Aryeh Alex - Creating Green Jobs from Food Scraps

[00:00:10] Adam: Hello. Welcome to another episode of Green Champions.

[00:00:13] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in another conversation with real people making real environmental change in the work that they do. I'm here with Adam, the social enterprise extraordinaire.

[00:00:21] Adam: And I'm so glad to be here alongside Dominique, the sustainability expert. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact of the job or community and did something about it.

[00:00:30] Dominique: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, this podcast is a platform for green champions to share their story and plant some new ideas.

[00:00:39] Adam: So whether you're turning in during a walk with your dog, taking a drive, or your name is Connor and you're listening along at home, today, Dominique and I are joined by Aryeh Alex, executive director of Keep Columbus Beautiful, which is an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, and he is the sustainability manager for the City of Columbus. 

[00:00:56] Adam: Last time we got to hear from Aryeh on his journey into sustainability, his love that he found for parks and how he started by volunteering, getting involved that way. And it grew into this really great story where we talked about how you have conversations with people from different backgrounds in the city to help them understand what small changes they can do that aren't gonna take away some of the essential things that they're doing in order to create change. 

[00:01:18] Adam: Today, I am very excited that we are going to dive into the city of Columbus's Climate Action Plan, and how we're making progress on the public side. So, Aryeh, welcome on the podcast.

[00:01:28] Aryeh: Thanks for having me back.

[00:01:29] Dominique: So excited to have you back. Can you give us an intro into kind of what your focus is within the Climate Action Plan and some of the things that you're really critical in moving progress along in?

[00:01:41] Aryeh: So the City of Columbus adopted a climate action plan that Mayor Ginther put in place. It sets the goal of carbon neutrality for the city by 2050 and has some intermittent goals at 2030 for us to hit. That's across multiple sectors. We look at the transportation sector, the energy sector, the water sector, and the waste sector. I primarily work in the waste sector. I like to tell people, I do lot of trash talk, which is wonderful because it's all, you know, I just can talk trash all day. 

[00:02:09] Aryeh: Our waste sector accounts for about 5% of our greenhouse gas emissions. So it's a very small amount of our greenhouse gas emissions, but it's one of the items that can be done and dealt with and reduced by human behavior change without having to spend a significant amount of resources to get people out of cars, to decarbonize our electrical grid, and to make things more efficient. Those things cost a lot of money. The waste side does not. And so it's really easy. I always call it the first step that we can kind of take as we are working to build out the long-term infrastructure and changes we need to make as a society to make us carbon neutral. And so I get the easy stuff while everyone's working on the really hard work on sustainability here.

[00:02:51] Dominique: I mean, some could say that is also the really hard work because it's low hanging fruit and it hasn't been accomplished yet. And there's something to be said for the fact that I think that like there's like a big chasm there between like knowing what we need to do and actually seeing it happen.

[00:03:05] Aryeh: Yeah. 

[00:03:05] Aryeh: We as human beings have been producing trash since we first evolved. Probably before we evolved. Whoever we evolved for, whatever we evolved from was also producing trash. We are not going to stop that, but we have really greatly increased the amount of waste that we generate as a society. I think part of that is the capitalistic society that we have and the amount of products and single use items and the development of plastic has kind of filtered through all levels of our society. But with that being said, we still have the ability to divert a lot of that material. And so we have a goal of a 95% reduction of organic material from our landfill, and 90% reduction of recyclable material. And with those two goals, we have the goal of creating a thousand circular economy jobs here in the city of Columbus, because when you reduce that waste and you actually divert it, it creates opportunities to create jobs, which we actually think is really important.

[00:04:04] Aryeh: And we can talk a lot about where that waste goes and do we compost and do we recycle? But what we really need to talk about is how do we reduce that amount of waste from the get go and how do we reuse that? And remember, it's always reduce, reuse, recycle. People always jump to recycle. People always jump to compost and that's great. We need that, but we actually need to reduce the amount of waste that we generate. Part of that is on us as individuals, but a large part of that is on the producers of that waste in the beginning. 

[00:04:35] Aryeh: And if you produce something as a company and that you know that it's going to end up in the landfill, and that's your plan, that's not gonna work. And I think we often see that. Yes, we can do a lot, especially if you have privilege and you have resources, you can make conscious decisions to say, I'm gonna buy the reusable thing, or the recyclable thing, or the compostable thing, and that's absolutely wonderful and you should do that. But a lot of people don't have that ability to make that decision. And then it's on the producer. They should really be responsible for having an end of life plan for everything. And I'm not just talking about chip bags, which are really hard to dispose of, you know, reuse. 

[00:05:13] Aryeh: But like, think about your couch or your mattress. Here in Columbus we have the Ohio State University and we have thousands of students that live off campus. And every year they leave because they're graduates and they're gonna go on and do something, and they have a really nasty mattress that ends up in the landfill. And we collect thousands upon thousands of mattresses, and they end up going to the landfill because there is no way for us to easily break that down and recycle it. We can put 'em in a box truck, we can ship 'em to a recycler in Kentucky. By the time we factor in the carbon footprint of transporting them down there and the cost of doing that, maybe it was easier and cheaper to put it in the landfill. And that's the system we live in now because there's no kind of end of life conversation around that product. Like what happens once someone makes and sells you that mattress?

[00:06:07] Adam: Wow. So, how do you even start those conversations or where do you start to affect change in the trash system?

[00:06:13] Aryeh: So the best way to affect change is to actually have conversations with people because there's a lot of stuff that we have that we throw away right now. I think it's 73% of the things that we throw away in Columbus can be reused or sent to another place.

[00:06:28] Dominique: That's for like the citizen level? 

[00:06:29] Aryeh: Citizen level. 73% of the stuff that we throw away can either be recycled, donated, reused, composted. And so it's educating people how to do that. Recycling is pretty easy here in Columbus. Every household gets a blue bin. If they don't have a blue bin, we'll give 'em a blue bin. We don't charge for that service. It's not an extra fee. You can put that blue bin out every week and you can put all your recyclables in there.

[00:06:54] Aryeh: Now it's telling people and teaching them what can go in that bin is really helpful. And we look at like glass and aluminum, they're infinitely recyclable. And cardboard, it can be recycled up to 12 times. And so that is something that is really great. Plastic? There are some plastics that can be recycled. There's a lot of plastics that we turn into something else that really just extends its life and at some point we will have to deal with that plastic pollution. And so I think there's a larger conversation to be had around plastics. I think there's a lot of science that's raising alarms about plastic and rightfully so.

[00:07:27] Aryeh: But there are a lot of materials that are cardboard, that are aluminum, that are glass that should not go to the landfill. And I think it's teaching people that a lot of people have a little box, a cardboard box that gets shipped to their house multiple times a day or multiple times a week from big box retailers or online shopping. And guess what? Those companies want to use post-consumer material in those boxes, and they want those boxes that they ship to you to be recycled. And so like, there is this culture, but it's making sure that you put that material in that right bin. 

[00:08:00] Aryeh: Then there's harder stuff like composting. You have to take an extra step here. Right now we have some food scrap drop off sites throughout the city that are free for residents, but you have to transport that material to those sites. Right now, we're working on expanding those, but if you are willing to take that extra step, that waste is no longer waste, but it becomes compost, which is a very nutrient dense fertilizer and additive that helps us grow more food here in Central Ohio.

[00:08:26] Dominique: And when thinking about our city growing, which about last time a little bit, I mean, being mindful of how we're using our land as a community. I think composting and like being mindful of the waste story with that in mind is huge.

[00:08:38] Aryeh: Yeah. Especially on the food side, we throw away a million pounds of food a day.

[00:08:43] Adam: A million pounds of food?

[00:08:45] Dominique: A day? 

[00:08:46] Aryeh: A day. That's just in Central Ohio. It's to million pounds. 

[00:08:49] Adam: Wait. There's like a million residents, so that's like one pound of food per person that lives in Columbus.

[00:08:54] Aryeh: Yeah. It's a lot of food. And here's the thing. I would say most of that food probably is still edible. Now we have individuals that have food insecurity. They do not have enough food. They are not getting enough food. Maybe they're missing a meal, maybe they're missing two meals, especially in the summer when kids aren't at schools and can't get their free reduced meals, they may be going hungry. 

[00:09:15] Aryeh: And at the same time, we are throwing away food. That does not add up. There is an organization, Food Rescue Columbus here. There are a lot of food rescue operations both here in Columbus and in cities all over this country that work to capture that food, whether you have an event where there might be a half a hotel pan of macaroni and cheese, or you're a restaurant and you have, you know, extra donuts or bagels that you haven't sold that day, and instead of throwing 'em away, they can be rescued. 

[00:09:44] Aryeh: And those organizations, like Food Rescue Columbus identifies those individuals that have that food and connect it with people that need that food. It's not like a food bank that is distributing large amounts of food to people. It is oftentimes hot meals or food that is ready to go, that needs to be picked up right then and be given to someone right there. Last year, Food Rescue Columbus rescued over a million pounds of food and fed it to people. And I think they said it's something like over 800,000 meals that they were able to rescue and feed.

[00:10:13] Dominique: And from what I know, that organization is led by people, if not just two women I think locally. And then they run based on their capacity, their vehicles and volunteers and their, you know, volunteers vehicles. That's true. Right?

[00:10:30] Aryeh: Yeah, it's mostly a volunteer operation. Emily and Susan, are amazing every time. They run Food Rescue Columbus, which is part of Local Matters, a nonprofit here in Central Ohio. I will be in meetings with them and they will get a text message that says, "Oh, we got 10 rotisserie chickens. Who can come pick it up?" 

[00:10:46] Aryeh: And they will say, "Hey, we gotta move this to a phone call 'cause I gotta go pick up these chickens and get them to someone that needs them." And like that is the level of dedication that they are doing. They're doing this without a box truck. They're throwing it in the back of their Hatchback Honda Civic, and picking up this food and getting it to people, and those individuals rescued a million pounds of food. We still have 364 million pounds of other food out there.

[00:11:08] Dominique: And as I was getting to is like think about if the capacity of the system expanded, just how much opportunity there is.

[00:11:16] Aryeh: We do not have a 'not enough food' problem. We have a food distribution problem. We as a country and society make enough food to feed well more than the people that are living here. It's just how do we get that food to the people that actually need it.

[00:11:30] Dominique: Mm-Hmm.

[00:11:30] Aryeh: And that is far more important than us doing, creating compost for that food waste. I mean, food waste when it goes to the landfill and it breaks down, it is one of the most potent producers of methane gas, greenhouse gas, which really has an impact on our climate here. And all that food that goes to the landfill produces that methane gas and it out there. If we need to reduce the amount of food that goes to the landfill and then whatever does still go there gets to compost. Because compost is such a wonderful thing because it can grow food from it. And so, yes, it's wonderful to capture that and get it to a large composting facility, but we really need a lot of community composting too. We have 360 something, 360 plus community gardens in Central Ohio. 

[00:12:16] Adam: Wait, wait. wait. Tell me that number again.

[00:12:18] Aryeh: It's over 360 community gardens.And they often need soil and nutrients to feed those gardens. If those community gardens had composting on site, people could take their food scraps from their neighborhood to that community garden, could create compost, which will grow more fruits and vegetables, which will feed that community.

[00:12:40] Aryeh: If you wanna talk about circularity, that is how we do it. You are not picking up a big trash truck that's picking up all of your food scraps all over the place and driving them out to a compost facility. It is hyperlocal, it is feeding people, and it is growing things in our neighborhoods and by people in our neighborhoods. That creates a sense of community, it feeds people and it reduces that organic waste going to the landfill. It is a really wonderful solution, especially in a state like Ohio, which is an agriculture state. We know how to do this. We know how to grow food. 

[00:13:13] Aryeh: And, I think it's something that's just, again, changing that behavior and it also connects people. Imagine gardening with your neighbors. Especially if you've never had a garden or if you live in an apartment building and you don't have a garden in your backyard, you're now part of a community garden. It builds that wonderful sense of community that feeds people and also helps as a huge sustainability impact by reducing methane gas from our landfill.

[00:13:35] Dominique: Yeah. So many layers of good right there. Can you walk us through the success you've seen with waste diversion efforts locally too? Tell us what that's looked like.

[00:13:44] Aryeh: One of the big things that we did at the city of Columbus, we're a city of nearly a million people. Last year we moved to weekly recycling. We had recycling that was every other week. 

[00:13:56] Dominique: And trash was every week.

[00:13:57] Aryeh: Trash is every week, right?

[00:13:59] Dominique: So that right there, the priority was looking, like it mirrors what we think we're creating, which is not true.

[00:14:04] Aryeh: Yeah. And our trash containers are 96 gallons, and our recycling containers are 64 gallons. So when your recycling was picked up every other week, what happened is that 64 gallon container filled up pretty quickly, especially if you had a couple of cardboard boxes. And most people don't have another container that they're just waiting to fill up. That material goes into their trash can so they can throw it out. And so we knew that there was a major discrepancy. And so really, really lucky that when the mayor said, I wanna move to weekly recycling, we jumped on that. And we're about a year out, we launched in June, 2023 and so. That has already seen a significant increase because that overflow from that container is already going into that new one. And so that is a major success that I have seen, that we are here. 

[00:14:53] Aryeh: We also decided food waste is something we need to figure out how to capture and start diverting. We opened three food scrap drop off sites in the city. We were really intentional about where we put those. We knew we could easily put them in an affluent progressive community and they would love it. They would run over there and they would bring all of their food scraps and they would be thrilled. But we said, "That would make the program a success and it would be wonderful." 

[00:15:20] Aryeh: But we wanna go into communities that may not have this opportunity. So we look at some of our opportunity neighborhoods like the South side or in Franklinton and we said, let's launch this program there. Let's put it at the recreation center where people are already going for something that where buses already transport people to where there might be access to ride your bike to, and put this free service there. And let's do education to the residents that live within a couple mile radius of those sites. Let's send them mail. Let's do digital ads that are focused on their area. Let's do billboards. Let's do radio and let's do it trilingual. Let's do it in English, Somali and Spanish. City of Columbus has the second largest Somali population in the country. And we want to engage those residents. Somalians come from an agriculture society. Guess what? They get composting. They understand it, they get gardening. If we create an opportunity for them to use that site, boy, they're gonna love it. We should absolutely use it. 

[00:16:22] Aryeh: And so that was something we were really intentional about and we're really excited. We'll have about 10 of those drop off sites open by the end of this year, which we're, again, being very intentional. They're all going at recreation centers. They're all going in primarily, communities of color. We are making an intentional effort to engage those residents and provide a free service that helps teach us as a city how to kind of work with this material and build infrastructure and knowledge on how we collect food scraps and how we compost. 

[00:16:52] Aryeh: Because at some point we will need to capture organic material from every resident. That is a much harder thing to do. I would love to say curbside composting is right around the corner but, you know, we would need 150 trucks driving and 150 drivers going around to collect that. We would need a substantial amount of education. And the cost of that would be substantial. And where does all that material go? If we don't reduce that amount of waste and we just all of a sudden start collecting curbside organic, food waste from everyone, there's no place that will take it. We'll overrun all the compost facilities here. So we have to do a lot of education and train people on how to do this stuff appropriately so that we can eventually expand this work and divert more of that material.

[00:17:35] Dominique: Yeah, really building capacity. I've been very lucky to be a part of like that work you've done with Waste Diversion. Can you tell us some of like the impact numbers?

[00:17:43] Aryeh: So I believe, well, Dominique, you would probably know some of these numbers more off the top of your head since you're the one that sends me these spreadsheets. But I think so far we've done about 30,000 pounds of material just from our three food scrap drop off sites. 

[00:17:59] Dominique: And it's not even running for a full year.

[00:18:01] Aryeh: Yeah. That's not even, six months. And look, we talk a lot about pounds and tonnage in the waste industry, and these big numbers mean a lot of things. What I can tell you is 30,000 pounds is a lot of material when we look at a million pounds going to the landfill every day. Look, we have a lot more to collect, but residents have made the effort to go the extra step to bring those food scraps to one of three sites and drop it off. So there are individuals that are willing to make that effort, and that's wonderful.

[00:18:33] Dominique: Yeah, as I was gonna say, I mean that's like 15 elephants from like a visual standpoint. And when you think about 15 elephants being like hauled by community members and brought to the site, that's just, I think that's such a sentiment around what the interests, the excitement, and the opportunity is in that space of just people caring enough to do that.

[00:18:55] Aryeh: And don't just think that like people are putting a bucket in their car. At our Dodge Recreation Center, people walk their material to, because it's right in the middle of a neighborhood. And at our Anheuser-Busch location, people bike their buckets there. I have been there as people show up with a bucket of food scraps strapped to their bike, which is amazing. 

[00:19:15] Dominique: It's really cute. 

[00:19:15] Adam: Love it. 

[00:19:16] Aryeh: I absolutely love it. And I, I'm pretty sure these residents see me there and I'm talking to 'em with this big smile on my face, really excited and exaggerated and saying, "Oh my gosh, it's amazing that you're biking your compost here." And they're looking at me like, "Who is this crazy guy?" I don't they realize talking to the individual that runs that program. But I think it's really amazing that people are willing to take those efforts to make a small impact in our climate work.

[00:19:42] Dominique: Yeah. And the number, it just constantly increasing I think is also really exciting from like, you learn from your neighbors. You get to watch them put their bucket out and carry their bucket out. And I think that's just, there's so much just natural spread that happens as we build capacity.

[00:19:54] Aryeh: Can I tell you guys about something that we launched the end of last year that I think is really cool?

[00:19:59] Adam: Do it.

[00:19:59] Dominique: Of course. 

[00:20:00] Aryeh: So we opened our first of two Waste and Reuse convenience centers.

[00:20:06] Adam: Waste and reuse, convenience centers. What does that mean?

[00:20:10] Aryeh: So, we wanted to create a free for residents drop off site to help recycle and compost and divert items from the landfill. And we wanted some hard to dispose of items like electronics, like clothes, like furniture. And so we opened our first center. And full transparency, I straight up stole this idea from Austin, Texas, who did it about a decade ago. And I think the best thing at local government is to find other local governments that are doing great things and to steal their work. 

[00:20:40] Dominique: I mean, that's how it move faster, collectively. 

[00:20:42] Aryeh: Absolutely. So we have essentially a semicircle of roll off dumpsters, traditional dumpsters and shipping containers that all have trilingual signs on them that accept all these types of materials. And we have two full-time staff, community relations representatives at this site that are there to educate and help residents put these materials in the appropriate containers and to find new opportunities and new places that will accept additional materials so we can work to expand and build that circular economy here in the city. Like electronics are really hard. A lot of people that it doesn't work anymore. I'm throwing it away. Well, I also have this bag of clothes that doesn't fit me anymore. Oh, I also have these cardboard boxes that were too big for my recycling bin.

[00:21:29] Dominique: We all know that like spring cleaning phase where you look at all the stuff that you don't really know what to do with, but you know, you shouldn't have anymore.

[00:21:36] Aryeh: Yeah. You put it all in your car and you drive it to this site and they take it all. And the great thing is if they can't take it, it really is trash, we'll take the trash there too. And so it's not, we're not going to turn away someone for saying, I don't have this. Let's say you're doing yard work and you have a bunch of yard waste. We have free yard waste pickup every other week in the city, but sometimes you might have a little bit more than you wanna put out. You can bring it over and we'll get it to a compost facility. And it is this type of engagement that provides us free service for residents that when they call our 311 system, which is the resident hotline for any question saying, what do I do with this? We can direct you to the site. And so our first one opened on the south side, couple months ago, and our second one is getting ready to open in just a few months on the west side. 

[00:22:23] Aryeh: And these are models that we think will help educate residents, but provide that opportunity to do the right thing, free of cost. And again, being trilingual on our signage there, you do not have to speak English to come in there. We can point to the sign and you can see the material in there and you can learn about it. And I can't tell you how many people have brought a little bit of extra recycling and they go, "Oh, I didn't know I could bring this here or that here." And it's like, it's creating that opportunity. And our hope is that we will expand and offer more items that we're collecting. 

[00:22:59] Aryeh: We're always looking to partner with businesses here that need special collections of things that may not go in your regular recycling bin, or may need to be reused because reuse is the best thing ever, especially like bikes. We'll take bikes of any condition. And they'll either be, if they really cannot be repaired or salvaged for parts, they'll be scrapped with scrap metal and we'll take that scrap metal and it'll be recycled. Like it's that simple. 

[00:23:25] Aryeh: And I think the long-term goal here is how do we get nonprofits and businesses to partner with us here and to set up at these sites. And either collect materials or to have repair cafes or to say, " Just this weekend, I need this type of material. Everyone bring it." And we promote that from the city and collect and fuel these circular economy businesses here. 

[00:23:48] Adam: You mentioned a hotline. What's this hotline? How do people find it?

[00:23:50] Aryeh: So the city of Columbus has a 311 system. I think a lot of big cities have this system, where we have exceptionally trained staff that can answer your questions, whether you need to get a pothole filled or how to recycle or dispose of something properly. We also have an app and a website where you can, it's 311 Columbus or 311.columbus.gov on the website. You can essentially figure out any city service on there or ask the question and they'll get you the answer. And I think we're really privileged as a city to have this service. We also on there have something called the Waste Wizard on the 311 site.

[00:24:25] Dominique: I've seen that. You should tell them what it is. 

[00:24:27] Aryeh: Yeah, you can type in any material that you have to try to get rid of, it'll tell you how to properly dispose of it, recycle it, compost it. And if we don't have it, you can say, find an answer, and it goes to one of our staff and they find an answer on how to dispose of that properly.

[00:24:43] Adam: That's so cool.

[00:24:44] Aryeh: It's really, really cool. 

[00:24:46] Aryeh: And we have city experts that are doing the research on the backend to find the answers, which is really cool.

[00:24:51] Dominique: And it's genius from like a information collecting standpoint for a community building capacity for more items 'cause you're seeing the input.

[00:24:59] Aryeh: Right. And it's called the Waste Wizard. I like to think that there's like a Gandalf is like over there going, "Oh, you can recycle that cardboard" or something, you know, wild. It's also like a Dungeons and Dragons game. Like you're rolling the dice, like where's it gonna tell me to go? Go on a waste adventure with the waste wizard?

[00:25:14] Adam: Now, before we wrap up at the beginning, you mentioned that, you know, you see a thousand circular economy jobs coming. What are some of those jobs? What do those jobs look like?

[00:25:23] Aryeh: I think that's a really interesting question. I think that those jobs are not yet created and I think that's what's really exciting. Yes, we have some circular economy jobs. We have advanced drainage systems, ADS, which is headquartered here in Columbus. They are the one of the largest users of recycled plastic in the country. And a lot of our plastic that we recycle here goes to them to make pipes and drainage systems, which is wonderful. But what I'm looking for is like, who's got a hard to recycle material that wants to create something?

[00:25:52] Aryeh: And there's a wonderful company that just opened up here that is taking red solo cups, which we have a lot of from the Ohio State University and the parties that they throw off campus, but they're turning them into marble and tile. And you can use it in your house. And so those cups aren't currently recyclable in our stream, in our recycling stream, but they want them, and it's a small little operation. And I'm wondering what else is gonna pop up? What's one individual that's gonna say, "Here's something that I have an idea for and I can partner with the city to get this material for free and I can turn it into something," and I know I'll have a steady stream of that material because the city's willing to collect it and give it to me 'cause as a city, we are not in the business of making money on this material. We just don't want it to go to the landfill, which ultimately saves us money because we don't cost to throw it away and it saves our environment.

[00:26:45] Aryeh: So it's like how do we incubate those things? And like I was talking to an individual that has a chess club and they wanna teach kids how to play chess and they wanna make chess pieces out of recycled items, and I'm like, "Ooh, let's get together. Let's figure out how we can get you materials." And it's that kind of stuff that could create circular jobs here that may be completely different than what we're thinking of and it's not big corporations that's setting up. It's someone in the back of their garage, like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak that might be creating the next big thing that could literally change how we treat waste throughout the whole world. 

[00:27:21] Dominique: Well, how can people support you in the work that you're doing and keep up with you?

[00:27:25] Aryeh: So you can find most of our stuff at columbus.gov. The Department of Public Service runs all of our programs on waste and diversion, but you can also follow our Keep Columbus Beautiful program, which is a program of the city on TikTok and Instagram and Twitter, which I refuse to call by its new name.

[00:27:43] Dominique: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for chatting with us. It was amazing to hear about the impact you've created for the city for waste diversion. Talking about how you've increased recycling collection by being mindful of the size of the bins and how often they're being collected to also adding compost food scrap drop off collection points and like talking about the impact it's having in the community and seeing how much people are able to do when you just create the capacity for them to show up on top of making a one-stop shop location with your convenience centers, which is what I'm calling it. 

[00:28:14] Dominique: It's a one stop shop place where everything you wanna divert has an avenue for somewhere to go. And I think that's a really great point of success in terms of showing where there's a need for that. But also like I think you're really mindful of the fact that people are gathering there, people are showing up there. So how else are we also like being mindful of that space and creating impact there? So thank you, Aryeh. I had so much fun hearing about all the amazing things that you're doing for our city.

[00:28:39] Adam: And if 10 years from now you find me running a repair cafe somewhere, it will be this episode and it will be Aryeh alex who put that idea in my head.

[00:28:46] Aryeh: I can't wait for you to teach me how to repair some things 'cause I'm not that handy. Thank you guys so much for having me.

[00:28:52] Dominique: as always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability, just like Aryeh. And we're here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career, or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change.

[00:29:06] Adam: If you know a green champion that should be our next guest, email us at thegreenchampions@gmail.com. You can find our show notes at thegreenchampions.com along with all the great resources that we just touched on. And our music is by Zayn Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions. We'll dig into another sustainability success story in our next episode.

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