Rachael Zoe Miller - From Knee Deep In Plastic Garbage to Saving the World's Oceans

Today’s guest, has, in her own words, devoted her life to protecting the world’s oceans and connect people to it….

She’s a scientist and archaeologist.who studied at Brown University, lives in Vermont.

Racheal Zoe Miller lives for everything water….in all its forms, in winter she’s skiing, moguls in particular, or riding her fat tire bike with spikes on it that grip ice or snow, in spring summer and fall she’s sailing, or wing-foiling, which involves handling a two-handed wing with a hydrofoil mounted on a short Stand Up Paddle board….

She has her 50-ton master captain’s license and captains a 60-foot sailing research vessel called the American Promise…Over the last 10 years, her company, the Rozalia Project has removed more than a million pieces of trash from waterways and inspired tens of thousands of people through direct programs. 

Rachael is also an inventor, of The Cora Ball, the world’s first microfiber-catching laundry ball. She is focused on protecting the ocean, specifically addressing the problem of marine debris through cleanup, prevention through education, embracing innovation and technology, and solutions-based research in urban and coastal waters from surface to seafloor. 

She’s nuts, about water, that is….and even more so about keeping plastic and man made microfibers out of the water….where it literally kills countless sea creatures large and small.

One of Rachael’s early entrepreneurial businesses was giving shipwreck tours with ROV’s on Lake Champlain, using REMOTELY OPERATED VEHICLE….yes there are shipwrecks on Lake Champlain,....she taught snow kiting and stand up paddling…. All these experiences led to her current and ongoing endeavor, the ROSALIA PROJECT,

My recent conversation with Rachael began when I asked how she found her calling in life, and like so many creative and productive people I’ve met here on the podcast and beyond, I suggested that the path is never without surprising twists and turns, and as we follow our intuition, our heart, somehow, someway, what we were called to do finds us, just as much as we find it….

Here’s my conversation with Rachael Zoe Miller, picking up on the meandering spirit of a college student seeking her calling. 

Transcript

Thom Pollard: 0:00

This is tools for nomads. Tools for nomads is an up close and insightful look into the lives and habits of passionate and creatively prolific people who embrace and cherish the nomadic lifestyle brought to you by top drawer. As creative professionals we know the nomadic lifestyle is as much a mindset as it is a way of being. Visit top drawer shop.com or visit one of their dozen plus meticulously outfitted shops in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Berkeley, Chicago, and Tokyo. Top door shop.com. I'm Thom Pollard. I've traveled the world in search of adventure. Since 2001. I've been a member of the Explorers Club. I'm a filmmaker, mountaineer even a sailor have been to the top of Everest and helped build and sailed a ship made of two and a half million reads from Chile to Easter Island. I almost got eaten by a mako shark. I filmed with orcas, elk bear from five star hotels to the cold, cold ground. I've visited a lot of cool places over the years. But there's a whole lot of places on the globe I've yet to experience. Today's guest has in her own words devoted her life to protecting the world's oceans and connect people to it. She's a scientist and archaeologist and anthropologist. She studied at Brown University. She lives in Vermont. Eat your heart out Dartmouth. Rachel Zoe Miller lives for everything water in all its forms in winter. She's skiing moguls in particular, or riding her fat tire bike with spikes on it that grip ice and snow. In spring, summer and fall she's sailing or wing foiling, which involves handling a two handed wing with a hydrofoil mounted on a short stand up paddleboard. She has a 50 ton master captain's license and captain's a 60 foot sailing research vessel called the American promise over the last 10 years, her company, the rosacea project has removed more than a million pieces of trash from waterways and has inspired 10s of 1000s of people through direct programs. Rachel is also an inventor of the Cora ball, the world's first microfiber catching laundry ball. She's focused on protecting the ocean specifically addressing the problem of marine debris through cleanup prevention through education, embracing innovation and technology and solutions based research in urban and coastal waters from surface to the sea floor. She's nuts about water that is and even more so about keeping plastic and manmade microfibers out of the water, where it literally kills countless sea creatures large and small. One of Rachel's early entrepreneurial businesses was giving shipwreck tours with ROV s on Lake Champlain in Vermont. Those are remotely operated vehicles. Yes, there are shipwrecks on Lake Champlain in Vermont. She taught snowkiting and stand up paddling in addition to that, all these experiences of running businesses of different temperaments led to this current and ongoing endeavor the resilia project. My recent conversation with Rachel began when I asked how she found her calling in life, and like so many creative and productive people I've met here on the podcast and beyond. I suggested that the path is never without surprising twists and turns. And as we follow our intuition, our heart somehow some way, what we're called to do, finds us just as much as we find it. Here's my conversation with Rachel Zoe Miller picking up on the meandering spirit of a college student seeking her calling. But so you were you were investigating the soul like the timelessness of existence, and then you and then in so doing you found these beautiful things and the bright people fell into your lap so to speak, or vice versa. And that's how that's like the essence of it all man like we go. If you just listen and are quiet enough you're that whatever it is, you're meant to be. It evolv.... it appears

Rachael Zoe Miller: 4:51

it can do and then you just have to be willing to. I do often. I am a control the controllables but I'm getting To take a running jump. And you know, I think a lot of this has started as a running jump again, I kind of knew that I had the right stuff on to take the jump, more or less. Didn't know where but, and that's happened a few times. And you know, what you just said is really interesting, because there's sort of a bunch more of the story before we get to like the moment where I realized I'm here to protect the ocean and connect people to it. That also was meandery, and didn't necessarily make sense at the time, you went to a kind of a good school, and you did really well, and you're a kite surfing instructor. You know, like, there were moments if you kind of just paused everything where people were confused. I don't think I was ever confused. But

Thom Pollard: 5:53

that's it. That's it. It's it's listening, listening to the right voice, and your voice was the clearest one. And because it's especially with youth, you know, my partner is a school teacher, and a teacher of, you know, middle school students. And, and so the, just imagine what a single doubt to that young boy or girls dreams can do. To one who doesn't have a strong sense of self who might not have that, right. Parents are like, don't listen to the journey or, you know,

Rachael Zoe Miller: 6:34

well, the first time, I think that I only told people what I wanted to be once someone asked me, I don't remember the super details, but I remember, someone asked me what I wanted to be. I said I wanted to be an astronaut. They looked at me and my glasses and said, you can't because you have to have perfect eyesight. And so I stopped wanting to be an astronaut. And I never told anyone what I wanted to be ever again. They asked,

Thom Pollard: 7:01

right, is that true? So you can't be an astronaut?

Rachael Zoe Miller: 7:04

Oh, no, it turns out it's not true.

Thom Pollard: 7:06

Oh my gosh. Oh

Rachael Zoe Miller: 7:12

yeah, no,

Thom Pollard: 7:14

it could have been worse. I thought they were gonna say You know, there's no women out

Rachael Zoe Miller: 7:18

there weren't at the time for sure. But I would have said I would be the first type of thing you know, as a little kid, I would have done that but ya know, can't do anything about my eyes. Like I can't be like reversed. The stigmatism you know, like near sighted you can't even see my own hand. Yeah, they're like you can't you have to be a fighter pilot first and you can't do that. So you should think of something else.

Thom Pollard: 7:43

Oh my goodness. doubters beware Rachael Miller is is our prove you wrong?

Rachael Zoe Miller: 7:50

Well, no, I'm not. I'm not I didn't I folded.

Thom Pollard: 7:53

That's but but but but you did the right thing you like I'm done telling people my dreams because that was really bad experience just hearing that I'm devastated. But, but So Rachel, tell me about the rozalia project because that's like, man, like this is really important stuff. And we also have an interview with Valerie Taylor, who was the underwater you know, scuba photographer camera person who inspired Steven Spielberg during Jaws production and and is a is a devout conservationist in terms of the oceans. And she doesn't have a lot of really good things to say about the status of our oceans. And but, you know, so what happened? How did how did you get this project underway and tell me about it.

Rachael Zoe Miller: 8:50

So the very short catalyst story is that I'd been doing the company was called storm boarding the teaching stand up adrenaline, wind sports and Lake Champlain shipwrecks, which was the ROV exploration. And I was learning a very important lesson and something that my husband and I we have been good at is kind of reassessing, you know, doing our own thing, but not just letting it go on forever, and like, not even be able to eat ramen type thing. We don't need to make gobs of money, but we do need to be responsible with what we're doing. And we had sort of put a five year limit on any solo business. You know, if it's not really in the black, we'd have to pull the plug. And so what I learned with the shipwrecks is you can have a great product, but it doesn't make a good business. It was great, but I knew it wasn't it. Like with a capital I. I knew that and it wasn't going to be the like long term thing. It was great in my 30s type deal. So we went James myself and at the time to Newfoundland's hickory and smudge we went to Matinicus Island off the coast of Maine there just been a nor'easter. The little beach next to the place we rented was like knee deep in trash. And I spent the first day of our three day vacation. We all just like pulling all the stuff up above the high tide line. And the way I say it is James had my epiphany was like, one thing pisses you off, you know, cuz I don't get super angry about a lot. But one thing pushes you off. It's been that way since we met, it's trash in the ocean. Just let's do something about it. And so he was like, why don't you do something about it, I was looking for a new thing. And so that's how I was I was born we it was. We named it after my great grandmother, for whom I am also named, in order to reserve the right to switch its focus. So resolve your project, and then we added for a clean ocean. So maybe someday it works on some other problem. But for a clean ocean is where we've been firmly planted since that day in October of 2009. And we've had a couple things that set us apart from other marine debris organizations, we have four strategies, and one of them is clean up, but we always collect data, and the other 75% are entirely prevention, prevention through education, embracing innovation and technology and doing solutions based research. And besides that we work surface to see floors. Remember, I'm bringing ROV experience with me from the shipwrecks so now I can use the ROV is to understand what our especially our urban water slipped like the bottom of our urban harbors. So urban and coastal waters was a focus. We got the spectacular sailboat, the 60 foot sailing research vessel to be our mothership.

Thom Pollard: 12:06

Rachel 60 foot vessel is the American Promise, a cutter that was made famous by Dodge Morgans fastest solo round the world voyage. American Promise acts as the Rozalia Project's mothership during their work addressing issues affecting ocean health, primarily in New England's coastal waters and beyond. American Promise gives Rachael and her team the ability to operate far from shore for extended periods of time, it allows them to focus on something all can agree is a problem. plastics in the oceans, the extent of which still hasn't been fully realized.

Rachael Zoe Miller: 12:47

There's a lot of parts to the marine debris problem we we work on derelict fishing gear, we work on consumer debris, and we work on a subset of all of that, which is microplastics. And that's led us to some really, really fascinating, horrifying, inspiring projects. And, you know, certainly one of them has to do with microfiber pollution. So this is reclose breaking up. When we first learned about it back in 2013, it was primarily thought to be a problem related to washing machines. And you know, we set a bunch of goals there, we said we wanted to see if we could start to stop the problem. We wanted to inspire people in other industries to see what they could do about it raise awareness, and we wanted to contribute to the science. And that's what led us to sample the entire Hudson River from leg tear of the clouds all the way to Ambrose light every three miles that the first one we did in 2016 is any good science, or as often happens with science, you answer a little bit of your question and then come up with a whole lot more. And so that's how we got involved with National Geographic is the results from our 2016 Hudson River micro plastic and microfiber sampling expedition indicated that there is more to the problem than washing machines. And we needed to look at the air we need to look at the soil we needed to look at the whole water column and we went back with National Geographic support in 2019 and concurrent all of this we develop the core ball so the core ball is a microfiber catching laundry ball you put it in the wash and it turns around with your clothes and it helps tangle up microfibers that are breaking off your clothes it is happening in the wash. It is also happening in the dryer and while we wear our clothes, and the Corps ball helps collect it before it can be part of the effluent and whether you live in a place like us up a mountain with a step system and leach field or you're directly on municipal water, keeping the fibers from our close out of the municipal system, the water system, or your septic tank and leach field is valuable. It does a couple things it protects downstream, it means that this stuff isn't bioavailable for sea creatures to ingest. It causes a multitude of harms from chemical physical, and it eases up some pressure on both your septic tank system and the wastewater treatment plants. We're trying to inspire people to understand what their role might be in in helping these problems. Not just microfiber, but consumer debris or even fishing gear. So yeah, and fun.

Thom Pollard: 15:49

Wow. Amazing. This is so it's fascinating. So you, I'm looking at this kind of the page, if you will, on National Geographic that talks about your, you know, being an expedition scientist, and it says that your Rosaria project removed a million pieces of trash from waterways. And that probably is, I bet there's a lot more than a million pieces of trash in the waterways and oceans. So is there a way to broaden this to whatever you're doing to actually remove that? And how do you remove the trash? What is it?

Rachael Zoe Miller: 16:32

I think whatever happens, the removal needs to happen concurrent to the prevention. For me, personally, I am spending far less time working on cleanup, than I am on prevention, and rozalia project, I would say we have we have a chunk where we are all about going to remote islands in the coast of Maine and cleaning them up. While collecting data that helps prevent it from happening in the first place. Back on Saturday, we're all off to clean six different sites around Burlington and then we're gonna bring all this stuff to Church Street marketplace, and we're gonna do a public sort. So even people that don't help can see what we picked up and see the food wrappers, the plastic bottles, now freaking masks, and all that stuff that we're picking up off the ground. So people just do not get good reminder to mind your mind your waist. And I think that's the way that's the perfect way this goes. I also the thread of what I've been doing my whole life is connecting people. So there's educating people about it. So knowing something from like a factual academic perspective is important to know that there's 8 million tons of trash, deposit plastic waste deposited into the oceans every year, you know, that's important. But then there's also the I love to go windfoiling on Lake Champlain, or what do you love your mountains, you love to climb humungous mountains, and you love that and you don't want that place trash. So, you know, you know it, you'll love it, you'll protect it. I think that drives That's why 75% of our strategies are prevention. We're not ignoring the cleanup. And the cleanup provides us the best photos and stuff. But it's the prevention for me that is both the most elusive but also the most satisfying.

Thom Pollard: 18:40

When you're listening to my 2021 interview with scientist and oceanographer clean ocean advocate, Rachael Zoe Miller of the Rozalia Project. So Rachael, you have travelled extensively you've been from sleeping on a beach shoe to, you know, wherever you need to to do your work or your research, or your play and training. So, could you tell me a little bit about how you know what your habits are working at home? And then when you're kind of out in the field? Like how do you...tr.... Are you a laptop computer person? And wherever that goes, or does it change from work to home in terms of when you're in the field, your habits and how you get things done?

Rachael Zoe Miller: 19:37

That's a great question. I would say not really. No, I'm on a laptop. Whenever I mean, I have a nice screen now since like the pandemic but I don't need it. So laptop and phone, which I appreciate both. I generally don't curse cell phones because they enable me to get out. I think it's the best thing ever. I Can I'm an early riser, which also helps so I can get up, get work done, and then be ready for whatever part of the day I have needed for. So sometimes that has to do with daylight. Sometimes it has to do with weather. Sometimes it has to do with sort of wind as opposed like doing things because it's raining or doing things because it's not raining. So I love that there's the technology can allow me to be detached. Yeah, I am. I'm happy to work kind of any time but I definitely am best sync working in the morning, talking in the afternoon. And I like to be active anytime at all. Like I love morning missions. Sometimes it's nice just to be out in the water, the hottest part of the day, I started evening, mountain biking in the snow out of home, like just if I was busy all day, I would just so here in the I like to ski so I like to alpine ski. I like to skate ski nordic ski not very fast. It's like pullover and pant, but I love it. And then my husband and I both enjoy fat wheel fat biking with the spikes on the wheels on this, like on the Nordic trails.

Thom Pollard: 21:24

So that's it. That's how you kind of find your inspiration as a researcher, if that's fair to call you a researcher, but obviously you are because you need to, but but you're out there gathering data and sharing it and recording it. How, how on earth do you get all that done? And like say you're on your ship, and you're going down? Or you're somewhere on the Hudson River or in the bay? And it's pouring rain? And so how do you? How's that work? Like, like, seriously? Like, does it shut you down? Are you like, No, this? This doesn't stop me? Is it umbrella? Or do you just have a, you know, a whack? You

Rachael Zoe Miller: 22:06

know, I think I think one of the most important traits of P for people who do expedition outdoor things, but in particular, outdoor science like fields work or to some extent, even running outdoor sports or outdoor things like that. To develop what are the most important traits to develop is a kind of have a plan A, B, C, D, at least to be cool with moving across plans, and to control the controllables but be ready to change so know what you can't control. So we look at weather we do a lot, you know, we do a lot of looking at the weather what is going to happen tomorrow. So make sure that our plan A is one that is compatible with the reality that we are likely to face. But then to say okay, that doesn't work because it may do this, we're gonna have to do this. I also think the planning of this stuff in the front end has to accommodate the vagaries of I'll say the necessity of change because certainly the Northeast is one of those places where you're like wait five minutes when the weather changes, you know, they probably say that New Hampshire as well as Vermont, pretty much yeah, yeah. And we front load that's another trick that has been really helpful for us is push when the goings good because you don't know when you're going to get it back good again. So that those kind of those kinds of attitudes I think can be translated and even today you know, I I brought my wing foil equipment but I also brought a surf ski which is human powered it's like a really fast it on top kayak. So if there wasn't enough wind my drive into Burlington would have still been worth it I still would have gotten out on the lake I still would have gotten out and had some fun motion and exercise and I yeah, just kind of ready for it not to go the way I expected

Thom Pollard: 24:26

right on so when you like if we can call it on expedition if you're on an if any extended trips like your you obviously need your scientific equipment, or at least the the tools that you gather samples with. And so that's important, and I'd love to hear just a little mini snippet of what that is. And then outside of that, like what, like what do you bring like, I mean, are you like, I wear one t shirt for a month. That's the way and then I jump In the water when I can or you know what now you like? Or do you have six suitcases? Or you probably don't have the luxury of doing that?

Rachael Zoe Miller: 25:08

No, that's it. That's a great question for the boat has, just by necessity I can pack real light is, yeah, I know I'm a jump in the water with my clothes on, because I'm hot. And I know that what I'm wearing will dry. We also tend to all wear the same T shirt for a couple reasons. One, because it's we're a team and it's the uniform. But we're also choosing our clothes based on their potential contribution to our samples, because we're looking at things like microplastic and micro fibers. And we want to make sure that we can identify them. So in the future, don't be surprised if you see rozalia Project crew on micro particle expeditions wearing dayglow. Because we have learned recently how much our clothes are contributing. And wearing something unusual will speed up the processing. Because we can just discount all the orange day glow as coming from the researchers and not as potential that is cool. But it's interesting. It really is we are showing that fieldwork, fieldwork, people who are doing the fieldwork are actually contributing, potentially contributing quite a bit to the samples, if they're not following really strict anti contamination protocols. And they're actually still contributing a fair amount even when they are Yeah. Why contribute more anthropogenic fibers to the environment than you have to? So we've learned a lot of really interesting things

Thom Pollard: 26:43

helped me understand. So for the people that are listening right now, I'm not making any presumptions about what they're wearing. But I'm thinking the majority of them are wearing something. Unless we have some some naked listeners with us today. But what are our clothes? I'm wearing the cotton shirt, cotton pants, I have no socks on. I have like kind of like athletic underwear that you kind of work out in and that other than a leather belt in this hat is am I contributing to this problem right now just by what I'm wearing?

Rachael Zoe Miller: 27:24

Yeah, so everybody is. So a good way to just think about this is everyone who wears, washes and dries clothes is part of the microfiber pollution problem. It's hard truth. But that is the truth. Now, everyone who wears washes and dries clothes can be part of the solution to reduce how much is ending up in our environment. And the reality is, is again that I have a very hard time buying clothes right now. And that is because I don't want anymore. I like afraid of how I'm going to get rid of the ones I've got. If they're not Patagonia. What do I do with them? You know, Patagonia is one of the best at, they'll give you money for your old clothes and sell it to other people, the ones that are in good position or good shape. The they'll recycle the ones that are sad stains, they'll donate the ones that may not have value in their worn wear program. But they have value to someone they're not stained, but they can go that way. And that gives me hope. And so Patagonia has funded resilio project in the interest of transparency, not me personally. But we've also had Patagonia materials engineers. And some of them are just spectacular people on board American promise one for each of our expeditions on the Hudson, which is amazing as part of their own internal volunteer program where they pay employees to go and then they give them to organizations like ours. If I am going to buy new clothes, it's probably where I'm going to buy them. Whoa, shed is a factor. There's an organization called the microfiber consortium that just yesterday launched this amazing blueprint and roadmap for understanding textiles better in the context of if we understand the ones that are breaking more easily, we can make them more resilient. If we understand the ones that aren't breaking, we can understand why and repeat that. And they're bringing in both brands, as well as textile manufacturers. That's a really good news right there. Think of being able to choose your clothes knowing what their kind of shed quotient is. So I can go to see with clothing that I know balances low shed with if it does shed, what's it putting out there?

Thom Pollard: 30:09

Last question for what are what would be your tips for someone who's going to go out whether it's on expedition or two days on the road? Even if they're staying in a hotel? What are your what, uh, Rachael Zoe Miller's tips for, if you will life on the road and that when I use the word road wide

Rachael Zoe Miller: 30:29

pottery road for me, life is easier when you can find your stuff for me. So there's a couple items that I have found shockingly more useful than I would have expected. So one was packing cubes, but I leveled it up recently to I think it's just a diaper bag. But so it's waterproof with two zippered pockets and all your wet stuff just stays, it's on its own, it doesn't get the rest of your bag or anything wet, so useful. The other very specific item is a I call it a schmatta which would be like Yiddish for just like a sack. Like if my my grandmother would have called like some shapeless dress I'm wearing, why are you wearing that schmatta but it's basically a changing robe. It's a towel with a hood, like big huge poncho, for adults, that's made out of towel and you can get changed under it, it can be your towel can sit on it so that you don't get your wet self all over everything. And the other thing is a multi USB thing. So that you can share plugs, not just with your own stuff, but with other people who have already taken the only plug in wherever it is that you need to be. That is one of my I don't travel anywhere without it's like a little snap that big. It's got four USBs I think now would be good probably to have one that's two USBs and two USB C's.

Thom Pollard: 32:11

But yeah, a team player. Let's just put it that way. You're a team player.

Rachael Zoe Miller: 32:15

It's a little selfish. It's more like hey, would you share your plugs so I can plug my thing into will plug yours in as well.

Thom Pollard: 32:26

Oh, under the veil it sounds like an innocuous but there's a you know little

Rachael Zoe Miller: 32:31

I got to charge my phone. Yeah.

Thom Pollard: 32:38

Rachael Zoe Miller has presented at venues worldwide, including on the TEDx stage and at the Explorers Club. She's certified hundreds of people to be sailing instructors, even trained Navy SEALs to find unexploded mines using underwater robots. Pretty cool stuff. Rachel and her team have received multiple awards and recognition, including an award for the use of ROV is to find and remove marine debris being named in ocean examplar by World Ocean observatory, and winner of the most innovative idea in microplastics from Think beyond plastic. And if you're interested in the core a ball the microfiber catching laundry ball, which works in any washing machine. I'll provide links in the Episode Notes. Thanks for visiting tools for nomads, and up close and insightful look into the lives and habits of passionate and creatively prolific people like Rachel Zoe Miller, who embrace and cherish the nomadic lifestyle tools for nomads is brought to you by top drawer. At Topdrawer nomadism isn't simply about being on the move. It's about loving and living life with the things we carry directly impact our productivity, our well being and even our identity. Top drawer combines the quality and craftsmanship of our grandparents generation with the drive for independence, function, and stylish sustainability. It all results in a collection of tools curated from around the world that help you do your best work wherever you are. As a top drawer shop.com Visit one of their dozen plus meticulously outfitted shops San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Berkeley, Chicago, and Tokyo. Top drawer shop.com Thanks for visiting. I'm Thom Pollard. See you next time on tools for nomads.