The Regenerative Journey | Episode 28 | Kate Nelson

What we're doing now is not sustainable.

Like that word is such bullshit.

It's so rare that we're actually doing something that's good enough that is worth sustaining.

We're still at that 80% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

We're still trying to get there.

We're still creating,

We're still learning,

Ah,

This clothing brand should be circular.

We should have a send back program.

Oh,

Okay,

Oh my gosh,

This thing is made out of 20% virgin plastics.

Like we need to tell people that so they understand what they're buying and like the limitations of recycling.

Oh my gosh,

It's shedding these microfibers.

We need to send out a filter,

You know,

So like we're not there yet.

That was Kate Nelson and you're listening to The Regenerative Journey.

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and internationally and their continuing connection to country,

Culture,

Community,

Land,

Sea,

And sky.

And we pay our respects to elders past,

Present,

And emerging.

Good day,

I'm your host,

Charlie Arnott,

An eighth generational Australian regenerative farmer.

And in this podcast series,

I'll be diving deep and exploring my guests' unique perspectives on the world so you can apply their experience and knowledge to cultivate your own transition to a more regenerative way of life.

Welcome to The Regenerative Journey with your host,

Charlie Arnott.

Welcome to The Regenerative Journey with your host,

Charlie Arnott.

This week's episode is with Kate Nelson,

AKA the plastic-free mermaid.

We sat,

I'm still sitting on the ground of her beautiful little Queenslander here just outside of Byron Bay.

And we talked all manner of things,

Plastic,

Its influence in health and the environment,

Its insidious nature,

It makes it up how you can take it out of your life.

We talked regenerative agriculture and the similarities between ridding the world of plastic and ridding the world of plastic-like substances in farming.

It was fascinating just to understand and dispel a lot of the myths around plastic as well.

And just before we jump into the interview,

I just want to let you know and remind you that we will be,

Hamish Mackay and I will be down in South Australia with all those wonderful crow eaters down there at Barossa.

The Barossa Valley on the 3rd and 4th of May at the Alkina Wine Estate,

There were Dan and Amelia and all those wonderful people.

Now,

Just to make a note of that,

We are just talking about how biodynamics applies to wine and viticulture,

It is about horticulture,

It's about broad acreage,

It's about small scale garden,

It's whatever you want to,

However you want to apply biodynamics to your world and your life.

So there on the 3rd and 4th of May in the Barossa Valley at the Alkina Wine Estate and on the 6th and 7th of May,

That's later in that same week at McLaren Valley,

Gem Tree Wines there with Melissa and Michael,

Who produce some amazing wines as does the Alkina Estate.

So just to reinforce that,

You don't have to be a wine grower,

You might want to be a grape eater,

But not a wine grower or a wine maker to come to these courses down there in South Australia.

They are open to everyone,

So spread the news far and wide.

We'd love to see you there.

Tickets available on charliearnett.

Com.

Au and get all the details and tickets there.

Love to see you down in South Australia.

Cannot wait to get down there and haven't been there for a while,

So looking forward to it.

So I trust you enjoy as much as I did this wonderful,

Insightful and educational,

Most importantly,

Given she has a wonderful book called I Quit Plastics.

Hope you enjoyed as much as I did.

Kate Nelson.

Kate Nelson.

Hello.

How are you?

I'm so great.

AKA Plastic Free Mermaid.

That's right.

I notice you're not wearing your tail today.

No.

We're a few.

Tell us why we're so far from the ocean.

Well.

.

.

And where we are.

We're out in Richmond Hill on Boat Harbour Road,

Which is about half hour from the ocean.

You're Boat Harbour Road?

Yeah,

It used to be where all of the cedar was logged and then sent down the river to be sent back to Europe.

We're getting a bit wind there.

I'm going to grab that sock.

Oh,

Yeah,

OK.

Get the sock.

Sock.

Reckon you get that one because.

.

.

Yeah.

Oh,

Excuse me,

Listeners.

How's that?

That's great.

Sound better?

Much better.

Yeah.

And if I get a bit of disturbance in mine,

I'll do mine too.

So back to it.

You're Boat Harbour Road.

Yeah,

So we're out in the country now.

I'm Country Mermaid trying my hand at being a custodian of a bit of land and,

Yeah,

Just doing what seems like one of the best things for our planet,

Just regenerating land and growing food.

And,

Yeah,

It's been lovely.

Tell me,

What are we looking at here?

Because we've perched up here.

Oliver has been amazing in setting us up here.

He's actually pretty much built a table on the balcony to attach everything and set us up amazingly well.

Why are we here?

What are we looking at?

And what I try and do is plant my interviewees in a spot that's inspiring.

I mean,

Clearly he's inspiring.

Look at him down there.

He's running around taking photos.

That's right.

Yeah,

So we're on,

What we're looking at here is a little strip of land.

We've got five acres,

Which is far more than I expected.

It's more work than I ever dreamed of,

But it's perfect.

It's such a beautiful strip.

And this whole actual hillside used to be owned by one family,

The Waddell family.

Through here.

Yeah,

And then they just divided this strip to keep this house.

This is an old Queenslander built in 1890.

So it's got some really beautiful hardwood bones and a few tacky renos whacked on top,

Which is all part of the plan of buying out here in the country,

In the hinterland,

To just redo the home,

Grow some food.

But the whole area was sold to pretty much one cattle farmer.

So he has his cows on opposite sides of our fence,

And sometimes a baby gets stuck on the opposite side as a mom and they have to moo back and forth across our little strip,

Helping the little baby get up the hill around the back of the property.

It's really cute.

And so it's still owned by one family,

A lot of the country through here then?

And still obviously cattle country.

Yeah,

So this is a new farmer here,

But the family has kind of retired up onto the hill,

Onto Richmond Hill.

But yeah,

There were dairy farmers here for a while.

And is this inspiring?

I mean,

Where were you before?

Well,

You don't have to give me the exact address,

But were you in town or somewhere and what sort of prompted you to go,

You know what,

I need a bit of what?

I mean,

This is wonderful serenity.

It's so peaceful.

Yeah,

I was in town.

I've been in town for about six years and surfed every day in snorkels and free dive as much as I could just being close to the beach.

And it's certainly why I live here,

Is to have that relationship with the ocean.

But in my research,

I kind of had the climate awakening last two years ago and just panicked about what are we going to do?

And of course,

My focus is plastic and it's all connected and related.

But in my concern,

I just felt like,

Wow,

We have so much work to do.

And there are so many people that want to grow food and that have so many incredible skills in this area from permaculture to horticulture to,

You know,

Centropic,

You know,

There's so many amazing skilled people.

So if we can be sharing land and creating more community and then that feels like a really beautiful offering.

So yeah,

That was kind of the intention as well as to just be a bit more grounded and yeah,

Put some roots in.

Make an impact.

I want to get back to that.

But I want to take you back to the beginning of your life.

Because this show is obviously the regenerative journey.

That's the name.

And I'm interested to know,

I guess,

Where yours started.

I mean,

There's obviously,

You know,

Most people have a portion of their life where they're doing stuff.

And then,

You know,

There's sometimes epiphanies.

I think I understand or know what your epiphanies may have been.

But that's not for me to tell that story.

So I'm keen to hear it.

But before we do that,

I just want to,

I forgot to mention that also you,

Just to give everyone a bit of a heads up on Kate,

She,

You're also known as a water woman magical mermaid yogi goddess.

Correct.

That's unreal.

Yeah.

How did that come about?

Well,

I think we're all.

Apart from the fact it's a fact.

Right.

Thank you.

We're all magical in our own ways.

I feel like I've really tapped into my magic through nature connection,

Through my relationship with the ocean and just cultivating that awe and that wonder from spending time underwater,

From playing on the ripples and on the surface.

And,

You know,

It's connected,

You know,

My nature connection as well as my yoga practice.

So having a strong yoga practice,

Daily meditation,

Breath work.

Also that helped me stay on a spiritual journey.

And I think those two intertwining have helped me feel,

You know,

Always on path and aligned.

I came into my purpose when I was about 20 and just felt like really strong and called,

You know,

Figuring,

You know,

Feeling like I know I'm on this planet.

And so to have such a strong calling for something,

Such a strong purpose and connection to something like that,

I felt like I had to really,

Wow,

What are the things that pull me back to center?

What keeps me aligned on this mission?

Ocean time,

Ocean play,

Adventure,

As well as like discipline,

Yoga,

Breath,

Meditation.

And those are two like epic elements of life that have helped me kind of create this sort of like bliss and,

You know,

Have helped me on my regenerative journey.

Like those regenerate me constantly.

And I feel like that's what's given me like so much sovereignty and power and like vibrancy that makes me feel like,

Yes,

Water goddess.

No,

Say it,

Do it.

I think it's fantastic.

I think,

You know,

More people,

Especially men,

Should be,

It's very Tony Robbins to,

You know,

Call yourself something,

Which is great.

I've done a bit of Tony Robbins stuff some years ago.

And he's all about like don't call yourself a farmer,

Call yourself like a sunshine harvesting,

Food producing maniac,

You know.

I think it's really good.

It's really empowering to,

And men,

We don't do that.

Yeah,

We get stuck on labels a bit,

Don't we?

Yeah.

Yeah,

It's boring and limiting.

Yeah,

Totally,

Totally,

Totally.

Now tell me,

So you just alluded to the fact that at around 20 something,

You know,

Something happened.

What were you,

Just to set the scene,

You know,

What were you,

Who were you before that happened?

Yeah,

So I grew up in Minnesota,

Which is a state at the very top near Canada.

It's where all the Great Lakes spill from Canada into the state.

So it's really beautiful.

It's known as the land of 10,

000 lakes.

It's lots of trees and forests and very lush.

And then from there it kind of flattens out to farmland into the Midwest.

But I was so fortunate.

Where's that building?

Yeah,

It's a bit windy here today.

That's startling,

But we're all okay.

That's actually,

That was the apparatus we set up to stop the wind hitting the mics and it's just been blown up.

Blown up.

Yeah,

Minnesota.

Yeah,

So,

And I used to spend my summers going up to a canoe camp.

So I was a counsellor at a canoe camp and we would canoe,

Go on like 10 days,

Seven day journeys canoeing.

And so that really helped me come into my own as a leader,

To be able to hold groups together and to just survive in the wilderness.

And that helped me also just like have a really strong nature connection and also be just like kind of comfortable in myself.

I continued to do a lot of volunteer work.

So my family,

We did a lot of service as I was growing up.

And then when I went to college,

I got to kind of choose my own projects.

And so they always were environmental focused.

A lot of climate stuff in college.

And then I studied philosophy.

That was my major.

I was really interested in ethics and what motivated people to do stuff like why people went on different paths on Earth and their morality.

And particularly then environmental ethics,

Like why don't people care about water and air quality and the quality of our soil where our food comes from.

I just like couldn't understand it.

So I studied a lot of Rachel Carson and really enjoyed study.

And then it was when I was I went to school in both Madison,

Wisconsin,

And UC Santa Barbara in California.

And it was in California where I was volunteering for Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Future Society.

And I was working for a scientist there called Dr.

Andrea Neil.

And she was studying microorganisms,

Ingesting microplastics.

And I was there to like,

You know,

Save the dolphins and just have have this beautiful ocean experience.

And I was like,

Excuse me,

What,

You know,

What is this that you're studying?

She was studying persistent organic pollutants that were kind of like floating in the ocean that we couldn't remove and that they're wreaking havoc.

And she explained to me,

Well,

You know,

To break it down simply plastic doesn't biodegrade.

It doesn't break down like a banana peel.

It breaks up into tiny,

You know,

Millions of tiny pieces.

And then those are mistaken for food by like the base of the food chain,

These little,

You know,

The phytoplankton,

The zooplankton,

They ingest these plastics and then they're eaten and so forth,

Eaten by larger creatures in the water.

And this toxicity from the plastic could actually biomagnifies up the food chain.

I was just blown away because I was in college,

I was going to parties and drinking out of red solo cups and plastic water bottles at the gym and,

You know,

All the plastic.

Like,

You know,

You just had no idea.

Yeah.

So that was the moment I was like,

Oh my gosh,

Of all the things impacting the planet.

Like if this is one thing I can do,

I don't need plastic.

Like I don't need a water bottle.

I don't need a cup.

Like I can bring my own.

So I just said,

That's it.

I quit.

And that was 10 years ago.

Bit over now,

Was it?

Bit over,

Yeah.

That was about 12 years ago now.

And it's one thing to do that and say,

I'm not going to use plastic myself and everything goes along with that in your life,

But you've actually gone much further than that,

Haven't you?

Like you're teaching the world how to do that.

Yeah.

Trying.

And this is where you can plug your book.

Oh,

Yeah.

Yeah,

I did write a book.

Yeah.

I've tried to create a lot of educational material.

I mean,

It's been such an organic journey.

I've felt,

You know,

How do I,

First of all,

Me quitting alone was just hilarious because it was so socially awkward.

You know,

I was just like so extreme and outspoken about it.

And I had so much fun.

And that's like,

You know,

Being a surfer and a free diver and a sailor,

You know,

I already kind of had a reputation as a mermaid.

And so then now that I was,

You know,

I can't have plastic.

I'm a mermaid.

I'm allergic,

You know,

So it just became made it more fun.

I really was observing how other environmental campaigns were presented to the public.

And it was all such doomsday,

You know,

Like the turtles are dying.

We need you to sign the petition.

And people are like,

I can't.

So I was like,

How can I make this a bit more fun?

Like plastic pollution,

Like what a dry or just depressing subject.

And so being a bit like playful with it made it sustainable for myself as well.

So,

So,

Yeah,

Then did a bit of experimenting in my own life and started sharing it on social media.

And people just wanted to know,

They were curious,

What do you do for shampoo?

How do you,

You know,

How do you avoid plastic when you're out and about?

You know,

What do you do if you order something online?

So I just started sharing that.

And it's just grown and grown.

And so I've tried.

Yeah,

I've wrote a book.

I have a podcast called The Mercast.

I have to have you on.

Yeah,

Totally.

Just do that.

And then,

Yeah,

I just I just blanket social media with educational information,

Online courses and all that good stuff.

It's in the book.

All of the the tips and tricks for people to survive a world without plastic or avoiding plastic.

When you started your journey in that,

You know,

Avoiding plastic,

Did you,

Were you like hardcore?

Would you like walk up to people on beach and like slap the plastic cup out of their hand?

What are you doing?

Yeah,

With my mermaid tail.

I was like,

Pshh.

Yes.

Were you in on reflection?

Yeah.

Yeah.

How was your approach?

That was hardcore.

Yeah.

I think that like most activists or people that get like super passionate about an issue have an extreme hardcore phase where it's just like they're so full of this like urgency to make change.

And it's just like so much passion that they're just like so offended by anyone that is,

You know,

Doesn't fit in their their new mindset.

They've seen,

You know,

This happens with the climate awakening,

Too.

People are like,

How could you eat meat or veganism?

You know,

Like,

How could you ever do that?

It's an animal.

It's a living breed,

You know.

So I see that a lot.

And so it's helped me recognize my own phase.

But I learned quickly that aggression and trying to force people wasn't sustainable either.

People would like,

Oh,

You know,

Hide in the bushes if they saw me walking and they had a plastic bottle or like if I came to stay,

They'd be like,

Don't look in that cupboard.

You know,

We shoved all the plastic in there.

Having said that,

When I was driving into the house,

I was looking around the cab of my car going,

Now have I got one?

I want to make sure there's no no stuff around.

It did actually prompt me to think about some other questions about what what actually which we'll get to,

I think.

Remind me that one.

What actually is plastic?

Because there are things that look like plastic that might be more rubber.

And there are things that look like rubber that are actually plastic.

So much plastic.

Yeah.

I can't wait to get to that.

But I'm really glad that I've infiltrated your brain and that I'm like on your shoulder.

I was spewing going on my God,

I imagine I turn up and like,

You know,

Something falls out.

I'm actually reasonably conscientious to haven't quite mastered the art of no plastics,

But but yes,

I'm very mindful of of of that and the transition.

I'm transitioning.

Great.

Happy.

I might need some therapy around to support you around around that one.

Now,

What was I know I want to know more.

So that was 10 years ago,

A bit over 10 years ago.

No plastic.

And you know,

What were the times when I guess as an education,

There's an ongoing education part of it.

But were there times when,

You know,

It was did you did you lose sight of what you were trying to do?

Or did you was there times when you thought,

You know,

Through online,

You know,

Banter or having a go at you,

You and I,

Is it worth it?

Because when you step into that space,

You are putting a reputation into the world,

You know,

And you are calling people out and you are setting a new example.

You know,

The times when you thought,

Oh,

I could probably just go and work at a marine park and scuba dive.

No,

I never,

Ever questioned.

I felt so strongly that there was such a lack of knowledge.

And I and every time that I had the opportunity to educate someone to the point of of their little awakening,

Which it's pretty quick.

They they were converted and I would hear back,

You know,

I'd run into them again or they would message me and say,

I can't tell you how.

You know,

I've seen the matrix.

It's it's never been the same.

And I so appreciate and especially when we get to the health impacts of plastic,

How how people have felt so much healthier and safer to have plastic out of their life.

But,

You know,

There was definitely hard there's hard times.

It was,

You know,

When I first started,

I thought,

OK,

I'll quit single use plastics.

I was like,

I quit all plastics.

And then I was like,

All right,

I'm going to start a single use plastics because,

You know,

We have so much plastic in our world.

So I started with cups,

Bags,

Bottles,

Straws and like takeaway containers.

And that was a lot back then.

It was I was like,

Oh,

My goodness,

I can't believe how much plastic is given to me without my consent on a daily basis.

So I had to kind of just like get stronger about my communication.

And if I was eating out,

Which is the most commonplace you'd encounter this stuff,

Just be very clear and polite,

You know,

Because me being aggressive about that,

Too,

Is not making me uncomfortable.

It was not making me any fun.

Don't you know who I am?

Yeah.

I'm the plaited remurder.

No,

I mean,

I had no reputation then either.

It was just,

You know,

Just this girl ordering a smoothie.

They're like,

Oh,

Please don't put it in a cup.

You know,

I try not to use plastic because of the ocean,

Like trying to shove in the elevator pitch and these like tiny little moments.

So it was really it was really cool to be so focused on something.

And yet the norm was so opposite.

But people were open,

You know,

If with a smile and a bit of like,

You know,

Politeness always helped so much.

Just just being friendly and open.

So socially,

I was able to recruit a bunch of my girlfriends.

And so they were all like,

Oh,

My gosh,

Yeah,

We hate plastic,

Too,

Now.

And so we started a nonprofit called Save the Mermaids.

And so we would go to schools and businesses and we lobbied for Santa Barbara to ban the bag,

Which they did.

So then I got a bit of taste of policy.

And I think that that is the only the whole county did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

L.

A.

,

Santa Barbara and then the state.

So I worked on all of that legislation.

Wow.

And just to just to just to qualify the banning the plastic bag in like supermarkets,

That sort of a you get the bag when you get the groceries type stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Gas stations.

And but that was that was like when you ask,

Were there any moments when you really considered the career path of being the mermaid yogi goddess?

And that was the hard time is working so hard on this policy,

Feeling like,

All right,

This is the chance we have to ban it.

You know,

Like,

Let's put a law in place.

We have the science.

We have we've converted our town like enough people of influence to to create sort of like the social proof for this.

Put it into law.

Like,

Let's make this official.

And we wrote the policy.

It was passed finally after so much like up against the big oil who is like so well funded and the best lawyers out there to just fight every tiny little every tiny little plastic policy.

I'd love to see their argument.

It's like,

Oh,

They're like,

Oh,

No,

That's actually good.

No,

It's ingestible.

And they say that's tasty.

Yeah.

And we actually gave a lobbyist a plastic sandwich and said,

You eat it.

He didn't.

But they say that paper bags are just as bad for the environment.

OK.

Which,

You know,

There's a point there that that,

You know,

Deforestation,

You know,

Here we are planting trees.

So but there's there's so many ways around that,

You know,

Bringing your own bag,

Using recycled paper for for bags.

So it's just very nuanced.

So I was like,

Oh,

My gosh,

This is a lot.

But we we we banned plastic bags and then they came out with thicker reusable bags,

Which is what they've done here.

Exactly.

So when I moved here to Australia,

I was a part of a lot of conversations with Boomerang Alliance in Sydney,

Meeting with the environment minister and different politicians being like,

Don't do what California did.

Like,

You have to have a more expansive ban,

Like include thickness,

You know,

Be specific.

So that's how I got around it.

This isn't a plastic bag.

It's reusable.

It's thicker.

So it didn't qualify.

And they actually specified the thickness for the single use plastic bags that were banned.

And so they made it a little bit thicker and put reusable on it.

So,

Yeah,

That's familiar.

Wow.

That's.

Yeah.

Look,

We we have seen that.

Absolutely.

And it's just just a bypass,

Isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just a side step.

Yeah.

So that's where I kind of pivoted.

I was like,

OK,

Policy is the way.

I'm really excited about it,

Learning a lot.

And then I thought,

Man,

We kind of have to build more of a social movement here.

And in my opinion,

I felt like,

OK,

I need to educate the masses so that we can kind of bring more awareness to this issue.

We've got the scientists.

I can just like continue to elevate their research.

So I went I actually took a job as marketing director for one of the first activewear brands that was recycling plastic bottles into leggings.

Cool.

Can you say who that was?

It was Tiki out of L.

A.

Are they here in Australia?

No.

Do they do it in a fashionable men's range?

Men did wear them.

We had a few bell bottoms.

I actually did a little tour through Australia and we got a bunch of footage like surfing.

Like everybody was surfing in the bell bottoms.

They're great.

Nice.

Yeah.

So that was you went,

I'm going to go right to the core of this and actually help guide a company do the right thing.

Yeah.

And I was also interested in,

OK,

I've had Save the Mermaid's nonprofit.

We did a lot of education.

People were on board,

But they weren't willing to make change.

So how do I,

You know,

Take a product that people already think is hot,

Like women are already like calling after these amazing leggings and turn people into environmentalists.

Purely because through their purchase that they already want.

So it's really interesting to kind of help educate them.

Hey,

Do you know that you've recycled,

You know,

30 bottles with this pair of pants and they're like,

So then it wasn't just like literally made of plastic,

Recycled plastic in a in a lycra type.

Yeah.

Which,

You know,

When we talk about the types of plastic,

You know,

How much time do you have in a little pitch?

There was also virgin plastic that was put into that,

Which I didn't I wasn't aware of.

So my understanding of of manufacturing with with plastic and recycled plastic grew in that space.

And eventually I just felt a little bit out of alignment.

You know,

There's just a little bit of like greenwashing that I just felt like,

Ooh,

You know,

What I'm able to communicate to customers wasn't the best sales pitch,

You know.

So but it was it was it was incredible in terms of like creating this sort of brand identity that was synonymous with environmentalism and loving the earth and giving back and recycling in a tangible way.

You know,

Many people identify as environment environmentalists purely because they've got the environmental or the recycling bin and they participate in that.

But they don't know where it goes.

Yeah.

So that's a new one.

But originally,

Like they just were like,

I recycle,

Therefore I and it actually influenced how they voted and how they participated in in society,

Which is amazing.

Turns out the recycling bin,

You know,

Didn't did wasn't actually getting recycled.

It ends up in the landfill.

Landfill or like chucked over to China or Southeast Asian,

Polluting the very pristine paradises that we try to go travel to.

So but it was really interesting.

It's like,

OK,

How can we create that same sort of environmental identity through but like stronger?

And then once we have a captive audience,

Continue to educate them about plastic and how they can reduce.

And yes,

It was really fun.

And I got to direct like all sorts of photo shoots,

Like mermaids and unicorns.

It was gold.

Before we move on from there,

Turning waste plastic into clothing,

As it were,

Is a good thing.

What then happens to the clothing?

Like,

Isn't it sort of the the the owner is bound to sort of continue the practice when they when they're finished with it?

What do they then do with that clothing?

You wish.

Yeah,

That's like fortunately in these conversations,

We're starting to learn.

OK,

How can we do better?

How can we do better?

We're never at 100 percent.

Even myself,

You know,

I'm never at 100 percent either.

Like I think there's this beautiful quote.

We don't need perfect.

We don't need one perfect environmentalist.

We need 100 imperfect environmentalists.

We need everybody just doing their part.

So 80 percent of something's building on.

100 percent of nothing.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Exactly.

Yeah,

Totally.

You know,

Like I'd rather I think sometimes people get intimidated by my my extreme my being so extreme I don't use any plastic.

And I'm like,

No,

We all start somewhere,

You know,

Like you don't have to be plastic free overnight.

It's a journey.

So,

Yeah.

So anyway,

So so working at this company was part of my journey.

It was I learned like I was able to apply some of my experimental marketing techniques and learn a lot about communication and education and and also learn about plastic production and how to how to legitimately recycle plastic bottles into to clothing and and learning beyond that.

OK.

Yeah,

I wish this was a circular brand.

I wish we had a send back,

You know,

Once your your pants don't you know,

They deteriorate and they are see through now or whatever.

Send them back and we'll recycle that fabric,

Which we're starting to see now.

But only recently in the past year have I really seen that as a thing,

Which is epic or or sending people with like some sort of filter for their washing machine so that when they wash their clothes.

This was the real reason I had to leave is all any plastic fibres or any plastic clothing shed these micro fibres and that just washes out into our oceans like our water treatment plants aren't sophisticated enough to filter out those microscopic fibres.

So,

You know,

There was a few things where it's like,

Is it really that responsible?

We're talking about recycling,

But we're sending people these plastic pants.

It's almost just delaying the entry into the environment in a way.

I guess if they're getting thin,

Well,

There's something that's not there anymore.

It's gone somewhere.

Just on that one.

Some years ago,

I did some work.

We sort of continue to in some level,

Subtle energy and this sort of environmental aspects to that and sort of human species aspects to it.

But one is the the impact of plastic on the body as an energetic type of thing that is actually not being a natural product can block out now or or fields,

Basically,

And that can sort of interfere.

Is that something you've dabbled with?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

It's not my main message point.

I have so much more to say about plastic,

But absolutely,

That's something that I personally like to touch wood and metal and ceramic and dirt.

And,

You know,

That's a part of living here now,

Too,

Is having my hands more in the dirt,

Walking barefoot,

You know,

Having that connection to earth.

I think I've been meaning to I was actually supposed to get my blood tested last year by one of the nonprofits I work with in the UK to see how much plastic is in my body.

They did an experiment with a mother and a daughter and they didn't use plastic for a while.

They had low amount of plastic in the blood and then they just ate everything with plastic and it was just like spiked.

So that's that's scientific.

That's just particles and things that they can find in our blood.

So imagine,

Yeah,

Energetically,

This synthetic,

This this not just synthetic,

But indestructible material that we touch,

We live in.

You know,

It just it's it's incredible how foreign this material is and how ubiquitous it is.

So I absolutely think that we're blocking ourselves and,

You know,

Kind of putting ourselves in little plastic packets and preventing our own evolution.

Well,

Literally,

If we if we're sleeping on a polyester top or,

You know,

Those stretchy,

I guess,

Like is a form of is like a form of plastic.

I guess it is not really natural.

Absolutely.

We are.

We're just like just like the tomatoes in the shop.

Yeah.

In a plastic bag,

You know,

Poly polyester sheets,

Curtains,

Carpet,

Paint on the wall.

Like we're just we're kind of in these like sterile environments that are preventing us from this nature connection,

Which is,

You know,

Barrier.

Oh,

Like we are nature.

Like how why are we why are we enclosed and kept away from that?

It's just it's and even like artificial air being pumped around our homes and carpets.

Yeah.

So we're steered off the life history there for a minute,

Which is fine.

While we're on the health,

Let's talk about health of plastic,

Because I think and some stats,

You would be lovely,

You know,

And let's jump in the microplastics because,

You know,

They're insidious.

So can you just sort of scare the crap out of our business?

Of course.

I think that's what they're that's what they hear.

That's what I love.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

I do.

But can I ask you a question?

Whose show is this?

Yes,

Of course.

Of course you can.

I'm really curious to hear about your insights and intuition about about plastic and how it blocks our energy.

Well,

Again,

What I learned was that we have seven or fields now body,

You know,

The Kundalini and then we've got our sort of a skin one and then we have one out and there's seven and then the seventh is the universal one,

Basically.

So when we when we are when we have non-natural products on us,

It interferes with that energetically,

You know,

Even just that static,

You know,

The static you get.

That's a sort of a reasonably scientifically understandable type of phenomena.

But there's just our body's need or its natural state to have these fields of energy which radiate from our,

You know,

Our center Kundalini out.

And when we're wrapping that in plastic,

Whether it's the skin layer or it's a big puffer jacket and sort of out in that sort of,

I just can't remember the name of the next one is basically and then there's your sort of flight zone one and then it goes out.

Then that is very subtly and this is the whole world of subtle energy.

It is very subtly but profoundly interfering with our normal body,

Bodily function.

And,

You know,

Again,

Like a lot of these sort of things like microplastics just moving around our bodies and things,

You know,

It's not as though you go,

Oh,

There it is.

It's on my hand or whatever.

You don't see it.

And then it's insidious.

But it's and the sad thing is it's quite normal now.

Like,

You know,

Everyone,

Most people have plastic type things.

They slip on their whatevers.

And the majority of clothing contains plastic these days.

Yeah,

Totally.

And the other thing that I was thinking about when you're talking about that is like,

You know,

Our microbiome.

We are what,

Two thirds or three fourths microbiology?

Ninety something percent.

Yeah.

Like our skin,

Our gut,

Our mouth,

You know,

Is just crawling with this these tiny bacteria and different things.

And that is like essential to our health and and just our integrity as a human being.

And,

You know,

Not only are we putting plastic clothes,

Which would just be like abrasive and just so unnatural,

But also like lotions and fragrances and makeups and all these different things that also contain plastics.

Like it is so rare to find any of those products I just named that don't have something,

Some plastic in it.

So just on that one.

So lotion.

So this is for the chicks,

Because I don't know many guys that lotion up.

But if you do,

You could go.

No,

You don't do it.

I do.

Clearly for my complexion.

But say lotion in a plastic bottle.

It sits there for six months on a shelf.

Are you going on your skin?

Is the plastic being released from inside the bottle?

One hundred percent.

So then you're smearing plastic on your skin.

Yeah.

Or sunscreen.

Yeah.

Sunscreen,

Makeup,

Any like food.

OK,

So I want to talk about plastic leeches.

But not only that,

But there's the ingredients are plastic.

Like you look at the back of your shampoo or your body wash and if it has anything poly in it,

That's that's likely plastic.

I've I've go to,

You know,

Whenever I'm at like my sailing club where I train or well,

I don't want to throw anyone under the bus,

But I'll look at I'll look at products at the back and I end up,

You know,

So frequently see plastic in there.

And parabens fragrance is kind of a catchall.

Like a lot of the times companies don't actually have to list all the ingredients because they're patent protected.

So they want to protect their their recipe.

And so they just say blanket fragrance,

Which is always,

You know,

Synthetic and not good for us.

But that's what lingers on the skin.

If you smell the other day on first surf and I smelled this guy's hair from like a hundred meters away.

His hair.

His hair.

And he like,

It's not.

He was like,

What?

He was kind of like flicking it around.

It was like herbal essences.

But I could smell it.

And I was like,

Oh my gosh,

He must use like,

You know,

No judgment,

But just like a cheap shampoo that's full of fragrance that's just lingering.

And I was like,

Oh,

The ocean.

So,

Yeah,

So we have to be worried about the ingredients that are in these products.

That's why it's so excellent that there are so many natural,

Organic,

You know,

Even better homemade things that we can make,

Which are all in my book.

Totally get the book.

I quit plastics.

No,

But it's true.

Like if you can go to your farmer's market or your local market and buy,

You know,

A balm made by some epic herbalist that is just like their passion to just whip up these little things.

Those are the best.

Joel Orchard has a beard balm.

He gave me a jar the other day.

Oh great.

Balmy.

It's just it's from beeswax and forget,

Excuse me,

Joel,

You told me what was in it the other day,

But Coriander.

Coconut oil.

Yeah,

Some oil.

Yeah,

It's epic.

Yeah,

Like it's been so fun.

Like this whole journey,

Like I am not like I did not grow up in a field of lavender,

Like gathering flowers and like,

You know,

Making wreaths and making bread.

Like I grew up with like eating Doritos and like chips and like,

You know,

Drinking Coke and just plastic food,

Which,

You know,

God bless my parents.

But they thought that that,

You know,

They read the little claim,

The marketing claims on the packages said,

You know,

Fortified with,

You know,

Whatever fiber is kind of like bullshit marketing greenwashing or vegan washing or whatever these these marketing claims.

And anyways,

And so I've had to teach myself how to care to make my own deodorant.

I've had been like,

Well,

You know,

There's literally no other option.

So deodorant used to be full,

Have aluminum or aluminium and just all sorts of crazy stuff.

If you really look into the ingredients on some like a lot of these common products that we just like go to the shops and buy trusting because it's a brand name we recognize or because it's on the shelf in the supermarket that it's safe for us.

We're worse.

We're wrong.

So a lot,

You know,

These things are these chemicals are innocent until proven guilty.

Like the US has had the same like chemical bans in place for like 80 years and they haven't updated it.

It's it's ridiculous,

You know,

So and even my experience with policy,

It's hard to get stuff banned.

So so you have to worry about the ingredients in the actual products.

What's been made?

What you're putting on your skin or in your hair or.

Yeah.

Wherever those products are going.

Yeah.

And then you have to worry about the packaging it's in,

Which is how are we doing sound wise?

Do you need a fluffy?

I don't know.

I'm going to sit like that.

I think yours is OK.

I'm just going to try this.

So excuse me,

People.

I'm going to try and turn off my mic for a second.

Why don't you keep chatting?

Oh,

Yeah.

OK.

So the packaging is this is where like I kind of had a few plastic awakenings.

First,

I realized that it doesn't break down and it was polluting our oceans and killing the whales and the fish.

And and and then I I learned that it leaked.

It's actually harmful to humans.

You know,

We we don't process it in our bodies.

Of course,

The environment doesn't process it.

Like,

How would we?

And it actually gets into our systems as well as the planet and the ocean creatures and all all the creatures in a couple of ways.

So it it flakes.

So it deteriorates.

We know that it breaks up.

So it doesn't break down like something organic matter.

But over time,

It does degrade.

It just you know,

We've all put something in there.

Perishes.

Yeah.

We've seen plastic melts on the fire or on the stove accidentally or we've seen a tarp that's been out in the sun for too long start to flake or,

You know,

Maybe a beach plastic that has been in the sun in the ocean that's like become brittle.

So and unfortunately,

It doesn't just like break down into dirt.

It breaks down into these microscopic particles.

So there's the there's the way it degrades in the environment,

In the elements.

Then there's also,

You know,

Just daily use.

So say we had like a chip packet every time you open it,

It releases.

It's like it releases these little particles.

It's not stable.

You take a bottle,

A plastic bottle lid on and off that that motion is releasing little particles into the air.

Tiny that you can't see.

And this stuff is buoyant.

Like we've all seen plastic float.

We know that it's just like hovering in the air and then it settles into dust or it goes into the water or into the chips.

And then,

You know,

Rustling your carpet,

Your poly carpet,

Rustling your curtains,

Opening the curtains,

Wearing clothing,

You know,

All of these things.

The movement of it.

You know,

You think about in the washing machine,

The polyester clothing,

It's being jostled about.

That's what that's what causes those microfibers to become loose,

Be jostled loose.

Same thing with any sort of plastic.

If it's moving,

It's like,

You know,

Wrapping up against itself and it sheds.

We can inhale that.

There's a lot of plastic in the air,

Especially if you have a lot of plastic in your house or at your workplace,

Even at like stop signs,

You know,

Or red or red lights.

There's a lot of tire plastic,

Like tire particles.

So is that is that plastic or rubber?

I guess you think it's rubber,

But is it the same thing?

So it's it depends.

There's synthetic rubbers.

If it's truly from a rubber tree.

Great.

It's really hard,

Rarely do we get specification,

Whether it's naturally derived or petrochemical based.

So that's another thing about like my education.

It's like keep driving transparency,

You know,

Ask more questions,

Demand the truth.

Because,

You know,

There's yeah,

There's so much greenwashing out there that and people that are manufacturing things just trust that rubbers rubber.

So they're like,

Yeah,

It's rubber and they don't.

They haven't asked and they might be using a synthetic rubber because it was cheaper to manufacture.

So so it floats so we can inhale it and we can ingest it through drinking the water that has the flakes in it or,

You know,

Drinking water out of a plastic bottle.

You are guaranteed to be to be ingesting plastic.

Yeah.

So you've heard the statistic that we eat a credit card the size of a credit card worth of plastics a week.

So yeah,

We say is it a year?

We probably eat less,

But that's a week for it on average.

So some people are probably eating more if they have a lot of plastic in their life.

In a week.

Where's it going?

Indoor.

Is it staying there or are we putting it out?

That's that's hard to tell.

So scientists are studying that frantically and a great resource.

Bags not being that scientist.

What's that?

Studying someone's poo to see how much plastic.

They study so much poo and they find so much plastic in it.

It's crazy.

I mean,

They find it everywhere.

They found it in human fetuses.

Now,

You know,

It's just it's but a great resource if you're curious to study,

Like stay on top of that science is the Plastic Soup Foundation in the Netherlands.

Plastic Soup Foundation.

And they have a plastic health summit,

Which is like my favorite event.

And it got canceled last year as everything did.

But it's it's a great they get lots of funding.

They fund all the scientists.

The scientists have like six months to they probably had longer this time to like get results and figure this stuff out.

So there's a lot of ongoing research happening around this.

How do we get it out of our bodies?

Some scientists theorize that,

You know,

Having saunas like sweating it out.

I don't know how true that is because like I'll get into this,

But heat actually causes is a bad reaction for plastic.

Anyways,

Breaks it down.

Is there anything that we can do because you can you can there are things you put in water to flocculate out particles.

Is there anything we can we can actually drink that actually will somehow.

Pass it.

Help pass it through.

Not that we know of,

Unfortunately,

Which is just less plastic like that.

That beautifully is the only fix,

You know,

Like it's the less we like we do have the like time helps,

Too.

So it's not all like lodging in our bodies for eternity,

But it's just it has to be kind of like a cold turkey,

Like just phase it out as much as you can.

So I can talk more about that because it is really interesting and it does lead me to like the solutions,

Which are really exciting.

But we're not I don't think we're to the happy place yet because I still have to talk about the leaching.

The leaching.

So,

OK,

So we've got the flakes.

Let's get worse.

We've got questions about how to get to Australia and I mean,

We'll put that on hold,

But let's do the leach.

Yeah,

I got people about to like vomiting from how much plastic they consume.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Like so.

OK,

So it's flaking and we've got it in in our air.

Yeah.

Water.

And so we don't know how much we absorb.

So we inhale it.

We ingest it.

Do we absorb it?

Not sure.

We think that wearing plastic because here I am.

I'm I'm like in a swimsuit every day.

I'm like,

Am I absorbing plastic into my body?

Unlikely.

When you're in the water or from a swimsuit?

Just wearing.

Your swimsuit would be what?

Recycled plastic.

Yeah.

So that's another limitation is that plastic is a great material.

Like it functions unlike any other material we have.

And especially with like clothing that we want to stretch out and also stretch back.

So a lot of the natural clothing stretches out fine,

But then it stays baggy,

Which just isn't practical for a swimsuit.

You know,

Or any other random.

You end up just naked swimming out there,

Which is great.

I had one on when I got into the water.

Yeah.

Where did it go?

Yeah.

So so anyway,

So there's we don't have science yet if we're absorbing it into our skin through our pores.

I like to just try to,

You know,

Err on the side of caution and avoid that stuff.

But we don't always have the best options.

OK,

So those are the flakes.

That's the physical particles of plastic.

Plastic also has chemical action happening that's.

Well I guess it's made of chemicals.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So like the actual bonds of plastic are kind of loose.

So it's got these like long it's the poly chain.

So it's like many little like the ends are loose.

So they just break off easily and they're actually attracted there.

You know,

They're not happy and stable in their little bond.

They want to adventure out.

So this is what I refer to as leaching of these chemicals are like leaching out.

So there's three circumstances when plastic acts nasty like this and spreads its toxins around when heat,

Fat and duration.

So you mentioned earlier you have a lotion bottle that's been sitting on the shelf for 12 months,

Whatever brand new plastic off gases.

So like straight out of the factory,

It's like smell,

You know,

Like a brand new car.

That's all the plastic off gassing.

Like you don't want to be around that.

So you don't want brand new plastic,

But you also don't want old plastic.

Not only is it degrading and flaking,

But it also it does over time,

Just those chemicals leach into the lotion or the oil that's been sitting on the shelf or the plant milk that's been in that little tetra pack for who goes along the silver tetra.

The silver inside.

Yeah,

Like plastic paper,

Some kind of metal.

So basically going,

They're dissolving.

Yeah.

Are they?

Yeah.

It's like it just goes into that the water or whatever it's containing the oil.

So duration,

If it's been in your shelf or in the supermarket for a while.

The other thing is it's lipophilic.

So it's attracted to fat.

So if it's containing oil or if it's containing some sort of like cream in the lotion or,

You know,

A shea butter or whatever,

And it's contained in plastic,

That plastic wants to go into the fat straight away.

It's like.

So it wants to actually get away from being a solid wall of a bottle into the fat.

Well,

It's still a solid wall,

But it's just like it's like it leaches its chemicals.

It's kind of like I'm trying to think of an example,

Like if you had like an oily can and you poured Coke into it or something,

Like it would just mingle.

And it just isn't solid and stable.

It's not just staying in the container.

And so if you're if you have fat in there,

So if you get a coffee cup,

If you have a plastic to go,

You know,

Single use to go cup,

Those are lined with plastic.

The paper ones along with plastic.

Paper is lined up because you imagine you get paper wet,

It just gets soggy.

So there's definitely lining in there,

Unfortunately not recyclable because it's paper and plastic smashed.

So together,

It's just not cost efficient to recycle something like that.

Plus it's full of coffee.

I digress.

So there's a plastic lining.

And so we're putting coffee in there.

If it's if there's it's a lot of there's milk,

The plastic goes into that milk.

We drink it.

It's hot.

So that's the that's the third one.

It's hot.

So imagine all this takeaway.

Everybody's getting like Uber Eats and all this like plastic food or food delivered in these plastic boxes.

It's hot.

It's greasy.

You know,

It's seeping straight into their food.

They're just eating this toxic bowl of estrogen.

So that's how it acts in our body.

So not only is it getting in there all these different ways,

It's affecting our endocrine system and our reproductive system.

Pseudo estrogen like soybean.

Well,

That's I think more like phytoestrogen.

I think that's a plant based.

But so like sometimes those are OK for us.

But yeah,

Like a synthetic estrogen is just like we have so many.

Isn't it fascinating that how does it even have happened?

Like estrogen is a naturally made occurring hormone in our bodies.

And and lo and behold,

A plastic bottle can have estrogen in it.

Like why is that even a thing?

It's crazy.

I mean,

I don't know.

Just freak accident.

Like another reason for us to avoid,

You know,

Like prevent us from contacting this foreign thing that's affecting us energetically,

Physically,

Emotionally,

You know,

Sexually,

You know,

All these things.

It's like,

Whoa,

Get this out of my life.

But it's like I was so glad I made the decision because I was like,

Oh,

My gosh,

This stuff is so nasty.

So,

OK,

So it acts like estrogen.

It's so crazy.

I actually read this really great book.

It's called Estro Generation,

And it's by this scientist and doctor from actually Minnesota.

And he sent me the book a couple of years ago or probably four years ago now.

And it's incredible.

It gives it's like his top 10 ill reproductive list.

And it's just 10 chemicals that we come into contact on a daily basis that are estrogenic.

And he lists phytoestrogens like soy and he lists mold is also an estrogenic.

Red food dye.

So like red,

There's red.

Any time you look on our packet and has red dye,

Like apparently it's in 40 percent of products in the supermarket.

Like it's crazy.

Sam and me.

But there is a number.

Yeah.

Red dye 40 or red dye.

I can't remember the specific two.

It'd be easy to Google if anybody wants to look it up.

It's not good.

No,

It's estrogen.

So the parabens to the fragrance,

Phthalates,

Which is another kind of plastic that is basically like there's there's like hard plastic,

Which is like the base plastic.

Like I'm I'm a bucket and then you can add phthalates to it.

And now your bucket's clear or like red or like flimsy,

You know,

Like phthalates are like the characteristics you add in.

Yeah.

So it's just great.

I was like,

It's a lot.

It's huge.

What does it do to a person like the the the the the estrogen from plastic?

Yeah.

Which in itself is just crazy.

That happens.

But once someone ingests that or it's on their skin,

I like what do we what's happened to the body?

So basically we've got hormone receptors all throughout our body.

So like if we're hunger hungry,

We get that hormone and then we have more for our sex hormones.

So we have more estrogen receptors.

So if we drink the coffee in a plastic cup and it it travels through our body,

It's going to ding the estrogen receptor that it kind of like to sum it up.

I mean,

It's so nuanced and there's so much research on this.

So it's hard to ever get a scientist to nail down like what happens without having to read their entire,

Which is legit.

We should.

But basically it tells our body kind of like we're pregnant.

So male or female,

Everyone in between it is a growth.

It's a growth response.

So they've connected it to obesity,

Cancers,

Heart disease,

As well as ADHD,

Developmental disorders,

Infertility,

Infertility.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's it's a sex hormone.

So the body's going,

I'm already pregnant.

I don't want to get pregnant now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just like put on weight.

So we see men develop man boobs.

There's actually there's a lot of research around this genitals and like the the changing in there and the shortening of male genitalia.

So it's it's and it also passes on to our offspring as well.

So it doesn't just stay with us.

We can pass on these sort of like reproductive diseases or disorders.

We can pass on infertility if we if we actually are able to.

So epigenetic type stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's really scary.

And just to see the list of the things that we encounter on a daily basis,

How ubiquitous all of these different things,

These these estrogens that we're exposed to on a regular basis.

It just makes you make all your own beard balms and all your own deodorant just in the country.

What about children?

You know,

My daughter's 10.

What what what does a diet full of that sort of stuff do to,

You know,

Young females?

Great question.

So just again,

To scare the crap out of you.

And and the light is there is a light at the end of the tunnel,

Like we have so many more options to stay with us because we know this whole is a silver lining.

Yeah.

We will help you support you.

This is part group meeting later.

Plastic,

Plastic synonymous.

Yeah.

That's you know,

We'll go in the ocean and just dive under and just be great.

Yeah.

Actually,

Children,

Fetuses,

Pregnant women are the most susceptible with as with all toxins.

So it's yeah,

It's really tough.

You really want to support your pregnant friends,

Mama,

Sister,

Whatever,

To have as little plastic around her as possible during that period.

And after when she's got the brand new baby,

I know there's so much plastic baby products.

And that's another thing that I'm working on is just like helping create more options for people.

So both all natural and affordable and accessible.

So like there's that itself is a whole like amazing discussion.

But yeah,

It's really important that kids are are as little exposed to plastic as possible,

Which is hard.

You don't want to be the helicopter plastic parent that is like,

No,

You can't have that.

You can't do no.

So just doing your best is what's important.

You know,

You don't want to obsess over it because having like a anxious parent is probably less cool or less good for them than having like a,

You know,

It's the balance.

But I guess also just having said that,

Though,

You think about what products are in plastic anyway.

Yeah.

You know,

Like whether you whether you don't want your kids to have that because of the plastic container tin,

But like it's usually going to be like a fizzy sugary drink,

Isn't it?

Or some processed food or something.

So whether it's the plastic it's wrapped in all the contents,

Kind of a good thing to avoid anyway.

Totally.

Yeah.

So I mean,

I know like I don't have kids,

So it's easy for me to say.

But,

You know,

I have a lot of friends and students and clients that have big families and they do their best.

They make yummy treats.

So like I have lots of recipes for yummy treats because that ends up being the main thing is it's just like,

Oh,

I don't want to make a brownie.

I'll just buy the packet or the candy or whatever.

It's kind of like these like slip ups where you fall off the wagon and then you stay off and you don't get back on.

But it's those it's having a pantry or a fridge full of yummy treats,

You know,

Making that building that into your routine,

Making the family do it together,

Whatever that like helps you avoid those tricky situations like,

Oh,

No,

I have that yummy treat we made with,

You know.

Make it a bit of a ritual or a bit of a family event.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Without going,

We're not going to do plastic anymore.

It's like we're going to just do food better.

And kids respond super well to the dolphin effect and turtle effect.

Well,

You show them a picture of a turtle or you tell them that dolphins choke on plastic and they'll never use it again.

And they'll be at the store being like,

Dad,

You can't get plastic.

You know,

And they'll hold you accountable,

Which is amazing.

It's so good to have like a team diversely.

You know,

Everybody has their own why.

You're the parent.

You're like,

I don't want you to take the plastic because it does affect kids development.

Yeah.

It leads to like obesity is the biggest one.

Again,

Because of the hormonal effects and and and again,

I guess it's also in some way,

As I was saying before,

You know,

What's in what is in the packets that are giving them the hormonal response to think it's a shit food anyway.

And that's another epic benefit of quitting plastics is you don't eat any packaged processed crap.

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Let's get back to this week's episode.

I want to make sure we don't sidestep that we do talk about regenerative agriculture because I noticed on your website and I was really excited to see that you had identified your plastic,

Your pot on your Mercast,

Your episodes that were talking about plastics,

Obviously,

And also the regenerative agriculture one.

Yes.

So tell me about your connection with that because I'm conscious that not everyone who listens to the show is like a farmer and that's the main thing.

But you know,

I will always know and have for some time.

Try to identify how regenerative agriculture is the center of so many things.

That's right.

You know,

Food.

I like it's like,

You know,

Put your hand up if you eat food,

Pretty much everyone.

So maybe that should be important to people.

So tell me about your,

You know,

Who we hear on your farm,

Your five acres,

Which is magnificent.

And if you're hearing some,

It's actually stopped now,

But before there was some road work going on over there.

So apologize for any,

I want to apologize for the cows mooing.

Yeah,

That's just gold.

And the magpies.

But you're here on a farm.

Tell me about your connection with or interest in regenerative agriculture.

Yeah.

And how you've sort of transitioned yourself in a way.

Well,

So I can't eat packaged food.

So I eat fresh fruits and vegetables.

Get out of here.

Yep.

You're crazy.

So fringe.

And so I have to either have a relationship with my farmers because,

You know,

Being plastic free,

Sure.

But like,

They even package fruits and vegetables and plastic at some markets.

So it's so important to me wherever I travel to,

Like one of the first things I Google is like the farmer's market.

It's so fun to try the local foods and just see that culture,

But also like to know what I can eat,

You know,

That's where I shop is at the farmer's markets.

And in that journey of learning,

Okay,

I need to shop at the farmer's market.

What can I grow?

You know,

I got interested in growing and I actually plant a lot of my food scraps.

And that's another thing that I have a lot of is because I don't have plastic packaging.

My trash cans are empty,

But my compost is massive.

You know,

I have always just so much food waste,

Just like the veggie butts and different things since I was composting.

So I already was like involved in land even when I was like in a city.

I refuse to throw food scraps into the trash.

I just do not want to be responsible for that methane.

So I will go on a walk and I will dig a hole like no matter how far or I'll keep I'll carry a little bucket of the food scraps until I find a suitable place to bury someone else's backyard.

It's hilarious.

Like meeting random people and being like,

This is this is weird,

But can I bury this in your front lawn?

Thank you.

Hopefully the bag isn't too big.

Containing a body.

This person didn't recycle.

Good for you because that I mean that that in itself is a testament to your the discipline you have and your your commitment to it.

You know,

Random strangers,

Can I bury this my veggie scraps in your backyard?

I mean,

That's not some that that's uncomfortable for people and that's a pun.

But that's that's fantastic.

We should be doing more often.

Yeah,

I think I mean,

There's two things that that I want to share from that one that we're so disconnected from community.

I feel that people are so eager for that sort of random interaction and it's always hilarious.

Like it and you'd be I imagine you would your your approach would be would be funny.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like I try to bring I just am a naturally like happy,

Joyful person.

And so when I find myself with a pile of food scraps,

I'm like,

What am I going to do with this?

Like,

What are my options?

And yeah,

Like,

You know,

Most people probably just throw it away.

But,

You know,

The second thing I want to mention is that what we're doing now is not sustainable.

Like that word is is such bullshit because there's nothing there.

So it's so rare.

Like it's so rare that we're actually doing something that's good enough that is worth sustaining.

We're still at that 80 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing.

You know,

We're still trying to get there.

We're still creating.

We're still learning.

This this clothing brand should be circular.

We should have a send back program.

OK.

Oh,

My gosh.

This thing is made out of 20 percent virgin plastics.

Like we need to tell people that so they understand what they're buying and like the limitations of recycling.

Oh,

My gosh.

It's shedding these microfibers.

We need to send out a filter,

You know,

So like we're not we're not there yet.

So we're not at a point where what we are doing is good to sustain because we're actually still trying to we don't want to sustain crap.

Yeah,

Exactly.

We want to sustain high standard recycling,

Repurposing,

Re-everything.

That's what we want to sustain,

Having regenerated it to that point.

And there's a few things.

Yeah.

So like and that's what I mean.

Like we're pioneering that stuff.

Like we're out here experimenting and we get to be playful and silly and weird and and mess up,

Too.

You know,

Make mistakes and be weird and ask random people.

And sometimes they say no.

And they're like,

That's so weird,

You know,

Or.

But I feel that that's what makes my lifestyle fun and interesting.

And this like adventure of life is because I'm I'm there's no right way to do this stuff.

We actually have to invent it.

And that feels really fun.

It's like this wild west of of environmental,

You know,

Like coming back to nature,

Like reconnecting to our wild.

You know,

It's beautiful.

But there are a few things that we're coming across that are worth sustaining,

You know,

Circular economy,

Regenerative agriculture.

Like that's where I fell in love with regenerative agriculture because I was like,

Oh,

Fuck.

Like,

Can I swear?

I just did.

I just did.

OK.

Oh,

Darn.

The climate,

You know,

I'm not going to take that.

I just said it to you.

Yeah.

So just learning like how saturated our our atmosphere is with greenhouse gases and just being like,

Oh,

My goodness.

Like,

Yeah,

Plastics,

But whoa,

Climate and and trying to that's why I started my podcast.

I was like,

What?

I don't understand this issue well enough to debate,

You know,

My Republican family members and really advocate for the Green New Deal and really discuss the solutions.

They're like,

You know,

Probably on their way out and not really caring anymore.

But,

You know,

I was like,

Oh,

Man,

I'm an environmentalist.

This is my life.

This is my career.

And if I don't understand this well enough to discuss the solutions and to really believe in them and know what the path is.

I bet a lot of people don't.

So I started the Murkast and I've interviewed like all my favorite plastic people and that list continues to grow.

And it's such a fun project.

But I also interviewed a lot of climate solution legends,

People that were just knowledgeable about the issue to help me kind of tackle my own fear and understand the solutions.

And regenerative agriculture was incredible.

Like,

I've learned so much and I can't wait to have our conversation as well,

Because it's something that,

You know,

That inspired me to to become a custodian of a little bit of land.

And there's so much that I want to do here and grow food and share with the community and plant trees.

And,

You know,

It's just it's it's beautiful.

And these things go hand in hand,

Aren't they?

Like regenerative ag in terms of a solution to lots of things,

Human health crisis.

Well,

One of the solutions,

You know,

Pulling carbon back out of the atmosphere,

Reducing the amount of being emitted because you're just not burning the diesel and using the chemicals and all that sort of thing.

So it's really that goes hand in hand with what you're doing,

Which is another environmental,

You know,

Plight.

And,

You know,

I think it was something that was obviously going to happen at some point because this for you,

I imagine,

Because they're so interrelated.

I mean,

Plastics are so petrochemical.

So,

You know,

They didn't come out of the universe once upon a time,

But they are.

This is take it back to what is plastic.

Plastic is petrochemical type substances.

So they were all the oil.

So we've turned a natural substance,

Which is what oil is.

It's just a long way down and very old.

And we have dead dinosaurs,

Dead dinosaurs.

Yeah,

Marine life,

All sorts of stuff.

Don't feel guilty and turn that into something that is that was natural and is very unnatural now.

And that in itself to me is like.

Fascinating because humans have the power and the science or the ability to turn.

To do that,

Which is really scary.

I mean,

This sort of steps in the talk about agricultural chemicals.

Same thing.

Yeah.

Chemicals turn into ridiculous,

Filthy things that are,

You know,

DDT.

Glad to say it like it's that we started a lot of that in college.

And when I say philosophy and we studied environmental ethics and Rachel Carson,

You know,

Silent Spring and the impact of what we're doing here does not stay right here.

It spreads out to all the surrounding ecosystems.

And we're just in a big interconnected ecosystem on this planet.

And I think I think that foundation of understanding helped me really see why plastic was its own sort of like toxic,

You know.

I don't even know what to terror.

But yeah.

What was what was question?

What am I talking about right now?

Ag plastic petrochemicals.

Oh,

Ag chemicals.

Another crazy thing is the amount of plastic used in agriculture.

You know,

When we moved here,

There we were pulling up plastic just out in these this like field.

We still find chemical drum like 20 litre chemical drums.

No,

Like the tarping,

The lay,

The long,

The spreading out of tarps to prevent weed growth.

OK,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Weed matting and tarps and that sort of stuff.

Yeah,

Lots of that.

I've lived on a couple of regenerative farms or organic farms just to like learn more and just put myself into immerse myself in the amazing humans that are attracted to that sort of thing.

So cool.

And there was so much plastic there too.

And I was like,

No,

Like,

Can't we use hessian?

OK,

Plastic on the organic farms.

Yeah.

Like,

You know,

They're like,

How else are we going to.

.

.

In the production of food.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so and I did a few like,

You know,

Audits and we tried to work.

It was so fun.

We tried to workshop through like,

What can we use instead?

And we tried hessian and it just like would compost,

You know,

It wouldn't really last.

And it's like,

Man,

OK,

Here again,

Plastic is serving its purpose.

It's the most durable,

Weather resistant,

You know,

Strong material out there.

And that's what it was invented to do.

That's why we altered something so natural into something so unnatural so that it wouldn't biodegrade,

So that it would stay there.

I mean,

It was first really brought to the market in World War Two when the soldiers were like,

You know,

They used it in helmets,

In gear so that it was lighter,

But still durable.

And because,

You know,

A generalization,

But all the men were off at war,

The women were at home raising the families,

They had to enter the workplace or the workforce.

And so they brought plastic there as well.

And they were like TV dinners,

You know,

Disposable plates and cutlery,

Just wipe it into the trash can.

And it was like,

God sent,

You know,

This material that was just saving America and the other.

Strong,

Durable,

Light,

Colourful.

Disposable,

You know,

And then the trash can was filling up.

So the big oil,

Actually,

Big plastic that that industry was like,

What do we do?

They invented the recycling bin.

They didn't invest in the infrastructure to help that evolve.

So recycling doesn't work.

We should still do it because there's a percentage that does get recycled.

And I can talk more about how to recycle properly.

But the truth is,

Is that they just needed another can in the kitchen to be able to,

You know,

Fill a second vessel up before the trash truck came.

It all went to the same one.

Yeah.

And the Second World War was a lot to answer for because that's where the use of the chemicals that were chemicals of warfare were going,

What are we going to do with this stuff?

You know,

When they,

You know,

Phosphates were turned into,

They go,

Hang on,

We can actually kill people and hang on,

We can kill plants with this stuff.

And then all the other variations on that took off.

Oh,

Man.

You know what,

There's,

There was 50,

What was it,

No,

100 barrels of of DDT discovered leaking off the coast of Los Angeles recently last month.

In the ocean.

Just dumped.

Like it was banned.

I can't remember when it was banned.

I think it was banned like maybe 50 years ago or something.

Yeah,

I was going to say 60s.

Yeah,

Yeah,

True.

And so once it got banned,

The chemical company that was like making a killing off this like pesticide didn't know where to go with it.

And so they just took it out to sea and they dumped it.

And it's now leaking all over Catalina Island.

And it's been leaking for the past 50 years.

It's not rude.

Yeah,

It's just so irresponsible.

Like they just must have thought the ocean was so vast they could just like dump it.

It was like sewage.

20 miles off the coast.

Not quite the same thing,

But you know,

Bondi Cigar,

You know,

That was when you get pumped out there.

Just about the lifespan of plastics.

Quick little anecdote.

In the late 60s,

My mother and father were living in a place,

Durrumbandi,

A station called the Yamburgen family place.

Mum was and still is a very good cook and she made a,

And I have to get her to adjudicate exactly,

I'm not sure if it was an orange cake or marmalade,

Orange related food product that she submitted to the Durrumbandi show and won first prize.

Wow.

For one or the other.

Her prize was a plastic orange squeezer.

Okay,

Yeah.

Late 60s.

We still have that plastic orange squeezer.

It's like a family heirloom.

When friends come,

I actually hide it because they break it.

But my point is,

It is late 60s,

What is it?

It's 50 years old.

Late 60s.

Yeah,

It is 50 years old and it is as durable and everything as a day it was made.

It's amazing.

My point is that my sense is given plastic products that I am involved in,

Used to be agriculture and just sort of now somewhat,

Things don't last as long as they used to.

So my 50 year old orange squeezer is still cracking on when things,

As you say,

Bottles degrade.

You just see them on the beach or in the thing within months.

I think that's a result of two things.

Is that a business decision?

Yeah,

I think that that's a cultural result.

I think that we just are disposable in our mindset.

We're not satisfied with one orange squeezer for life.

A new one comes out and we need,

It functions better.

And we want it to match our new kitchen set or we've decided like wood handle is more in and we need to look the part or whatever.

We're just materialistic.

And so our stuff,

Even though it doesn't wear out or break,

It just needs to be replaced more frequently.

So that's like,

That's voids within our own.

That's,

You know,

We're in the little plastic packet and we're not connected to nature enough to be like,

I don't need so much stuff.

We have all these voids to fill and we fill them with stuff and external.

You know,

We're always reaching whether it's for like alcohol or drugs or sex or thrills or stuff,

Shopping.

Trying to fill a need or a gap or a turnover.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So that's one element.

And then I think that stuff as a result,

Stuff is just poorly made these days.

So it's just a business decision for sure that we don't need to invest in like the best mould or the best plastic.

In fact,

A lot of the time they are designed to break so that they have to be replaced to hold on to that customer base.

Talking about stuff breaking.

Well,

Maybe not,

But I'm going to segue there anyway.

You get I have seen and if you if you're not following Kate on social media,

Please do so because I absolutely love your videos.

Sterical and you've seen this so much traveling and been doing it,

But you're sort of like you're rapid fire.

Bang,

Bang,

Bang solutions to this and having fun with that.

And they're so good.

So please,

Everyone get on there and follow and watch.

You have at times and I remember there's one particular post where you were very diplomatically saying,

I was on your website or a post,

Which was a post and you were saying thank you to everyone who sends me stuff.

But can you not wrap it in plastic?

It was really fascinating that like people going,

Oh,

She's a plastic person.

Any plastic I'm going to send her something to promote,

But I'm going to wrap it in plastic.

Yeah,

It's crazy.

It's crazy how many I think people maybe see how many followers I have and just email me to promote their stuff.

And so many times I'm like,

Hi,

What is it?

What is it made of?

Or what's it packaged in?

And no reply or no reply and be like,

Oh,

Yeah,

It's plastic.

Still having no idea.

And I'm like,

All right,

I'm slightly.

And then I just give I copy paste my lecture and I'm like a few photos like the turtles.

I'm like,

They need to see it.

You know,

Sometimes the fear factor,

The shock factor is the most effective.

But yeah,

It is.

It's fun.

And that's and that's another learning opportunity,

Too,

Because like we all get stuff sent to us.

So that little conversation is so important because then I end up with the empty trash can and I save myself a walk to the end of the driveway.

You know,

Whatever it is that you have to motivate yourself to make time for that little email.

Hey,

Can you send it in paper?

Because I won't buy it if you if you don't,

You know,

Like,

Can you wrap it?

I don't care.

Wrap it in an old package,

Whatever.

I just don't send me plastic.

Yeah.

You know,

And oftentimes making that suggestion,

Making it easy for them.

I usually buy for like from like small businesses,

Like trying to support like legends and makers and homemade whatever humans that are small business.

And so they're always like,

Of course,

Or like I already do.

You know,

I rarely am shopping at a large.

I don't know,

Store or supplier of things where they don't care.

Say it.

Amazon,

Kmart,

Aldi.

Which leads me to ask a question and maybe in your book and tips,

Like we we always encourage our family not to give us Christmas presents because they're sort of invariably as we appreciate the gesture and we love love the thought and the consideration.

But invariably,

Things are somehow wrapped in plastic,

You know,

And then so I guess there's no easy way to.

To tell people that and often they have you found that people get offended because they don't you get that I love you and I give you something special and you get that,

But it's like it's got plastic on.

So how do you how do you is that if you got any tips that you can tell people?

Yeah.

It's all about delivery.

You know,

I think if you if you get down to the intent,

You know,

The intention behind something,

If you say,

Hey,

Christmas is about love and togetherness.

Right.

And they're like,

Yeah.

And it's like and we want to be kind and generous and loving to each other.

Yeah,

Well,

Let's do something together.

You know,

Let's we don't need we don't need gifts because we're trying to simplify or minimize stuff.

We're trying to be more minimalistic or,

You know,

Like help them connect to the reason whether it's Christmas or whether it's birthday or whether it's your children.

You know,

I have a lot of friends that just get grandparents giving them stuff and they're like,

Oh,

My gosh,

We don't need any more stuff,

Much less plastic stuff.

So if you acknowledge and say,

Look,

I so appreciate the thought it means the world to me that you care enough and that you see you think of us when you see this.

We're really committed to less stuff or whatever it is,

Your little spiel and then offer the solution.

I think it's so important to like connect first,

Like connect heart to heart.

Like,

Thank you so much for thinking of me this year.

We're not doing gifts.

If you want to donate on behalf of us.

If you know what I do with my friends is we do Secret Santa and it has to be made.

So we made bee boxes for our Secret Santa.

Now,

We just have one person to give a gift to.

But we had so much fun making them.

You know,

Boxes as in a high.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For native bees.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cool.

Little story bits.

It was just three boxes.

So it was kind of traditional.

But apparently,

Yeah,

We were hoping that they became native bee boxes.

But kind of nice.

Like creating,

Getting creative and finding the way to.

Have fun with it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now talking about fun.

I'm not I'm so not good at segwaying.

Fun facts or myths.

Because I'm sure there's a few myths about plastic.

Good or bad.

You know,

Are there any that you you know,

You want to blow people's heads off about about the other anything sort of that you can tell us about like like as in shocking stats like.

Yeah.

It's like,

Oh,

Plastic is safe to consumer.

I don't know.

I'm just making stuff up.

Yes.

Stats and myths and misconceptions about plastic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

I don't make it up.

Yeah.

I mean,

I there's so much there are so many statistics out these days.

Like,

Fortunately,

We have a lot of scientists working on this,

Which is great.

I'm always shocked that a garbage truck of plastic enters our oceans every minute of every day.

I let's see what are you know,

I think everyone's heard that the shocking facts about there's going to be more plastic than ocean or than fish in our oceans by 2050 by white.

Yep.

By weight and plastic is light.

So imagine.

So,

I mean,

The shocking the hard part is,

Is that a lot of people end up focusing on the cleanup.

Right.

We we see all the plastic on the beach.

We see it in our trash can.

We see down the side of the road.

And it's important to put energy into the cleanup.

Absolutely.

I spent years cleaning beaches all over the world.

It was just like that's where I really got the passion for it.

As I was like,

Oh,

My God,

We're traveling here to surf and the water's full of plastic.

This is crazy.

So I've done days and days of beach cleans.

And it's really important to really have to sit there and pick up cigarette butts to care to never flick a cigarette.

But again,

You know,

It's to pick up all that crap and like remember,

Like the the Q-tip here in Australia,

Their plastic Q-tips,

Not as much anymore,

But just different things.

You see it in the cleanup and you're like,

Oh,

I'd never again.

But it's it's there's this great saying,

If the sink was overflowing,

You wouldn't reach for the mop.

You would turn off the tap.

And that's what the plastic movement that's what the climate movement.

It's not focusing on like the little beach clean the plastic that's out in my yard.

It's David and Goliath.

It's going after big oil.

It's going after big plastic.

It's saying,

How do we stop plastic production?

You know,

Because they're seeing like their their grip on the fuel,

On transportation,

On on,

You know,

Fossil fuel that that their grip is slipping because there's so much climate awareness.

And hopefully,

Finally,

Some governments are taking strong action to reduce emissions through through these transportation,

Fuel,

Whatever.

Big oil is like,

All right,

Plastic,

That's we got to double down,

Triple down.

They're actually going to triple their production in the next 10 years.

So plastic is not going anywhere.

And we see it.

It's getting more.

You know,

They are so brilliant at coming up with new product design.

So,

Oh,

You know,

All these little spray bottles and cleaning bottles,

You know,

All these.

You just start to notice plastic around you and you see how intricate and like engineered and innovative and well-designed it is because.

And also hard to differentiate.

It's almost like we don't even see it because it's like sneakily hidden in our.

Right.

And packaging like,

You know,

Like I can't even think,

But like what's a vegetable that has like three layers of plastic?

Oh,

Like maybe potatoes that are on a styrofoam tray and then like plastic wrap.

And then maybe like a plastic band or a plastic label,

You know,

Like so much plastic in that potato.

Like you,

You don't need to package that.

You know,

You can get that naked.

So I think that like I could rattle off so many plastic stats that probably are.

You know,

You can there's so much information out there about the negatives of plastic,

But I think the focus should really be on reducing it at the source,

Reducing plastic production to prevent it from becoming pollution.

You know,

We have to go further upstream to look at like,

How do we tackle that?

Which is not unlike regenerative agriculture where,

Yes,

We're sequestering carbon that's in the atmosphere and it's going to take a long time to sort of get that balance back in place.

But,

You know,

Taking up the use of chemicals,

Not ploughing as much or minimum till.

That's the,

I guess that's the beauty of it is that there's this dual,

You know,

Dual attack,

As it were,

You know,

Let's not emit as much.

And what is emitted,

Let's do our best to put that back in.

Tell me about mentors.

Was there anyone that you want to make a note of who was particularly inspiring?

Your previous,

You mentioned your professor or scientist over there,

Cousteau.

Dr Dre.

Yeah.

I mean,

I don't want to put mentors in your mouth,

But anyone that you want to just acknowledge or just,

You know,

And then also the importance of mentors.

I always ask that question because I think it is and I'm interested to see what my inviteease,

What are you?

You're an EWE.

Well,

I would love to invite you to be a mentor.

It would be lovely.

Really?

Cool.

Would you be open to that?

Yeah,

Totally.

Okay,

Cool.

So next question.

No,

I do.

I do.

That's sincere.

I really do respect what you do and the way you present your subject matter and your expertise and share it with the world.

So that is sincere.

I know you flubbed your word,

But I'm going to take you up on it.

Yeah,

Mentors.

Oh,

My gosh.

I like cannot.

The list is so long.

I feel so grateful to I mean,

The journey.

It's I wanted to say before we segued very naturally to this next topic,

But I wanted to say that it is,

You know,

After studying climate and plastic for years,

The truth is,

Is that it's really it takes both individual and collective action.

We as individuals have to do our best to eat local shop,

Small business,

Support our local economy,

Grow food if we can compost our food scraps,

Use less plastic.

We have as individuals and then we also have to be a part of a community where we support those things as well.

We support the farmers market.

We are on a committee.

We,

You know,

Donate.

We volunteer.

We're on the policy change things,

You know.

So there's a lot that we do individually and collectively.

And on my journey as like such a strong individual,

You know,

Independent,

Just going for this.

Oh,

My gosh.

You know,

Tunnel vision.

Just how do we stop this plastic thing?

I absolutely like it would be crazy to think I could do this alone.

I've had so much support,

So much beautiful insight.

And,

You know,

Starting from back in the day,

Of course,

Dr.

Andrea Neal.

You know,

She she was incredible because she was pioneering the plastic pollution research.

And she just was like,

I was like,

We need to get your research out there.

And she's like,

We can't.

Like,

It's bound to these grants and I can't publish it until,

You know,

Until I get it published in a journal.

I can't qualify for the next grant.

And so it's private until it gets published.

And I was like,

What a headache.

Like,

Oh,

My gosh.

Props to all the scientists out there because it is hard and yet vital.

So I was so grateful to her for just dropping the initial epiphany that's led me on this path.

She was the catalyst.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So,

Oh,

My gosh.

So Captain Charles Moore has been a beautiful like ocean grandpa,

Like he discovered ocean grandpa.

He'd be OK with that?

I think he'd be happy.

He would love that.

Maybe like a merman.

He's such a merman.

OK,

Like ocean grandpa,

Merman captain.

So he sailed from Hawaii to California and he discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

He was like,

He literally ran into it.

Yeah,

I mean,

Well,

That was that was an interesting thing.

And this is another thing on my learning journey about like being specific and clear because he discovered this garbage patch and everyone thought it was an island.

And so he went on all these talk shows and they're like,

Tell us about the garbage island.

Can you walk on it?

And he was like,

Well,

No plastic.

It doesn't.

It's not like a big trash pile at sea.

Like it's dispersed.

It's a soup.

It's like this.

The water column is just like this.

And so it's a matter of currents of just sort of fashion.

This is a spot where it's all settled.

Yeah.

So like all over,

Like the ocean currents kind of travel around and then there's places where they converge and they kind of form these whirlpool like systems that are called gyres.

And so there's like big gyres in between all the continents.

There's like debated five,

Four,

Six.

But then there's smaller gyres too,

Like just in between different landmasses.

So in these giant gyres,

We have these larger accumulations of trash,

Of plastic from boats,

From the rivers,

From dumping,

From whatever.

However,

It's washed out to sea.

And Captain Charles Moore discovered the first one.

And he.

Yeah.

But it was interesting because everyone thought it was an island and he was like,

No,

It's a soup.

And people kind of didn't care as much because they couldn't visualize it.

Like we're so we're so disconnected that it's like,

I can't imagine what that is.

But anyway,

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So he discovered that.

And now he's got the Algalita Research Foundation and they do a lot of great stuff in California.

Still do lots of ocean adventures,

Expeditions,

And they mentor a lot of kids.

So there are a lot of like of the young plastic activists that go through their program.

So I love Captain Charles Moore.

Is there a just on the kids and plastic activists.

And I've never even heard that expression.

So that's cool.

Wasn't,

Am I right in saying there's an Aussie guy who invented some picker up or a thing,

A massive.

The seabin or the ocean cleanup?

Don't know,

Maybe close.

Tell us about both.

I will.

So the seabin is positive.

The ocean cleanup is not.

I'll start with the positive.

No,

No,

No,

No.

Is that controversial?

Totally.

OK,

Do it.

All right.

So the seabin is started right in our own backyard in Byron Bay by Pete Cegliski.

He's a local and he basically created.

Yeah,

Go Pete.

He started the trash can of the sea.

So it's trash cans that you can install at your local marina,

At your harbor,

And you just set it in.

And it's at the water level and it kind of like sucks stuff in that's floating on the surface.

So it sucks all the trash in and then you empty it once a week or once a day.

Depends on how much trash is in your harbor.

So those are great.

You should all get one for your local harbor.

Like it's seabin.

Seabin.

Yeah.

So that's great.

Just quickly,

Does it run on like a motor or is it just gravity that's feeding it?

Good question.

I can't believe I don't know that.

Maybe it's solar.

I mean,

I think it might be solar.

It's effective.

Yeah,

It's really great.

And I think the body is actually made from recycled ocean plastics as well.

So,

Yeah,

They're killing it.

But they do need support because they need you to invest in your local one.

Like that's helpful.

So that's great.

Byron Council.

Anyone from Byron Council listening to this?

Just we need you to do a lot more actually Byron Council.

If you could also ban plastics,

That's just,

We would love that.

What about Ballina Council?

Ballina Council could also ban plastics.

What about Tweed Council?

Tweed.

Yeah.

Brisbane?

Let's do it.

Sydney.

Sydney should do it as well.

Yeah.

I think we're only,

We've only got,

Yeah,

New South Wales.

Why stop at town level?

Let's go.

We actually just had some legislation go through parliament that was an opportunity to ban plastics at the federal level.

It was not,

It did not go over well.

It was the,

It was parliament created a bill called the waste and recycling bill or waste reduction and recycling bill.

And the Greens member,

Senator Wish Wilson.

Do you know him?

Yeah.

Yeah.

No,

I saw him on your website.

What's his name?

He's got Senator.

Peter.

Peter Wish.

Yeah.

He's in Tasmania.

Yeah.

The serving Senator.

Yeah,

That's right.

So he was saying,

Hey,

Look,

Let's ban plastics.

Like there's Canada just did it.

The European Union did it.

Like it's,

We need to,

Yeah.

And nope.

And also included in that bill was,

So they were talking about waste reduction and they were saying we need mandatory,

Peter was saying,

The surfing Senator was saying,

We need,

We need mandatory waste reduction targets.

Like we need you to,

Cause in the bill that the,

Our government put forward,

They were voluntary targets.

So,

Hey,

Coles and Woolworths,

We need,

We,

No,

Because they never stick to it.

They never in the history of anything have they stuck to voluntary targets.

We'd like to,

But we really can't.

Yeah.

Or yeah,

We,

We will.

We totally will.

We're going to do it.

We're doing it.

We don't need mandatory because we're doing it.

We're already doing it.

So it was,

It was compostable recycled or,

Or recyclable packaging by 2025.

Like how,

How much is that to ask,

You know?

And they're like,

They fought tooth and nail to make sure that it was voluntary.

So,

But definitely follow Peter Wish Wilson.

He's continuing to push that legislation forward.

So we need to support that.

So back to CBN and then the other one.

So we love CBN,

Pete Legend.

The other one you mentioned.

Yeah,

The ocean cleaner.

Okay.

And then I can segue to more of my mentors through this.

I've already got it.

So young boy,

You guys would have all heard of Boyan Slat maybe,

Sorry,

Assumption.

There is this 18 year old kid in the Netherlands,

Boyan Slat,

And he was in school who studied.

Boyan.

Boyan.

Slat.

Slat is his name.

That's his name.

Okay,

Cool.

And he,

He,

He was studying engineering and he,

He came up with a solution.

He's like,

Hey,

Let's just make a giant floating boom and like collect the plastic in the sea.

Yeah.

Boom.

And just like scoop it up.

And he,

Everyone was like,

Brilliant,

Genius.

Why did we think of this?

Just scoop it up.

And he took his idea.

He got lots of funding,

Like millions of dollars.

And he took the idea to Captain Moore and my other mentor who is the founder of Plastic Soup Foundation,

Maria Westervos.

She's Dutch.

And he said,

What do you think?

And they were like,

No,

Like you can't just scoop up the plastic.

Like it's not sure you should.

We could try and scoop up the bigger stuff.

But it's,

It's,

There's an ecosystem that's been created around this.

There's crabs living in there.

There's fish that are around there.

There's bigger fish.

And all these little plastic bits that have degraded are the same size as all the phytoplankton and you know,

All the,

There's kind of like the base level of food chain.

If you scoop that up,

You kill,

You wipe up that,

That base level of the food chain like that.

You can't,

It's not going to work.

And so they,

They,

There's this kind of.

There's the theory.

Sounds good.

And then there's like the practice.

Yeah.

And I don't know if you've seen this in agriculture or not,

But it's really hard because people get so excited about something,

They get so attached to it.

They throw a lot of money at it.

It has to work.

And if you say no,

It won't,

You know,

They don't want to hear that regardless of the science or the experience or the expertise or the credibility.

And so it,

It,

It was really divisive.

I,

I actually didn't speak out against it a lot because at some point I was like,

Oh man,

Well at least it's raising interest.

Yeah.

It's raising the profile of this issue.

There's a solution out there.

People have hope and they're actually learning about the problem through this false solution.

So it was interesting to see the role that these sort of like myths and false solutions actually play in activism.

It failed.

It,

I was on Hawaii actually when one of the arms of the boom broke off and floated out to sea.

Like it was a disaster.

It didn't,

It,

The ocean moved faster than the boom.

So it couldn't even collect.

He had to borrow plastic from a local beach clean,

Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii.

He had to borrow beach plastic from them for his photo shoots.

To make it look like he'd rounded it up.

Yeah.

That was a good point you made back there about,

You know,

In agriculture and yes,

Agriculture and broadly science.

And I have certainly been privy to,

And it's not uncommon to see,

And I'm saying scientists because they're often the ones doing the research and they get the funding and that's their,

That's their shtick,

You know.

And a layman or someone outside of,

With no vested interest and no attachment to the outcome going,

This is clearly,

You know,

You might say an ego trip.

This is like I'm inventing something because it puts me on the map or I've got to invent something,

You know,

I've got to get funding.

So I'm going to invent something to get the funding for so I can justify my place in the university or whatever it is.

But it's a really interesting thing that,

You know,

Things are often invented for the sake of the inventor and actually have no practical application whatsoever.

And I'll,

Sort of a case in point might be desal plant.

So some friends of mine in Victoria were,

You know,

Living near live near where there's currently a desal plant and there's one off Sydney somewhere as well.

And,

You know,

That's a,

That's a,

I think a great example of problem.

You know,

Water security,

Vagan itself,

So many different variables.

So solution,

Let's just look at all that water over there that's got salt in it.

Let's just take the salt out and make water.

And let's spend two billion dollars doing that and then not use it.

But it costs two million dollars a day for upkeep.

Quick fix,

Expensive quick fix.

But it's political and pointless and,

You know,

Greenwashing.

And this is my view,

I'm just jumping on the soapbox here.

No,

But you're right,

Because it brings me back to what you were saying about plastic is that plastic isn't evil by nature.

It's how we use it.

It's how we misuse it.

You know,

It's humans are amazing.

We're so creative and smart and,

You know,

Innovative and we can create technology.

It's not the technology that's that's bad.

It's how we use it.

And that's where,

Like,

The disposable plastics is so irresponsible and just stupid.

You know,

It's it's the these solutions,

You know,

Same with incineration,

Even recycling,

Like these these systems that we have in place that represent far more than they actually do.

You know,

Incineration is this like quick fix to the mounting plastic pollution.

Domestic,

We have them in Australia,

They're on Hawaii,

They're in Southeast Asia.

There's the quick fix.

It just makes a pile of trash disappear and then it's beautiful again,

But it doesn't make it disappear.

It burns it into this toxic ash,

This dust that is irretrievable from the environment.

Gets in the water,

It gets in the air like it's 30 times more like toxic than actual plastic.

So there's all there's so many examples of of people that aren't necessarily the scientists or fully credible or well read about the issue and getting putting forward an idea and then getting funding because they're good at business or they're good at pitching or they're well connected.

And then this shitty idea is actualized and then it's just like plastic.

And often politicized?

Yeah,

It's like the campaign and everyone's like,

Yeah,

We're solving the plastic pollution.

Like,

Oh my God.

And it's good to feel the hope.

It's good to feel that.

But there,

You know,

Again,

Another one of my mentors,

Helena Norberg-Hodge,

It's all about localizing.

Like instead of the global plastic cleanup,

Like solving the world problem,

Like it's never going to be that easy.

It's always going to be different for every beach,

For every ecosystem,

For every community.

There's different and it should be that way because then it's not just one person profiting off of the total global solution.

It's like individual community working together,

A few different minds and projects.

You know,

It's really hard to stomach the quick fixes that just are such a waste of money and infrastructure and space.

And then end up,

You know,

Becoming often a problem in itself.

Yeah.

You know,

Again,

Case in point,

Decals like costing New South Wales ratepayers $2 million a day,

It's not doing anything.

It's all that material that is sitting out there which didn't need to be pulled out of the ground or could have been used for something else,

Which is in itself now a wasted resource.

You mentioned,

I wrote a name down here,

Helena.

So isn't it funny,

You know,

I,

Now,

Which,

I've seen her on a movie,

On a doco recently.

Economics of happiness,

Her doco?

No,

I've seen her somewhere else.

On Russell Brand's stuff?

Oh,

Maybe.

Was she on a doco,

Another doco somewhere?

Economics of happiness,

Maybe that's one.

She's been on a few things.

She's fantastic.

Yeah.

So you've interviewed her?

Yep.

Yes,

And her name came up two days ago.

Is it funny you sort of don't connect things and suddenly they're everywhere,

Like yellow cars or whatever the expression is.

Yeah.

So why is she important to you?

What is she doing?

Tell everyone about the lovely work she's done.

She is an amazing human.

Definitely check her out.

Support our world localisation day is coming up.

And I love her work because first of all,

She's a beautiful person in my life.

She holds women's circle.

And so we get to meet regularly.

Is she up here?

Yeah,

Yeah.

She lives just in town.

And so she's important in my life in terms of holding space for creating community,

Which is so important in this.

We get out here and we're like,

Oh my gosh,

We're up against big plastic.

Oh,

There's nothing else matters.

Keep going.

Fight the good fight.

It's exhausting.

It's draining.

How do we share ocean swims and surfs and healthy food and water and sleep and yoga?

But like humans,

You know,

Like I can't just like get my fix by burying compost in random people's front yards.

Like we have to have like relationships with our farmers and relationships with our elders and relationships with youth.

And we don't live in tribes anymore where we used to have that be accountable to like our aunties and uncles and have to watch after kids.

And so we kind of have to create that for ourselves,

Especially me being from the States.

You know,

I have to actively create a community and she's so beautiful because she holds space for some of my,

You know,

Some local women.

And we just like share how we're doing.

We work through things and we talk about local food.

And that's her work.

So her work is the localization movement.

So she spent many years in Ladakh.

And when she was over there,

She noticed that it's by it's like Nepal,

Tibet.

Oh cool.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Beautiful.

And it was pristine,

Untouched by Western world and happy,

You know,

No concept of poor,

No concept of,

You know,

Body shape or image,

No concept of it.

Just,

Just they helped each other.

They didn't have currency.

They just shared.

They,

They were,

You know,

They worked in the fields.

It was just beautiful.

And she watched as,

And she studied and she watched as Western influence came in and they were then poor.

Like,

Oh,

Helena,

We please give us money.

We're so poor.

We,

We want to buy things.

We want to look this way.

We want to,

I'm,

I don't look this certain way.

Like,

And she just was heartbroken.

And she learned that that's the globalization,

You know,

That's the big world of like,

Yeah,

You know,

Our government's tricking us into thinking that international trade was benefiting us when really that's,

Like that's,

That's where all the food miles,

That's where all the fuel is burned is to transport.

You know,

I wish I knew the stats off the top of my head,

But you know,

We,

I think we export fish to be cleaned in one country and then they're shipped back.

Yes.

I saw something like that.

It goes from,

So they're caught in,

I'm just making some stuff up.

But the point is it goes from like,

Say it gets caught in Japan,

Goes to the Netherlands to get filleted and then goes to,

I don't know,

Like South Africa to get eaten.

Yeah.

Something crazy like that.

Everything has that.

Like,

It's so weird.

And it's,

And we wonder why,

Like our local food is more expensive because all that trade is subsidised.

And it's just such,

It's a,

It's a train wreck.

I mean,

It's a train wreck for our environment.

Like that's,

There's like the ships that are doing this,

The planes,

That is just like crazy emissions.

The food,

Like what condition is it in if it's travelling that distance?

And then our poor local farmers,

You know,

They just want to like look after the earth and regenerate the earth and like provide food and they're having to compete with $1 Aldi or,

You know,

Whatever it is.

I think Aldi actually does support farmers.

I think that I did hear the other day Aldi was going to be making sure their fresh stuff was going to be organic or something.

Some of your guys went,

Oh my God,

That's,

They haven't just like gone one step,

They've just gone like to step five,

You know,

Straight.

Yeah.

Sometimes they're surprises.

Aldi has a few tricks up their sleeve,

Definitely.

But it's also a lot of plastic stuff.

Yeah.

But like no bag,

That's random and revolutionary.

And we figured it out.

You know,

It's like we get so caught up,

Especially in business,

People get so caught up in like,

Oh,

We don't want to upset the customer.

It's like,

No,

You set the tone.

Like,

Especially these huge corporations that have the power,

That have the resources,

That have the influence,

Like they should absolutely be setting the bar,

You know,

Like organic only.

Like,

Hell yeah,

That's the,

Like the beyond policy.

Like that is the way you make change this day.

Reeducate.

And hit,

Not hit the consumer,

But the consumer has the power to,

You know,

Yes,

The supermarket's going to say,

We're not going to be any bags.

And they go,

Right,

Cool,

We're going to roll with that.

And also then go back to the other supermarkets and say,

Hey,

You should lift your game.

And,

You know,

A demand led economy,

I bang on about it every time,

Is the one we should be supporting and advocating for,

As opposed to let's just make stuff and other people buy it.

It's like,

Let's make stuff that is already demanded.

Well,

Like,

What's your life?

Like,

What is your life about?

Like,

What is your legacy?

Like,

Why are you here on this planet?

Like,

What makes you feel good?

Does it make you feel good to sell crap to people that further desecrates this majestic planet?

Or do you feel better about like trying a little bit hard or like scraping by a bit more to just like offer something that's truly beautiful for this planet?

I bet you'll have a better life.

I bet you feel more fulfilled.

You know,

I certainly think the same way that I vote with my dollar every day.

And where I put my money is literally,

That's my vote,

Like way more than my political vote,

Which I definitely take seriously as well.

But,

You know,

Like I'm supporting the local bulk food store.

I'm supporting the local farmers market.

I'm supporting the local,

You know,

Designers and the people that are making these things in my community from the best,

Most sustainable products they can.

Because like,

Yeah,

More of that.

I'm literally investing in that.

And I think that when Aldi does that sort of stuff,

Like I'm at a good,

I'm like so grateful that I'm at a point in my career that I have influenced through a desirable,

You know,

Platform.

Like on Instagram,

I can say to Aldi,

Hey,

Do you want to partner on something?

And we can amplify the solution together.

It's epic.

I used to be hardcore.

I used to be like,

You have plastic in your store.

No way I'm not working with you at all.

Slowly,

Slowly,

Extra munchy.

Yeah,

Totally.

And also parents as well,

Like the role that we have to set a standard for our kids and,

You know,

The parents in the kitchen not using the Glad wrap and they're using the little,

You know,

Cloth and beeswax covers on things.

And not using the plastic containers,

But they've got the perspex or the,

You know,

The great ones now,

The timber,

The wooden lids and things.

They've still got a bit of a rubber seal,

But I guess it's sort of,

I don't know what else you do there.

But there's,

You know,

There's steps and that becoming normal in the household and the kitchen I think is really important.

And it really is obtainable.

It's not as though we've got to go,

Oh my God,

It's going to change.

No one's going to talk to me ever again.

As you say,

Little trendy and that's an opportunity like if like,

You know,

The Christmas conversation about stuff and gifts,

Like I know people in my life that like a present,

You know,

And so I'm not scared to get them.

They're really cute,

Beautiful,

You know,

Reusable mug or water bottle and,

You know,

Slide in some hectic health stats,

You know,

Plastic leads to premature aging.

Like just here's a cup,

You know,

Man boobs.

Yeah,

Exactly.

That's the shrinking penis one works well too.

So yeah,

So I think that like,

You know,

Investing in these things for our friends and family in our community,

One of my favorite gifts to give is like a,

I make my own deodorant or toothpaste and I give them a bamboo toothbrush or maybe three,

You know,

And you make bamboo toothbrushes.

I personally do not.

I make toothpaste.

Oh yeah.

I actually have one in my pocket there.

Do you?

Yeah,

I did because we stayed to my house last night and I had to pack quickly and I was in my pocket.

It's actually like fresh.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Well,

You know,

Six times a day.

It's important.

Yeah.

That's actually something that I talk about because people are like,

Whoa,

We don't trust your toothpaste.

And I'm like,

Look,

It's not the toothpaste that does the job.

It's the brush.

Like you just need to get the plaque out and like the sugar between,

You know,

Out of there.

And that's what is going to keep your teeth strong and healthy.

It's not the toothpaste.

And what do you,

It's just bicarbonate coconut.

That's easy.

Yeah,

That's easy.

Yeah.

I sometimes salt,

Like if you're worried about the abrasiveness of bicarb,

You can just put salt in there.

There's so much of clay,

Like you just a little bit of abrasiveness.

Hey,

It's in there.

Yeah.

You know it.

I'm going to plug that one again.

I could have placed it.

Now I'm conscious of time and Oliver's going to come back and go,

You still got,

You two still at it?

He took off there before.

Such a helpful fellow.

I got to say.

Lovely,

Lovely man.

Can I,

I want to sort of wrap up,

But I want to just find out what you're doing now.

Like what projects people can support you to do.

Get involved in.

Advocate for.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I am focused.

Obviously we can't travel,

So I'm not able to host my mermaid retreats at the moment,

Which I love.

Those are super fun adventures.

Where were they?

So I host a sailing one in Fiji.

I host one in Hawaii at this secret cove where dolphins live and we get to just communicate with the dolphins.

I host one in WA swimming with whale sharks and manta rays.

They're pretty strict about the borders WA.

I'm going in early November.

Are you?

Okay.

Well that's a little bit far,

Far off.

I'm going to still try and do my Tonga one in September.

And I also have a Harvey Bay sailing one in August,

So I'll be able to do that one.

And I think I'm going to try and do some like a Queensland one coming up.

So yeah,

Definitely keep an eye out for those.

Those are really fun.

So it's totally plastic free.

I teach,

We make all of our bath products straight away.

So you use those the whole time.

Catered,

Plastic free.

We go to the farmer's market,

Make the food,

But we also snorkel,

Have epic ocean time to just like connect to nature and connect to water element.

And mermaids not mermen.

This is for the kids.

I've opened it up to mermen a couple of times.

I get the pressure and I'm like,

All right,

You can come.

How did they go though?

Beautiful.

Like there's no,

It's no difference.

It's all just magic.

Yeah,

It's been,

And we had one where we are on up in Harvey Bay with the whales and had music.

So we played lots of music and sang and it was really gorgeous.

Do you make like beeswax,

Like back wax for the boys,

The mermen?

Is that like one of the things you make?

Yeah,

We just like wax just to be more like smooth in the water.

You know,

Like it's a lot of drag,

The back hair.

I don't have any by the way.

Yeah,

Yeah.

It is everywhere.

It is everywhere.

You got the beard balm in the back wax.

So sorted.

Yeah,

Cool.

So mermaid retreats.

I'm doing lots of mini courses.

So I've got a lot of online courses,

A lot of online education material.

I'm just kind of like releasing those.

And then I've been doing a little bit of like product collaboration.

So trying to find solutions,

Like my favorite version of like a baby diaper,

Cloth diaper or,

You know,

Different products that I wish people had more of,

Had access to,

Knew which one I endorsed.

And so I'm finding those and I'm collaborating with them on a line or whatever.

So product development?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah.

So you should remove this or add that or think about that.

Yeah.

So I'm consulting on a lot of businesses,

But then I'm also like we're making a product together.

And so keeping out for that,

I've got a few on my website right now,

Which is iCoPlastics.

Com and all of the proceeds go towards me being able to work with nonprofits.

So that's my real passion is to work with Plastic Soup Foundation,

Is to work with Algalita,

Is to work with Plastic Free Byron,

Is to work with Boomerang Alliance and to help elevate their campaigns,

Their,

You know,

Their efforts,

Their science,

Their research,

Their programs to be more accessible and have greater reach.

So,

Yeah,

Any of the book sales,

You can buy this on the website.

All of it just supports me to be able to help give them more eyes to their causes.

Well,

Kate,

Can I just thank you so much for,

From a selfish point of view,

Sharing with me because that's,

You've really opened my eyes.

I mean,

I have to say I've been conscientious,

But I'm certainly not perfect,

Not that anyone's looking for that necessarily.

But you've really inspired me literally to go home,

Your did before I got here and in my car going,

What's plastic in this car?

So thank you personally,

But also on behalf of our listeners,

Thank you for sharing so many wonderful things and for being you and for giving everyone the opportunity to contribute to the world in a meaningful way.

And not just to the world in terms of,

You know,

Less plastic in waterways and so on,

But I think really as importantly,

And maybe more importantly,

Because if we're not whole ourselves and we're no good to anyone,

Is how we can,

You know,

Reduce the amount of plastic in our homes,

Going down our children's throats literally on their skin.

Just before I do wrap up,

Sunscreen.

Yep.

Views on sunscreen?

You can make it.

You can make it.

What's in it?

What can we do?

So there's the chemical barrier and there's a physical barrier.

So a lot of the sprays,

A lot of the sunscreens rely on the chemical barrier,

Which is really bad for our skin.

It's estrogenic as well.

Anything that bends B and Z in the ingredient label is estrogenic.

So keep a look out for that.

And then there's the physical barrier,

Which is the surf zinc.

It's the zinc oxide which actually sits on top of your skin and prevents the sun rays from penetrating.

And that's great.

It also,

It's mine,

You know,

It's not like a leaf on your skin or something,

But it's effective in terms of protecting our skin and it's reef safe.

So you can just mix zinc oxide with,

You know,

Coconut oil,

Beeswax and maybe some cacao to have like a darker color of it.

A tint.

Yeah,

A little tint.

It's in there,

Yeah?

Yeah,

It's in here.

You can make it.

So I've got like a thick one and like a rub-on.

Is there anything not in there?

No.

This is all the answers to all your questions.

It's the TARDIS of quitting plastic because there's never a thing.

It's a Bible.

That's wonderful because that's always something that I'm concerned of.

I'm not a big fan of sunscreen,

As you can probably tell.

And I have a favorite brand.

Yeah,

Cool.

Plug it.

And I have a discount code.

So SunButter,

It's made by a dear friend,

Marine biologist.

It's called SunButter Skincare.

And if you use the word mermaid when you check out,

You get a discount.

Unreal.

Yeah.

Is that made locally or elsewhere?

So she,

I met her in WA.

She was making it locally then.

That's where I have one of my mermaid retreats.

I met her underwater pretty much.

And so she was making it there.

And now with COVID,

She's had to move back to Melbourne,

So.

SunButter.

SunButter.

I'm so going to get some.

I probably need a bucket load to get through all that.

Kate,

Thank you so much.

So enjoyed this one.

I'm not sure whether it's nearly on the two-hour mark.

I'm not sure if it's going to be a double-header.

I often split the two hours into two.

Thank you so much.

We'll be in touch.

I want to reconnect.

I want to chat to you some more.

Well,

You're a mentor now,

So thank you.

Yeah.

Okay.

I can give you homework then.

Yeah,

You can.

Yeah,

You're busted.

Like,

What should I do out there?

I don't know.

This is a blank canvas.

It's fantastic.

I know,

It's exciting.

No,

That's good.

Well,

We are doing a biodynamic workshop next week.

Just up the road.

Oh,

Don't worry.

Binnaburra,

Two days,

Thursday,

Friday.

Amazing.

Get out of here.

We're in Sunshine Coast.

Not that it's going to matter.

This is going to come out not tomorrow.

Right.

Yeah,

Cool.

So we can't come,

Everybody.

We've already done it.

By the time you hear this,

You'll be able to turn up to Kate's house and go,

Oh,

My God,

Look at this food forest that's suddenly swaying to nowhere.

We'd better wrap it up.

So much fun.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for your time.

It's been a pleasure.

Thanks,

Charlie.

There you go,

Kate Nelson.

We had a very entertaining chat there with,

Oh,

I had a very entertaining chat there with Kate on the veranda of her little farm there just outside of Byron Bay.

Lots of good stuff.

Go to her website and check out exactly what she's doing and listen to her Mircast because it's unreal.

Next week,

We have the pleasure of releasing a double header.

Well,

Double header not because it's in two parts.

It's with two people.

It's Nina and Mitch Bray.

They run a number of farms.

One I caught them up with them at was Sunshine Coast just in the middle of a two-day introduction of BioDramics course,

Which they're hosting again.

I did host again.

I interviewed these guys because they're fascinating.

They're absolutely giving it a red hot go.

They're cropping results is really interesting for me because it's a space I used to be in and I get a lot of queries about who is cropping,

How can this stuff be applied to cropping,

And these guys are doing a wonderful job.

I'm really looking forward to releasing their interview with Nina and Mitch Bray next week.

This podcast is produced by Rhys Jones at Jager Media.

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