Nora Gerber - Diverting 10,000 Pounds with the Help of Can Fairies

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

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

[00:00:22] Adam: And I'm so glad to be here alongside Dominique, the sustainability expert. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact in their 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 stories and plant some new ideas.

[00:00:40] Adam: Today Dominique and I are joined by Nora Gerber, the executive director of the University District Organization or UDO. So last time we had Nora on, we got to hear about her journey into UDO and a bit about what The University District looks like. 

Today, we are going to dive into one division of her projects, The Can Fairy program, and talk more about that. So Nora, welcome back on the podcast.

[00:01:03] Nora: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:05] Dominique: Nora, I'm so excited. I wanna add that she's a nonprofit leader that's built a program that changes both how a community of college students interacts with recycling and to how a city actually manages recycling collection. And I'm excited for us to get into this project you've been able to build.

[00:01:21] Nora: Yeah.

[00:01:22] Adam: So today this podcast is about how Nora's built up her curbside recycling program and kind of had fun with new spin on litter collection.

[00:01:30] Nora: Yeah, it is a new spin on litter collection, I would say. For sure.

[00:01:34] Adam: Can you remind our listeners what the Can Fairy Project is in a nutshell? 

[00:01:37] Nora: Yeah. So the Can Fairy Curbside Recycling Program is literally what it says, it's a curbside recycling program, but for the off campus area between 11th Avenue and Lane Avenue. So if you're not really familiar with The University District, think this is where all of the college students live. Most, most of.

[00:01:59] Adam: All the area that kind of surrounds the Ohio State University. 

[00:02:02] Nora: Yeah, the University District in general has 13 neighborhoods, and this program focuses on like a section of those neighborhoods that has some of the densest student populations and just densest part of the district and subsequently, of Columbus in general too. 

[00:02:20] Dominique: And you shared last time that UDO has about 40,000 residents living in the space that you serve. 

[00:02:26] Nora: Yeah in 2.89 square miles. If you've ever been to New York, think about Brooklyn, which is a borough. It's not that big. But think about a small neighborhood in Brooklyn. It's kind of like that. It's that dense and it has that many people, it has that much diversity. More or less, depending on which part of Brooklyn you're in, I suppose.

But we do, we're pretty diverse we have actually a really big growing refugee population. Our median age is 22.9, I believe so like 23 years old. But we have a lot of long-term residents as well. So we've had people that have been living in The University District since the seventies. So we've got everybody from zero to 95. Maybe even older, but yeah.

[00:03:17] Dominique: And then why is Can Fairy called Can Fairy? 

[00:03:19] Adam: And why is recycling a problem here?. 

[00:03:21] Nora: This is actually really funny because one of the long-term residents was one of the big complainers of a litter problem in The University district because they lived in this kind of core part of the district where a lot of the, the students live and he was a very loud voice and was saying that there's all this litter everywhere and that this was a major, major problem and that the city needed to do something about it.

So this just so happened to be right when I was starting in my role in late September of 2021. And so the city came together, the university kind of came to the table and the University District Organization came to the table as well as kinda of community voice.

So. UDO is actually independent of The City and of The University. So we are a nonprofit and we work with the city, we work with the university, but we are really a nonprofit for the community and residents and businesses within the university district. 

So we came to the table as well. 

And basically what was decided in 2021, late fall of 2021 was that the city said, "Okay, there's all this party trash, there's all this litter, all on the off-campus area, on the lawns. It is a problem. There is a lot of it. We're going to take code enforcement and we're gonna go every Monday, and we're going to cite every single property that has trash in their front yard." so they started doing these big trash sweeps. 

Well, the property owners in that area that we're renting to these students. All of a sudden were like, "What in the world are these citations?" They were a little surprised to say the least by them and it's a public record. So they're getting public records against them saying that they have citations from the city, which does not look good even if they comply with it. 

They're like, "why am I getting the citation?" And you don't ever want a citation from the city because if you don't comply, then it becomes more public record and potentially, fines down the line. So all of a sudden all of the property owners are like, "What in the world is going on?"

They're like, "Well, you have party trash. You have trash in your lawn, and we're doing these sweeps." At the time, it was almost every weekend and so the property owner said, "Well, can you at least give us to the afternoon on Mondays?". 'Cause they were going out Monday morning. And so that, so Code Enforcement said, "Yeah."

Then what we saw is all of these property lease managers, property owners were sending out their staff to go pick up the party, like go pick up the litter that was left in the yards. And so you had all these people that probably could be doing better things like fixing your leaky faucet or I don't know, answering your other types of maintenance calls. And instead they're out there picking up litter and then they were like, "Well, we're just gonna bill that time back, back to the tenants." 

So The University District is a gorgeous community. Most of the houses are built between like especially in this core area. And so a lot of the houses have more than just one bedroom. There's like 6 bedrooms, 5 bedrooms. And so if they're billing, I think the average bill back was like $50, which meant that that's $10 extra on your on your lease and or on your rent every month if it was a house of five of you.

 I don't really know if the students knew that the maintenance people were cleaning up after them, or if it was just still this Can Fairy.

So the reason why the students were doing it was because for generations now, people were saying, "Hey, what do I do with my empty beer can?" 

"Oh, throw it on the lawn, the can fairies will get it." 

And in the past, to be honest, that was what happened. You'd wake up the next day after a big night out, you would have cases worth of 

[00:07:21] Dominique: Crushed beer cans on your lawn. 

[00:07:23] Nora: Exactly. And it would be gone.

[00:07:25] Dominique: And it was because aluminum cans were a higher value thing to go take to a recycler, and you would get some change in exchange for each one. So it was a natural incentive for community members who need extra money to make the effort to go collect them all. So you wake in the morning. After you slept till noon, which is you know, the college average and your lawn's clean.

[00:07:44] Nora: You don't have to clean up outside on a Sunday. 

[00:07:46] Dominique: So why would you? 

[00:07:47] Adam: No incentive to change is what you're saying here.

[00:07:50] Nora: Zero Incentive. 

[00:07:51] Dominique: Yeah, and the property owner tried to like scare them a little bit, but it wasn't really being felt because it's a small amount per person. They're like lawn's still clean,

[00:08:00] Nora: Right, exactly. But the reason why I think some of those loud voices of complaints were coming in is because these can fairies were not coming around on Sunday. And so when you did wake up on Sunday, at noon, your lawn was still trashed. You being like the figurative college student in your head still had, "Well, the can fairies will still get it", but then it's ending up being maintenance people. 

The city's happy because the lawns are clean. The property owners are begrudgingly fine because they're still getting the money back for the work that they're doing. But nobody is learning any type of lesson. Like we're still just having this negative feedback loop of litter on the lawn, somebody else picks it up for me. And also that's really, if you think about it just in that way, it's kind of rude.

Yeah. Then like, oh, I'm gonna throw something on my. 

[00:08:51] Adam: A bit obnoxious.

[00:08:52] Dominique: Yeah and in comparison, I know and I'm curious to ask you what else you've seen from other nonprofits you've met with and talked about similar work with, when I lived in Michigan for a little while, because the Michigan Grocery Store System but like, when you buy something that's in a bottle or a can, you pay a premium on each one so that when you return that back to the store empty, you get that amount back. And so it's created even at college parties and things that I would attend as a a junior when I was in Michigan and they would like stack up in a very neat little line on the table. All like the waste from a party. So you finish your can, you don't crush it and throw it. You would just like neatly place it next to the others of the counter so that the next day, the owner of that house could go take them all back and get there.

[00:09:37] Nora: Yeah, I think Michigan has a fantastic recyclable party culture. Yeah, because I've heard that very similar thing like, I've also think it's funny 'cause I've heard from students that are from Michigan are really confused at why they would throw it into the yard. 

[00:09:52] Dominique: Fair. They see value in this thing and I think that's the difference maker.

[00:09:56] Nora: Okay. So you've identified this problem, and then how did that transform?

[00:10:00] Dominique: After a while, the chirp of "students are littering and we have to go pick it up" gets really old and I'm like, "But they don't know not to litter because you're still picking it up but we also don't have can fairies or can collectors going around to the individual house parties to actually clean up." And also, yeah, again, it's rude. 

[00:10:20] Nora: What if we gave them infrastructure and said, "Hey, fill this box, not your lawn". And then we picked up the recycling 'cause the maintenance people that are picking up are not recycling those cans. They're putting them directly into a black trash bag and directly into a dumpster. So there's also no sustainability happening where there's a huge win that could happen in terms of that. 'cause there's a lot of cans. 

So the following fall of 2022, this is kind of like really the first big football season too after the pandemic. And Ohio State had 8 home games a 5 straight home games, like one after the other. And everyone was a little bit on edge about that, rightfully so. And also about the trash issues.

And I pitched this idea of like, what if we gave them a box and said, "Hey. Put this box on your porch. We'll come get it on Monday morning" and see if it works. And I pitched this to a partner at Keep Columbus Beautiful, Aryeh Alex. And he had luckily just started, so he was very excited. Yeah, a fresh idea. I was coming up on a year, so I still also had, I think, a little bit more bandwidth than I probably do now. 

[00:11:31] Adam: And, just as a side disclaimer, Aryeh Alex was a fantastic guest on our podcast. Go listen to his episode.

[00:11:37] Nora: Oh, Aryeh's fantastic. And Aryeh's like, " We could do that". 

And then we first were like, "Can we do the entire University District?" And I was like, hold on. I think, thinking about it in a startup type of way, so do a proof of concept before you even try and do a big pilot. 

So we went to 13th Avenue, which is dead end. 13th, dead ends into High Street, which is our main thoroughfare and also dead ends into some of the most popular bars. So it's a street where if you wanna have a good house party, you could probably go to 13th. It's also pretty much in the middle of this like core off campus area. 

 We had cardboard Rumpke boxes, green boxes, and went with these green boxes door to door on 13th. We had 20 of them and we went door to door until we got rid of all of them. So we had 20 houses on East 13th. And then Aryeh and I, that first Monday after the first home game, went out and collected all of the recycling. And then we did that for every single home game. 

So we also didn't do it for like the full academic year. We just did it for those eight home games, to see if it would work, and we're like, "Oh my gosh." 

Spoiler, it did.

[00:12:51] Adam: Woohoo. What helped change the behavior?

[00:12:53] Nora: So one, I think that this generation right now, or, and that made me sound old.

[00:12:59] Dominique: Disclaimer: Nora not old.

[00:13:01] Nora: I might be. I think that the people that are young and vivacious right now. I guess I might be too. 

[00:13:07] Dominique: People who are more ener, people who are a little more new to the community and energetic.

[00:13:13] Nora: I think college students are right now more cognizant of recycling. Essentially we're hand in hand saying like, "this is trash, this is recycling" for the most part, for a lot of them. And so teaching about recycling is not necessarily a big hurdle, which is great. Because I do think that if we tried to do this 10 years ago, I don't know if it would've been as successful. And so you have that already, and then, you are literally just giving them the infrastructure that they need to do the thing that they already know how to do. 

[00:13:44] Dominique: And you're meeting them where they're at. You're not saying, come bring it X, Y, and Z, like and do all this stuff with it. You just leave it outside and your team comes and grabs it on Monday morning. Correct?

[00:13:53] Nora: Yes. We are also looking at this a little bit after the pandemic where people are very used to staying inside their home still, and also having everything kind of on their phone and a lot of like immediate gratification. And so we wanted to make it so that it was like almost too hard to fail at this like. You already know how to recycle. You're already drinking on your front porch and on your lawn. We're bringing the box to you, and then you just leave it and then we'll come collect it. Put a new liner in and we'll do that every week. And if you do it right, we'll give you a gift card.

[00:14:28] Dominique: So before getting into the incentives you've built them, which I think are cool. 

How has the program grown? So you mentioned that first few with that Green Rumpke box. Mm-Hmm. Which Rumpke is a recycling company locally that serves most of Ohio and they're growing. How has that changed over the years and where are you at now with scale?

[00:14:46] Nora: Because the proof of concept worked, we had the opportunity to apply for an Ohio EPA grant to say, let's go from 20 to a hundred and let's go from one street to. I think maybe five streets, I don't know. But let's expand our area. 

And then we got more corrugated cardboard boxes ' cause it's still a pilot and we don't wanna like really invest in too much infrastructure. So we got these white boxes they're like 45 gallons I wanna say. And we created a logo 

[00:15:16] Adam: Hence the Can Fairy logo. 

[00:15:17] Nora: Hence, the Can Fairy logo.

[00:15:19] Adam: So not only are you teaching them good behaviors and supplying them with the materials, but you're helping carry on the lore from the days in the past. 

[00:15:26] Nora: Exactly. Really taking it back fully and not just 'cause the Green Rumpke bin wasn't necessarily branded. We called it Can Fairy ' cause we wanted to make sure that if it worked, then we could keep calling it the same thing the next year.

But yeah, now you're actually seeing that it's called Can fairy and so we went to a hundred houses and we did it for the full academic year. So we went from the Monday after the first home game, and then we go all the way until the end of graduation, with a break in between for winter break when nobody's really in the off-campus area.

[00:16:00] Adam: So who's actually picking up these a hundred boxes??

That's you. You're nodding.

[00:16:03] Nora: No, it's, yes, it is me, but it's not me. Not anymore physically. 

[00:16:06] Dominique: Managed by Nora. Not Physically done by Nora.

[00:16:09] Nora: We have a special improvement district that we have a, a team, they're called stewards, that take care of trash, litter, and graffiti and safety efforts. And we contract that out to a company. 

And so we had two people, two stewards every Monday with a route that was printed on paper every week and a U-Haul truck. They would start at like 7:30, 8 o'clock and go until 3 o'clock or 2:30 to 3 o'clock picking up everything. 

And then they would take all of those bags and to go to a local recycled drop site and then empty all of the plastic bags into the recycle dumpsters. And then would record who had their box out, who had a clean recycling collection, and then if there was anything that was contaminated.

[00:16:55] Dominique: So that paper dictated the path they drove and which houses they visited and checked on, but also recorded what they were noticing and how well people were doing at, at participating.

[00:17:05] Nora: Right. 

[00:17:05] Adam: it. So You were collecting data about how effective they were at actually using their boxes. 

[00:17:10] Dominique: Because your goal is to continue growing capacity and include more and more people, so you have to show that it's working.

[00:17:17] Nora: Both like to visually see it obviously, but then to also say, " Oh, we're doing a lot of recycling." ' we went door to door for signups and what we realized is that a lot of the students or the those houses don't have a blue bin, which is our Columbus recycling bin either because the property owner doesn't wanna replace it or because it gets stolen, contaminated, and taken away, or, and it costs a hundred dollars to replace them, and they don't really wanna have to deal with that. 

Or they don't qualify for a bin somehow. And so a lot of our participants were saying, "Oh, this is great. We don't have recycling. Can we also use this for other things besides cans, like jugs or cardboard?" And we said, "Yes, we will accept all of it." So it's also an extra solution for recycling overall, not just for partying.

[00:18:11] Dominique: You're proving the need of the community, that there is an interest in getting collection for this type of material, and you're also helping people who live there to have access to a resource like that. 

[00:18:20] Nora: Yeah, hopefully.

[00:18:21] Dominique: So what's the goal of the program?What it's supposed to do for the next five years, or it gets handed off in a successful way, what is that?

[00:18:28] Nora: Really the big goal is that we're fundamentally changing a litter habit. We're going from seeing all of this trash on your lawn and waking up on Sunday at 8:00 AM way before most students are awake and maybe seeing a little remnant of a party, which is totally fine, but not the like it being so trashed. So really changing that litter habit and creating a more beautiful neighborhood because they are gorgeous neighborhoods.

And I think also actually creating more recycling and more sustainability because we are recycling so much every week.

[00:19:06] Dominique: How many houses do you have now and how much collection is there? 

[00:19:08] Nora: So we were able to get an Ohio EPA grant again this year, which is great. Thankyou, Ohio EPA. And we went from 100 last year and we have officially 201 houses. 

[00:19:20] Dominique: Amazing. 

[00:19:21] Adam: So far this year, you're about eight weeks in. How much have you actually diverted?

[00:19:24] Nora: I just learned these numbers, which is fantastic. I am shocked, but not shocked, but we are at almost 10,000 pounds of diversion.

[00:19:35] Adam: 10,000 pounds?!

[00:19:36] Nora: Which is really incredible because when I think about it from last year, we were at nine and a half thousand pounds over 32 weeks, which was the full academic school year from start to finish.

 So we are either at or above, where we were last year but not even halfway through, which is, wow. Mm-Hmm. That is insane.

[00:19:58] Dominique: That's a lot. That's like 5 tons just within eight weeks, imagine 5 whole elephants like walking through The University District, like that's how much you've kept away from going to the landfill.

[00:20:09] Nora: I'm literally learning these facts kind of in real time. So it's, that is incredible because that's a quarter of the time that we had last year, and we have the same amount diverted as last year within one quarter of the time. Did that make sense? 

[00:20:26] Dominique: Yeah. And I think what's really cool about that too is like you're not only diverting material, which is great 'cause it keeps outta the landfill and all that good, like environmental stuff. But I think what's really cool to me is a lot of it is cans because of knowing this community and, and what they're getting rid of that they have to fill the Can Fairy bin with- cans. 

But what's really cool I think about recycling cans is that they're usually back on the shelf as a new canned product with the recycled material within two months. So like, it's also like a really effective material to be recycling. So it's extra cool that you've been able to capture that and keep it in circulation because it's not just a material that gets recycled, it's a material that's highly recycled, it's easy to recycle, and it's like really positive in our community in terms of like, we see so many canned items.

[00:21:13] Nora: Wow. That is very cool. I'm like really pleased at those numbers.

[00:21:18] Adam: See, you're doing such a freaking awesome job. 

which is why you've been on today as a green 

[00:21:22] Dominique: Yeah. And the reason that I wanted to have you on transparently is like, I've just really enjoyed working with you. I've been very lucky to help support your programming and from the minute that we like met and I got to start seeing how you were collecting material, I was like, this girl could collect numbers and like tell a really cool story.

So hopefully we're getting closer to helping you do that. I think the impact you're having is, is really huge and you make it look very easy and I think it's very positive. And then what we don't do a good job of with podcast, with programs like this, is you can't really see ,it. And I think for you, I encourage listeners to go check out your website and your resources and I'll drop the links here at the end of our episode.

But you've done such a good job with like branding this as a cool, interesting, refreshing thing. And that is not often done with sustainability work, just 'cause it's usually heavy to lift and it's not well funded and like, it's really hard to get creativity and like a fresh perspective into all of it, but you make it look cool and fun and..

[00:22:16] Nora: Thank you. The logo does a lot for us there. Our creative project designer, Camille Snyder and I, were sitting at a computer being like, "Well, how could we like think about this logo?" And we created this together. And she really like brought it home with the final touches and it's, I love it. So thank you. Yeah. But I wanted to give Camille a shout out 'cause this logo is souk. 

[00:22:38] Adam: Where can listeners go to see the work that Can Fairy is doing and see some of these pictures? 

[00:22:43] Nora: So @universitydistrict on Instagram and then also on our website, universitydistrict.org, there's a clear link to our programs in the Can fairy program. Speaking of branding slash telling our story, we probably should do a better job at showcasing what we're collecting and the amount we're collecting. Hopefully, we'll be a little bit better at that. But yeah, you can definitely follow us. 

[00:23:06] Dominique: I've had a few listeners reach out in the past and ask for like, more tips or things people can be doing, and I think you do a really good job of communicating with residents on a daily basis, like the average kind of like resident, homeowner, community member. What's something you would share with a listener about maybe like a way to get engaged or a tip or maybe some advice or what they could like be doing to be a better contributor when it comes to sustainability? 

[00:23:28] Nora: Break down your cardboard boxes.

[00:23:32] Dominique: That's good.

[00:23:33] Nora: Uh, yeah. Don't forget to break down your cardboard boxes. 

To be honest, something personally that I do, 'cause I hate having to go out to like the recycling bin like all the time, especially in Ohio weather. So I have one of our old corrugated can fairy boxes. It's just a cardboard box that I have a plastic liner in, and usually your your recyclables should be dry and clean so you can reuse that liner. 

It's so nice 'cause I don't have to go out and I just fill it up. It doesn't smell 'cause it's clean. I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but it's just to have a huge recycling bin in your own home and then that makes it easier to keep recycling and then to just put it out when it's full.

[00:24:14] Dominique: Well. I love your approach of testing and then growing it kind of year over year. 

[00:24:17] Adam: And it's really exciting to kinda see where it goes. 

[00:24:19] Dominique: Oh yeah. The next year will be interesting 'cause we've got a big decision to make on funding, so we'll see.

Well, thanks for what you've done so far

[00:24:26] Nora: My pleasure.

[00:24:27] Adam: Well, thanks for joining us today. 

As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We are 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. 

[00:24:40] Dominique: You can find our episodes at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on you're favorite podcast platform, if you have questions about climate change or sustainability, you can reach us on our website, the

Music is by Zane Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions. We'll be digging into another sustainability success story just like Nora's in our next episode.