2 They won't get it Well, so that's part of it. So instead there is a bunch of species that will. Actually, I've heard yeah, yeah, yes, yeah.

0:29:57 - Speaker 1 They're incorporating that right now right, Scientist yeah.

0:29:59 - Speaker 2 Yeah so cool.

0:30:01 - Speaker 1 So it breaks down into these tiny, tiny pieces of plastic. Some are like this big, some are almost invisible to the eye. So then, these microplastics are everywhere. They're carried in our wind, like on the most remote of islands in the world. There have been microplastics now from transporting the wind, the rain, it transports because they're very light, so they transport everywhere. Wow. They're in our oceans, they're in our soil. So, whether we are eating fish that have ingested microplastics in the ocean, we're then ingesting microplastics.

0:30:34 - Speaker 2 I hear it's huge in seafood. Yes, absolutely. That's where we're getting a lot of majority of these microplastics.

0:30:40 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and in our water. So I have a filter by Lifestraw. It's a glass water pitcher and it filters microplastics. Interesting, yeah, so I highly recommend everyone to get that, to purchase that. So microplastics we ingest a plate full of microplastics each year.

0:30:58 - Speaker 2 Wow, wow, isn't that wild. That can't be good, that can't be good. No, wow.

0:31:04 - Speaker 1 And for fertility and baby health and I mean it's everything. So and even you have to think about like BPA is, like this plastic water bottle was probably not colds on the truck, the transport truck, so it's warmed.

0:31:18 - Speaker 2 Yeah.

0:31:18 - Speaker 1 When plastic is warm, that's not BPA free. Those BPAs leach into your water. Now, you're sorry, we're drinking the water, it's okay. That's one time I do see it says non BPA.

0:31:28 - Speaker 2 Okay, we're good, okay, but yeah, and that's, you know, not to jump ahead, you know and kind of where I want to go later. But yeah, it sometimes can feel very overwhelming and almost to the point, like you said earlier, just freeze, we want to do something, we want to make our life better, we want to make our world and the world better, but when you really kind of look at the micro and the macro, it's like holy hell, what is this really going to do? What is this really going to do? There's no question there, but it's just, you know, a mutually relatable frustration point. I think totally even someone like yourself, who this is your livelihood, this is your, you know what you're championing Do you ever still kind of get bogged down on the weeds of that?

0:32:11 - Speaker 1 I get bogged down when I see like animal cruelty kills me.

0:32:18 - Speaker 2 I don't think you need to be fighting for sustainability to agree that cruelty is never, never a warm fuzzy.

0:32:25 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and now the algorithm on Instagram. It's like all I get. I'm like come on so.

0:32:31 - Speaker 2 Sarah McLaughlin's having a few a day with your SPCA song.

0:32:37 - Speaker 1 So the the, the neutrality here is that with alchemy I try to presence everything and ground everything, and so I know that for all of the terrible things that are happening in the world, there's really amazing things happening too, like, for instance, this past year. They they pass in the states federal laws of a lot of really cool bills that I voted on.

0:33:04 - Speaker 2 Really yeah, wow, amazing yes.

0:33:06 - Speaker 1 And so it's really cool to see. So one of the one of the things that's so rewarding. It's so rewarding.

0:33:11 - Speaker 2 Absolutely.

0:33:11 - Speaker 1 You're just like holy shit, the words you know, like it's happening. It's so exciting and I was able to vote on them because when I see them, just like on Instagram or I'll find out through a friend or I have a community called Earthco that we talk a lot about bills in and it's an online conscious community will vote on certain bills. So when you vote, that means voting with your, with your signature, your voice your dollars.

Yes, yes. So when you call in to your, your state's congressional members, a bill has to pass through the Senate and the House of Representatives in order to be then put on the president's desk for final approval. So there's so many bills that are stuck.

0:33:55 - Speaker 2 Yeah, so many bills.

0:33:56 - Speaker 1 Yeah, or they've passed through the Senate and they still need to go through the House. They don't have enough co sponsors to push it through. So when you call your state's representatives, they actually take tallies of what's happening outside congressional doors. Really. So yeah, when you sign a petition, when you call them, when you email them, when you leave in the voicemail, they take that seriously and they're they like tally what's going on and then they will then push according to your voice Things that are really important to society.

0:34:26 - Speaker 2 In your opinion right now? Maybe it's one that you voted on, or maybe one that you see up and coming or needs to be up and coming. What is the most important bill, the most important thing at the government level that we need to be making noise about?

0:34:40 - Speaker 1 Plastic.

0:34:41 - Speaker 2 Okay.

0:34:42 - Speaker 1 Plastic. There's one in New York City called Skip the Stuff that would prohibit all restaurants to use to go plastic, which is huge in New York because we're very big to go disposable society.

0:34:52 - Speaker 2 I haven't seen a single plastic bag here in the city since.

0:34:54 - Speaker 1 I haven't here no.

0:34:56 - Speaker 2 I think they're not anywhere Now. The grocery store, not a Target, not anywhere.

0:35:00 - Speaker 1 They're at restaurants.

0:35:00 - Speaker 2 That's why I see everyone walking around with a canvas tote bag. I know it's so great yeah they're in a lot of restaurants. Okay.

0:35:05 - Speaker 1 Oh, unfortunately Styrofoam has has been.

0:35:10 - Speaker 2 I've known about that one for years.

0:35:11 - Speaker 1 Absolutely yeah that's a great one. And then federally, the 30 30 just passed. Did you know that one?

0:35:17 - Speaker 2 No.

0:35:17 - Speaker 1 Okay, so the 30 30. Almost every country in the world has signed the 30 30 agreement, which protects 30% of oceans by 2030. Wow which is huge. A lot of our oceans are very unprotected right now.

0:35:31 - Speaker 2 Oh yeah.

0:35:32 - Speaker 1 So that's a huge one that we just got passed. Gosh. I'm trying to think of another. Of course, I would just say plastics. There's one, there's a huge. There's another plastic bill I'm trying to think of. I'll get back to you, I can't think of a name, but I would just say plastic.

0:35:46 - Speaker 2 Okay, yeah, kind of second question to that. Maybe it's plastics again, but maybe the listener right now wants to do something in their local community, local government level. What would make the most sense? What would it maybe be the strongest lead domino at the community government level to kind of get behind and to support?

0:36:06 - Speaker 1 for sustainability, for sustainability, oh my gosh. I think that depends on your community. You can get behind plastic initiatives as well. A lot of places I mean even in the Midwest like they are still using plastic straws and styrofoam.

0:36:22 - Speaker 2 So it's really plastics a lot I'm hearing yeah plastics.

0:36:25 - Speaker 1 Yeah, plastics are like a forever material that really don't go away and that's totally affecting soil health, human health, environmental health all together. So I would just say plastics, well, okay.

0:36:39 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and a great resource for everybody, where I kind of learned most about microplastics and fertility and even touched on soil because it is. It's not just this plastic cup, it is the earth, the air, the water and then ultimately, ingestion countdown by Dr Seanis Juan. This book all about fertility and just why we're not as fertile by an alarming rate even than just the next or the generation before us. I'll link that down the show notes for everybody, kind of getting through talking about a couple more questions, I think that when people think, sustainability at least come top of mind for me. You hit on it earlier. But but skincare, how sustainable really is the skincare industry and what should we be looking for when we're putting onto our skins in terms of sustainability?

0:37:25 - Speaker 1 It is not very sustainable at all, still to this day.

0:37:28 - Speaker 2 All right damn.

0:37:29 - Speaker 1 Get talking about this all day. Okay, so there's two things that you need to look at in skincare ingredients and packaging Packaging wise. 100 billion pieces of packaging enter landfills every single year.

0:37:40 - Speaker 2 Billion of the B billion with the B.

0:37:42 - Speaker 1 Wow, yes, so we're running out of landfall space. 80% of our textiles, even, are shipped overseas because we don't have the space for all of us waste. So the thing that you can do that is the most impactful is refillable. There's a great company here in New York called hear me raw for skincare masks that are all refillable. There's beauty counter coda Lee, jane, eridol they all have refillable options now and that just means that you keep the packaging and you re, you refill what's inside and it'll come in the form of like a little pod and that pod is made of recyclable plastic and like a foil. That's also recyclable, but it saves all of that exterior packaging Amazing, yeah. And then also the packaging around the actual container should be paper not plastic.

0:38:34 - Speaker 2 Okay, so I'm hearing. As much as possible, can we renew this? Is it a renewable, not renewable resource? But how many times can we renew using this? Is it, not just a one and done it's. Can I keep using it, keep refilling it? And I think that's a through line we can take into anything. Anything Cleaning products, travel products, really anything that, if we can get rid of one and done and turn it into just refill, reuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, that's the goal, right.

0:39:03 - Speaker 1 Yes well, those have expanded now.

0:39:05 - Speaker 2 Oh, interesting.

0:39:06 - Speaker 1 Oh my gosh. We're like reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, rot. I'm missing one, there's six, but rot means compost.

0:39:13 - Speaker 2 Compost okay.

0:39:14 - Speaker 1 Yeah, the other thing, getting back to skincare, is that, with ingredients because you've been asking about that there's a dirty dozen list of the ingredients that you should avoid. There's 12 ingredients and we can link it. Ooh, we can link it for your community if you'd like to have to work.

0:39:30 - Speaker 2 Please, please, yeah, yeah.

0:39:32 - Speaker 1 And so just keep this list on hand while you're shopping for your cosmetics hair care, skin care but one of the biggest ones that we should really look out for, especially in the States, is fragrance. Is it fragrance or fragrance? I always say that word wrong.

0:39:45 - Speaker 2 I say fragrance.

0:39:46 - Speaker 1 I don't know if I'm from the Midwest.

0:39:47 - Speaker 2 I couldn't get away saying fragrance.

0:39:49 - Speaker 1 Fragrance. Okay, so it's fragrance. So in the States, fragrance is an umbrella term. Manufacturers can put anything in a fragrance they want without listing it on the label.

0:40:00 - Speaker 2 Really.

0:40:00 - Speaker 1 Yes, wow, it could be tar for all we know, oh my. God, so fragrance. So if anything, go for unscented. Don't buy anything that has fragrance in it or if it's listed like a naturally, well I guess it's not natural. I'm like correcting myself now. Maybe like essential oil fragrance could do that, but I always unscented everything I've always been a big believer of that.

0:40:26 - Speaker 2 Years ago, somehow, some way, it got ingrained in me that clean doesn't have a smell and I think that is one of the biggest falsehoods when it comes to especially the quote. Natural cleaning world is oh, it's lemon scented, lavender scented, all natural fragrances. When you think about it, if something's clean and pristine, it doesn't smell like lemon, it doesn't smell. We've gotten so ingrained and greenwashed, like you were saying earlier, to think that if something is clean, if something is natural, if something is whatever, then it has to smell or look like this and it's natural state. It should just be.

Yes, there is no fragrance 100%. So I hate scented laundry detergents and cleaning products. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so overwhelming Talk about another endocrine disruptor.

0:41:12 - Speaker 1 Totally, yeah, oh, I love that you know these. Yeah, and speaking of endocrine disruptors, you absorb 60% of what you put onto your skin. Within 30 seconds it goes directly into your bloodstream. So that is why it's very important to go out with unscented. Ban the toxic 12 from your ingredients list. The EU has banned 1600 chemicals from their cosmetics industry.

0:41:36 - Speaker 2 God bless Europe. I know, I know In so many ways the measurements they're taking to just really protect people. I mean just and it makes the most sense.

0:41:44 - Speaker 1 Makes the most sense. And here we have nine, the end nine. So speaking of self-advocacy. This is why it's so important to advocate for yourself, and just check the ingredients labels. Yeah, it's why I'm-.

0:41:56 - Speaker 2 Speaking of what we're putting onto our skin. One other area I definitely want to cover before we kind of get towards the end is this term fast fashion, clothing products and, honestly, a lot of the stuff that I've even found myself like that's in my wardrobe. I'm like damn, really, come on, you know even things like lemon and a lot of other, especially at leisure brands. This fast fashion term, can you define it for us and, in terms of sustainability, what's going on there?

0:42:23 - Speaker 1 Fast fashion literally means disposable. In my opinion, it's this, especially in America. We're a bread to consume. We are. We're a bread to buy into a trend and then pitch it, toss it away, right. So that's where fast fashion is. So right now we waste. I might have to look up the stat.

0:42:44 - Speaker 2 We can fact check it's fine, hold on, hold on. I have it right here. I'm sure it's alarming.

0:42:49 - Speaker 1 I have so many stats in my head that I have trouble.

0:42:50 - Speaker 2 Do you have shortcuts on your phone? I'm sure just like one. Two is fast fashion shortcut.

0:42:56 - Speaker 1 Yes, yes, Okay, so fast fashion. The fashion industry weighs 92 million tons of textiles each year.

0:43:02 - Speaker 2 Wow.

0:43:03 - Speaker 1 So 60% of those textiles go to landfill within 12 months of manufacture.

0:43:09 - Speaker 2 Jesus.

0:43:10 - Speaker 1 And that means that it's fast fashion. People are buying these trends and throwing them away.

0:43:15 - Speaker 2 It's also because a lot of this stuff is very affordable, right, we're able to get new clothes much more quickly discounted rates, and so here today, gone tomorrow. I want the next thing.

0:43:25 - Speaker 1 And what we are really trying to do within the sustainability industry is shift mindset to its quality over quantity. You save money in the long run anyways, and your clothes last a lot longer. You're able to repair them instead of throwing them away. Another thing you can look for certified B corporations.

0:43:44 - Speaker 2 I've heard of this. Yeah, what is that?

0:43:44 - Speaker 1 It's big in the fashion industry, big in the food industry. They are super strict with their standards for companies and companies have to purchase this certification, so it takes a lot on the manufacturer end to be certified. B so you know, when you see that, it's all good.

0:44:01 - Speaker 2 Certified B. Good to know. Certified B.

0:44:03 - Speaker 1 Another thing you can do when it comes to fashion is simply by natural. Your natural fibers are things that come from nature, like cotton.

0:44:13 - Speaker 2 Tar, yes, tar, I just lather yourself in that.

0:44:17 - Speaker 3 I just got the vision of home alone when he was like tarred with the feathers.

0:44:21 - Speaker 1 Yeah, the robber. So just by natural fabrics and big box stores have those too, like Walmart will sell 100% natural socks, underwear, all of that, t-shirts, yeah, and that's hemp, silk, wool, flax, all of those your synthetic fibers are made of plastic. So do you know this?

0:44:41 - Speaker 2 I'm familiar with it. Yeah, OK, OK.

0:44:43 - Speaker 1 So basically, the difference between a piece of plastic packaging and a piece of clothing that's synthetic, which is like your nylon spandex, any of those polyester.

0:44:54 - Speaker 2 Polyester yeah. Yeah, so the fibers I have a brother in the apparel industry, so he's still still there.

0:45:00 - Speaker 1 Oh, you do OK, perfect, yeah, so fact check me please. So the fibers for synthetic textiles are spun into long threads, basically, where with packaging, they're broken down into pellets, then melted and put in a mold for packaging. That's pretty much the only difference. So when we send our synthetic textile clothing to landfill, they also don't biodegrade. Because they're made of plastic, our skin can't breathe. If you ever wear leggings for too long and get a rash on your legs, that happens to me Because your skin can't breathe in the plastic textile.

0:45:33 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I do see a lot of cool companies. I think Patagonia was the first one years ago taking recycled plastic and turning it into this pseudo fleece kind of thing. Was that plastic fleece? Yep. I mean Patagonia is what they do for sustainability. It's incredible.

0:45:48 - Speaker 1 Incredible.

0:45:48 - Speaker 2 I mean literally just gave away. Yes, Billion dollar plus coming back to the earth is incredible.

0:45:53 - Speaker 1 So amazing yeah.

0:45:55 - Speaker 2 Well, before we get to my final question, I want to ask you I know we've talked about a lot. In my opinion, there have been a lot, but there have been a lot of very actionable steps thus far. When we're talking about our world, the world, what we're putting in our body, on our body, one thing right here, right now if nothing else, if you could pass to the listener I want to become more sustainable today. What can I do?

0:46:17 - Speaker 1 Sort a plan for your food scraps.

0:46:20 - Speaker 2 Composting. Is that what you're talking about? You don't even have to compost, no, ok. Ok, you can drop off your food scraps to farmers markets.

0:46:26 - Speaker 1 There's some great resources. They're global, called makesoilorg and share waste.

0:46:32 - Speaker 2 OK, I'll link that for everybody.

0:46:33 - Speaker 1 Yes, so these two websites will, depending on your zip code, it'll conjugate a list of places near you who are maybe farmers who are already composting, or they have chickens or pigs who would love your food scraps. It's just a great way to participate in their community. Yeah, there's also electric countertop options, like Mill is a new one. It's so cool.

0:46:51 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I was thinking there's. Yeah, you put it on. Yeah, it's incredible, I couldn't remember the brand, but yeah, you just it's on your counter. You scrape your food in. And then what a matter of like. So that's Lomi. Ok, excuse me, ok, ok, yes, yes.

0:47:03 - Speaker 1 So Lomi's a great. It's a little expensive, so there are more budget-friendly alternatives like Light and Mix makes one so exactly what you said you're putting your food scraps in all day long.

At night you turn it on and in the morning you are left with this amazing soil that you need for, like indoor plants, outdoor plants. Yeah, Mill is super cool. It's a membership of $33 a month and it looks like a garbage can and you're putting your food scraps in all day long. At night it automatically turns your food scraps into food grounds, they call it, and the food grounds you send back to Mill for free and that's converted into chicken feed. Wow.

Full circle, because then humans are ingesting the chicken eggs and the chickens themselves. So it's really cool All right, hold up.

0:47:42 - Speaker 2 I'm having a little inception moment. What if some of these scraps are chicken? What if it's like chicken scraps we put in there and the chickens eat the chickens, kind of. Is that cannibalism? Yeah, they do that, that's it.

0:47:52 - Speaker 1 Yeah, chickens growing up. Yeah, yeah, they do that.

0:47:55 - Speaker 2 All right, I don't want to go into that right of the head.

0:47:57 - Speaker 1 But when it comes to your food scraps and composting, though it really depends on what you are comfortable putting into your compost bin. Ok, OK Like if you're not a meat eater, you're not putting in meat.

0:48:06 - Speaker 2 If you have a worm bin worms don't like meat anyways. Interesting, yeah, ok.

0:48:10 - Speaker 1 So sort of plan for your food scraps Keep your food scraps in your refrigerator or your freezer while you're collecting them so it doesn't smell. There's no fruit flies I think that's what people get hung up on, so that doesn't happen when you have them in your fridge and then either drop them off or compost them.

0:48:25 - Speaker 2 For me, what I love most about our conversation today, if I had to think about just one practical, tactical thing, is the question do I need this? Do I need this In terms of sustainability? But I think that's a very powerful question when we're about to make a choice with anything.

0:48:41 - Speaker 1 Yes.

0:48:42 - Speaker 2 Sustainability, wellness, nutrition, our jobs, our relationship, our mental health. That's a really powerful question that I'm taking with me.

0:48:50 - Speaker 1 Even relationships right. Do I really need this.

0:48:52 - Speaker 2 Mm-hmm. Do I need to pick this fight? Yes, do I need to point out this. Do I need to blah, blah blah, yes, or the other way. Do I need to give a compliment right now? Do I need to be more mindful of the other person? Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.

0:49:04 - Speaker 1 The other thing that I wanted to point out quickly is that a new stat, and the only reason I use stats is because I think it resonates with people.

0:49:10 - Speaker 2 What's important so you can visualize. Absolutely, yeah.

0:49:13 - Speaker 1 So I'm not trying to overwhelm anybody.

0:49:15 - Speaker 2 Oh, I love fun facts too, ok yeah.

0:49:18 - Speaker 1 We'll try to see. We'll shift from stats to fun facts. So a new fun fact that has just hit the scene by a company called Drawdown Labs, and I'm so excited for this stat. I've been waiting for this fun fact for years.

0:49:31 - Speaker 2 OK.

0:49:32 - Speaker 1 Because I've never really been able to put a number on what I do. So they just researched and did everything. So the fun fact is that when it comes to making an impact on climate, 70% of the impact is on businesses, governments and agencies. The rest of the 30% can be impacted by us and our individual actions.

0:49:55 - Speaker 2 So basically, through all the things we've been discussing today, we can make up a fair percentage of global climate change.

0:50:02 - Speaker 1 Collectively, we have an opportunity to impact positively by 30%. Isn't that amazing?

0:50:10 - Speaker 2 On a global scale. That's fantastic. Absolutely yes, yeah.

0:50:13 - Speaker 1 Thank you. So we really do have such an opportunity to make a huge difference.

0:50:18 - Speaker 2 Making a difference is absolutely a part of what I mean when I say living a life ever forward, and this has been such a unique and fresh perspective of that. So thank you again.

0:50:28 - Speaker 1 Thank you.

0:50:29 - Speaker 2 But I always ask my guests when you hear those two words, how would you interpret that? Even if I were to ask you how do you live a life ever forward? How would you define that?

0:50:40 - Speaker 1 Ever forward to me means refine but don't define. So as we're moving ever forward in our lives, whether that's in business and relationship and environmentalism, we're constantly refining, and that's the beauty of life. We're refining what's a no, what's a yes? And, by the way, a no is a yes for something else. So we're refining. At the same time, don't define. You don't want to be defined and labeled and put in a box. Then we're stuck. So ever forward to me is a process of refining yet not defining.

0:51:19 - Speaker 2 Just kind of mulling that over. I really like it. I get so many great unique perspectives when I ask that question. That's really powerful. Thank you so much.

0:51:27 - Speaker 1 Thank you for having me my pleasure, well working everybody.

0:51:29 - Speaker 2 Go to connect with you more. Learn about what you got going on in the world, sustainability, maybe even to get on board with something.

0:51:36 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I actually just launched a series called the Eco Babe 101 series. It's on my Instagram at the eco babe, and this is your key to sustainable living. We have so many questions about sustainable living, whether that's like what can I recycle? How do I recycle? What can I? Where exactly how do I stay? All of these questions are answered in my eco babe 101 series, so that's on my Instagram, and then I also have a website at ecobabe.co

0:52:02 - Speaker 2 Too easy. Okay again, that'll be linked for everybody down the show notes.

0:52:06 - Speaker 1 Oh, this was great, Thank you so much, thank you, thank you, thank you I learned so much today.

0:52:09 - Speaker 2 Also also another part I love about doing this show is a lot of times things are reminders of just like core concepts to make my life, to make my world and the world better, that I need to go back to. It's good to go back to basic sometimes.

0:52:25 - Speaker 1 Yes, yeah, yeah, and that's essentially sustainability. Back to basic. All right, there we go. I'm on it, I'm on it, you're already doing it.