I Don't Know About That - Recycling

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

Our expert Stefanie Valentic (@steftalkstrash) gives the IDKAT a couple of mind-blown moments about recycling. Watch Stef's YouTube show "Stef Talks Trash" on the WasteExpo channel  @wasteexpo1212  or go to www.waste360.com. Jim's new special "High & Dry" is now available on Netflix! Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/IDKAT for ad free episodes, bonus episodes, and more exclusive perks! Tiers start at just $2!

Hey everybody, oh I gotta do me words Alright, it's podcast time Sit back, pour yourself a bubble bath Light some candles It's time for I Don't Know About That With Jim Jefferies New intro Yeah, I just feel like being earnest That's how I listen to my podcasts New intro Yeah

I just feel like being earnest That's how I listen to my podcasts I get in the bath In the bath, yeah Put on some Enya Enya And just watch my You listen to music while you listen to podcasts?

Yeah Background music I've got One's on the phone And one's on the stereo Okay And then I let all my problems melt away Oh, that's good in the suds

yeah do you uh know any anya songs sail away sail away sail away any other ones um i get knocked down but i get up again i feel like she did all the songs on lord of the Rings that were like You never see Enya just like, you never see TMZ like, we just got Enya. We just got Enya. I have no idea what she looks like. No one knows where Enya is, what she does. I think she's British is she maybe?

That was not what I was expecting. She's dead. No. Yeah, I'm kidding. Yeah, that's Enya. I had no idea what she looked like. You know where she's from? I thought she was like a forest. Enya looks like a primary school teacher. You know what country she's from?

I thought she was British. Ireland, yeah. Yeah, okay, so she's Irish. Come on out to the gigs. Yeah, hey, speaking of, I'm in Britain right now. I'm in the UK. Enya's coming. You're in Glasgow today.

We're in Glasgow. Hello to all my Glaswegian fans that have come. That show's already sold out, so don't get tickets now. If you've just woken up in the morning, you think, oh, I'll get there. No, no, good. But there's plenty of other gigs in the European tour. I'm out with the fantastic Glenn Wool and Andrew Maxwell opening up for me, so I'd better bring me a game.

Those two boys have just come off doing they're ready to go anyway so two comics that I started out with and I'm looking forward to doing the tour with them and then you know we've got Europe, Europe isn't completely sold out so come along if you're coming, Lisbon, Lisbon there's still tickets in Lisbon, Milan still got tickets

they're doing well though, they're all doing great there's some that are sold out and some that aren't. But that's a while away. They'll probably sell out by then. And how's everyone going? Forrest, how are you? Great. You all good? Yeah, you know, I'm still alive.

Kelly, you had a funny story when we were coming in. What was that? I did? No, you didn't. I was like, I already forgot. I just need you to contribute slightly more so i'm just gonna put you on the spot jack what's happening with your love life oh that's probably still in the dumps wait i thought you were getting all the dms yeah wow more of this on the patreon yeah how's the dms going they're they're over they're over what did you do i'm probably just a boring conversationalist.

I was terrible. I was terrible when I was doing like app dating. And I only app dated for about six, seven months or something. And before I met my wife, who I met on an app. And I, yeah, I lose women very quickly. I don't translate. As I've always said, you read my comedy. It doesn't come off very good.

It's all in the delivery. And I scared some off real quick. I thought I was just being friendly. What about poems? You thought about sending a poem, Jack? Oh, I could try a poem. Poems are dumb. Okay.

No, you can still do it, though. I got in trouble. You just finished saying that you were bad on the text. Oh, yeah. You didn't try poems, did you? No, it's because I sent trouble. You just finished saying that you were bad on the text. Oh, yeah. You didn't try poems, did you? No, it's because I sent poems. This is how I've come to the realization. I thought they were good.

You sent poems? Oh, yeah. One that you wrote? No, no. Old Australian Bushman ones. There was movement at the station for the word had got around. From the cult from old regret had gone away. He was something, something, something.

He was worth a million pounds. That's the man from Snowy River. That's Australia's biggest poem, and I sent it to them, and they still didn't fucking appreciate it. That's just rude. Yeah, you'd think they'd be able to get into that. Women. That's written by Australia's greatest poet.

Want to know what his name is? Slim Dusty. Banjo Patterson. Pretty close. No way. Banjo Patterson. Come onjo paterson is isn't that come on no greatest poet he's australia's number one poet from back in the day and he did stuff about droving sheep and all that did he play the banjo no his name was banjo pat i'm just wondering if

it was a missed opportunity if he doesn't assume it's a nicknameann. Schumann's a nickname. His name was Gavin Banjo-Patterson. Yeah, he was a big harmonica guy. You're going based on quantity, not quality. Name me another Australian poet. Australia has had only one poet laureate. It was not Banjo-Patterson. Yeah, but Banjo- Did you Google Banjo-Patterson? That was a former convict, Michael Massey Robinson.

He was appointed governor by Lachlan Macquarie in the early 19th century for his way he would write odes for royal birthdays. Yeah, we don't want to listen to that guy. What's more Australian, a poet named Banjo or a poet who's a former convict? You don't know that Banjo wasn't. That's a good point. Banjo might be a double bunger.

Banjo got away with it. I tell you, there was a teacher. Mr. Kennedy was my English teacher at St. Ives High, and we were at school, and they brought down this actor who used to be like an old theatre-lovey type of actor from Australian TV, and he was really into Banjo-Patterson. He was coming to read us with his old man Charlton Heston voice. He was going to read us Banjo-Patterson poems,

and he stands up in front of the kids and he goes okay kids who here thinks i don't like poetry poetry's boring i'm not and he was about to do that well i'm here to prove you wrong right he goes he goes show your hands show your hands if you think poetry's boring and then like me and about five other people went oh well he's asking you know what i mean he wants us to show hands he goes he goes and then like me and about five other people went oh well he's asking you know what i mean he wants us to show hands he goes he goes and then he said well i'm gonna prove you wrong and look me in the eye you know that stuff we thought all right fine and he was very good this guy was very good but then afterwards mr kennedy uh when the man left he went okay everyone a round

of applause and he left the room and then the mood just changed like this he goes the five boys who put up their hand meet me in my office and i'm like fuck i'm not allowed to answer you don't like poetry that's i've always been put on poetry because of that fucking experience that's that's traumatic i had a moment where i enjoyed it but then that teacher mr kennedy you fucked me over mr Mr. Kennedy. He was actually a pretty nice guy. I once saw him drunk on a... You know when you're out of school and you just see a teacher and they're drunk? And you're like, even though you're an adult now, you're like, what the fuck's going on? Yeah.

You're not allowed to have a light. This guy was drunk and leery with his mates. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that seems about right. One of my first... I know what I'm getting you yeah that seems about right one of my first I know what I'm getting you for your birthday next year write a book of Banjo Patterson poems

just poems I only want Banjo Patterson Shel Silverstein I don't know poems you know who Shel Silverstein is no he was like

I don't know about that he was like the guy that you got into as a kid didn't he do the giving tree yeah the giving he wrote books too but he wrote like poems yeah I don't want to call him

like a children's poem everybody's sitting at home saying, get to the topic. Yeah, good point. Well, the topic is poetry. But first, some ads. Please welcome our guest, Stephanie Valentich. Thank you for being on the show, Stephanie.

But now it's time to play... Yes, though. Yes, though. Yes, though. Yes, though. Judging a book by its cover. All right, good Yes, though Yes, though Judging a book by its cover G'day, Stephanie. I normally try to pick what people are into by their room,

but the back of you is all blurry and you're in focus. All I can see is a pole or a crack in a doorway. So I'm going to say that she's got living in a house money. Living in a house money. She's got that pay the rent money. So is your topic being homeless? No. Yeah, see, I picked it.

I picked it. Not homeless. No, but I would say that keep homelessness. There's something that happens sometimes. They probably do this more than other people, to be fair. And then it was a topic we did on the Jim Jefferies show sometime. A topic we did on the Jim Jefferies show. And I don't have the facts,

but I would say that people that are homeless, I've seen them doing this before. Shitting in the street. I was driving i was driving with my wife and we were on highland and and uh and hollywood which is the busiest intersection in all of la and there was a guy just shitting and my wife the vegan she was uh she was like oh that's disgusting i can't believe he's just doing it in the street blah blah blah and then she comment on how good his consistency was and she was like he must he must have a fairly good diet she got right into it she mentioned that story to me as well

yeah yeah he's not he wasn't constipated this was i to be clarified i there was a center that i was at i was i was doing this as well at a center and i saw people that rehab no and i saw this activity happening and it's a we did a segment on it on the Jim Jeffery Show. You were at a center for you. A blank center. Medical center? A blank center where I was at performing a task. Shopping center.

Where I was performing a task and also there was people that I believe were homeless performing the same task. Oh, it's these bloody flash dancers. What are you talking about? You think I flash danced? Yeah, it's these bloody flash dancers. What are you talking about? You think I flash dance? Yeah. I'm not with you 24 hours a day.

I don't know what you get up to. I think you have a good idea. I'm not in a flash mob. You're always walking around like, oh, me joints hurt. It might be for all your dancing. You're still 40 and 4 is a part of a flash dance. He's a flash mob.

No, no, no. You can... You talk about your generation improving. You did a bit in this. In your special. In your special. In the recent one? Recent one.

It was a big chunk in there. Oh, bins. Yeah. Recycling. That's it. Recycling. Recycling. I know everything about recycling.

Recycling center. I know. I know everything you need to know about recycling. Okay. We'll see. You put the different things in the different bin, and then you forget about it. Okay. Well, Stephanie Valentich is the editorial director of Waste360

and host of the YouTube series, Steph Talks Trash. In her current role as lead editor, she is tasked with being a content expert about topics such as technology advancement and recycling, plastics, food waste, composting, PFAS, and landfill operations valentic graduated from ew scripps school of journalism at ohio university and completed the kiplinger program in public affairs for journalism you can find stephanie on social media on instagram and twitter at steph talks trash or at www.steph stephanievalentic.com sorry and it's s-t-e-f yeah my first job in the world was recycling um stephanie can you tell us a little bit more about like your your background and how you uh

ended up knowing about this well i've always been a you know a trade journalist throughout my career and i've worked in many different industries from you know pesticide manufacturing to agriculture uh occupational uh workplace uh safety and health so naturally you know my next stop on the road about three or four years ago was uh waste and recycling and companies you know i you've heard about esg goals before um and that's really becoming a hot topic right now and that kind of centers around all the industries that I've been kind of part of for my last 15 years of my career. Do you know about ESG goals? No.

Okay. We should have asked that as a question. We can. Yeah. I don't know about them either, to be fair. Oh, you said it. Well, Stephanie can explain it. Yep.

There we go. All right, Stephanie, I'm going to ask Jim some questions about recycling. He's going to answer them. And you're going to grade his answers 0 through 10, 10 being the best. Kelly's going to grade them on confidence. I'm going to grade them on et cetera. We'll put them all together, and if you score 0 through 10, you're a litter bug, 11 through 20, stomach bug, 21 through 30, jitter bug.

That's a pretty good one. The phone or the dance. Yeah. Okay. What is recycling? Recycling is when you get a previous bit of material and you use it again. I don't know of an easy way to say it,

but it's the three arrows pointing around. It goes around and around and around. We'll get to this, yeah. So it's using what we would consider waste to become purposeful again. So you're reusing it? Yeah, you're reusing something. Yeah, reusing, recycling, yeah.

Okay. How long have people been recycling? In a meaningful way or just like, because when I was a kid, we were recycling cans and all that sort of stuff. You get one cent for a can. And then I think now it's like five cents a can or something like that.

It's gone up. Not all states. There's only bottle laws in the comments. and then I think now it's like five cents a can or something like that. It's gone up. Not all states. There's only bottle laws in the comments. They used to go and they'd weigh them and then they'd throw them in. But we weren't doing the different bins when I was a kid. So what year do you think? I think we've been doing recycling since the late 70s,

but I think in a meaningful way, we haven't really been doing recycling until about 1990 what is the slogan uh wash rinse repeat okay what is the most important thing to recycle what material plastic plastic plastic's your number one you got to recycle because plastic just uh it never degrades and it just it it stays in our world forever. So plastic bottles and things like that is your number one. What percentage of the country participates in recycling? Oh, I think 95% of us in some way participate in recycling. I hear the statistics are very bad on what actually gets through,

and if you put the wrong thing in the wrong thing, then it all comes contaminated. But I think just people doing the different colored bins i think i think it'd be 95 of us when did the curbside collection start in america or in australia we'll do america okay well stephanie might have stat we'll see what she has that because i feel like it was a little bit more it was definitely australia was definitely recycling more than when i moved to england in 2000 and then they didn't seem to recycle as much and they do now but at that stage they weren't recycling as much as australia was but i'm going to say curbside pickup for recycling 1997 is participation is participation increasing or decreasing um It may have reached its summit, and it might be on the decrease.

I'm going to say decreasing ever so slightly because everyone was more into it. But I feel like now with the world being as divided as it is and people arguing that climate change isn't a thing and all that type of stuff, there'd be a few pricks that wouldn't be doing anything. Just throw shit away. Yeah, yeah. What is a resin identification code? That would be the number on the side of a bottle so it would know what type of plastic it is that has to be recycled and with what.

You've seen this number? I believe I've seen something similar to that, yeah. And the chasing arrows, you mentioned that. The chasing arrows, I call it symbol, was created by who? The chasing arrows, was it a famous artist, was created by who? The chasing arrows. Was it a famous artist? I have no clue.

Or a politician? I don't know the answer to everything. Okay, so I'll go. It wasn't anyone famous. It wasn't anyone famous? Then I don't know. Okay, poor egg. Name five things that cannot be recycled.

Five things that cannot be recycled. The human heart. Damn. True. Love. Once that's over, it's over. You can't recycle that. And the actual heart. I don't think that's supposed to be recycled the human heart damn true yeah you can't wait love once once that's over it's over you can't recycle that and the actual heart i don't think i'm supposed to recycle no you can know that you can move that onto other bodies transplant the heart physically can be recycled emotionally that's being reused i think but yeah uh wouldn't you call organ donation recycling i

don't know we'll see that's really funny. So human heart can't be recycled. Anything else? No, no, no. Okay. So lead. Lead. Lead wouldn't be able to. I don't believe that, you know, steel. Oh, steel. That can be melted down again and then something like.

So I'm going to say steel can be. Steel. I'm going to say lead. I'm going to say condoms. Never heard of anyone recycling them or giving it a go. Yep. And they're made out of plastics. Okay.

So I'm going to say condoms. All sex toys, I'm putting in that. Sex toys slash condoms. I've never seen a recycling bin for paper cans dildos. Never seen it. I've never seen it. Okay. So lead, condos. Never seen it. I've never seen it. Okay, so lead condom sex toys. Lead condom sex toys.

There's a big one you're missing. I mean, there's many. They're missing some, but I mean, there's one that you'd see. There's a big one. There's one you'd see a lot that I think you can't. Wood. Wood, okay. Can food be recycled?

Can food or can food? Can. Is it possible for food to be recycled? I don't believe perishables can be recycled, no. What is the most recycled waste? Like, which is the most recycled? Paper. Paper?

Yeah. How does recycling save energy? Well, we don't have to produce and use the chemicals and produce the plastics and that type of stuff. We just sort of turn it around and make it into emulsion. So I believe that the manufacturing from recycling is less energy than the manufacturing from an original item. Okay, so here's a fill in this.

Recycling aluminum uses only blank percent of the energy of the virgin production. What? You lost me to aluminum. If you recycle... It's pronounced aluminium. If you recycle that dumb word, aluminium, if you recycle aluminum or aluminum,

you're only using a percentage of energy versus the original product. 10%. 10% versus 100. Okay. What can be infinitely recycled? Infinitely, I believe, plastics. There's certain plastics that can make on you know it can make it into another bottle make it into another bottle make it into another bottle make it into another

bottle got it how much of our trash is recyclable and how much do we recycle i believe 60 of our trash is recyclable and i believe we only probably do five percent of that okay the first aluminium or aluminum recycling factory reopened in Chicago in what year? 1972. What is e-waste? E-waste is energy waste, like the stuff that we put in barrels from plutonium. Okay.

What role did recycling play in WWII, World War II, or the Great Depression? Oh, okay. So that means we've had recycling for a bit longer than I thought. Okay. Well, what would have it done in WWII? We would have used recycling to build tanks and aircrafts and stuff like that, anything that involved metal.

Okay. And the Great Depression as well. And also they probably even recycled bullet shells and stuff like that. In the Great Depression, I've i've never understood the great one day if we do one of the great depression i just like all right everyone settle down just get a menial drive uber you're fine drive and do a bit of postmates work stop bitching and moaning and lining up all day in suits and a hat for some soup okay Okay, a couple more questions. How many plastic bottles are thrown away in the United States each hour?

Thrown away. We've got 330 million people live in America. I believe that we all probably throw a plastic bottle a day. I would say each hour, we're throwing away 2 million plastic bottles an hour. What is the Mobro 4000? The best cigarette you'll ever smoke.

The smoothest tasting, longest lasting, healthiest. Healthy. To fix those chest problems. The Mobro 2000. So you have no idea what it is. What challenges does the push for recycling face? Arseholes. It face? Arseholes. It's always arseholes.

Arseholes are going to get in the way and go, we don't need this, we don't do that. I think, what push does it face? Apathy. Apathy. Yeah. That's a good one. All right, Stephanie.

Zero through ten, ten being the best. How did Jim do in his knowledge of recycling? I don't know. I'm going to have to give him a three. All right. I'm excited about that. All right, three. Confidence, Kelly?

Right when we started, he said he knows everything there is to know about recycling. I do the bins. But then he said wash, rinse, repeat as the slogan, so I'm going to give him a four. A seven. All right. I'm not going to make you a litter bug. I've never seen you litter.

I'm not a litter bug. I know, so I'm going to give you 10 so your stomach works. I always put things in the trash. Or your car. I'll tell you who. Your car is. Jim is very good. Nothing goes out of your car.

It stays in your car. Yeah, yeah, I don't throw it out. Jim always has a nice car filled with trash. I'll tell you who's a good environmentalist. Gary. My dad's a belter. Yeah, yeah. Oh, he loves to recycle.

He doesn't throw things away. He reuses things. He's got a big wheelie bin that he leaves with the lid open for rainfall to go in there, and he's put a tap at the bottom and that's where he waters his plants that's smart that's very advanced all right let's get into these questions what is recycling uh jim says when you use a previous bit of material and you use it again reusing waste how do you do oh is that that's me, right? Yeah. So recycling is actually the process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise be thrown away as trash and turning them into a new material or a new product. That's according to the EPA. they take it, whatever they do, whether it's cardboard or plastic,

but they melt it down or regenerate, right? And so, yeah, okay. How long have people been recycling? Jim says since the late 70s, but in a meaningful way in the 90s. So people have actually been recycling. It's been traced back to 9th century Japan where they recycled paper. Really? Yeah, but that's just reused and painted. Oh, it's actually up and i guess everybody yes yeah yeah because well let's here's the slogan so let's get

to the slogan what is the slogan is it wash rinse or repeat this will help jim i think so the slogan is reuse recycle and uh. Reduce, reuse, and recycle. You ever heard that one? Yes. I just follow the arrows, man. Keep it going around. Circle of life. But I think that is part of the arrows, right? Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Yeah, it just keeps going around. So you've got to reduce first, then reuse, which is what you were saying at the beginning, I think, and then recycle. I move from regular Coca-Cola to Mexican Coke because of the glass bottles. I don't know what more I can do. Okay. And then what is the most important thing to recycle?

Jim says plastic because it never degrades, stays in our world forever. Actually, aluminum, according to the National Recycling Coalition, is the most important material to recycle. Why is that? I actually, I know that was the answer, but I shouldn't research that one. It might be because of scarcity or something, you know? Yeah, but with cans.

I have this because it's better than having a plastic bottle because it's easy to recycle. No, but it's okay. It's important to recycle it because I think it's harder to find more aluminum than it is plastic like you can make plastic we don't okay how much do you get a can these days i'm trying to find well again i think it's in california i think it's 10 cents that's a lot yes but uh bottle deposit laws are actually state to state there is no national deposit law in the united states we had we had a lady that cleaned my house and she used to go through the bins to get all the

cans out yeah and just and like i always felt so bad about the whole thing so now i have to leave all the cans up on my counter yeah because i don't want to go through the bins but she doesn't believe me they're all there yeah yeah she collects all the cans up and still looks at the bin i reckon there might be another one well you know that you're paying the deposit when you buy this, right? I already paid the 10 cents. Yeah, so the states that have the bottle laws, you're paying, right, Stephanie? You pay when you buy it, and you're just getting the money back. That's the idea, right?

Correct. Yeah. That's a lot of money, 10 cents. That's why they do it, so that they're making you pay it so that they're opening your site. It's not a lot of money, but it's a lot of money, 10 cents. That's why they do it, so that they're making you pay it. It's not a lot of money, but it's a lot of money for what it is. And if you're not going to do it, somebody else is, whether it's your cleaning lady or, like I said, there was a recycling center.

I throw these in the recycling. I just don't get the cash. Right. Where I used to live in Atwater Village, there was a recycling center right down the street, the Glendo, and I've never been there. Yeah, and I would just go there with my truck and unload cardboard boxes and whatever, and they pay you money for it.

Cardboard, they'll pay you money. They'll pay you money for any sort of recycling thing. They'll pay you money for it. So there'll be people there with their cars filled with stuff. Cardboard, plastic. And we're paying the city to take it from us? Well, they make money.

Shit. Yeah, they pay you like. So it's important to recycle aluminum because of all the energy that's saved against virgin production. Aluminum. Aluminium. I could live here my whole life.

I'll never say aluminum. You just said it. Yeah, but not with. I don't think I've ever heard. You say aluminum. Aluminium. But there's not an extra I. I don't even know what the first letter is, Kelly.

You add an extra like E in there. Aluminum. Aluminum. And then you say aluminum. There's no I after the N. I don't care. Aluminum. You're the only ones who say aluminum.

Everyone else says aluminum. Because we can read. I don't know if everyone else says it. What percentage of the country participates in recycling? Jim says 95% in some way. Is this correct? Actually, in the United States, the national recycling rate has been in the low 30s for the past couple decades. What the fuck is going on?

Because I'm made to recycle at my house. They give me the different colored bins. Not that I'm made to, but why wouldn't I? The bins are already there. Is this because councils so is 70 of the country still just using the one bin to throw their shit in um it's really it depends you know locally regionally and even statewide what each uh what each count you know what each you know from a residential standpoint what people are able to

collect at the bin um and what is actually recycled so everybody you know a real disconnect between the education that's needed the materials that we're able to recycle and the infrastructure that's able to support it so i feel like okay i don't want to is it a lost cause then because i i that that that uh stat just flawed well any percentage is good yeah but doesn't it feel like We're pushing a boulder up a hill No but you shouldn't stop doing it I'm going to still do it but I'm very disappointed

In this number This 30% I thought it was way I thought this was a universal thing that everyone Sort of did now we all sort of went This is what life is now we throw the different things In the different bins and we hope for the best Yeah well Have you been to the Grove in Los Angeles This is what life is now. We throw the different things in the different bins and we hope for the best. Yeah. Well, that's- Have you been to the Grove in Los Angeles?

I'm saying Los Angeles for the viewers, but they have the trash cans there and they have a hole on one side that says trash, a hole on one side that says recycling, but it just goes into the same bag. The whole thing's just a lie. So, I think that's like all over the city and everywhere. Into the right ladder of the Grove. Grove conspiracy. Yeah. I'm not going to go down the Grove. But if the right conspiracy I'm looking at it but if I next time I'm at the grave I'll check I won't I won't make a trip but if I'm there take a peek and so it does something get recycled more than something

else like plastic cardboard aluminium well the plastic recycling rate is five percent versus you know an aluminum recycling rate is at 65 percent um so it really varies from material to material what what product are we not that can be recycled we're not even really giving a go to oh that's a good one um honestly i, I think batteries are something that we can definitely recycle more. There definitely needs to be more of an infrastructure around battery recycling, especially with phones, tablets, any type of technology that we're increasingly using. Well, no one knows how to get rid of them. That's the whole thing with batteries.

But even alkaline batteries that you put in toys and stuff. You can't put them in the recycling bin. They say you're meant to take them down to a no one knows where to do it i just chuck them out yes i would recycle them if it would even give me uh fucking four days a year yeah where we're gonna get the batteries i'll keep a cardboard box full of batteries yeah yeah i think that's part the, that's what you're saying too, Stephanie, right? The infrastructure that's not really there for that. I'll tell you a bit of bullshit. Absolutely. Environmentalism that I,

like I know maybe for the rest of the world doesn't work, but I've never enjoyed the, they've taken the shopping bags away from us. And I'll tell you why. Because every single shopping bag I ever had, I reused. Yeah. I reused as a little trash liner. Well, you have cats.

It's good for cleaning litter boxes. There's never been one of those that I've just thrown in the bin. Never. I've always reused them. And now I don't have any more of them. But that's you again. You're doing something right. I think they got rid of them because they were just everywhere.

They'd be in trees and rivers. Oh, yeah. You used to see them everywhere. But I miss them. Okay. You'd pick up dog shit. You've got to care to the lowest common denominator. Just like you say about drugs, we've got to deal with the people who are ruining it.

Yeah, but I remember my parents, they used to have a thing in the cupboard, which was like a big sock, and you put the plastic bags in the top of it. Yeah, that's what I have, a whole cabinet full of them. Yeah, and then you'd pull one out and then you'd use it again. You'd line your bin or you'd clean it. That's why I haven't cleaned my car. I haven't got a little plastic bag. I'll bring you some next week.

Good excuse. When did the curbside collection start? Was it 1997? No, actually, curbside collection started in... i have this actually i wrote this all down curbside collection actually started in the 1960s really and like was that like a once a month thing or was it all the time because that feels like they didn't really they only had black and white tellies and they were recycling i didn't think it was an issue well i mean you know now you know we're seeing it started off slowly with curbside and it still you know varies um as i mentioned before municipality to municipality city to city

uh state to state you know if there is even curbside collection i mean there's still some rural areas in the united states that don't have that hey interesting do you have to rinse everything out when you're recycling yeah i don't do that if they don't if it doesn't get rinsed out does it get recycled do you have to take the caps off all the bottles the newspaper was terrible yeah okay yeah so um yeah so rinsing is actually the best way to make sure that all the recyclables are clean and in the bin um It's actually the best way to make sure that all the recyclables are clean and in the bin. But there's things like pizza boxes, which people say can't be recycled, which if there is not that much grease on them, if they are pretty clean, they still can be recycled. Oh, I'm always just throwing them in the recycling bin. I thought they were.

I throw them in with the crusts. Is that bad? You've got to get the crusts out of there. Yeah, definitely don't put the crusts in there. I thought the crusts are perishable. I thought that would go back into the earth. Well, I asked, can food be recycled? You said no.

Huh? I asked, can food be recycled? And you said no. Yeah, but that would just, it wouldn't even be recycled. It would just be part of it. It would just be at the bottom. The crust would be mixed into the new artwork. It's just a little snack for the recycling plant.

At the recycling plant, they're not opening up the pizza boxes to look for crusts i think they are going i think in all your paper you have a little bit of crust all right you heard it here first folks uh are they going through the pizza boxes at the recycling plant stephanie um actually you know when when you put your garbage into a bit into the recycling bin it goes to the truck and then it goes to a transfer station and eventually it turns into it goes to a materials recycling uh and murph which is materials recovery facility and it goes through uh something called a sorter which sorts all those materials that you all those recyclables that you put into that one bin and it sorts them into separate and so they can each be parsed out and sent

to different suppliers. So they get rid of the crust? Yeah, they get rid of the pizza crust. That's a de-crustification process. And the small tub of ranch. Or the butter sauce from Papa John's. So is participation increasing or decreasing instead of 30 percent table in the middle of the picture yeah that gets in there as well is participation increasing or decreasing jim says decreasing ever so slightly it's reached the summit i don't think so now no um the epa recently just came out with the national recycling strategy um that's the environmental protection Agency of the United States. And they are saying that they're setting a certain draft, a certain set of goals to actually bring the recycling rate up to 50% right now.

So while it's not decreasing, they are working on the infrastructure. They are working on different issues to be able to support a supply chain to move these materials around and increase our recycling rates what groups aren't recycling is it the elderly is it the young is it uh the the people of arizona who who's not recycling who who can we blame um i think um you know as i keep mentioning here um it really depends on you know what cities are doing um and where different states are in their legislation um with what's going on with recycling and who is and who isn't recycling and then even down to the garbage company that picks up your garbage what are they doing to educate customers um you customers throughout their pickup routes to put the right materials into the recycling bin? Yeah, probably any of the cities who make it easy to recycle are going to see the higher rates, but people aren't going to go out of their way to do something.

Jack, tell me what percentage of Australians recycle. I reckon we're going to beat America on this one. Do you know that, Stephanie? I don't know that off the top of my head okay do you know if other countries recycle better than us or are we the worst or are we no i would say that germany has the uh germany has the highest recycling rate in the world so yeah well they're making up yeah the germans have always been doing this show well we recycle yeah all right germany it says in financial year 2019 the recycling rate of plastics across australia was around 11.5 percent um but that's jack to look this up no that's the that's the amount of plastics that we recycle but

what proportion of the people recycle let's see how many australians recycle properly oh 78 percent of australians describe themselves as good or very good recyclers while 76 she said situation we are a country of braggers i recycle fucking so good you've never seen recycling until you've seen me recycle one of the follow-up you've said that before the follow-up correct questions is do we actually recycle in australia so i don't know about 78 percent um what is a resin identification code jim said the number on the side of the bottle so know what type of plastic it is i think you got this right. Yes, that is actually correct. One point. And so the numbers, how are we supposed to know what numbers, why are the numbers there?

Are we supposed to know what those mean? Or what do they mean? So the numbers one through seven designate the kind of type of plastic that that specific bottle or container is made out of. that that specific bottle or container is made out of. And so it is, you know, our, you know, our job as, you know, if we have curbside recycling in, you know, in our, in our neighborhood or in our city, it should be our job to know what these numbers are and what they correspond

to. So that for instance, number seven is a catch-all for all other plastics that aren't in those first six categories. So that would mean that, you know, this number seven catch-all, these are plastics that essentially can't be recycled. While numbers one and two can be recycled. And those are the plastic bottles, laundry detergent containers. And then numbers four and five, we have plastic yogurt tubs, things like that, that are more common that can be recycled. So we should know as consumers what these numbers do mean. Okay.

But I don't think I've been rinsing out my yogurt containers. I've got to do that. Of course, we're in this situation because of you. In fact, Forrest has been adding cum to this No I'm not doing that That's you and Jack Not at all

When the laughter stops That's the name of Forrest's biography What did you want me to say there What would you have said I would have gone yep See how much better that is we all would have laughed at that yeah okay try it again i haven't been rinsing out my yogurt containers uh that's because you've been adding cum to them yep that's actually really funny if you say it quickly like

with no yeah it's good good stuff you're reusing it yeah there you go even better did he have to reuse it 15 times that's why they're not picking up the bins yeah reduce the reduce is the next one remember reuse the chasing arrow symbol is created by who do we don't know gary anderson wait wasn't that the guy that made the far side cartoon no it's gary lawson okay and was gary anderson important for any other thing or did he just say how about arrows clocking out i actually didn't do my background work on gary so i put this in here i don't i don't know he didn't say he didn't sell i know he based it on mc asher um okay one of his

works i put it in here because there it was a design competition he was like a student and it was a design competition and he won and like how cool would that be to be like either in high school or college to design something that is now a universal symbol yeah my my design didn't get through just a picture of forrest coming in a yoga tub and underneath he's reusing it be like for us you're such a good drawer too i've never seen that one yeah yeah well no it didn't win the competition i know but you figured you just sent it i don't live Be like for us. You're such a good drawer, too. I'd love to see that. I've never seen that one. Yeah, yeah. I can remember showing it to me. No, it didn't win the competition.

I know, but you figured you'd just send it to me. I don't live in the past. I live right here, right now. Okay. In the All Things Comedy studio. Okay. Good plug, Jack. Name five things that cannot be recycled.

Jim said the human heart, lead, condoms, all sex toys, wood. Pretty great on any of those. Wood can be recycled and even in the chipboard not not back to its real recycle though okay so wood can condoms cannot yep boom shakalaka uh lead lead can be recycled um if lead batteries can't be recycled there's just uh not a good infrastructure for that setup yeah and then sex toys can't be recycled, there's just not a good infrastructure for that setup. And then sex toys, can they be recycled? Yeah. Probably not based on the type of plastic and a lot of other factors that go into it.

I've never seen a little stamp on it with the arrows. Yeah, never had a stamp with the arrows. Number seven. Yeah. This one was made from kids' toys. Yeah. yeah this one was made from kids toys yeah um yeah i recycled when my mom passed away she had all these um uh x-rays like i mean so many that she can't like a stack this thick and i took them to a place that you could recycle x-rays that they take the silver out oh all the silver and so it is actually they gave me like i don't know 40 bucks or something. It was a lot of x-rays.

It was so far to find the place. Anyways, fun fact. Can food be recycled? Oh, are there any things that, what else can't be recycled? Just so people know. What are some other common things? Stickers, receipts. Receipts?

Oh, CVS is coming up then. Oh, jeez. Why can't receipts? Because if newspaper can, you think receipts could? It's a different type. Usually they're lined with plastic, some receipt papers. That's good. The IRS want you to keep them.

You can't go, I recycled that one. No, you didn't. And also, if you think about cannabis waste, the vape pens usually cannot be recycled and the little cartridges because of the oils in them. That's good. I've never used one of them. Oh, and the cups, the coffee cups, the K-cups, they call them for...

Oh, yeah. Those things are really bad. Keurig cups. Oh, they're no good. That's what I've read. Oh, my wife loves those. And my what I've read. Oh, my wife loves those. And my wife loves the environment. Oh, yeah.

And I love having something over my wife. Those are bad, right? The K-cups, aren't those? I read something that those are. Yes, K-cups cannot be recycled, but there are biodegradable K-cups that are coming out. Yeah. I remember when the shopping bags,

they had these ones that would break up, you know, like the bag would decompose and it would just go like, and my father kept a regular shopping bag in the backyard with a brick on top of it. And it took about three months for it to dispose. But I remember I'd walk out of the backyard all the time and there'd be bricks with plastic bags under it. It's like's lost his mind um yeah the k cups were but i think you can get like the kind where you just put the coffee in it's not convenient at all and then

you stick it in there no what about the they're the keurig my wife uses the the nestle one though i think they're all nespresso nespresso i think they have the filters are really built in so that's why you can't recycle them or something yeah i don't know yeah because they're they were they were aren't they making like plastics out of corn starch isn't that how it the ones that biodegrade that's what i remember reading there was like a bottle that made out of something that'll biodegrade or something i don't know do more of that yeah they're actually making a lot of uh plant-based and uh different types of bioplastics that are biodegradable um the issue with that is that some of them you know a lot of

things that we're seeing now that are coming out that are by that say they're biodegradable don't necessarily mean they're going to break down in say three months it's still going to take years to break down um and bioplastics it's new area that is being researched too so um what are the long-term effects and the chemicals that are used to actually create these products so there are a lot of questions left you know what i reckon you can't recycle is the is when pills come in the push out you know the bubble wrap tablets blister packs blister packs of. That's what they're called? Blister packs? I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, because they've got the foil underneath and they've got the plastic on top and they've also got like a paper element sometimes. Look, I've always been a big fan of Imodium and they don't pay me to say this, but the product works. But fuck me if Imodium's the hardest thing to get out.

And it's always an emergency. And the tablet's really small, and you just shit yourself, and you get a knife, and you try to poke it, you cut your finger. You lose the pill. I take so much Imodium, I want their equivalent of a Pez dispenser. There's a question. Pez dispensers, how are they going in the recycling world? I don't think those can be recycled, actually.

Those are just cheap plastic, so they probably can't be recycled. That's why they're collectible. Oh, styrofoam. Can styrofoam be recycled? I always get confused on that one. No, no, styrofoam cannot be recycled. But does it go away, or is it with us forever, styrofoam? I don't think that goes away.

Yeah, styrofoam, it know, it's one of those things that's going to take, you know, hundreds and thousands of years to break down. It's not, you know, it's grouped in, you know, same with plastics. They're things that just don't break down in the environment. They're man-made chemicals. Okay, so these things are all thrown into big holes, right?

What do we call it? Landfills, right? They're big thrown into landfills. I vote we put all the styrofoam in the same landfill, just a styrofoam-only landfill, and then kids can jump in it. Yeah. That's a good one. You double up.

That's recycling. Styrofoam pit. That's recycling. Reusing. That's reusing. That's reusing. Doing good, yeah. That's a form of recycling.

Reusing is before recycling. It's a better form of it, yeah. So how close are we to getting a big styrofoam pit off the ground? Actually, there's... Well, that's a good question. It wasn't meant to be. How far are we from getting a

styrofoam pit off the ground? I don't think that's going to happen. There are specialized landfills for certain materials, but I don't know if there's just a space for that so i think the best thing is to go back to that slogan we're talking about the reduce reuse and recycle and think of ways that we can reduce um our reliance on packaging and products that are not recyclable you know what's a good biodegradable option is pasta straws. Have you guys tried those? Nope.

So, like, obviously they're trying to cut down on plastic straws. Paper straws are crap. Paper straws don't work. There are now pasta straws, which is a long noodle, and they don't get soggy. They don't taste like anything. They're brilliant. The best straw that's ever been brought out at McDonald's

were those red and yellow straws. Those are plastic, though. I know, but fuck the turtles, man. That is a banging straw. It's the perfect width to really pull something up. You don't get chunks at the bottom of it like those big bulba ones that are showing off. We're trying to do better here, Jim.

Yeah. Yeah, but you've got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. Bring back McDonald's straws, number one. But they still have them. Yeah, straws, number one. Doesn't... But they still have them. Yeah. They didn't go anywhere.

Don't let them go anywhere. Okay. I don't use straws. I drink from the lip. Yeah. I don't use straws because my wife has steel straws, but watching her clean them is one of the most painful things I've ever seen. She's got like a little chimney sweep brush.

A pipe cleaner? Yeah, that's why I don't like the metal ones. I'll say you just... The metal ones as well, I like to bite on my straw a little bit, you know, chew on the end of it. If I get food stuck in my teeth, yeah, fold them and use them as a toothpick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah? You know. Bring them back. They're here. Yeah, don't let them go anywhere. Okay. Styrofoam they should just get rid of.

I don't think we need styrofoam for anything. So all the styrofoam Big Mac boxes that I ate in the 80s, because it came in the... Because in America... Okay, so in America, your Big Mac comes in a cardboard box, right? It used to come in styrofoam. When I was younger, they used to have all styrofoam. Did you have the bit in the middle where it had the collar around it?

What? The collar? Okay, so there was like... When I was working at McDonald's, like in like 1990, they got rid of the styrofoam boxes because of the cfcs and the ozone layer and all that type of stuff right here and then the next one they didn't go straight to the cardboard box you i used to have to my first job at mcdonald's was making collars for big macs and so i had a hoop that went around like that that you locked in a cardboard hoop and then you'd build the big mac in like that so it wouldn't

lose its integrity and so then and then you wrapped it in the paper like that was yeah i don't remember that but would you get the collar when you got the burger when you got the burger you unwrapped it and you lift it up you didn't eat through the collagen so there's still packaging now it was all cardboard but you lift up the thing like that the burger was sitting perfectly and he kept all the lettuce and stuff inside yeah i'd argue that's a better way i remember they had a mcdeal tea did you guys have that i've seen the advert for that where you had stuff on the other side and you flipped it on such a waste of packaging it was a giant piece of styrofoam like this big it had for one side the cold and one hot and then another piece of styrofoam on top it's hugely i'll tell you the only time that styrofoam is banging except for

when it's like packaging packaging coffee people like it for coffee because it doesn't burn but i like it in a soda when you go to Chick-fil-A. They're still rocking it because it stays colder. No, it's paper now. No! Chick-fil-A is paper, yeah. When did that happen? I don't know.

It was the other day. Paper. Well, we don't need styrofoam. Anyway, that's a good thing. Can food be recycled, Stephanie? Yes, food can actually be recycled stephanie yes food can actually be recycled i recently found a uh study from researchers in japan who developed a method of breaking down food and turning it into concrete replacements so they can build houses in um in in third world countries uh where famine or famine

and food insecurity is normal i'd make so so many jokes. I'd be like, this house is garbage. That's your pizza crust house now. You can do it. Well, my wife wears shoes that are made out of pineapple leather. It doesn't feel like... Yeah, she has Nike shoes because she's vegan. She doesn't wear the leather. She either wears vinyl or she wears this pineapple leather.

It has pineapple on the tongue, like a little logo of pineapple. But Nike pineapple leather shoes. And it doesn't tear? No, the tongue like a little logo of pineapple but nike pineapple leather shoes and it doesn't tear no it feels like a hemp it feels like the husk of a pineapple that's been i don't know it doesn't smell or anything it doesn't taste like pineapple i'm tell you that for nothing you've licked it no okay but pineapple leather but then so if you're not going to recycle food what composting have you ever composted jim oh yeah i'm big composter i haven't recently but i have in the past i used to compost in mount olympus did you yeah it was one of me things you had a compost i did down the side of the house down the left side down the left hand side of the house i used to have to turn it and you turned it

and turned it yeah turned it turned it used it mulch in the yard yeah that's good yeah oh yeah big recycler i'm big into these things for us okay you can you can hang out with me and i tell you what when i leave this planet it won't be any worse off for me being here okay uh what is the most recycled waste is it paper steel steel is actually the most recycled um An estimated 40% of all steel production is based on recycled scrap. So they just melt it back down and make some more? I don't know how they do it. Movie stars making statues in their garages.

What? Look at Archie. I don't know. You're making steel statues. You think that's where all the recycling goes? I think it's some of it. Movie stars making statues? I think so. Okay. You haven't's where all the recycling goes? I think it's some of it. The movie starts making statues? I think so.

Okay. You haven't heard about this? No. It's huge. Am I missing something? Oh, yeah. TMZ is covering it. My gut in this camera, this is a terrible angle today.

That's a terrible angle always, this camera. I stopped looking at it. It looks like my legs are out that way. They're going downwards, believe me. How does recycling save energy? How does recycling save energy? How does it save energy? Recycling saves energy because we are not mining and using virgin materials. So recycling is actually using the materials that were already dug out of the ground

and have already gone through these processes. So the new process and using materials that we already have is using less energy. And virgin materials are things like a diary that says, I'm going to wait for the right guy. I thought you were going to make a Jack joke. Jack's not a virgin. He's not a virgin. I know, but you still make the jokes.

I've never thought. He's never been a virgin in the time I've known him. That's true. Well, the first five minutes he wasn't. Oh, my God. Wow. Let's call HR. Call it up right now.

Recycling uses. HR's Tommy Caprio. Recycling aluminum or aluminum uses only 10% of the energy of virgin production, Jim says. Is that correct? Or is it more? It's actually, I believe it's five percent um you're saving nine you have a 95 energy saving by recycling aluminum versus actually using virgin materials where does aluminum come from in the ground i assume but it was what's it what's it based off it's just

aluminum it's an element in the periodic table yeah you didn't know that they got to jazz up that periodic table it's too confusing to look at and it feels like it's just for nerds. It's set up a certain exact way for... You didn't know? It's set up that exact... Make it like a treasure map where it goes from each one to each one. Make it fun. No, but like on the right...

Like I can color it in a napkin. Like on the right column, all of them that are lined up are the noble gases. It is in order. For the proton count. Whatever. Yeah, protons, electrons. I'm with you, Jim. Make it interactive.

Make it fun. Make a periodic table escape room. Yeah, make it like that. Or make it like hopscotch, where you can have a bit of a game. And you're like, my sister said that aluminium is copper. Dime it like that, right? That's fun stuff. Why am I the only person

who comes up with brilliant ideas in this world? What can be infinitely recycled? Brilliant question. What can be infinitely recycled? Is it plastics? Aluminum and glass can be infinitely recycled. Okay, so we should just be using

aluminium and glass is what I'm getting from this podcast. Right. That's what we should be concentrating on and recycling it. Yeah, I like aluminum and I like glass. Now we know a little bit more about you. These are things that I use daily. Yeah, okay. How much of our trash is recyclable?

You said aluminum and you didn't even notice no i let you do it i know you never if i can go come in a yogurt cup how much of our trash is recyclable is it 60 and then how much do we recycle jim says five percent because he learned some other stuff so actually um So actually, 75% to 80% of our trash that goes into our landfills is actually recyclable. And as I mentioned before, our national recycling rate right now is in the low 30%. So there's a big discrepancy there. Are the scientists optimistic that we're going to pick up the pace? I think there's a lot of moves that are going on with our governments,

legislation-wise, and funding to support infrastructures to improve our supply chains for recycling. Now, is there an argument that like it's always like why should we bother because maybe i i'm just throwing this out there like let's say india doesn't recycle at all i i maybe they do maybe they're the best recyclers going but like how do we motivate the world to do this not just america that's a very good question um actually you know there are a lot of countries that you know are furloughed along they just don't have the infrastructure and support to be able

to recycle right now um so as much as we can ask people to recycle it really is up to them and whether they have the access to recycle yeah but we suck at it so we don't need to worry about other countries we're not the worst i i don't know if we're the worst or not but we're bad and we're we're jack who's the worst recyclers but we are we we have we have infrastructure we have we're a very developed country we should have our recycling rate very high look i moved over here to help your stats so we don't need to worry about other countries now we need to do it the first aluminum recycling factory opened in Chicago in what year? Was it 1972?

1904. What? That's lies. 1904. They didn't give a fuck. The life expectancy was 40. No, they're trying. It saves money.

That's why they're trying to do it. All right. I believe you. What is e-waste? Is it energy waste? The stuff we put in barrels from plutonium jim said e-waste is electronic waste that's our tablets cell phones computers anything that is electronic that's hard to recycle i've taken that i've taken like electronic stuff to recycling plants like we don't take any of that so then you're just like what am i supposed to do with this you feel like if you're throwing that into the dump that's

bad but where are all the video players man we all had one are they in landfill somewhere in the ocean i don't know like all like video cassettes would they yeah are they recyclable e-waste but i don't know because i had loads of those cds can you recycle a cd i don't know. Because I had loads of those. CDs. Can you recycle a CD? I don't know. Can you recycle a CD? No, I don't think CDs are recyclable. Mini disc. You're talking about the VCR tapes. Floppy disc. Yeah, floppy discs. Floppy discs?

Floppy discs? I don't know. No, they can't. There's no way they can. No. This whole room's filled with e-waste. We might as well just leave it here when the Armageddon happens because eventually it will fill up with more e-waste. E-waste is bad. Yeah, man. I have the five worst countries for recycling.

Okay, give them to us, Jack. Number one is Chile. The Chileans have always been cunts when it came to recycling. They've never been good. Less than 1% of their total usage is actually being recycled. Sadly, a huge 99% ends up in landfill. So angry at them. Who's next?

Turkey. Yeah, to the Turks. 1% as well. Well, they just had a big earthquake. Let them rest. Well, there's more landfill bits. I take that back. It's terrible.

They had a terrible time over there. That was bad. Mexico. Mexicans are good at it. Just 5% of their plastic is actually being recycled. But my cleaner picks up the... Okay. She's not in Mexico.

Yeah, true that. She's actually Colombian. Oh, Jesus Christ. Okay. This next one's a shock. Greece. Greece. It's not a shock if you go there.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you've been to Greece, for one of the oldest civilizations in the world it's still not finished how much white paint does that place go through please buy tickets i don't know i had a good time in greece you're coming back yeah but we're athens but we're gonna me and forest when we're in greece and forest doesn't know this is a little special treat oh yeah we're gonna go to a resort we have three days off afterwards we're gonna go down to like tenerife or something like that we're gonna sit on the beach resort we have three days off afterwards we're going to go down to like Tenerife or something like that we're going to sit on the beach, me and you

what about Amos? no, he's not coming he's going to stay at Athens I know Amos, he'll want to be sipping a little coffee like that with a packet of cigarettes that he never smokes he takes a picture yeah, yeah, yeah okay, sorry Amos

we'll let you know how it goes we'll tell you how we went that's fun, that'll be exciting what role did recycling play in World War II or the Great Depression? okay sorry it was we'll let you know again we'll tell you that's fun that'd be exciting um what role did recycling play in world war ii or the great depression jim said to build tanks aircrafts anything involving metal bullet shells um yeah so recycling was actually a necessity in world war ii and the great depression because um you know the luxuries that we have right now we're able to just go to the store and just pick up you know toothpaste toothbrush luxuries that we have right now, we're able to just go to the store and just pick up, you know, toothpaste, toothbrushes, anything that we can and not even think twice about being able to find those things that we need once we get to the store.

Back then, you know, people had to save their pencils. They had to save their soap. They had to save every little last scrap that they have and use it for something else when they could and also um there were there were great there were national campaigns to actually collect uh things like paper that were used for explosives there's an argument with the old folks that because because so so my generation moving forward um had like the younger people like jack and i said stuff we're we're probably more savvy with the recycling than the generation before me right that was reducing going on and reusing this is the thing is yeah we're the generation that just throws shit out all the

time yeah we buy like let's say you buy i don't know like the computers right we get another one but like like my parents had a radio and that was the radio my entire life. Yeah. Right? That big-ass radio. It never went anywhere. And you said your parents, you said they used to bring the pots to the... That was a thing in Sydney.

So, my mother, when she used to get Chinese food in, this would be the 1950s and 60s in Australia, they had no takeaway dishes, and you'd bring your pots in and go, I'll have some sweet and sour chicken. And then they'd dump it in the pot. You put your lid on it and off you went. Can you imagine trying to do that? Now people would lose their minds. People would be beating each other up with pots.

Well, craftsmanship was so much better back then too. It feels like everything we have now is designed to break down. Well, it's so that we buy another thing. We buy another thing. So that must be a real problem as well, is the throwaway society. Dollar stores. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it could be that. Yeah, back in the day, there were one-cent stores with the economy. But that was like a dollar. Yeah. I've always thought that was weird. My mother would be like, you go, oh, a packet of biscuits used to cost three cents.

What if I wanted to buy like one gummy bear out of a little thing like that was that 0.7 of a or something like that how did that work if i bought an individual biscuit what happened then biscuits i mean cookies but that was the packaging was less so you'd have to buy in bulk so it was just less yeah but it can wax paper be uh recycled because i feel like there was a lot of wax paper back in the day um let me look that one up i actually don't use that you mean like parchment paper yeah like bread still like warburton's bread in britain is still got wax paper around it and i just had wax paper from a sandwich place yeah we had jack had wax paper yeah it's right there you can't you can't actually recycle wax paper um the additives that are in the paper make it um unrecyclable so what happens if i've been throwing that out wax paper with my paper have i fucked up my whole

bin worth of paper or yes that can actually things like that can actually contaminate entire load of recycling oh geez i'm not a good recycler. That's why we're doing this. We're learning. The world's going to be at a worse place than I live. Yeah, so people need, that's the takeaway from here. You need to be more. Yes, we need the education on it.

How many plastic bottles are thrown away in the U.S. each hour? Jim said 2 million. Isn't that close? He was actually pretty close. It was 2.5 million each hour. Every hour we throw away 2.5 million plastic

bottles. Yeah, it's the water bottles that screw it. You've got to get rid of those. These cans. Cans or you get your own water bottle. Get your own water bottle. My wife won't let me drink out of plastic water bottles because she says it will kill me all the other chemicals i put in my fucking body so she only gets glass bottles

but i feel like an egyptian building a pyramid every time she comes back from whole foods i've got crates of glass bottles to drag into the house what if they just outlawed plastic bottles yeah why don't we do that let's's do that. Can you do that? And the country was trying to increase its plastic recycling rate and put a bunch of money into infrastructure. And then what happened was the system collapsed recently. So those little those plastic bags that you were talking about before, Jim, that you were saying that you can't find anymore. Well, they were just stockpiling these when people were turning them in for recycling and that plant caught on fire because there was no market there was no demand for this recycling material for these plastics um that they were just collecting i would have used them if i had if you get through my recycling we just have shit in all

like all those plastic bags filled with shit but i mean every drink in a gas station or a 7-eleven or something i don't know the taste of i don't drink soda out of plastic you could put it in aluminum or glass or paper yeah i can drink soda out of cans i can drink soda out of glass but i don't drink it they should outlaw plastic bottles but i don't know if that's it makes it cheap i don't know if they're but i heard like the laminated paper stuff like the box water is like worse for the environment because it okay it's only like one environmental plant aluminium and they also have a plastic lid the box one now the transport like if you're at like plastic bottles for like like you know when there's a disaster relief or

something like that i think that does hold up better so maybe i don't know what about like glasses like i'm looking at forest glasses right now they're made out of a plastic type of resiny type material what happens there where do i put them i'm sorry what kind oh the reading glasses he's talking about yeah glasses oh reading glass oh no those are those probably i mean they have um there are some local organizations um like lions clubs and things like that that have uh glass uh recycling for glasses but um i don't think they actually get broken down. I think most of them actually do end up in landfill. It's not single use either.

I've had these for years now, you know? So it's not as... As your vision gets worse and fashion changes. What is the Mobro 4000? Is it the best cigarette you'll ever smoke? No, actually, the Mobro 4000 is was a barge owned by the Mobro Marine Company. And in 1987, New York City was having this huge issue with where do we put all of our garbage? There's all these people that are coming in. It's getting condensed and there's trash everywhere.

We don't know where to take it. So they sent it out this barge um and sent it all the way to belize and when they got there they they said oh we're not going to take this trash we don't know where to you know put it at this point so it got sent back to yurt city and so the entire story was uh the entire story is about how this garbage barge um traveled you know all over the world and that what is the number? That garbage has traveled in most of our country. And I'm sure none of it fell to the

ocean on the way there and back. Not at all. I reckon we should designate one country that's not doing that great. The trash field? Yeah, that's the country. What country would you pick? It's New Zealand all day okay yeah so ugly there let's fill it in with that it's really nice very pretty very pretty um the uh tasmania i'll give you tasmania tasmania for trash yeah

tasmania very far to you know expensive look i'm from sydney the smell wouldn't reach us it would get up to melbourne no but i mean the trash coming from Landfill. It's funny that landfills is like, we're just like, yeah, you put it in the ground and then you seal it up. I love it when you drive past them in America and they've put like grass over the top of them. Yeah.

And you're like, what's all these little hills? They line up. And we golf on them. Yeah. Shoal Canyon. That's the landfill. It's a landfill, is it?

Yeah. And right next to it's a landfill. And supposedly when that's filled, they're going to make a bigger golf course. That's going to be a golf course too. Yeah, there you go. Reuse uh what challenges does the push recycling face jim says assholes and apathy it's a good slogan um those are actually two good ones um i would say uh in addition to apathy a lot of it is education um and like i said it varies from local state to federal about what can and can't be recycled

and locally what can be put in your bin I think infrastructure is a huge issue that is affecting recycling right now and putting that infrastructure in place to be able to support supply chains and moving these materials around and being able to support demand once it's generated um and you know funding um you know at some at some point china stopped uh collecting our our recyclables and said we're not going to do this anymore and the united states was in the position um you know what what are we going to do how are we going to create this equipment how are we going to you know purchase the company the waste management companies um said how are we going to you know buy purchase this equipment to

be able to support this recycling that we now need to do um So federal governments, state governments, local governments are actually struggling with creating the correct funding to be able to build this infrastructure. That was what we did on the show. It was China was stopped the recycling. And then I think it was like, I remember that. Yeah, you remember? You don't? I've said this before. I have nothing to do with the edit. I don't remember what went on. You said it out loud. It was a desk piece. Oh, it was a desk piece.

Yeah, and it was trying to find, and then it was harder to find the materials to make things and stuff like that. What state is the best recyclers? I don't know. Oh, that's a good question. Jack will find out. You know, the thing about it too is like-

I don't think it's going to be California because we're too densely populated. I think it's going to be somewhere like... Like a Colorado. Yeah, Colorado feels like it would be right up there. It seems like with all the energy saved.

Maine. Maine. Maine with all the lobster. What's the lobster after that? Because they biodegrade. Lobsters? You put the tails in the pizza box? You put them in there

and they go back to the earth. Yeah. Okay, you can make tiles out of them out of lobster tails yeah like hips the stuff the put in palm springs lobster tails lobster lobster tiles i just think with the money saved and pretty you know all the energy and money saved and stuff we could you just hire more people and then you just throw everything in one bin and they separate it out and that's that's how it works. Who else does the most? I want to see where California's ranked because I consider myself

to be a Californian. I don't even think California's on the list. Shut up, Jack. Okay. All right. Your fault. The whole big chunk

in California that's not like us. Yeah, California. Why are you looking at us? Recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle, recycle. That's the first time you've rapped on the show

This site says Connecticut's number one And California's number two Good for us Congratulations, you did it Alright, Stephanie This is the part of our show called Dinner Party Facts Me and Jack should never high five again That was so uncomfortable

I don't think we've ever done that It was the worst high five I've ever seen Come back to my house after the show and we'll practice. For hours. And then next time we come here, we'll high five like water. Next week we'll do a high five up here. And anyone who's watching this, don't make that into a gif. Don't do it.

Don't you make it into a gif. I didn't see it at all. It was bad. What happened? Well, Jack left his hand Solid or something I went up And then Jack put his hand up

And then I swung too much And then Jack You should sort of Meet at the middle I felt him pull back I don't know what happened It's still bad Yeah I don't like that

Please stop Practice But I'm using my left hand Give me the right one Yeah there you go There you go That's a good one The swing through

Weird Mean that bitches all right Stephanie this is a part of our show called Dinner Party Facts we ask our guests to give us some sort of obscure

interesting fact about the subject our listeners can use to impress people what do you got so let me bring it up here actually really quick so there uh we talked uh previously about things

that cannot be recycled um they're in an estimated 500 million um bowling balls sitting in landfills across the country oh wow 500 million bowling but. But you feel like they could just- Why would they ever need to be thrown away? Just keep using them. They feel like diamonds. I've always wondered why we need new diamonds because they're all around all the time. I think bowling balls get pits in them and stuff. Yeah, they get chunks.

Yeah, but you can fill them in. You can spackle. You know, like you think the way I bowl, I'm going to go, oh, the ball is no good. Only the professionals really care about that. You're not going to pickwick bowl being like, oh, this one's a chunk. Yeah, yeah. That's a strike to the bowling community. I wonder how many golf balls are in there.

I thought about that, too. Golf balls. Golf balls. But people will reuse golf balls a lot, too. But I've thought about all the golf balls ever made, how big would that one ball be? Earth. It's as big as Earth. Yeah, probably like that.

No, no, no. It would be as big as Cincinnati. The no it'd be big as cincinnati the city of cincinnati no the state magical country it's not what i meant when i said it but as soon as i said it i'm like oh god all right All right, bowlers. The mystical land. Cincinnatians. What is it, Genovia? Cincinnati. Yeah, Cincinnati.

It's where the Princess Diaries. Yeah, yeah. Okay, thank you, Stephanie, for being here. Again, you can find her YouTube series, Steph, S-T-E-F, Talks Trash. Check that out or find her on social media, Instagram and Twitter at stephtalkstrash or her website, stephanievalentic.com. Thank you for being here, Stephanie.

Thank you for being here, Stephanie. Hopefully some people will be educated at the end of this and recycle more. Recycle, everyone. You don't even just know that you should recycle more. Yeah, have a go. Have a go. Do it.

Hey, if you're ever at a party and someone comes up to you and goes, I went bowling the other day, not enough balls. Go, I don't know. I thought it was going to be Cincinnati. And walk away to Cincinnati. You know how to show.