Climate Action Figures

Season 2, Episode 24: Sam

• John Whidden • Season 2 • Episode 24

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John interviews Sam from WriggleBrew about sustainable gardening solutions, including household pesticides and fertilizers. Sam discusses the environmental impact of synthetic fertilizers and introduces his eco-friendly product derived from earthworm castings. They also emphasize the importance of home composting and addressing greenwashing in the industry. 

00:00 Introduction to Climate Action Figures

00:27 QuickFix: Eco-Friendly Gardening Tips

00:50 Meet Sam: Sustainable Agriculture Innovator

01:11 DIY Natural Pesticides

04:22 Understanding Fertilizer Runoff

06:42 WriggleBrew: A Sustainable Solution

07:11 Organic Fertilizers and Certifications

09:45 Sam's Journey and Inspiration

12:08 Marketing and Availability of WriggleBrew

17:42 Greenwashing in the Industry

25:20 Sam's Climate Action and Final Thoughts

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Sam:

I'm Sam with WriggleBrew and this is Climate Action Figures.

John:

Hello and welcome to Climate Action Figures, tales from the Deep South. My name is John Whidden, and this week on the show you get to meet Sam. This week's QuickFix is brought to us from Linda in Indio, California. Thanks for writing in Linda. She says, instead of buying pesticides for your garden or chemical fertilizer, try using household products such as vinegar and baking soda or detergent. Sometimes these work just as well as the chemical ones and are not so hard on the environment. Well, welcome Sam. What do you think about that? QuickFix?

Sam:

Oh, thank you John. I think it's a really good idea and I highly encourage it. There are a lot of great ways to save money and keep your garden and your lawn a lot healthier without having to resort to petrochemical stuff or toxic stuff.

John:

yeah. This is kind of your wheelhouse, really. So do you have some specific ideas that, uh, guests could use

Sam:

so I, I of course am in the fertilizer industry. I work with a lot of different kinds of products. I make my own. But as for home remedies, there's a really popular one, uh, where I'm from, especially for helping plants deal with different kinds of pests or diseases. And that's to take chili powder garlic. Stuff that's kind of spicy or aromatic and make your own sort of bio pesticide out of it by mixing it with water and spraying it on plants. There's a couple reasons why that works, but it really just mimics how plants naturally defend themselves, and that's the best way to keep bugs and pests away, is to do what nature already does.

John:

So I make my spray and as long as it's really hot on my tongue, is that the right level of heat? Like how do we know how much to put in?

Sam:

I mean, pretty much so. So what makes something spicy is that it has capsaicin in it, which is the molecule that gives us the sensation of spice. And capsaicin is actually a defensive compound. Plants produce. So if something's really spicy to you, then it's probably also really spicy to biting insects and bugs. And for you, that spice might give you, you know, a runny nose, but for an insect at the scale of the millimeter size. It's gonna have essentially mandibles falling off, intestinal failure, things of that nature. So aim for something spicy, something really garlicy. That's a good way to keep things off your plants.

John:

Not pleasant for the insects. And, uh, and that's not gonna hurt the plants to spray this on them. They, they don't mind it.

Sam:

No. In fact, that's, that's how they defend themselves naturally. They make these kinds of compounds. So, I mean, even coffee right? Has caffeine in it. Caffeine is a defensive compound. It's a polyphenol compound. Plants produced specifically to keep themselves healthy.

John:

Very interesting. Well, thanks for that uh, bringing in your own expertise here.

Sam:

you're welcome. It's a cool QuickFix.

John:

Now, Sam, you are the CEO of WriggleBrew, a startup in central Florida dedicated to sustainable agricultural solutions. And by the way, what a fine looking website we're seeing here.

Sam:

Thank you very much.

John:

What exactly is WriggleBrew?

Sam:

So WriggleBrew is kind of like the QuickFix, it's a method to improve plant health, improve soil health. It's a, a fertilizer that we make derived, originally from earthworm casting, so that's basically earthworm poop. And we make it so that farmers, especially large farmers, can use it as a, as an input, as a feed for their crops without having to. Use what they typically use, which are petrochemical, synthetic compounds that are really bad for nature. So we, we produce this in bulk, although now we are actually also making a retail version for people's gardens as well.

John:

Right, and we just saw that on your website. So you do both for people to use around their house and for farmers to use in a more bulk situation.

Sam:

Absolutely. I mean, our, our main objective is we wanna reduce fertilizer runoff, so we wanna prevent farmers from using the synthetic fertilizer that causes destruction in the soil and in, in our waterways. So in order to do that, we have a, an alternative for them that's both more affordable and more effective while being organic. And that's what WriggleBrew is at the end of the day.

John:

Now this Sam is not only your business, it was your area of study. So can you tell us a little bit about the downside of this fertilizer runoff? You know, people think of fertilizer as well, it helps plants grow. So what's the big problem with it running off?

Sam:

Well, there's, there's several problems. And in fact, I mean, the problems with the way we fertilize don't even just extend to runoff. They actually stretch back to how we make fertilizer. So most of the fertilizer we use is a nitrogen or phosphorus. These are nitrogen and phosphorus compounds, and a huge amount of it comes from the petrochemical industry. So we take natural gas, which is a byproduct of drilling for oil. We crack that with a huge amount of energy. In fact, about 1% of the world's energy is used for this process to make different kinds of nitrogen fertilizers. We then put them in boats, ship'em halfway across the globe with, which has a huge carbon emission footprint, to then finally be put onto fields where crops are or put into people's gardens. And there the nitrogen, we're talking about like ammonia and urea. These compounds are very reactive. They rip apart the cell walls of soil microbes. They kill a lot of decomposer organisms like earthworms and isopods, and ultimately, because they're so small and reactive, they end up flowing straight through the strata of the soil and they end up in our waterways here in Florida they end up in the Gulf of Mexico, or they end up in lakes. They cause massive fish kills and destroy a huge amount of life in these ecosystems.

John:

That's a lot of downside to these products. How do they actually help? Obviously they do because farmers use them all the time. So how do they help actually.

Sam:

Well, they, they are very effective for increasing plant growth, at least in the short run. So when you use nitrogen, it provides an enormous boost for the production of proteins and chlorophylls. So you get really big green plants when you use nitrogen rich compounds. But the downside is it's kind of a false growth. It's growth in the same way, you know, maybe steroid growth is for a person. It isn't backed up by the kinds of nutrients that make the plant actually better for people to eat. And of course these nutrients end up being used in excess of the quantity you actually need to achieve the results of growth. So the excess ends up in the soil and causes all those other deleterious problems I mentioned.

John:

So plant growth at any cost is not good.

Sam:

No I think, I think growth at any cost is, is always going to be quite expensive.

John:

now when listeners are thinking to themselves, what about my fertilizer that I use on my house plants? Does that same thing apply there? I.

Sam:

Essentially, yeah. So when you fertilize at home, you're really just doing a miniaturized version of what is done at large farms. So you use, you know, some kind of liquid based nitrogen product, it's gonna cause the same damage to the potted plant soil into your yard and its ecosystem as it would when a large farm uses, you know, metric tons of the stuff.

John:

So, if a listener is trying to find a product that is more environmentally friendly than plant food, first of all, how do they know? Do, if you look at the plant food, will it say nitrogen content on it or something?

Sam:

Yeah, absolutely. So most fertilizers have a ratio on them, an NPK ratio that they give. And a lot of people think that the higher the number on the NPK, the better it is, but in some cases it's really kind of the opposite because. You don't want a huge amount of nitrogen and phosphorous salts. You actually want those compounds to be given to your plant, either organically or for the plant to produce them itself through its biosphere. So there's a lot of good organic options. And there's a, a really good way to check if something's organic, at least here in the US You can look for the OMRI certification on the bottom right. Basically a little symbol that says this is a certified organic product and it's been made with organic ingredients and in a process that is itself sustainable and organic. So you can look for that and that's a good sign.

John:

And you said the NPS ratio, is that right?

Sam:

NPK. So nitrogen and phosphorous, potassium are all associated with different characteristics of plant growth. But in the case of all three of them, they are typically better off provided by the plant's, microbes, or by larger organic molecules than given to the plant directly as a salt.

John:

So is a healthier option not going to have those numbers at all? Or is one of the numbers worse than the others? What do we do about that?

Sam:

Certainly the first two numbers are worse than the third, so potassium being the third number, not so bad to have in large quantities because it's not as mobile in the soil. but phosphorus and nitrogen are both pretty bad. In fact, they're so bad that here in Florida we banned the use of fertilizers with nitrogen or phosphorus in them for six months out of the year. And most counties and in some counties all year, all year round. So they're pretty bad. You kind of want to avoid. Especially if you're trying to do safe growing for, you know, kids or pets or things like that. You wanna avoid big numbers like that. Having small numbers is okay. Having no numbers is best. Having your own source of fertilizer at home is the bestest, you know, if you can make your own compost or your own vermicompost, that's even better than going to the store and buying something and, and using that

John:

Plus free.

Sam:

exactly.

John:

It gets rid of your food waste without going into the landfill.

Sam:

Exactly, and that means less methane going into the atmosphere, which is really, really good because of course we're talking about climate change. Methane is way worse than CO2.

John:

Now you have a lot of knowledge in your brain about this stuff. I think I read that you had some training in chemistry and business. Both. That's an interesting combination. Tell us more about that.

Sam:

I studied at the University of Central Florida and I was originally a chemistry student there along with my best friend Gabe. He was a biochemistry student. We worked in the same lab and I wasn't intending to go into business. In fact, I was really interested in pyrotechnics. But we had this runoff happening in Florida. In the summer of 2019 and 2020, there was an enormous amount of fertilizer runoff and it killed all the fish at my favorite fishing spot. This is in fact a spot that my grandpa and I went to and he went to with his dad, and I think. Going back maybe six, possibly even seven generations. So it's a very, very long time. My family's been in, in this place and using these resources and I went out there and all the fish were dead. And that was really shocking to me. And so it kind of got me down this road of thinking, you know, if, if nothing is done about this fertilizer runoff, there's not gonna be anywhere left to go fishing. So I went to my friend Gabe,'cause he was a biochemist. He and I decided to dedicate our, the rest of our time at UCF to researching a solution to this, which eventually became our business WriggleBrew. And as it started to actually be a business, I decided to major in business to figure out how all that stuff worked.

John:

In this whole process, Sam, you have been recognized as an innovator several times by formal awards. By the way, congratulations on that. At age 24, is that correct? Wow. So what are the roots of your creativity?

Sam:

That's an interesting question. I really used to love Legos when I was a kid, but I also think, uh, one of the big things that helped me deal with solving big problems like this. I spent a lot of time going to the Science Center, which is a, a big museum we have here in, in Orlando where I live, and they had all these different ex exhibits and experiments and demonstrations showing off different inventions and, and different phenomenon science. And it was really inspiring me to as a kid. And so when I grew up, it was one of those things I thought back on a lot of how people had come up with really bizarre and interesting solutions to all kinds of different problems. So when Gabe and I were trying to figure out how to solve the issue of fertilizer runoff, when he threw out the idea of using earthworm manure, it didn't seem like it could be, you know, too bizarre to go after. So we ended up pursuing it and ended up working really well.

John:

So how do you market your household side of the product? Like if someone wanted to get a hold of, of this product, how would they go about doing that?

Sam:

Well, if you want earthworm casting liquid for your garden, you can go to our website. We do sell a lot through there. So that's WriggleBrew.com. Um, we were looking at that earlier, but we also have an Amazon presence now. We sell at a lot of local garden centers and stores, uh, I think 40 of them now throughout the south. And we're aiming to try and get into a few more. And, uh, we also sell quite a lot to large farms. We, we do most of our business to them. We ship, you know, industrial sized quantities of it, a lot of it to farms throughout the Midwest, growing soy and corn and things like that. Um, we're even working with a few distributors now out there as well, but to get more of it out.

John:

Now if people cannot find your particular product, are there others made by worm castings or other, um, really great environmentally friendly products that you recommend?

Sam:

Absolutely. So I recommend Worm castings themselves, the actual. Worm manure, is really good for especially starting gardens. And there are a few other businesses that do similar organic fertilizers that are, are pretty great. There's a, a company right now I'm not sure if I can say their name'cause it's actually expletive, but it's a fish poop, uh, except swap poop out for a less polite word. They do a really, really cool fish emulsion based fertilizer. So that one's pretty effective and neat. And I, I also encourage people, especially if you're really interested in gardening, try and make some of your own worm castings or compost at home. That's a really great way to get rid of things, uh, like food waste and, and cardboard and coffee grinds and turn it into something useful.

John:

We have our own compost bin outside, but I, I seems to me, I have friends who have worm composters inside you can. Have them right on your counter. Is that

Sam:

Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, they don't, they don't stink. That's kind of the amazing thing about earthworms and their manure. It's, it's not stinky.'cause chemically speaking, it's all humic acid. It's all the same kinds of stuff you find in soil. So they're basically producing dirt and not feces, as we would recognize it.

John:

Oh, great. So if any of my family is listening in, you know, what to put on my Christmas list for next year. Now once I get my fancy worm composter on my counter, I'm always a bit concerned about taking my outdoor compost and putting it on my plants inside because maybe it'll bring some bugs in with it. Is that a concern? And would it also be a concern in terms of worm composting?

Sam:

Yeah, it's, I mean, it's always something of a concern. We don't like having bugs in our house, and unfortunately, a, a fact of nature is just that when you produce. Dirt or have things decomposing bugs like to hang around. It's a good way for them to get food sources and, and for them to reproduce. Now, the good thing about what we created in our product is that it provides a lot of the same microbes and a lot of the same compounds you get from a compost or vermi compost, but in a liquid that's not gonna attract bugs and is not gonna bring bugs into your house. So that's a, that's a good way to get around that. But another way is if you really want to produce compost and, and bring it into the house for use in, in potted plants is you can go through a process called solarization. So it's where you take your compost and you basically put it on like a baking tray and you kind of let it bake in the sun. What this will do to it is it's gonna essentially sterilize it and, and kill all the, the eggs or larvae or whatever things might be living in it, and will also tend to kill a lot of the microbes living in it. But it will allow you to keep all the organic nutrition. when you take Solarized compost, you put that into a potted plant, you're gonna get a lot of the benefits of compost. Compost without any of the real downsides of bringing bugs into the house.

John:

And if I do get my own worm composter, can we put that directly onto the plants? Do we have to go through the solar process or no?

Sam:

Not really. Worm castings tend to be very clean, so that's one of the kind of amazing things about them is, I mean, not only do they not smell bad, they are also pretty well regulated by the earthworms for pests and bugs and things of that nature.

John:

Well, thanks for sharing your vast knowledge on this subject with us. Now, Sam, if you don't mind, I would love to take a minute to give something away. We don't take sponsorship on Climate Action Figures, but we do love the work done by. An organization in Canada called the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, and they sent us a couple more t-shirts to give away, and I'd like to show a few of those off right now. So if you don't mind, since we, uh, have listeners that are on the podcast here, maybe Sam, you could describe what we're seeing as I hold them

Sam:

take a look.

John:

And these are both sorry for the wrinkles in transit. We got a little bit wrinkly. We got a medium of this shirt.

Sam:

That. is a, it's a beautiful shirt. It's covered in all kinds of very colorful flowers With the name on the side so you can see what flower is what, and I kind of want that one.

John:

Well, maybe we'll mail it to you

Sam:

So this one has, got a ram or or goat with some kind of horns on it. I'm, I'm not a animal person. More of a worm guy.

John:

It's a mountain sheep.

Sam:

I think it is. I think it's some kind of mountain sheep and it has Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society on it. And it says wild side, right next to the, to the big mountain sheep.

John:

They're both mediums. They're both various shades of green and if you want to win those, just, write into us That's all you need to do. So send us a message via social media or climateactionfigures@gmail.com and we would love to give one of those to you. Now, we love giving things away for free, but to be fair, any organization should feel free to send us swag to give away. So, uh, if you have something you want us to give away. Send us a message or send us the swag. And if as long as it has an environmental component, then uh, we'd be happy to oblige. Now, Sam, speaking of environmental components many companies out there in my view are really greenwashing us with their businesses. Would you agree with that statement?

Sam:

Absolutely, and I, I think it's one of the biggest shames of the industry that's really happening right now.

John:

I thought you might have an opinion on that. Uh, before I ask you something about that, let's just define it in case you, you have not heard that term before to our audience members. Uh, greenwashing would, I think, broadly be defined as making. Like there is some great environmental component to your product when there really is not, you're just masquerading you know, maybe making the bottle green or showing some mountains on it, when really it may be even harmful for the environment, but you're pretending it is great for the environment. So what, tell us what you find frustrating about that, Sam.

Sam:

I think a lot of things about that are pretty frustrating. So there's a lot of companies out there, ours included, that are really trying very, very hard to, to be sustainable and to be producers of products that are sustainable. And we end up finding ourselves competing with companies who really muddy the messaging, who make a lot of claims, use a lot of buzzwords, but ultimately are producing something which is not better for the environment, not, not better in its use and especially in the fertilizer industry. I've noticed this several times where I. For example, there's a, a company, I won't name names, but they produce a fertilizer, which they call it, you know, like basically like dirt juice or something like this. And they say that it's organic and, but when you read the actual label, it's just a watered down version of a synthetic fertilizer. So all the same chemicals, just less of them, but still quite bad. And it's the same with with packaging for a lot of businesses. There was a scandal a while back with a company that was making paper water bottles. I don't think I know, I don't know if you recall these, but they look like they're made of paper, cardboard on the outside. On the inside there's, there's plastic. It's a plastic bottle with paper covering it. And things like this are really frustrating because it's making consumers distrustful of words related to sustainability and to you know, regenerative practices. And it also. Competes with companies that are really trying to be sustainable in a, in a way that's difficult.

John:

So as a CEO of a company that is really doing its due diligence in being kind to the environment, how do you recommend consumers go about figuring out, just generally speaking, not maybe in your industry, but in general, how, how do we know what's greenwashing and what is not?

Sam:

Well, at least in my industry, and I'll speak to that first. I. We do have the benefit of having organic certifiers. So I mentioned Omri, OMRI, the OMRI certifier earlier. They do a lot in the organic input space. So a lot of products will claim to be organic or natural but they don't actually meet the requirements if they don't have that om recertification on them. That's a good way to know that they probably aren't really organic. In other products, there are other, uh, certifications that are now being put out to, to demonstrate whether or not a product is organic or not, but it can still really be a challenge. So I would encourage people to do their research, try and learn. What exactly is this company claiming is organic or sustainable about their product, and why should I care about that specific product's differentiation versus another product, you know? I, I was gonna say Also on that same topic, if you are someone who discovers a product and you find that it's really sustainable, share the word, tell your friends, let them know which ones are good and which ones aren't.'cause people who are passionate about this tend to do the footwork themselves and educate themselves and a lot of other people won't. So if you know, you kind of have a responsibility to tell others.

John:

now, Sam, how do you as a business owner separate your company from greenwashing companies?

Sam:

So a couple ways. We try and use a lot more explanation when we, when we market to people. Tell them a lot more how it works mechanically. I. We also try to back up what we do with a lot more research and literature to demonstrate, you know, this is why it's really organic and sustainable. And also for, for our work, most of it started as, as sustainable research projects and received in our case, uh, federal funding to actually pursue our work. So we often point to that and, you know, as a demonstration of, hey, this isn't just, we're not just some corporation. That's trying now to work backwards to the point of sustainability. This began as sustainable research funded by the federal government to make something good, and now we're starting to commercialize it.

John:

Hopefully the federal government will continue to fund environmental innovation.

Sam:

I hope so too. There, there's been some, some real what's a good way to putting this? There has been some real turbulence recently

John:

sure, I'm sure. Now forgive my preconceived notions, speaking of which, but when I think of environmental innovation, Sam in the United States, I might think about the Pacific Northwest. I wouldn't typically think of central Florida. Am I wrong?

Sam:

You are not wrong. We aren't really well known for being a, a hub for environmentalism, but we are starting to now in the last couple years, be home to a number of environmental and sustainable startups.

John:

And I'm guessing you're trying to change that perception.

Sam:

Absolutely. Uh, I wanna be part of that push because sustainability is something that can and should be done everywhere. And I mentioned earlier some of the story of what inspired me to go after this. And I think ironically, as things get worse in a lot of places, more and more people are, are gonna kind of wake up to the fact that something can be done by them to address these issues.

John:

Right now, how did the environment worm its way(I'm sorry. I couldn't resist) into your, into your life in such a big way.

Sam:

Well, as I mentioned earlier, you know, there was this event where all the fish in my local fishing spot were killed, and it, it was a very shocking event to me, and it's, it's one of those things that really gets you thinking. Now, I was a student at the time and I felt that. I had really very little to lose by trying to go after this issue. I thought, you know, I'll graduate fairly soon. I'll have probably a job, maybe a family that not long after that. So I'm gonna be really pretty busy and not able to try and solve this issue. But right now I have a chance to go after it. And so I decided I'm never gonna have this chance again. I'm never gonna be less busy than I am now, so I decided to try and make it happen. we had a competition at my school. I ended up winning Grand Prize for that competition, which got some funding and from there it's just been rolling ever since.

John:

the family fishing hole incident was really pivotal in your history.

Sam:

It was huge. Yeah.

John:

Now there must have been other seeds planted along the way by people, organizations. What, what else when you think back to your youth, uh, helped you lean in that direction?

Sam:

Absolutely. Well, I was an Eagle Scout, so I spent a lot of time camping and a lot of time outdoors. And here at Central Florida, we do actually have a really rigorous and strong public park system. In Seminole County where I live, we have a really good environmental center and we took a lot of field trips there as a kid. So I learned a lot about how. all that different, you know, how, how the environment works a little bit, how species protection works, how watersheds function. So these things were always kind of in the background and they were a big part of my, my public education. So when I did finally go to school, I felt, you know, this is something I, I know at least enough about that I can, can myself go down the wormhole in.

John:

There you go. Touche. Now we need to get to your climate action. Before we run out of time today. You've got so much in your life you could choose from. Uh, is there something specific you've picked for us today? I.

Sam:

Yes. I think really the big thing that people should try to do is. Try and do your own worm farming or your own composting at home. Uh, I mentioned that earlier, but I really think that's a great way to reduce the amount of food waste going to landfills, which brings down the amount of methane we're putting out. And it makes it a lot easier to grow your own food at home and to grow your plants without having to use toxic chemicals.

John:

Just, uh, give us one more plug on the methane angle there. Tell us from the chemistry background how that is so important.

Sam:

When we throw away a lot of our food waste, what often happens is it goes to the landfill and it piles up on top of itself. When you have enough food and farm and biomass waste piled up, oxygen can no longer reach that material, and at that point. Anaerobic bacteria, bacteria and fungi, microbes that don't use oxygen start to breed. And those guys primarily produce methane as a one of their outputs of digestion. And methane is a greenhouse gas. It's a greenhouse gas, many, many times worse than CO2 is pound for pound. Uh, I believe it's about 90 times worse on a, on the molecule basis. So. It's substantially worse than CO2 is. And when we put out lots of methane, it accelerates greenhouse, uh, gas accumulation in the atmosphere, which means more, contributions to global warming. And so we wanna avoid that as much as possible. So if you can have your food waste digested in a composter at home, it's more likely to have access to oxygen and so won't produce methane. And so hopefully won't contribute to greenhouse gas emissions nearly as much.

John:

So shout out to home composting.

Sam:

Big fan of home composting. Let's go.

John:

Sam in these interesting times, what gives you hope?

Sam:

I think what gives me hope is that there are more and more people, especially young people. Who are really trying to solve a lot of these big issues. I mean, me and my friends put together this company, but we're not alone. There are a lot of people in my graduating class who've started sustainable businesses. Shout out to my friend Mason at, at the source company making textile from seaweed. So there's all kinds of young people pursuing these ideas and it fills me with a lot of hope and and a lot of satisfaction.

John:

Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Sam.

Sam:

It's been a pleasure.

John:

And thank you dear listener. If you enjoy the program, please feel free to like and subscribe. You know, that always helps our cause and we will be back again next week, same time, same place to hear from another climate action figure. Until then,

Sam:

Go figures.