Mama Earth Talk

In this episode, we talk to Marita Peters. She is Executive Director of Surge, a non-profit water organisation. She and her team have grown the organisation steadily for the past few years since the branch was established in Dubai and its headquarters in Chicago. She is also a budding environmental activist that helps organizes community events like beach clean-ups, teaching at her children’s schools eco-club and for 30 days she participated with me in the waste me not challenge 

During this episode, we take a look at the importance of water. How access to clean water and sanitation can help many young girls to stay in school. We also look at the water footprint and how everything we eat, drink or use, wear, buy, sell and eat takes water to make. 

[01:42] How did your journey start?

[03:06] Changing the world one drop at a time or we also say it takes one ripple to start the wave of change.

[04:24] The fresh water that you speak about is actually the same water that forms part of the water cycle. We are drinking the water that the dinosaurs drank.

[04:39] The earth is a natural filter and what we are doing today with the industrial pollution and with all of the chemicals that we see in our water sources we are contaminating that finite fresh water source that we have.

[05:21] It is woman and girls that bear the burden of the task of fetching water for their families.

[05:32] What Surge endeavours to do is we work on water access and water purification, which are the two main points when trying to bring clean safe water to remote communities.

[06:17] A lot of times there are closer water sources but they just have broken and they just don’t have the means to fix them.

[06:38] We involve the community leaders, establish a water user comity so that long after the physical build or the repair work is done the community needs to understand and value the work that has been done and be able to maintain and keep up that water source.

[07:34] The attendance rates are picking up because now children aren’t having to go back home to use the bathroom and then never coming back.

[09:58] What is a water footprint you say well, it is simply is not just the direct water that you are aware of, the water that you consume, through cooking, bathing, drinking but also all the indirect water. The water that it takes to grow your food, not just the water in your coffee but the water that it took to grow the coffee beans and to process the coffee beans into ground coffee.

[11:04] We feel that only once you are aware of it can you start to make change in your daily life to your habits.

[11:36] An apple is 70 litres of water.

[12:04] A hamburger, on the other hand, is 2400 litres of water.

[12:52] The story goes the same with your clothes, your mobile phone, with electronics, with all material goods there is water in the process of pretty much everything.

[14:23] There are actually many water footprint calculators online.

[14:42] Sitting here in the UAE, we are number three globally on the highest per capita usage of water. Sitting in at 550 litres a day.

[15:06] Today Surge is active in four countries. We work in Uganda, the Philippines, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

[15:25] March 22 annually is world water day so as Surge we always like to mark this day. For the last two years, we have hosted free public events at The Sustainable City.

1.What is one social media platform that you follow?

 Rob Greenfield

2.What is your hope for mama earth going forward?

I guess my big hope is that the next generation, our children, really grow up in harmony with the earth and understand the importance of living in harmony with her and keep her at their forefront.

3.What advise can you give our crazy birds this week to help out mama earth?

 Pick one thing that you would like to change and then just stick with that and see how that makes you feel and ones you got the hang of that automatically it will lead you to the next. 

4.What is one sustainability fact that you like to use in a room with people not yet on a sustainability journey?

 When you think of a typical plastic bottle of water, what we call a single-use bottle. It takes almost three times the amount of water to make the bottle than the water you consume inside it. 

5.Where can people find you?

Marita Instagram 

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

Website

“What is a water footprint you say well, it is simply is not just the direct water that you are aware of, the water that you consume, through cooking, bathing, drinking but also all the indirect water. The water that it takes to grow your food, not just the water in your coffee but the water that it took to grow the coffee beans and to process the coffee beans into ground coffee.”

Every single thing has some sort of water footprint, therefore you use more water daily than just the pure clean water that you drink. Finding out what your own water footprint is can be a real shocking discovery, but this allows us to make better choices to reduce our water footprint. Instead of grabbing a burger with a water footprint of 2400 litres we could maybe have an apple that only have a water footprint of 70 litres of water. It is little changes like this that will indeed make a big difference.

In this episode, I will be talking to you about gyres. What it is. Why trash is accumulating in these areas. There are currently five large gyres in the ocean (North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, South Pacific and the North Pacific Gyre). The biggest of the five is the North Pacific Gyre better known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is located between California and Hawaii. We will also be talking about the biggest ocean clean up and how this can be a game-changer for the future.  

[01:21] A gyre is a large system of circulation ocean currents that are formed by global wind patterns as well as forces that are created by the rotation of the earth.

[01:50] Boyan Slat decided that he is going to do something to clean up the oceans and have since then launched The Ocean Clean Up.

[02:00] In 2015 the first mega exhibition was launched by crossing the Patch with 30 boats simultaneously, and they collect 1.2 million plastic samples, in small nets and two giant trolls that were towed behind the boats.

[02:49] that ran the first aerial survey of a garbage patch.

[03:01] The debris measured 1.6 million square kilometres. That is three times the size of France.

[03:08] The patch contains 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic. That equals 250 pieces for every human in the world.

[03:19] The total mass amounts to 80,000 tons. This is 4 to 16 times more than previously estimated.

[03:29] 92% of this mass is made of larger objects, that will be fragmented into smaller dangerous micro plastics over the next few decades if not removed.

[03:42] Slat and his team created an artificial coastline system in the ocean where they will concentrate the plastic and remove it.

[04:13] The system will be taking advantage of wind, waves and currents.

[05:13] A support vessel often comes and removes the plastic, similar to what a garbage truck would do.

[05:19] The debris is then taken to land where it is recycled and turned into beautiful products.

[05:49] It is expected that the fleet would be able to clean up 50% of The Great Pacific Garbage Patch every five years.

[06:24] Reduce the amount of single-use plastic items you use by switching to reusable options.

[06:36] Pick up 3 for the sea.

[06:53] Avoid the fruit and vegetable bags.

“The debris measured 1.6 million square kilometres. That is three times the size of France.” 

To think that somewhere in our beautiful ocean is a large plastic mass three times the size of France. I am still trying to wrap my head around it. Plastic has been around for the past decades and was created to make our lives easier. However, when looking at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the effect that these plastics have on the environment, it really makes me wonder. If we all evaluate our daily life and pick one item that we would like to reduce it will make a difference.

In this episode, we talk to Karim El-Jisr. He is the Executive Director at SEE Nexus, the innovation centre at The Sustainable City, Dubai. He has held many high-profile sustainability positions in the MENA region including the World Bank, ECODIT and Executive Council of the Government of Dubai. 

During this episode, we take a look at how The Sustainable City has created a benchmark for sustainable living. We look at solar energy as well as the importance of removing cars and why it is important to push to alternative transport and to walk more.  

[01:17] How did your sustainable journey start?

[02:07] It was second nature to grow food somewhere in the backyard.

[02:33] The entire city was designed and conceived to be a quote on quote sustainable because sustainability is something that is very difficult to achieve and it is not absolute, we can be more sustainable, we can be ever more sustainable but are we ever sustainable enough and I think we can always push the boundaries.

[03:43] We also have a zero service fee in the community, so by living here you do not have to pay, you don’t receive an invoice every so many weeks or months to pay for this or that all that is absorbed into the business model of the community.

[04:41] We have to bring in trees into that setting to improve the microclimate, so this is the premise. We would like to provide greenery not only for the site and the beauty of the community but to modify the microclimate that it feels cooler, it feels fresher.

[06:58] If you have more biomass in the city you are actually shifting carbon dioxide from a gas ular state which contributes to global warming to wood and eventually to the soil.

[07:23] We believe that cities have to grow food. We may not be self-sufficient, we may never be self-sufficient within the city boundaries but growing food for us is really part of the DNA.

[08:02] When you start growing your own food you start to appreciate the cycle of life. Otherwise our people, children are going to say that bananas come from the supermarket and potatoes comes from the marketplace, right, where they need to trace it back and I think it is important to establish those connections and show people where does food come from.

[11:14] The beauty of Denmark and their carbon targets is that it looks and it seems effortless, you know everything is seamless.

[11:38] What strikes me every time I visit and I visit ones a year, are the improvements they make to the biking infrastructure.

[14:31] I think we all need to think of how we move inside the city, which means every time we hop into the car, let’s think about the car. Can we downsize the car, do I need the car, should I drive alone or can I carpool with someone?

[15:08] We have to downsize or get rid of the cars and obviously push for better alternative transport and that is coming.

[15:14] I think we should edit our shopping choices. Every time we go shopping somewhere we need to think twice about it, do we need it and am I purchasing the right product. I think those would make a huge impact on the society.

[15:56] Most important decision that you made around Mama Earth.

1.What is one social media platform that you follow?

 National Geographic

2.What is your hope for mama earth going forward?

 My hope and my wish is that Mama Earth is going to be kind enough to give us a little bit more time for us to fix all the mistakes we have done so that Mama Earth can be in a better shape. Time is running out so I do hope Mama Earth is going to extend that time needed for us to fix it. 

3.What advise can you give our crazy birds this week to help out mama earth?

 Drive less.

4.What is one sustainability fact that you like to use in a room with people not yet on a sustainability journey?

 Look at your thermostat if it is too hot, then there is too much heating, if it is too cold then there is too much cooling and in both cases, your carbon footprint goes up. I think we need to manage that and find that thermal comfort which is ok, even if we have to put on a sweater or actually take off our suit.  

5.Where can people find you?

Karim Instagram

The Sustainable City Instagram

The Sustainable City Facebook

The Sustainable City Website

“I think we all need to think of how we move inside the city, which means every time we hop into the car, let’s think about the car. Can we downsize the car, do I need the car, should I drive alone or can I carpool with someone.”

We often just jump in the car and go for a drive without thinking about other alternatives that we have available. Maybe instead of driving on your own, try to carpool, make use of public transport, cycle or walk to your destination. Although some of these options might not be feasible for you and you would be left with no option but to drive to and from your destination, but we can always try and reduce the number of times we drive and to try our best to plan our drive to be more sufficient and to try and completed more than one errands at a time.

In this episode, I will be sharing a few ways how you can reduce the amount of waste you create in the bathroom. Our bathrooms can easily be filled with a lot of plastic. I would like to give you some of my easy tips on how you can start making a switch and reduce your waste in the bathroom.  

[01:09] Plastic toothbrush, switch to a biodegradable option like a bamboo toothbrush.

[01:16] 850 million toothbrushes are discarded off per year in the US alone.

[01:45] Toothpaste in plastic tubes switched to toothpaste in a reusable jar.

[01:52] About 1 billion toothpaste tubes are sent to the landfills every single year.

[02:19] But this defiantly took some getting used to. I did not like the taste of the toothpaste at first.

[02:50] Deodorant in plastic packaging switch to a deodorant in a reusable jar.

[03:33] Shower gel and shampoo’s in plastic packaging, switch to a soap bar or purchase package free.

[03:45] I have previously made my own body wash that I then store in a glass dispenser for easy use.

[04:16] I have also found bars for my conditioner and face wash.

[04:19] Disposable razor to be switched to an old-school safety razor as well as an old-school natural shaving cream.

[04:30] 2 Billion disposable razors are thrown away every year, with most of these ending in the landfill. In order for me to avoid sending my razor to landfill.

[05:10] I rarely cut myself anymore and also have not had any razor burns. I used to get it all the time with the disposables razors.

[05:48] Tampons or sanitary napkins switched to a reusable menstrual cups or sanitary pads.

[06:15] The average woman gets her period about 450 times in her lifetime and uses on average 11,000 disposable tampons or pads in her lifetime. In 2015 the Ocean Conservancy collected 27,938 used tampons and applicators on beaches all around the world in a single day.

[07:12] Some of the cardboard applicators and packaging can often be recycled, however some of the plastic applicators, wrapping and packaging usually cannot, and they end up in a landfill or ocean.

[07:35] I have been able to the reduce the amount of waste I send to the landfill as well as save money by reusing the menstrual cup instead of purchasing the single-use items monthly.

“850 million toothbrushes are discarded off per year in the US alone.”

When you take into consideration how many toothbrushes we use in a year as an individual and think about how many other people will dispose of that same (sometimes even more) amount of toothbrushes, it becomes more clear that even something that we think is so small, it can pollute our environment. You might say what will one toothbrush do. It is not so much about the one toothbrush but if we put everyone’s, one toothbrush together it makes a big difference. It all starts with small changes that can create a ripple effect.

In this episode, we talk to Rukhsana Kausar. She is one of the founding partners of Liquid of Life, a provider of drinking water solutions. After moving to the UAE, she made the transition from the legal industry and established Liquid of Life. She does a lot to promote and implement green initiatives in the private as well as public sectors. She was listed as one of the top 50 most influential people who is shaping the future of the facilities management industry in the GCC region, two years in a row. 

During this episode, we take a look a look at how people are experiencing filtered water. Find out how people are reducing their water cost by 80% after installing a filter. We also talked about the benefits of filtered water for us as well as the environment.  

[01:50] How did Rukhsana’s journey start?

[02:57] The thought was that perhaps I would go and join Greenpeace and get arrested, you know by protesting or like tie myself to trees.

[04:42] I find that you know as a result of increased awareness about the issues surrounding plastic pollution there is a drive towards looking at alternative solutions.

[05:54] What has helped even more recently are the global trends, so you have had very successful programs, such as Blue Planet.

[08:26] I think we do seem to have this warped sense of what convenience is.

[08:58] It is more convenient to actually have access to water all the time.

[09:53] The filters last 12 months, so no one is inconvenienced every couple of months by someone coming into their homes and changing filters.

[10:02] We do try to make things as hassle-free as possible to make that change as easy as possible.

[10:54] The starting point is for us to understand what the drinking water needs and requirements are, what the current costs are and then we look at the cost of implementing the filter drinking water systems and then the ongoing running costs.

[13:30] When we have done the taste test at some of our events, the majority of people do seem to prefer the filtered water.

[16:22] The filters are really designed so to remove impurities like any sediment particles that are in the water and chemicals like chlorine.

[20:56] Shower filters will not stop your hair from falling out. Hair loss is more complex than that. It depends on diet, stress if you are on certain medication where a side effect might be hair loss, your hormones, so there are lots of other contributory factors to hair loss.

[21:25] By removing the chemicals like chlorine from the shower water, you are also reducing the exposure that your skin has to chemicals because your skin is the largest organ in your body.

[27:34] Every time we buy something we are casting a vote for the place that or society that we want to live in and over the last eight years I have not bought a plastic water bottle.

1.What is one social media platform that you follow?

Oceanic Global

2.What is your hope for mama earth going forward?

 It is one of change and healing. 

3.What advise can you give our crazy birds this week to help out mama earth?

 Just look at some of the things that you are doing. Water is obviously something that we all need to have access to and there is still too much of a heavy reliance on plastic bottled water especially if you are living in cities or towns where you do have access to drinking water from your tap and it is relatively easy enough buy a filter and invest in a filter and in the long run it is going to save you money as well. 

4.What is one sustainability fact that you like to use in a room with people not yet on a sustainability journey?

 8.3 billion tons of plastic have been manufactured since the 1950’s. If you think that less than 10% of plastic globally have been recycled that is billions of tons. Some of it is still in circulation and we are still using some of them, but much of that plastic have ended up in the landfill and it has ended up in the oceans. 

5.Where can people find you?

 Facebook

Instagram

Website

“Every time we buy something we are casting a vote for the place that or society that we want to live in “

As a consumer, we have a very important role that we play. If we keep on purchasing single-use plastics manufacturers are going to continue to produce it to keep up with the demand. If we cast our vote against it and stop purchasing the items, the demand will decrease and they will produce less. So use your vote wisely and think how you cast it every day.

In the previous episode we talked to, Sal Lavallo one of the youngest people to have visited every single country in the world.  

In this episode, I will be sharing with you some of my tips to travel more sustainable and how being a little prepared can save a lot of waste. The average person on a flight creates around 1kg of waste, with a full plane and a lot of travelling that certainly adds up. 

[01:17] Reusable water bottle.

[01:34] Most airports have water fountains, you might just have to ask around to find the closest one to you.

[02:18] Reusable Bag

[02:19] I would also have a reusable bag in my handbag or backpack.

[02:45] Reusable coffee cup

[03:00] This will allow me to enjoy a good cappuccino without using a single-use plastic during the journey.

[03:29] Cutlery

[03:41] The cutlery set has helped me a lot of times to be able to refuse any single-use cutlery during the journey.

[03:49] Beeswax wrap or a reusable container.

[03:58] I would use this for takeout food and leftovers while travelling. I use them to store the food that I would consume during the journey as well.

[04:24] Reusable Straws

[04:31] I do enjoy a good Pina Colada when on holiday but do not enjoy the single-use plastic straw that it so often comes with it.

[04:49] Headset

[04:52] As I often travel, I have invested in a good headset. This allows me to use my headset every single time I travel and avoid to have to open a headset in a single-use plastic bag.

0: My final tip for today is to do what you can and feel comfortable with to start with. Living a more sustainable life is a journey and not a race.

“As I often travel, I have invested in a good headset. This allows me to use my headset every single time I travel and avoid to have to open a headset in a single-use plastic bag”

A good headset has not only helped me to reduce the amount of single-use plastic that I use during a flight but it is also a lot more comfortable to use. I purchased a small adaptor that allows me to plug in my headset. It is only recently that I invested in a headset that has noise cancellation as well. I can not even begin to tell you how much I enjoy using it. I normally catch a lot of red eyes and require to sleep on the flight with times. I have been able to switch it on, while listening to some music and sleep through people snoring, babies crying and food services. You will soon find that there are more and more items that you can switch out for reusable items that do not require packaging every single time you use it.

Our guest today has travelled to every single country in the world. 15 of those he has lived in for more than two months and more than 50 of those he has visited twice or more and this all before the age of 27. He also studied economic development and identity.

Crazy birds, without any further ado, I would like to welcome, Sal Lavallo.

[01:46] The journey to every country happened very organically and it was really a love for the world than a love for travel.

[03:38] I have been to every continent over twenty or more times except for like Australia Oceania where I have only been five separate times.

[04:01] My last four countries were on four different continents.

[04:31] I think that in terms of technology, I think it is a double-edged sword. It is great because people have a lot more access to information, they are able to learn more and are connected with others.

[06:12] I have a very unique experience that I own a farm in Tanzania, I go there every year. It’s a very rural village, often is without electricity and that is kind of giving me an intimate understanding of that other side of this specific problem.

[07:50] What cool is now with communication a lot of the times what happens or at least in my village in Africa, in Tanzania, is that when the electricity does go out we get an SMS, like a text message from the electricity company saying when it will come back.

[09:37] So a lot of the times you are offered water that isn’t drinkable and so being very aware of that and sometimes it can feel a little bit like distancing to say oh no I can’t have your water, but you have to stay alive you know.

[10:10] It is also a little bit of a fallacy getting used to the food and the water because they are still getting cholera. It is not that they are used to like these communicable diseases, it is that they do not have an option.

[10:48] Where have you had your best tap water?

[12:20] Any Island it is so difficult to have an efficient and sustainable waste management regime.

[13:12] Some of these islands in the Pacific have the highest like per capita population density in the world.

[16:37] Rwanda recently like outlawed plastic bags. Rwanda is the cleanest countries in Africa, it is one of the most incredible development stories of the past 20-25 year stories, considering where they were at in 1994.

[18:55] There is always more that can be done.

[19:30] One thing I think is really misunderstood is the evolution of germ theory and how dirty the world was and in some ways still is.

[20:17] There is always, always more to learn, always more ways to push yourself, but it has to be done within a balance of what can you do, what makes you happy, what doesn’t get in the way of your life.

[20:40] Do what you can, reduce your waste a little bit or turn off the faucet or like only use the like smaller flush.

[23:23] People then learn to adapt.

[24:10] I think I am like passively aware and coz I have lived a lot in places that do not have a lot of water. I have lived in places like deserts in New Mexico where we had to be very aware of our water usage.

[26:27] I guess there is a decision like to be aware but not feel too quality. I think that is a very important balance that I think a lot of people are afraid of that if they even start on a journey that they need to be more sustainable that they are going to feel bad about not being more sustainable.

1.What is one social media platform that you follow?

Kealy Siryj

Alvaro Rojas  

Jessica Nabongo 

Drew Binsky

2.What is your hope for mama earth going forward?

 I think that soon that food would be the next gold in a way, I mean it already is such a huge part of the economy but I want there to be more interesting agribusiness and that being the cool thing to get into. Like business people wanting to own like agricultural companies and like farms and cool innovations in agriculture.

3.What advise can you give our crazy birds this week to help out mama earth?

 Turn the faucet off.

Don’t buy too much stuff in like plastic.

Say no to the single-use plastic bag and utensils.

4.What is one sustainability fact that you like to use in a room with people not yet on a sustainability journey?

 I don’t think that people know or realize how many people around the world are smallholder farmers and it is something like a quarter of the population, 2 billion people around the world are smallholder farmers and almost an equal amount rely on smallholder farmers for their livelihood and their daily food and that is just an incredible thing to think about. Because you know in America less than 2% of people are farmers and of those, I think most of them are not smallholder farmers or almost any of them.

5.Where can people find you?

Facebook

Instagram

Youtube

Website

Trail of Seeds 

“There is always, always more to learn, always more ways to push yourself, but it has to be done within a balance of what can you do, what makes you happy, what doesn’t get in the way of your life.”

Even for Sal that has travelled to every single country in the world, there is always more that one can learn and always more that one can do. Crazy Birds living a more sustainable life is a journey and not a race. Accept where you are today in your journey and strive your best to improve little by little. You are more likely to live a more sustainable life if your journey is sustainable too.

A lot of the waste created in our homes is generated in the kitchen. It is not only food scraps that make their way to the bin, but also package materials. 

In this episode, I will be sharing a few ways how you can reduce the amount of waste you create in the kitchen as well as a few easy steps you can do to minimize on the packaging you bring home with you. We will also look at a few swaps we can make when it comes to washing the dishes that will be great for the environment and also save us some money.  

[00:45] The majority of waste we have in the kitchens comes from the way that we shop.

[00:59] Plastic grocery bags, you can switch them out for reusable bags.

[01:23] The average family accumulates around 60 plastic bags in only four grocery trips. 30 billion plastic bags are used annually in the USA alone.

[01:50] Single-use plastic water bottles you can switch to filtered tap water.

[02:26] These single-use bottles take more than twice as much water to produce than it holds and less than 10% of these bottles are recycled.

[02:50] Studies have shown that 93% of bottled water contains double the amount of microplastics than regular tap water.

[03:37] Cling wrap or plastic food bags you can switch to a reusable beeswax wrap.

[04:26] These wraps can last months depending on the usage and you would be able to rewax them yourself.

[04:43] In the last few months, I have been able to switch out the dishwashing sponges with a loofah.

[05:06] Not only is the loofah better for the environment but it is also more economical as the price for the large loofah, that would last me months is almost the same if not cheaper than a pack of 4 sponges.

[05:23] Composting

[05:50] For me living in an apartment composting was one of the harder things to do as I had no balcony

[06:32] The Smart Cara is lovely waste disposal unit that makes it easy for me to add all the food scraps too.

[06:52] Since I started composting and have my recycling bins set up, I have been able to reduce the amount of waste that our house creates with a lot.

[07:29] but I would also recommend to evaluate your kitchen and see what items you are currently using on a regular basis that would be easy to switch. You might be using a lot of paper towels and would be able to switch them for washable cloths or tea towels.

“The average family accumulates around 60 plastic bags in only four grocery trips. 30 billion plastic bags are used annually in the USA alone”

When you hear a statistic like this it really hits me hard as when we go about our daily lives, we do not realize how many single-use items we are offered in a day. This is something that I have seen while taking part in the Waste Me Not challenge. It is very easy to take free items like the plastic bag but we seldom think about where would it go after you have used it? It is simple things like this that makes us reevaluate our habits and helps us to make changes for a more sustainable life.

In this episode, we talk to Ian Ohan. He is an entrepreneur, Founder & CEO at Freedom Pizza, a UAE based, natural carry out and delivery pizza chain. Freedom boasts with over 250 employees as well as an airline and VOX Cinema packaged product division. He is also an investor and operating partner for Wild Peeta and I thinGourmet Shawarma. 

 During this episode, we take a look at some ways that the hospitality industry can make a difference. We also discuss the impact that Freedom had by no longer offering free single-use plastic utensils and how Adrian Grenier inspired him to stop using single-use plastic straws.  

[02:20] I felt that there was the opportunity to still provide people with the convenience and the great taste that they were looking for but just to do it in a more thoughtful way.

[03:36] We predict at least about three months in advance what are requirements would be from the farm and it has worked out quite well.

[04:50] As a delivery business what we realized was that we were putting out a lot of plastic into the market and what we see to be As a delivery business what we realized was that we were putting out a lot of plastic into the market and what we see to be unnecessary. You know if you think about it most of our products are consumed at people’s homes where they have cutlery and straws.

[05:29] When I calculated that in 2017 we put out 500,000 straws and plastic cutlery packs. I would argue that 98% of those ended up in a landfill and probably were not necessarily, it made perfect sense for us to make a change.

[06:50] With cutlery packs what we did is we moved from plastic cutlery to bamboo recyclable forks and spoons and customers can purchase those for half a dirham online and they have to pay for it and it forces you to think about it, but it is available.

[08:50] Starbucks doing this is a big endorsement of the movement.

[09:25] To use almost exclusively use electric bicycles and electric vehicles for delivery.

[10:16] It is one thing to have it on a subsidised basis but if we are to make real change it has to make economically sense.

[12:04] I wanted to make sure that we were doing everything possible to ensure that our drivers were safe. We developed an entire safety training program.

[13:47] We wanted to develop a campaign that made the general public more aware of the activity and that they need to give our drivers space and be conscious of them on the road because they have people that depend on them at home for what they do.

[15:57] I think the one that marks our environmental journey is the dont suck campaign.

1.What is one social media platform that you follow?

Lonely Whale

2.What is your hope for mama earth going forward?

I think that everyone becomes a little more thoughtful and makes the little change in their lives that selectively makes a big change.

3.What advise can you give our crazy birds this week to help out mama earth?

Be more thoughtful and to challenge the things that you do and the way that you do it and when you become aware of ways to make a change to insists that companies that you deal with making them aware of it so that they can make a change. 

4.What is one sustainability fact that you like to use in a room with people not yet on a sustainability journey?

We put out 500,000 cutlery packs and straws in 2017 and we are a small company. 

5.Where can people find you?

  Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Website

“As a delivery business what we realized was that we were putting out a lot of plastic into the market and what we see to be unnecessary.”

This for me was a very important thing as there are so many other companies out there that put a lot of plastic in the market, just because they feel that that is what their clients want although it might be one of the first things that their clients throw in the bin.

Most of us might have heard of the 3 R’s. Reduce, reuse and recycle? Well, what if I told you there were two more R’s that can reduce your waste even more?   

In this episode, I will be sharing the 5 R’s with you. During this episode, we take a look at each of the 5 R’s and provide you with tips on how you can easily implement them in your daily life.   

The 5 R's - Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot

[01:17] The first step is to REFUSE what you do not need.

[02:27] Saying no is something that you would have to get used to and the more you practice it, the easier it will become.

[02:35] The second R, REDUCE what you do need.

[03:45] The third R is REUSE.

[05:03] These glass jars can be used to store food, serve as a lunch box or even a water or coffee container. If you are worried that the container might break while having your coffee on the go, use one of your widow socks. You know the socks that go into the washer married and for some reason come out a widow. The possibilities are endless.

[05:30] The Fourth R is RECYCLE.

[06:12] Recycling is such a labour and energy-intensive process, that downcycle the materials into often lower quality.

[07:24] The final R is ROT. AKA COMPOST.

[09:00] And there you have it the 5’R is. Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot and I am looking forward to hearing more about your journey and how you have started to implement this in your daily life.

“These glass jars can be used to store food, serve as a lunch box or even a water or coffee container. If you are worried that the container might break while having your coffee on the go, use one of your widow socks. You know the socks that go into the washer married and for some reason come out a widow. The possibilities are endless.”

We often look at an empty glass jar or bottle and think of what use to be inside. Whether it used to be a jam, mayonnaise, coffee or juice jar or bottle, when it is empty and washed well, it can be used for almost anything. However, whenever we see the jar we immediately think of the contents that use to be in the jar and it is like our mind is telling us this is a jam jar and it can only be used for jam. But when we start exploring you would find that jar would be able to be used for so many other uses. You would be able to store all sorts of food varieties, use it as a small lunch box and you could also use it as a coffee or tea cup on the go. (Test it first with water to ensure it seals before you use it for your hot beverages. ) The possibilities of these items are endless, so go wild and explore and see how many of the items can you reuse and how can you find interesting ways to use them. You would also discover that the next time you want to purchase items in reusable jars or bottles, you might look at how you can reuse it afterwards as well.