Behind the Bluff
Uncover best practices to participate in life on your terms. Every week, hosts Jeff Ford and Kendra Till guide listeners with short conversations on trending wellness topics and share interviews with passionate wellness professionals, our private club leaders, and additional subject matter experts offering valuable tips. Each episode conclusion includes Healthy Momentum, five minutes of inspiration to help you reflect and live differently. Subscribe now and discover the keys to living your greatest active lifestyle.
Behind the Bluff
Reduce Your Plastic Footprint Right Now | Lindsay Gordon
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Our oceans face multiple crises from plastic pollution to overfishing, with impacts extending beyond marine ecosystems to human health, as microplastics invade our bodies and disrupt critical systems.
• Lindsay Gordon shares her journey from teenage scuba diver to Director of Global Programs at Parley for the Oceans
• Every other breath we take comes from the ocean, connecting all humans directly to ocean health
• Recent studies show the average human brain contains microplastics equivalent to a plastic spoon, up 50% since 2016
• Scientists are finding connections between microplastics and health issues including Alzheimer's and declining fertility rates
• Commercial fishing practices are devastating ocean ecosystems with 90% of fish stocks either exploited, overexploited, or depleted
• The AIR strategy (Avoid, Intercept, Redesign) provides a framework for action at individual, community, and global levels
• Simple changes like eliminating single-use water bottles and plastic bags can significantly reduce your plastic footprint
• Choosing glass containers over plastic and buying locally produced food helps reduce exposure to harmful chemicals
• Communities can perform "plastic audits" to identify unnecessary plastics and implement sustainable alternatives
• Wellness comes from connecting to nature, knowing where your food and water come from, and living in harmony with the environment
Let's make an immediate impact by avoiding single-use plastics and switching to reusable grocery bags. These changes benefit not only ocean health but also our personal wellbeing.
Are you ready to live an active lifestyle? Welcome to Behind the Bluff, where we believe every moment of your life is an opportunity to pursue wellness on your terms. I'm your host, Jeff Ford, and I am joined today with Lindsay Gordon, head of global programs at Parley for the Oceans. Launched in 2012, Parley has grown from a series of talks into a global movement of individuals, groups and organizations taking action for the oceans. Parley's mission is to rapidly transform human-made materials and systems to work in harmony with the ecosystem of nature, and to inspire and empower more impactful participation in the environmental cause, in the environmental cause. Today we're going to discuss the ocean crises and what you, we, can do to make an impact, positive impact on the oceans today.
Speaker 1Lindsay, welcome to the show. Thanks, Jeff, it's great to be here. I'm glad we could make this happen. I know you have been traveling a lot and pursuing the mission, so it's good to have you in the podcast booth today. Before we dive into the main topic, which is going to be very action-oriented, step-based what our listeners can put into practice right away I'd enjoy learning more about you and what you do on a day-to-day basis. So can you share, first and foremost, your journey that led you to Parley for the Oceans.
Speaker 2Sure, sure. Well, I have to say I grew up near the coast so I fell in love with the ocean from a very young age. I grew up in New Jersey and I grew up coming down here very often to South Carolina and falling in love with the coast here. And then I was granted the opportunity to learn how to scuba dive when I was 16. And that first dive under the ocean I fell in love with everything around me and I also saw the harm that things like climate change are causing to our oceans. I saw coral bleaching climate change are causing to our oceans. I saw coral bleaching. I noticed the plastic problem when I was learning how to scuba dive and living on a boat and I said to myself I need to dedicate myself to this beautiful, beautiful 70% of this world.
Speaker 1It sounds like you had a visceral reaction.
Speaker 2It was a life-changing experience diving and I get that often when I visit the ocean, when I go under the water, I have very monumental life-changing experiences, more than enough to know that this is a special, special place for me and us all really.
Speaker 1Yeah, so oceans, you mentioned 70% of the makeup of our environment.
Speaker 2Yes, and also a key form of the life that we have here on Earth. Actually, every other breath, a little bit more than that, comes from our ocean. Our oceans are a vital source of not only the life that gives life here on Earth, but also regulator of climate and a beautiful blessing to us here, as we all know, living close to the ocean. So I actually went on to study oceans and that eventually led me to parlay. I studied marine sciences and then I went on to get a master's at University of Washington in marine environmental management and specifically worked on working with coastal and local communities on grassroots solutions to things like overfishing and the plastic issue, and then I joined Parley for the Oceans nine years ago.
Speaker 1Nine years ago. Can you believe you've been there that long?
Speaker 2I can. It's been such an honor to build this global team and work in so many different places we have staff in 12 different countries and really build the mission out with the core team that we begun with and my founders, and now I am director of global programs at Parley for the Oceans.
Lindsay's Journey to Ocean Conservation
Speaker 1Tell us more about that. As the global director of Parley, what's your day-to-day look like? What are the responsibilities that you uphold?
Speaker 2I have the great honor of working with a global team, so we're based in New York but, like I said, we have people working on the ground in 12 countries, collaborators in about 30 plus countries, and these are activists, these are educators, these are scientists, these are creatives, these are surfers, all really with the mission to protect the oceans and also combat the plastic pollution issue in their own towns, in their own countries. So I get to work with them, sometimes in person I just got back from Chile and Argentina and sometimes remotely, every single day, really listening to their needs, what's best for their country, advocating for their needs on a global level, whether it be with partners that we have, who we do global beach cleanups with, sometimes Adidas, for example or on stages like the United Nations. No way Like the United Nations. Really, we have the solutions that we need. It's coming together. It's the coming together, it's the learning from each other and it's the implementing these solutions on a global level. That is what's needed most right now.
Speaker 1Yeah, it sounds like the tools are there and your role is to be the liaison and the organizer, the educator. You wear a lot of different hats, it seems like I do. But to ensure events are happening, initiatives are happening and to be that resource so that people can take action in their communities.
Speaker 2Exactly, and also to be the advocate for the voices that don't get heard on the global stage enough.
Speaker 1When you say advocate, is it communities that are being affected at a greater level than we realize by the issues that we're experiencing because of pollution in the oceans.
Speaker 2Yes, because of pollution in the ocean, because of climate change, because of overfishing, a lot of coastal communities are affected in ways that we never see. Because it's a way Just like the plastic problem here and places like the United States is mostly a way it's in landfills, it's in the ocean, it's exported to other countries, the visibility of it and the issues of it. Coastal communities around the world are faced with it, are faced with either the exportation of our trash, are faced with the lack of resources, financial resources to be able to manage, are faced with the lack of resources, like clean tap water, to be able to say no to water bottles that we have resources here to say no to. So these are communities in the Maldives, these are communities in Chile, along the coast of Chile, argentina, mexico, dominican Republic, just to name a few that I work with, that are really head on faced with the issue every day that we don't have to look at, but it still affects us.
Speaker 1Yeah, we tend to forget that clean water coming out of our taps is an absolute privilege. Coming out of our taps is an absolute privilege and there's a lot we can do, given that we have more resources than some of the other places that you travel to and the partners that you're working with. Let's go into a little bit more on partnerships. In preparing for today, I found it so interesting that Adidas has been a big partner of Parley. Could you explain more about how those more visible partnerships work and maybe more into your relationship with Adidas?
Speaker 2Sure, yeah, adidas is a wonderful partner. We had an amazing 10 years together which really kicked off with something revolutionary, which was a story that sent a message for the oceans, and it was creating the first shoe that I don't know if you caught this in your research that was made out of what we call upcycled ghost gear, or upcycled ghost gear that was caught by an amazing organization called Sea Shepherd.
Speaker 2It was an illegal fishing vessel that was caught by Sea Shepherd, which is an organization that goes after illegal fisheries which, by the way, one in every five fish that we eat is caught in some way illegally and may be linked to forced labor or slavery on the high seas that's nuts yeah, one in five.
Speaker 1fish fish even here in the States.
Speaker 2So a massive net was caught and we were able to work with Sea Shepherd and Adidas to make that net integrated into a sneaker and that sneaker was able to be a message for the cause. So anybody who looked at that sneaker learned the story, got that sneaker, felt like they were part of the mission, learned about the cause and could be an ocean ambassador. So it's a message, it's a tool and that's really how we began with Adidas and since then we've done amazing educational events around the world. Cleanup campaigns have worked with their staff to bring them out into the ocean, and certain ocean immersion programs like the Maldives, where they get to see the problem head on, learn about the solutions, be advocates back in their offices to teach their offices how to be ambassadors for the cause as well. And, together with Adidas, we also rid plastic water bottles and single-use plastics from their offices.
Speaker 2They have a lot of offices a lot of employees affected and then looked at their supply chain as well to rid virgin plastic and integrate what we call ocean plastic or plastic that's been diverted from either oceans, coasts or coastal communities, into not only the shoes but other products that they create as well. So that was one partnership that really symbolizes. How can we have effect on a local level by working with global partners who have such a wide range of influence in how they act, what they say, changes that they make?
Speaker 1say, changes that they make. That's an incredible group of examples of what you did collaboratively with Adidas to create change. And it sounds like or is it fair to say that when you're working with different communities, different companies, if you will, you're doing different techniques and coming up with different ways to make the level of impact.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's always adaptive, right, Because every community is different. I think that's really important that we remember that in global work, that not one rule applies everywhere, but there are certain principles that can be applied everywhere, which is respect the local community first, understand local knowledge and know that we can all make a change, no matter how small, no matter how little. We can all make a change. But we really also do guide our principles by something called the AIR strategy. I think that you had read about that.
Speaker 1Yeah, go ahead, define AIR for us and how that strategy plays out in environments.
Speaker 2Sure. So air comes from every other breath we take comes from our oceans, which we mentioned. Air, you breathe in, you breathe out, you breathe in, you breathe out. Again, no matter where you are in the world, you're breathing something from the ocean which is beautiful, and it's an acronym for AI I r, which is avoiding plastic whenever possible, something we can all do at every level individual all the way up to government and intergovernmental. How can we avoid single-use plastics and plastics that we don't need? Intercepting, which is intercepting plastic out of the environment, taking what's out there already out there back.
Speaker 1That'd be an example like cleaning up.
Speaker 2We also have worked with the Maldivian government and our amazing Maldivian coordinator, shahina Ali, to create recycling and upcycling systems where there were none in the Maldives before we started working together. There, plastic would just fall out of a boat while it was going onto an island, yes.
Speaker 2And this happens in many places in the world where they just don't have the means for the infrastructure that we have here in the States, and especially being low-lying coastal communities, it happens more easily. So now there is a full recycling and upcycling system that is made all the way to ocean plastic, like things like this ocean bag here, made of fabric from plastic that would have fallen into the oceans or could have fallen into of people in the Maldives that otherwise wouldn't be working for this cause.
Speaker 2So that's Intercept. It's not only educational cleanups, but it's big Interception operations as well. And then redesign is the R of air, and that's redesigning not only the way that we think about plastic and what we do with plastic, but redesigning the way we think about our consumer society as a whole. How do we go beyond plastics? And that's really, really important right now. That's what I'm focused on.
Speaker 2That's what we're focused on, especially as studies are coming out that are going beyond the studies that tell us that there may be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050, that our fish have microplastics in them that we're digesting. We knew that plastics was a big problem in our environment and oceans, but we are just learning the repercussions of plastics and our human health. So it's more important than ever that we redesign the way that we're consuming and we think about really how we can be working in relationship with land more than materials that are toxic to us. And I would love to go more into plastics and human health. There was a study that just came out that says that in the average human brain, they are finding the density worth of a plastic spoon in microplastics in our brain.
Speaker 1In our brains.
Speaker 2In our brains Average person, and this has gone up by 50% since 2016.
Speaker 1Not a long timeframe, not a long timeframe.
Speaker 2And to add to that, they are finding a connection between the density of plastics in the human brain to Alzheimer's. That's just one human harm. There's also a lot that they're finding with disrupting our endocrine system or hormones, both male and female and its links to fertility. I'll pause there. I'd love to go into that a bit later.
Speaker 1Lindsay you bring up probably the best angle of this conversation, because health experts out there now are talking about microplastics like never before and we're starting to get this research. I just want to go back and pause. You said that by 2050, there may be more plastic in the oceans than there will be fish, and that is alarming because 2050 is not that far from now. Now the air acronym avoid, intercept and redesign. What I gathered from your breakdown of that is that if we don't redesign our practices with how we're consuming, we can only avoid and intercept so much.
Speaker 2Yep, so so we've got to do something about this.
Speaker 1We've got to do something about this.
Speaker 2And the time is really now.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Plastics and Human Health Crisis
Speaker 2The time is now, because half of all plastic that's ever been created was created by the year 2000. Until now. You know, we are on an increase of plastic. We are just finding its effects into our human system. So we can stop, you know, using plastic, as much single-use plastic. We can begin to intercept, or try to intercept, what's already out there, though we'll never be able to recover everything that's fallen into the ocean because, and into our soil too, because things these plastic particles break down and down and down into nano, nanoparticles which we can't recover.
Speaker 2But what I like to really put our global energy into is how are we going to get ahead of this problem? Because, until we begin thinking about new materials, like using mushrooms for materials or kelp, there's an amazing company called Sway that's looking at plastic sorry replacement to plastic packaging using only kelp. Wow Using only kelp, and this is different than the average compostable that we see, and this is different than the average compostable that we see.
Speaker 2Until we start investing in that, we're going to get stuck in this A and I. And what are we going to replace the A the avoiding with, Because there's a lot of energy that needs to go into? How can we stop using so much packaging? To begin with, growing our own food, not buying, you know, pre-packaged meals and potato chips, whether that is in plastic or some other material, but really thinking about the material use that we use.
Speaker 1And that's going to be the whole redesign process is ensuring that, from the beginning, plastic stops getting into our soils, our environments, the way it is, exactly.
Speaker 2Exactly.
Speaker 1Now let's go into the human health aspects a bit further here. Sure have definitely at least from my perspective, in researching keeping up with the knowledge base of not only podcasts out there but studies, epidemiology type studies. We see Alzheimer's increasing at a rapid race like no other before. It's been referred to as type three diabetes. Now what you're sharing today is the brain impact of microplastics. Can you go deeper into other issues with microplastics outside of the brain situations that you've already shared?
Speaker 2Yeah, and the brain is in fact a rather new one. What has been studied for a while is this endocrine disruptor aspect of plastics. And there's an amazing scientist out there and friend and I recently interviewed her called Dr Shauna Swan. You can find her book Countdown, which is very helpful. Countdown.
Speaker 1Countdown. I like the title.
Speaker 2Countdown because she is finding that we are in a fertility crisis here globally Amongst younger parents and just people in general.
Speaker 2Amongst people in general globally. She's been an ecotoxicologist studying harmful toxins since the 80s and has been working for about 15 years on studying plastics, and what she's finding is that there's a connection to this fertility crisis and the rise in plastics and actually in the past 50 years, which plastics use has been on the rise, especially single use. For the past 50 years, fertility markers have gone down about 1% per year 1% per year.
Speaker 11% per year, that's significant, it's significant.
Speaker 2And she is ringing the alarm and it is something to be rung, because this is the future of humanity we're talking about, and she is correlating and communicating with other scientists that are finding similar things and I'll break this down for you. So this 50% decrease it's an average sperm count, correlating and communicating with other scientists that are finding similar things and I'll break this down for you. So this 50% decrease it's an average sperm count in men. It's also an increase in things that are linked to hormone issues, such as cancers, breast cancers, testosterone, ovarian. It's also linked to an increase in miscarriage. So all fertility, she's studying all of this and she's done a very in-depth 10-year study of mothers-to-be babies in the womb, babies as they grow, and she's finding an increase in microplastics in the womb, as well as when a child is very young. Those are the most. Two vulnerable states lead to a decrease in their overall fertility markers in their future, in their life, and this can get passed down generation to generation to generation. So you look at three generations passed down.
Speaker 1Where are we going to be?
Speaker 2Where are we going to?
Speaker 1be if we don't?
Speaker 2focus on this avoiding and redesigning aspect and just to break down the science a little bit more, yeah, go for it. She's looking at two chemical components in plastics Phthalates.
Speaker 1Have you heard of phthalates before Phthalates? My wife, who's a dietitian, has used that word before.
Speaker 2It's a mouthful, but it's what makes plastics soft, like if you see a plastic and it's soft. It's also in a lot of lotions, um care, personal care products, things that we find on our shelves here and CVS as Walgreensreens. That actually will decrease testosterone in the body. 95% of us have phthalates in our body. It's hard.
Speaker 1Just from the products that we're using.
Speaker 2Products products from plastics, even something like if say this is how close connected to plastics we are, even if we try to fully avoid. Say, there is a milk that you want to buy from your local farmer. It was in a glass bottle, but the cow was milked by plastic tube udders. They are finding that there will still be trace amounts of plastic, and therefore components of the plastic, in the milk that you drink, even if you buy it in a glass bottle In a glass bottle.
Speaker 1That's wild. So the tools that they used to get the milk out of the cow have impacted the quality of that milk.
Speaker 2Exactly. So that's you can. If we're not growing our own food, it's really impossible to know if it has no plastic trace in it, but there's an acceptance around. We all have some plastics in our body. It's impossible to fully avoid if you're living in this modern society that we are, but there are many, many things we do, we can do, to avoid the volume of plastic that some of us are intaking. So just going to bisphenols, which is another chemical component that they're finding that's harmful to our health, that's what makes plastics hard. You ever hear of the BPA free?
Speaker 2Yeah, that was a big movement because they found BPA was unhealthy.
Speaker 1Um, and you see BPA free on everything now on everything now, does that even mean anything? Or you're about to go into that? I'm you, you see me, I'm about to go into that.
Speaker 2BPA increases estrogen, so you get a combination of decreasing testosterone, increasing estrogen. You're having all of these fertility issues. There's also behavioral issues. That is linked to this that they're looking into developmental behavioral issues as well. Bpa free is now a thing, and it's great because people understood that BPA was bad. What's not great is that scientists have come up with things like BPF and BPS, which do exactly the same thing that BPA does to our bodies and plastic, but is not as well known to be harmful, and this is a common thing that you see in the industry.
Speaker 1It's interesting you bring that up, because the parallel here is exactly similar to food. We all knew high fructose corn syrup. It's a you know. You'll see labels. Now no HFC, and now there's different names for all the different highly processed ingredients in the foods that we eat. So what's astonishing to me now hearing you describe it in that manner, is there's a lot we have to become more aware of, and then we do have to change behavior, but it's at a systems level, which I can see why you are a part of a global team. Yeah, wow. So thank you for sharing more on the human health. I want to take a sidebar about fisheries. You mentioned earlier about the illegal fishing practices that are out there, and then I also understand that fishing the practice of it could be the most problematic to our oceans long term. Could you tell us more about fishing practices and their impact on our oceans?
Global Fishing Practices and Ocean Health
Speaker 2Yeah, fishing. You know fishing is linked to a lot of issues globally, the way that it's done, and I will say commercial and industrial fishing. This is different than small scale fisheries and it is also a big contributor to our plastic issue the plastic in our oceans, because a lot of the gear is lost along the way into the ocean, is tossed over boats, and you get this in illegal fisheries, but you also get this in legal fisheries. Actually, 90% of our fish as well, 90% of our fish globally is either exploited, overexploited or depleted. So we're looking at two issues coming to a head here the plastics issue and really our healthy oceans issue.
Speaker 1Now, when you say exploited, exploited excuse me, not exploited similar what do you mean by exploited?
Speaker 2exploited the stock levels or the level that the ecosystem needs in order to maintain a healthy ecosystem is is no longer there.
Speaker 1No longer there, we're not at that level.
Speaker 2Um, you know we are fishing. We are essentially a friend said to me recently mining. This is mining of our oceans. We've never had as much technology as we have today and if you do a YouTube of industrial fishing practices, it is brutal and it's impossible to just fish for one fish. So you get something called bycatch and this is where they talk about dolphins being caught or other. You know really pristine wildlife that you don't want to be caught in these nets. It's impossible. In my cleanups that I do and the cleanups we do around the world, we're finding fishing nets everywhere and if you even have a tiny branch stuck to one of those fishing nets, it's almost impossible to get out. So you can see that anything that's in its way it will take and this is leading to a breakdown of our healthy ecosystems. There's different types of fishing practices to be aware of. There's bottom trawling, which essentially scrapes the bottom of our oceans, scraping coral.
Speaker 1That can't be good for the health of the ocean.
Speaker 2No, it's like clear cutting the forests. So coral that's taken Thousands and thousands and thousands Of years to grow, that's potentially been around since before humans Evolved to be the homo sapiens that we are today, takes it in an instant Just to clear and take with it the fish that it needs to take. So whenever I talk about oceans and ocean health, I talk about oceans and ocean health, I talk about plastics and I also talk about overfishing, not only because they're intricately related, but because it's all connected. You said systems, which is a really good word. It's all connected to the systems, the global systems we have built of consume, exploit, of consume, exploit and really think near future. And so the solution to plastics in many ways is the solution to a lot of different issues, including overfishing, which is to take.
Speaker 2We need to ask our systems to change. We need to ask our governments, our local governments, our national governments, but also we can take initiative ourselves as consumers, especially with things like plastics and with things like overfishing, by returning back to our local community, by learning how to grow our own food again, by not having to rely on things like packaged vegetables, on fish shipped from who knows where, who's been in, who knows whose hands that is at risk to forced labor, mining of the oceans, et cetera. When I refer to fishing, if we are to return back to our practices that are more localized, that give back to our local businesses, maybe our small-scale local fishermen. If you choose to eat fish, I don't live in a place where I feel like I need to eat fish because I haven't found that one local fisherman I know that goes out on his paddle that I really trust, and when I'm asking at a restaurant where does this fish come from, I can't trust that.
Speaker 1You're not going to get the details you need to really understand Rarely, rarely do I, and a lot of times the restaurants don't know.
Speaker 2And if they do know the boat it came off of, they don't know. You know the practices that it took, so it's a lot of checks and balances to ensure that you are not, with your dollar, voting into a system that is highly destructive and also potentially has microplastics in it, and again affecting your health and, again, I am in a very privileged position where I don't need to get my protein from fish.
Speaker 2Um, there are other. We're talking about being in privileged positions, and then we're talking about coastal communities that are kind of away but also faced with the issues. Coastal communities like the Maldives, like I'm talking about, like in Dominican Republic and other parts of the world Seychelles, sri Lanka that rely on protein for their food From the oceans From the ocean, yeah and are dealing with these issues and also have established local fishermen they can trust. But what happens frequently enough is that the local fishermen are not able to fish as much because what's being taken in mass amounts is being taken by these commercial and industrial fishermen that then ship the fish to Asia or to us, it's not even staying in the communities.
Speaker 2It's not. It's not a lot of the time, a good amount of the time.
Speaker 1Well, I had no clue how woven fishing practices were into the pollution of plastic problem and just like the interconnectedness of it so. I appreciate the elaboration and to key in on a couple of things you said there, we vote with our dollar. I always think that's an important statement to make there, we vote with our dollar.
Speaker 1I always think that's an important statement to make and as consumers who are privileged, we do have a choice to practice differently, to live differently, and I think that's really empowering for our listeners. So I'd love to get into the action based practices that those who feel strongly about the mission, the cause and you know have learned about, learned and known about these issues for a while. I think you're putting in a better context for us to be able to actually make change in the level that we can. So, relating this back to Palmetto Bluff, I would tell you the majority of our members are so like-minded with this conversation today. You know we have a farm and that farm produces its own produce.
Speaker 1Amazing, I've been there, yeah, and there are questions all the time about the soil the land, yeah, and it's reestablishing those practices and getting back to the basics is what I really connected with earlier, and I want to offer some ability for our listeners to do that. So, lindsay, what can we do? How much impact can we have?
Speaker 2So much, so much. First of all, palmetto Bluff. What an amazing, amazing place To be to live. I've been coming here for 15 years. My heart is here to be surrounded in this nature and to have this much influence in a community, a community that is capable of making change, and see the farm got built. So much gets done here. So there are many things we can all do on an individual level. And then Palmetto Bluff we can do so many things together with Palmetto Bluff. I'll start by saying that plastic water bottles is a really easy way to have impact here. About one million plastic water bottles are bought around the world every minute.
Practical Actions for Ocean Protection
Speaker 2That's nuts Every minute. Wow. And those plastic water bottles? Most of them don't get recycled. About 9% of plastics actually get recycled globally 9% 9% only 9%, and these plastic water bottles are used for a few minutes. If that, and also, we're ingesting what they call a galaxy of microplastics, a good amount of which they haven't found scientifically the percentage, but will be absorbed into our body and stay in our body once the water leaves.
Speaker 1This is specific from plastic water bottle use.
Speaker 2This is specific to the single-use plastic water bottle use. This one is where the water's been sitting in the bottle for we don't know how long.
Speaker 1On a truck somewhere On a truck Ship to Sam's Club In the heat too.
Speaker 2Yeah, so the heat breaks down plastic and makes it leach quicker Photodegrade, it's called that makes sense.
Speaker 1That's why there's those warnings sometimes on the bottom of plastic.
Speaker 2That actually talk about heating it and not to heat it Exactly. Yeah, but it's very small fine print, very small, and it's that clear print that you can barely read you know, turn it upside down to the light.
Speaker 2So a really easy way would just be to avoid plastic water bottles in your life. Avoid plastic water bottles in your home and on the property here. That's a huge win. Through that you're avoiding the ingestion of microplastics, also the labor that may have to be done if it does make it to the recycling system and also the potential harm that it does if it doesn't and makes its way to the river right here. You know we are very close to the ocean right here.
Speaker 1We are very close.
Speaker 2All it takes is one rainstorm, and easily things go in there you know, so that's a really easy way.
Speaker 2And then asking yourself doing an audit of your house and of the community here in Palmetto Bluff that would be an exciting thing to do of what single use plastics do we have here in my room in this community that I don't need, that I can replace? Um metal is a really good replacement. Reusable is a really good replacement. So plastic straws, metal straws if you need a straw, then there's the bottle. You can do a reusable metal bottle. I'm sure a lot of you do that. It's really helpful.
Speaker 1There's also bags. I love my reusable grocery bags for the record.
Speaker 2Yeah, get a bag you love. That makes you happy. We could get some Palmetto Bluff branded grocery bags. Oh, that would be amazing In our gift shop just at the Movement Center.
Speaker 1I'm sure people would love that. I would get one for sure.
Speaker 2Two million plastic bags are used around the world every again minute, two million.
Speaker 1Every minute.
Speaker 2Every minute, again, single use. And these? You'll see these around the world on beaches. We've all seen them. They degrade but they don't fully go away. Still, they make its way into our soil, into the water systems, and 12 minutes is the average amount of time these bags are used 12 minutes, 12 minutes yeah. So keeping a reusable. Maybe it's the new Palmetto Bluff.
Speaker 1Bluff reusable bag.
Speaker 2Reusable bag in your trunk of your car, so when you go grocery shopping it's always there. It's also sends a really good signal to others to remember. It's almost like a tool and again like an ambassador for the cause. We can feel carrying these things as well.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. What's interesting is, with everything you and your teams, global teams, are doing, it's the law of diffusion theory right, there's a lot of early adoption right now and it's getting it to that place where everybody adopts the behaviors that start to improve communities and improve their health.
Speaker 1I think, is the biggest message today. Um, so let's take a step back and go to Parley, cause I read something interesting. I in pirate lore a Parley is a conference or a discussion. I didn't want to miss this one because it's it's kind of the essence of why you and your team do what you do. So A parley is a conference or a discussion, especially between opposing sides, as a negotiation for terms of a truce. And the root of the word parley is parlor French, for to speak. How does this underlying meaning of your organization's name continue to guide and motivate your team?
Speaker 2your team. Yeah, I love when people bring up that point because it really was started by my co-founders. It was started in order to bring people to the table that might not see exactly the same and to have conversations between really expanding outside the nonprofit world, expanding outside the conservation world, the science world, into creatives and businesses and whatnot um, to have conversations around how we can come together to make this world a better place, and I think that's really important in any cause. That's important to us and this is my mission and everybody has their own mission is understanding that mission can be a glue for doing things together, for bringing people together and for creating an open space, an open door, an inviting place for people to come in.
Speaker 2I always say to people that we don't need to do every. We don't all need to do everything 100%. You know we can pick our mission, we can pick what feels good to us and we can do it to the percent that we feel capable of. You know, in the United States we have many people not everyone, I don't want to say everyone have the privilege of being able to make these changes, and not everywhere do you have the privilege of being able to make certain changes we can make here, like we're talking about the plastic water bottles or the maybe ability to say no to fish as protein. So we can all make our incremental decision on the amount of change that we want to have. Um, but what happens when you bring people to a room and get people talking is ideas come out of that, collaborations come out of that, partnerships come out of that, change comes out of that. Like you and I sitting here today, hopefully we'll be able to make some change happen.
Speaker 2Um so that's really what Parley came from originally is the idea of we need to be coming together and talking, talking about the issues that are important to us. That's where it starts.
Speaker 1And it feels like talking about the issue that is right underneath us that we are maybe not addressing at the level we could be, given the resources that we do have, and I think that's great as we get ready to wrap up, here is we've got some practical steps that you, the consumer, can do today. Reduce single water bottle, use grocery bags Maybe you look at fish consumption and, where you're at there, I'll add something else in there. Go for it, add any others.
Speaker 2When you're going shopping at the grocery market, you can bring a tote bag to put the vegetables in instead of using a plastic bag, because, also, every time that vegetable touches the plastic bag, it potentially is bringing plastics into our body. Also, looking at what type of choices you want to make at the grocery store, choosing things that are in a glass container rather than a plastic container, your peanut butter, your honey? Also, buying local is a really, really amazing way to support just what we're trying to do here on a global level, which is to come closer into relationship with nature and our local communities, to solve these problems, to not be reliant on the packaging issue, the consumerism that we are faced with today. So I even suggest even going to your farmer's market. You are doing amazing, amazing, amazing work for this effort.
Speaker 1It's pretty cool that they're hosted here on property no other community has that. And then just in the surrounding bluffton area there are so many farmer's markets where this is possible. Uh, I still find it absurd that broccoli in publics and other supermarkets is now being wrapped in plastic. You can't even you can't even get it, uh, not in plastic go to a trader, joe's, and it's like yeah, I've tried to.
Speaker 2I, my body wants to run out because you see, even I've seen bananas wrapped in plastic. Banana is an amazing natural. It's got protection. All right invention because it exactly it already has its packaging, um, and it's a material that people are even looking at as a replacement for plastic. There's a company called Banana Tex looking at that for replacement for leather and other types of materials.
Wellness and Connection to Nature
Speaker 1Yeah, is, of course, scary and concerning, but also you've shared that there is a lot of hardworking, passionate people trying to find solutions. And then really to the essence of the mission meeting people where they are doing what you can do and doing what feels right to you. I think that's key in order for change to elicit personally and on a systems-wide basis. So, lindsay, there are two values guiding our community here at Palmetto Bluff that I believe relate to our conversation today, one of which is conservation, which is a dedication to protecting our natural resources and wildlife, and the second is land stewardship, where our owners work with the conservancy team to ensure the land's conservation. Now, given these values guide our community, what I wanted to ask you today is what can we do to uphold these values?
Speaker 2Yeah, you know, palmetto Bluff is an incredible place with these values, with the nature around, and the opportunity to make Palmetto Bluff the most environmentally forward community in the country is right at our doorstep Avoiding the single-use plastic, getting rid of the plastic water bottles, creating opportunities for reusable bags like a Palmetto Bluff tote possibly we can take an audit of all of the plastics here that we don't need and we can change them out. It's a privilege to be living in this amazing, beautiful place where we have so much say and opportunity to be a change, to make that change and then to be an example on a national or global level for what a community can accomplish in plastics and beyond.
Speaker 1Wow, lindsay, I am amped up by your passion. I'm so grateful you were able to make the time to come in here and share about AIR. I'm never going to forget that acronym, and what we like to do, regardless of the subject matter experts, realm of the world, is finish the episode off with a question, and it is what does wellness mean to you?
Speaker 2What does wellness mean to you? What wellness means to me is when I feel connected to the nature around me, to the land around me and to my community around me. When I feel like I can grow my own food and eat that food. When I feel that I know where my water is coming from and I can trust that. When I feel inspired to go outside and go on a walk, like here in Palmetto Bluff. Being surrounded in that and also actively gearing my life towards living like that is what wellness means to me.
Speaker 1Steep Lindsay. Thank you so much for sharing it seems aligned with your mission, the time you're devoting in your life to the cause. And, man, palmetto Bluff is a beautiful place to take a walk. Yeah, and man, palmetto Bluff is a beautiful place to take a walk, listeners, that brings us to the end of our episode today, and feel free, you can hang out with me for a few more minutes and get some healthy momentum for the rest of your week.
Speaker 2Thank you, Jeff.
Speaker 1Have you ever felt like you were decently prepared for a presentation, performance or important talk with someone close to you and yet it didn't go exactly to how you had it planned out? This past weekend I led announcements hosted for the second time that's the position at my church and during the first service what's called the host moment four minutes or so before we dive in, it went exactly according to plan. I said everything I wanted to say and exactly how I planned to say it and how I wanted to say it. And after being the first go at it, you could see my nerves were gone and my confidence was up. Funny enough, I didn't feel as great about my second execution. It wasn't bad, but I stumbled a bit on a place I hadn't stumbled previously and although I said what I wanted to say, I didn't say it exactly how I planned to say it.
Speaker 1And if you're anything like me, you like to feel prepared, you enjoy the feeling of it, you like to be what can be phrased as on your game. But the most frustrating part is knowing that even when we are prepared for a presentation, performance or just an important talk with a loved one, it doesn't always work out the way we expect, and it's this internal battle with perfectionism right. We can't be perfect or completely on our game every time we want to be, and that's the struggle here. And if you're anything like me, it almost feels unacceptable that that's the truth. When you feel like you could have done better at something and you can't immediately make up for it, it weighs on you. You can get hard on yourself and I'm speaking all from experience, as I do consistently during our healthy momentum time.
Speaker 1I remember when I first started racing Ironman triathlons and for those of you not familiar with an Ironman triathlon, it's a very difficult event, even if you're doing a 70.3, a half Ironman or a full 140.6,. It's not an easy event and I was so hard on myself for my early finish times. I expected that my early races would have been way faster finish times, and they weren't. In particular, I remember spending a vacation ruminating about my 70.3 finish up in New Hampshire. Finish up in New Hampshire. I spent the entire vacation researching my next race because I had finished 40 minutes slower than I had anticipated, and the whole time I was in my head with my family, reminding myself that I could have done better.
Speaker 1And that's where we run into trouble when we constantly critique ourselves, when we're voracious about reminding ourselves of what we can do better at. We even see this in interpersonal relationships, where we harp on, sometimes the people closest to us where we think they could have done better. And so this is a vicious cycle and for me it can become a complete distraction. This type of thinking, this response, it comes over you more than you might expect. Can you relate to that? To close out today? I know this may not be a healthy momentum that necessarily connects with you to the degree that it might with folks who just are commonly classically hard on themselves. It's not to negate that we shouldn't be prepared. It's to just explain that we have to be careful with the do better concept.
Speaker 1The great coach John Wooden was accurately correct when he said confidence comes from being prepared. But let's not get complacent or think for a second that everything will always go exactly according to our plans, even when prepared. What I think we can do this week is continue to work hard to be as prepared as possible and then let go of the outcomes, especially the outcomes that in the past may have waned on you. Life is so much better when we get back up quickly. Life is so much better when we get back up quickly. Keep working and learn so that we are further prepared for the next opportunities that come our way.
Speaker 1That's a wrap on this week's episode. I want to thank you for spending time with us today and let's make an immediate impact. Let's let's not wait to integrate the strategies that Lindsay shared on avoiding single use plastics and switching to reusable grocery bags. I think this is a powerful topic today that can make a lot of impact, not only for years to come, but also on our own health. As always, remember to actively participate in life on your terms.
