Sneaker Impact News

Inside the World of Waste Management: An Interview with WastePro's Mike Fernandez

• Mike Fernandez, Bryan The Botanist • Season 1 • Episode 26

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In this episode of Sneaker Impact News, we welcome Mike Fernandez, Vice President of Post Collections at Waste Pro. Host Bryan the Botanist introduces Mike, highlighting their friendship and professional connections. Mike delves into his background, detailing his journey from aspiring firefighter to a top executive at one of the largest waste management companies in the U.S. He explains the intricacies of post-collection operations, waste disposal, and the challenges of managing waste in the southeastern U.S. Mike also shares insights from his tenure at Miami Dade County, including handling hurricane debris and promoting sustainable practices. The conversation touches on global waste issues, the importance of recycling, and Mike's personal interests, including his passion for running and involvement in charity work. Join us for an in-depth look at the complexities of waste management and the everyday heroes who keep our communities clean. 

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Personal LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/mikefernandezwasteservices

Company LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/waste-pro-usa/

Company Website:  www.wasteprousa.com/

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/wasteprousacorp/

Twitter:  x.com/waste_pro_usa 

American Cancer Society MenWearPink Campaign: https://secure.acsevents.org/site/STR?fr_id=108932&pg=personal&px=59793389

https://www.wastedive.com/news/waste-pro-mike-fernandez-florida-miami/692766/ 

Bryan The Botanist:

Alright, welcome back to Sneaker Impact News. Guys, today I have a very special guest, Mike Fernandez from WastePro. Mike, welcome. Hey, thank you for having me here. Awesome to have you. You're a friend of Sneaker Impact's. Moe talks very highly of you. I've met you at the Chamber of Commerce events, at the Biltmore and other places. So let's get into your background real quick. So you're the Vice President of Post Collections at WastePro.

Mike Fernandez:

Yeah, so Post Collections. I don't collect money. I get propaganda calls all the time. We can help you collect. So, interesting. So, post collection is basically, in the waste industry, is the after the fact you collect it, right? That's what post collection is. So, where the garbage truck either goes to either drop it off at a midpoint through that journey, such as a transfer station or a MRF, a materials recovery facility, Uh, a recycling truck could dump there, and then from there, it could go to a final destination. That's post collection is basically that after the fact, after the collection part of the truck going to pick it up. From the households. From the households. So you're not in charge of the household collection, you're in charge of the, of the after the fact, the disposal. We call it disposal operation. Okay. So, yeah, that's what, yeah. Post collection.

Bryan The Botanist:

That was one of my big questions.

Mike Fernandez:

Yeah, so. What is post collection? A lot of folks think it's something to do with money, collecting money. Well, we do collect money. Well, you. Yeah. There is a collection of money, but, you know, from, as a VP of WastePro, I'm involved with the operations and the development of that line of business throughout 10 states, so we cover all All the way up to Missouri, as north of Missouri, as far west as Louisiana, and as far east as the Carolinas. And as far south as Florida. Wow, so the southeast basically. So we cover the whole southeast region of the United States.

Bryan The Botanist:

And before WastePro, you were with Miami Dade County for nearly 15 years, that sounds like. And before that, you also had some cool positions after you went to FIU and you did your undergrad and MBA there. We were just talking about that. So I got the FIU. Notebook here that I got at the Biscayne Bay campus for one of their student talks we went to for student leadership where Sneaker Impact is invited, but yeah.

Mike Fernandez:

Go Panthers. Yeah, so, you know, all my career I've spent, I mean, yeah, most of my career I've been in the garbage business, the waste business. It's been a One of the biggest

Bryan The Botanist:

in the U. S. it looks like.

Mike Fernandez:

One of the biggest in the U. S. and it's been a great journey. Never thought in a million years I was going to get into the garbage waste business. Uh, but it's really neat, honestly. We're going to talk about what got you

Bryan The Botanist:

so inspired today to help. Yeah, just the logistics

Mike Fernandez:

and how it makes a difference in society. I mean, without garbage collection or recycling collection or any type of collection, we would be in trouble. Sure.

Bryan The Botanist:

Our public health would be a disaster. Disaster. It's public safety, it's public health, it's, we see it, unfortunately, when we travel, and, you know, we're, we're always trying to make the world a better place, but unfortunately some countries, you know, and I'm not gonna pick on any, but I've been to Guatemala a lot, and sometimes they just dump the stuff right outside the city in a gorge, and it flows into the ocean, and then it's It's a non profit's responsibility like 4ocean or the Ocean Cleanup Project to try to

Mike Fernandez:

clean up

Bryan The Botanist:

the rivers, but for, and the ocean, the Pacific. It's not

Mike Fernandez:

an easy task, and on top of that, and some of these other, and I love

Bryan The Botanist:

Guatemala by the way. It's one of my favorite countries in the world. You know, and a lot

Mike Fernandez:

of these countries bring a lot of, you know, you have a lot of nature, a lot of great things that we don't, that the United States doesn't have, right? Beautiful volcanoes. Absolutely. But unfortunately, the infrastructure there in some of these places, you know, is up to and um, you know, you even have uncontrolled burning happening in some of these islands. You'll see the smoke coming out from people's backyards or somewhere. Trash burning. Trash burning, and that's really not good. You know, it's uncontrolled, you don't know what was in it and what people are inhaling around it.

Bryan The Botanist:

Yeah, well, we're gonna get into a lot of these important subjects today. I want to continue through your intro. You were responsible for Miami Dade County's Department of Solid Waste Management for over 10 years. You're vertically, the vertically integrated waste management system that helped collect the solid waste from more than 340, 000 households and disposal needs for over 2. 8 million cubic feet. Miami Dade County residents. And you, during your tenure, the department employed close to 1, 200 employees and has a budget of approximately 700 million dollars, making it the largest government owned and operated integrated solid waste system in the southeastern U. S. And the 19th largest in the country. That's incredible. So you've been working in a big system. I've been living in Miami Dade County for about 18 years. I moved here from Wisconsin 16 to 18. I moved here in 2007 ish, after spending 30 years in Madison, Wisconsin. And I've I've been a citizen here, you know, in Miami Beach, also now in Miami, in Miami Beach for like 15 years, and you know, I had a lot of questions, you know, about recycling, because in Wisconsin we do things a little bit more, you know, a little bit differently, and down here, you know, so we're going to get, I'm going to get into a couple of those questions a little later, because like, there were people, and I know you weren't responsible for every single aspect of collection for all the cities, but um, we're going to talk about that today.

Mike Fernandez:

Yeah, so as the director, I was the director of Miami Dade County Solid Waste Department, And we handled mostly the unincorporated area as well as municipalities that were under, ten municipalities that were under our purview basically of collection. But yeah, I mean, you're right, I wasn't the king of garbage in Miami Dade, but I was close to it in the sense of responsibility wise and maintaining and making sure that everybody had a, you know, An environmentally friendly way of collecting garbage as well as disposing of it.

Bryan The Botanist:

Yeah, we want to learn about the science today a little bit more. So we'll get into that in a little bit, the data you guys use, and the latest updates. So, um, Mike, before we get into, uh, the meat of the conversation, what were you like as a kid and where did you grow up? Where were you born? Did you have brothers and sisters? What kind of trouble did you get into in your early days? I'm just kidding. We're just having fun on a Monday morning. Trouble will look for you. Were you born in Miami

Mike Fernandez:

Dade? Yeah, born in Miami, in Hialeah actually, I was born in Hialeah. Not too far from here. Okay. And I grew up in Miami, uh, West, it was called, uh, West Chester. Sure, I know West Chester. Down there, uh, close to Florida International University, in that area there. By Coral Gables. University campus there. Yeah. So, yeah, I grew up there, went to all the public school systems, so no, nothing, nothing crazy. I mean, the school, public school system was, it was great. Great. And I think it's still good. And, uh, yeah, I mean, uh, gotten to sports. I played, I've played football and I wrestled. Yeah. Oh cool. In high school and junior high as well. What position

Bryan The Botanist:

did you play as a football player? Uh,

Mike Fernandez:

defensive end.

Bryan The Botanist:

Okay.

Mike Fernandez:

So I was defensive end. I was a lot, believe it or not, I was a lot bigger back then. You know, some people gain weight after high school. I lost weight. Same

Bryan The Botanist:

as me.

Mike Fernandez:

I'm a runner so I got ultra skinny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I ran marathons. keep the muscle. Yeah. Oh, we're going to talk about that. Oh, cool, cool. You didn't put that in your bio. Yeah, I ran, I ran a bunch of marathons. Interesting enough, I mean, I went from, you know, you stop, you know, trying to get big, but, you know, when you're a kid, you want to get in line after that, you just want to stay

Bryan The Botanist:

lean,

Mike Fernandez:

healthy,

Bryan The Botanist:

high quality of life, able to, Touch your toes. Yeah, exactly. So, do you have any brothers and sisters growing up? Yeah, I

Mike Fernandez:

have, uh, two brothers, one sister. Okay. Yeah, big family. Still, they still live in Westchester. Everybody pretty much lives down in the same, same house, too. Good. My parents still live in the same house. Really neat, just going that, it brings me, you know, kind of memory lane. You know, just go down there and you kind of bring back all these memories growing up down here. So, it's, uh, yeah, nice. And again, never, never, ever thought about, you know, Garbage. The whole time. I mean, I used to have to take out the can for my parents when I was a kid, you know, you take out the garbage. But honestly, never thought twice of where, when, or how it

Bryan The Botanist:

happened. Same thing with Sneaker Impact or shoes, funny enough. I was a, I am a runner. Until I started working here two years ago, I didn't really understand what happened to the billions of shoes, and that's going to be part of our conversation today. So after high school you went to FIU, which is a local, one of the biggest colleges in the U. S., Florida International University.

Mike Fernandez:

Yep, and yeah, so I went to Florida International University, got, I did my undergrads at Florida International University. I've done my majoring in business management and international business, and then I decided to go back to school and handle my deal and get my master's in business administration based in Miami. It's a great degree

Bryan The Botanist:

to get, I always recommend it to people, it's one of the strongest degrees you can get.

Mike Fernandez:

And a great school, by the way. Yeah. I mean Got, you know, you tend to not, you know, when you go to school, you kind of don't, you kind of miss out. You, you tend to not realize all the things you gain from school, from, you know, from every day. I mean, you deal in the everyday world. Some of the things you may tend to forget from your undergrads, and when you go back for your masters, you're kind of like, oh, wait a sec, I remember that, and you learn some new techniques that you can bring back to the working place. So I, I do encourage everybody to, uh, Try, try going to school, get your education, because, you know, work experience does go a long way. However, I think once you have the work experience, there's always better ways of trying to do things, basically. Sure.

Bryan The Botanist:

Specialized knowledge. Absolutely. Like, MBA teaches you how to be successful in business. Absolutely. And how to run a good company, which waste management is a giant company.

Mike Fernandez:

It's a giant company. Giant. Yeah, and, um, you know, and even what I specialize in, Was in, uh, strategic negotiations.

Bryan The Botanist:

Mm. And

Mike Fernandez:

that's like acquisitions and mergers almost. That's come, that's come a long way for me.

Bryan The Botanist:

Okay, good. We wanna hear about some of the politics too today. So what got you started in, uh, waste management and what did you do after college? Tell us, fill us in on that part of the journey.

Mike Fernandez:

So I, so I got into the business by accident, honestly. Uh, I was trying to become a firefighter. Oh, cool. To be honest with you, I was actually going to school back then. Uh, to get my EMT certification and become a firefighter. And throughout that time, I was working at a garbage company. And the garbage, you know, and I was a temp, temp employee. They, they, uh, Back in the late 90s, uh, mid to late 90s, where they called me up and was like, Hey, you want to work at this garbage company? I'm like, garbage? I don't want to pick up garbage. I want to be a firefighter. He's like, well, try it out. See what you think. So anyways, um, right away I, you know, I'm like, okay, this ain't too bad. There's a lot of action here. It's always never a dull moment. It's always busy. Got some opportunities to move up, became a young supervisor as well as then gave me a more responsibility and I became an operations manager At a very young age. I don't know if I was old enough to drink yet. Wow. I was probably close to 21 if that and You know stayed in it learned how to Uh, work profit and losses sheet. Basically a p and l sheet. I learned how to manage people that were, that could be my father at the time. Wow. You know, it could have been my father at that age. Big learning

Bryan The Botanist:

curve then.

Mike Fernandez:

What's that? Kind of a big learning curve to big learning curve. P ls,

Bryan The Botanist:

managing

Mike Fernandez:

A lot of different employees, managing employees, managing older employees, trying and, and building that respect back then. And, and just being that role as a leader, as a, in supervisory management role at a very young age. And then decide to, after that, I say, you know what, I like this, like, you know, this type of business. And, you know, there's always waste, there's, even during recessions, I've been part of, you know, been in the waste business. Bunch of, you know, two different recessions that we've experienced, and guess what? You know, the waste is still there, I mean, you gotta deal with it, even though the economy is By the way, the waste does tell you how the economy is doing. Really? Fascinating. Oh yeah, you can see the difference, I mean, just in volumes, you can see when times are down, when there's times that are down. You can see the volume comes, you know, actually kind of goes along with it. And, and you can actually tell when the recession is about to happen because the volumes start dipping down beforehand. And then the recession happens.

Bryan The Botanist:

So it's like a leading indicator. It is. And I don't think,

Mike Fernandez:

I wonder if economists have realized that. Yeah,

Bryan The Botanist:

because I'm kind of into like, you know, stocks and, you know, investments and everything. And it's, it's very interesting how that's. Tied in. It does kind of make sense when you think about it, but I'd never thought about that before. So, yeah, it's

Mike Fernandez:

very interesting. So you've been tracking that over the years, I'm sure. Like volume

Bryan The Botanist:

and everything.

Mike Fernandez:

So, uh, no. We've seen a little dip here and there, but it's kind of going up and down. Mm-Hmm. So it's not like what we've seen in the past, but or what I've seen in the past. Yeah. I mean that's, uh, yeah. A young age decide to do that and then went into the government sector of things. How did that happen? Again, another introduction or a, well, I would say this opportunity, when I was young, when I was younger, I was very eager. I'm still, you know, I'm still motivated, driven. Yeah. In my, in my, in my, my point of my career. But, you know, just getting an opportunity to, uh, move out. I had a job back then. It wasn't provided to me, so I decided to move on. And this opportunity came up in the government sector. I was like, oh, that's going to be interesting. I mean, same kind of concept. You know, the city will pick up their own garbage, waste, and do everything almost like what the private sector will do. But the difference was, you know, it's government. Unions were involved, so I had to deal with unions, which I had never dealt with before. And in a unionized environment. And went ahead and took the job. And Spent a few years as a superintendent in Broward County, and then, I saw you

Bryan The Botanist:

were in Hallandale Beach for a while. Hallandale Beach, correct. Was that in Broward? Yeah. You were in charge of Hallandale's waste management. Waste

Mike Fernandez:

management, yep. I was in charge of that. I was the superintendent up there. And it was a very, you know, now learning about politics too. I mean, you know, form of government, how government works. Sure. You know, the procurement process is totally different than the private sector. Okay. So it's been, you know, it's been three years in and I got another opportunity to come over to Miami Dade and run all their disposal sites, basically. That's why I came in for it when I first took the job. It was running all their Uh, transfer stations, which are these facilities that kind of, like I said, they're midpoint between, um, the collection of the neighborhoods to a final destination, like a landfill or a waste incinerator or, or a recycling facility. So what happens is they, I took that job, overseeing that, and I remember, I was like, wow, this is huge, you know, huge operation when I came to Miami. What year was that? That was, I want to say early 2000, uh, 2008, 2009, 2010. 2008 I believe it was, 2008, and uh, spent a few years doing that, running all the landfills too, kind of managing that, overseeing the operation of the landfills and the transferring of waste, uh, to include deliveries to our incinerator that we had. In Durell. Yes, I heard about it. We're going to get into that in a little bit. So, um, we did that and got promoted to Deputy Director of Operations. So basically the whole operations, the actual collection, the actual everything was under my purview. And then ultimately becoming the Director of the Department further on. And I think I was one of the If not the youngest, one of the youngest directors in Miami Dade County. Wow. So you're

Bryan The Botanist:

overseeing the trash collection, the waste management of the entire county, which is a huge operation. 3.

Mike Fernandez:

2 billioners, millioners. Yeah, 2. 3, 2. 3. I want to say, well, volume wise, we were managing, when I left there, we were at 3 million tons of waste that were handling there. But yeah, 2. 8 million residents, I believe it was, when the last count I saw. And, uh, but just, just dealing with an array of folks, I mean, people, great people, again, unionized environment, but, but we made it happen. And, and even dealing with storms too, and hurricanes come, I mean, I got, uh, I was dealing with storms from down from the private sector to even when I went and was in Broward to Miami Dade, I mean, storms are something we have to deal with, and you've seen what happened on the West Coast now in Tampa, and that Pinellas County area and Hillsborough County area out there, um, it's got destroyed. Um, but. Storms are something we're going to have to deal with, but I got a lot of experience dealing with storms and storm debris and how to manage that and collect it. I mean, I remember during Hurricane Irma, Um, we picked up close to 4. 4 million cubic yards of debris, of yard debris.

Bryan The Botanist:

Wow. How do you put that into context for people? Football fields, like, it's so hard to destroy. There was a, there was a, you know, actually, Because Irma did a lot of damage. I just remember the parks being, you know, all the parks just trashed. Trashed. Trashed. It's actually, It must have been so hard to clean that up. There is.

Mike Fernandez:

I think our PIO team did put something together that I think, you know, It was enough debris to, from, to lead, to extend all the way out to Maine, maybe, I think, from Florida to Maine, maybe. I think that was, there was, there is a comparison, I remember, but, uh, it was a lot of debris. A lot of debris, and we were able to take care of that within, like, the first 90 days, like, done. Wow. Cleaned up streets, back to normal, everything was back to normal. Right, remember the storm hit like in September, and by Christmas, everything was right. I

Bryan The Botanist:

think that was right before I moved here, was that 2006 or 5?

Mike Fernandez:

No, Hurricane Irma was uh, 2017.

Bryan The Botanist:

Okay, I was here for that then. Yeah, 2017. Matthew skirted us and a couple others.

Mike Fernandez:

Yeah, back, back in 05, 06 was, or 05, 05 was Katrina. Katrina and Wilma. Yeah, so I was involved with that one too. Okay. Yeah, so, um, yeah, storms are something, uh, again, I, you know, it's something, part of the waste business, and it's something that people tend to take for granted in the sense that, well, you know, they don't realize that storm debris does become a waste management. Yeah,

Bryan The Botanist:

I mean there's honestly, Mike, there's so many questions I want to ask you, and we only have about a half hour left, but like, I'm just a normal citizen, I would say a normal citizen like everyone else down here, but like, when the storms are coming, like, I'm preparing, like, I'm moving the trash, my trash cans in the recent of, you know, when, uh, Helene, or was it, uh, Milton, when Milton came through, it was so windy, and my Cans, which are right on the street. My, my, my, my, my bins got knocked over so many times that I had to turn them around because the wind was coming out of a certain direction, and otherwise I would have to pull them back off the street. But my neighbors, like, not everyone seemed to care as much and like garbage was getting like, you know, I live right off of Biscayne Boulevard, nearby my office here. I'm on a side street off of Biscayne, in the Upper East Side, City of Miami, Upper East Side, literally half a mile from this office, and, you know, I'm, this morning, you know, waste collection came, and, uh, I was closing the lid, because One thing I wish they would do is close a lid. They're not always closing the lid, and I know that's not your responsibility. This is WM Not Waste Pro, but you know, um, they haven't been closing the lid for the last couple months. Let

Mike Fernandez:

me tell you a little trick. So, are they picking up with the automation truck? Yes.

Bryan The Botanist:

I see it this morning when I was out on my run.

Mike Fernandez:

They could, depending on the driver, if you're, you know, pretty good, you can actually Whip it down. Whip it down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of times, believe it or not, they may leave it like that, so it's an indication when they drive down the streets, they know that all the cans have been picked up and destroyed. My

Bryan The Botanist:

fear is that when it starts raining hard, which it does a lot of days, and my neighbors aren't always closing right away. I close my neighbor to the left of me, because it borders my lawn, and then I close mine, but I can't close the whole block, and I just worry because, and again, I mean, this is Come on, this is on

Mike Fernandez:

patrol, you should be I don't know, like, it's like

Bryan The Botanist:

trash mixing with water, it's disgusting, and people are mixing like the wrong things, and you travel to Europe, you travel to all these other places, and they're more strict on the, on the collection, so it's my pet peeve. We

Mike Fernandez:

call that leachate.

Bryan The Botanist:

Leachate?

Mike Fernandez:

Yeah, leachate. Leachate.

Bryan The Botanist:

Leachate. Basically, it's

Mike Fernandez:

water, so it's water, when water interacts with garbage, it's the juice that comes out the water, you know, and Like the

Bryan The Botanist:

fruit leachie? Yeah.

Mike Fernandez:

Well, not leach it, no, leach it, well, it's a term that

Bryan The Botanist:

the management, leach it, so it's leaches,

Mike Fernandez:

basically the, I don't know what leaches, okay, so what you don't want is any residue, so that's why you want the lids, yeah, you definitely want the lids closed, because guess what, when you spill that water out, there, you know, who knows what people put in their cans, it could have been some residue left over, and now it's going into a storm drain, and it goes, it's going out then to a canal, or, So, you want to, yeah, absolutely, you want to close the lids of wood, water, and dry, you know, water. Separate

Bryan The Botanist:

everything you can. And it makes it smell bad,

Mike Fernandez:

actually. Yeah. I mean, you may have to throw some Clorox in there every once in a while. Okay. Just so, freshen it up. No, but

Bryan The Botanist:

when I moved in in January to this house, I didn't have a garbage can bin, and I, I called 311, or I did the 311 thing, requested it, and it was there in two days. Brand new. Cool. I was, you know, the city's running smoothly. You know, it's a big city. I was recently in Bogota last year, 19, no, 21 million. 21 million. So they have a totally different, you know, scope of scale. But, you know, and you see it and it's hard to believe because it broke my heart where I was staying in the center of the city in Suba. The trash was just all over the streets sometimes, like the bins would get pushed over even sometimes, and I don't know, and there was just trash like piling up every place, and it was just like, I was like really sad, and then my host, she was like, it wasn't always like this, it wasn't so bad, but it's getting worse nowadays because the kids aren't doing as much or something like that, I don't know, but it's, you know, it's a totally different setting, of course, but it's

Mike Fernandez:

Well, I would say going towards a automated system, to be honest, is probably the best thing that the waste industry has done. And providing these carts where back a decade ago, it was all basically, more than a decade ago, it was all loose garbage on the side of the curb. Just like the plant bags stacked up. On the side of the curb, you know, you get Animals going through a dog's, dogs, you know, our neighborhood dogs would pick at it, open it, rip everything up. So you'll have garbage everywhere. Yeah, um, very unsanitary. So yeah, there's like a pile

Bryan The Botanist:

of garbage. Yeah, we've come

Mike Fernandez:

a long way and then now drivers.

Bryan The Botanist:

But I love Colombia, by the way. It's one of my favorite countries. I've been to Bogota. It's nice.

Mike Fernandez:

It's really nice. There's really nice parts. Yeah. Very nice. I've been to, uh, Cali Santa Marta.

Bryan The Botanist:

What's your background, your family? I'm Cuban.

Mike Fernandez:

Cool. I've been through Bogota. I've been through all those places. Yeah. Really very, a lot his, a lot of history. Good food, too. And perspective on what we have

Bryan The Botanist:

in the U. S.

Mike Fernandez:

Compare, yeah, I mean, Medellin and Colombia is very up to date. I mean, I have

Bryan The Botanist:

not been to Medellin yet. Supposed

Mike Fernandez:

to be the most modern city in Colombia, even a lot more modern than some cities here in the United States. I think that Bogotá

Bryan The Botanist:

is just such a huge city. I mean, it stretches as far, you go up on Mount Surat on top of the mountain, you can see as far as I can see, and it grew from 17 million to 21 million since 2017 or something, I was reading the stats. Mexico City, there's other cities in Asia that have also, you know, there's so many issues that need to be solved and problems that that's why it's so important to have, you know, people that are really passionate and critical thinkers. So, tell us about your typical week at WastePro as the VP, like, what do you do on a week to week basis? Typical week. It's Monday, so,

Mike Fernandez:

you're getting

Bryan The Botanist:

into

Mike Fernandez:

it. Well, I just, um, actually, I was just down in my, in Tropical Park before I came here. I love the Tropical Park. I hadn't been there for a little bit and I bring back memories because I used to go there as a kid all the time. Um, but anyway, it actually reminded me of Santa's, too. Santa's in Chattanooga, as far as I was there, too. But, um, anyways, uh, we're down there actually, uh, doing a video shoot, a promo, promo commercial there, uh, for social media for this pig roast that we're sponsoring, uh, we're sponsoring. We're cooking, actually, too. Yeah, it's a competition that's, uh, coming in, I want to say November 16th. I think it was Saturday, November 16th, but that's November 16th. But we're filming our truck and our group that's going to be there. And it's all to support police, PBA, as well as the Love Fund is another organization that's helped support that. And but yeah, it's a great for a great cause, but that that started my day today there. But normally, you know, you know, we can't. On the call, on calls, a lot of times throughout the week, I'll go visit sites. I was actually in Louisiana last week. Okay. For most of the week, I was there in Louisiana visiting a few of our sites out there.

Bryan The Botanist:

Walking the sites with the managers and just going over the challenges or what they need.

Mike Fernandez:

Yeah, I mean, more, I mean, some of that, I mean, some of that's pretty much taken care of already over the phone or meetings. I mean, virtual meetings are great nowadays. Yeah. Um, but I'll do my rounds, go through some places, always looking for ways, you know, how to do things better and more efficient. And then, uh, also looking at acquisitions. We're constantly looking at acquisitions. We've done a lot of acquisitions this year. I think worth 150 million this year so far in acquisitions. Okay. Between different landfills and collection companies as well, uh, throughout that 10 state footprint that we have. And we're growing. Right now, we're One point, close to 1. 3 billion dollar company, and we're shooting for two.

Bryan The Botanist:

So, uh. So, Waze Pro is in the southeast of the U. S., right? Correct. That's where you'll find them operating. Yeah. Not in California, not in New York. No, not

Mike Fernandez:

California, not New York, or Wisconsin, but just strictly in this tent state. We're looking at some other states we may be expanding into, but, and we're really, really big in Florida, honestly. I mean, we're huge in Florida, along, if you, you'll see us along that West Coast. Up to the Panhandle, even through Jacksonville on the East Coast. Um, we're making a, uh, we're, you know, we're trying to build the Southeast market here, especially Miami. Um, we're, you know, Pembroke Pines, I mean, in Broward we handle Pembroke City, you know, Pembroke Pines. We handle Hollywood, our two, and Miami, we do North Miami. Um, but we're trying to grow down here in this Miami footprint, which we've kind of been focused more on the north side, so we're working our way down here, but yeah, I mean, uh, on a weekly basis, I mean, it's basically, you know, a lot of, you know, some meetings, some traveling, I'll do, for instance, like this Friday, I'll be talking about sustainability at our Orlando Chambers, I'll be up there, they want, they want to talk a little bit about sustainability and what we do. Uh, so it'll be, uh, great. It's constantly, constantly busy.

Bryan The Botanist:

Yeah, I saw you, I don't know if it was the first time we met, at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, one of the most historic hotels in the US, um, for the Sustainability Luncheon that was hosted by the, let me get this right, South Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce? You got it. And uh, I was calling it something totally different for a while. And um, it was my first time there but it was beautiful, and they were celebrating sustainability heroes. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, we got to see some incredible speakers there, including our founder, Moe, from Sneaker Impact. Yeah. And so tell us about how did you meet Moe, Sneaker Impact, and, you know. Let me think about that. So I met Moe

Mike Fernandez:

when I was the director of Miami Dade County, and I loved his concept about recycling shoes and textiles, what would you call it, clothing material. Apparel. Apparel. That's what we call textiles. Because it is a problem. It is a problem. And it's something we don't want in our waste stream. And if we could avoid it being a waste stream to begin with. Perfect. And if you're doing something beneficial, even better. And just because it doesn't go anywhere. Once it goes into our landfills, it really doesn't, it doesn't decay. It just stays there. Yeah. So that's why I met Moe and we kind of did a joint effort of, of, you know, tackling this problem. And we, I remember putting one of his boxes downtown in our city hall down there and seeing Pete Clark and, uh, the rest is history. I've stayed in touch with Moe and constantly follow Moe and Moe does great things for the community. And he has a vision and he has a passion.

Bryan The Botanist:

Yeah. Thank you for those kind words. Yeah, we're really working so hard here, and it's a labor of love, and it's it's not necessarily the highest paying career, but that's not what anyone is here for, you know, is the money. It's about the earth and about people and about, you know, helping people to find, you know, we're finding uses for these shoes instead of landfill, is that people can wear them in Haiti and the DR, and it's, when I say it's not the most lucrative, it's that It's not at the forefront, maybe, of everyone's mind. It needs to be more. How can Miami Dade County do a better job of, you know, how can the citizens do a better job? How can the, also, the people in charge do a better job of helping to encourage change where people are doing a better job recycling, let's say, like separating, like, you know, they, some places, like in Germany, are doing an exceptional job. You know, how would we get up to those type of

Mike Fernandez:

I think first and foremost it starts with awareness and understanding what your, what opportunities you have to do with your, with the streams. So if you have shoes, if you have textiles. Here's an opportunity, right? Here's a faucet to remove this from the waste stream instead of putting it into your green cart or destroying the, you know, in the garbage or trying to say or try, by the way, we get a lot of textiles in our recycling bin that are not meant for that. People think, I guess, It's because it's a blue cart and it's for recycling or it's a bin or whatever, you know, people think they can throw the clothes in and it's going to get recycled. I heard that's

Bryan The Botanist:

called wish cycling. You got it. Yeah, I read about that. I've, it's wish cycling. It's a sickness. I think it's a disease. I think like, again, like pop culture is such a big deal in the U. S. Imagine if people really got into, you know, understanding what happens. In the world, to everything, and you know how much the planet can only take so much. I mean, we're not going to draw, get too into the, you know, all the tricky topics of, you know, climate change, and what, you know, individual consideration can do so much, but it, you know, I even heard that like pizza boxes that have the grease stain on them aren't acceptable in the, in the recycling. That's changed. That's changed. Yeah, that's changed,

Mike Fernandez:

so Um, but real quick, let me ask you about a topic. I think awareness and education and understanding what opportunities there are to do things with your I think people want to do the right thing. Okay. And understanding that you can't put this in your recycling bin and do this wishful recycling stuff. But, Doesn't mean you, you can't, you can't have that wishful recycling by, by making sure you have the avenues to take it, to put it to it. So, you know, Moe provides these, the bags for your house, you know, for residents, for shoes, you know, and, and I think these, a lot of these municipalities and government jurisdictions could work with a person like Moe. Um, and his company and organizing this and helping a joint effort putting this out there then, then the stuff won't really go into the wrong, to the wrong place. It'll go into the right place. Sure. And, and something will benefit all of it. Somebody will benefit, like you mentioned Haiti, folks from Haiti, people that really need it. Rather than going to a garden, a landfill and sitting there and rotting. and never going nowhere, and just staying there. You know, as far as other recyclables are concerned, you know, your glass, your plastics, your cardboard, your metals, you know, we already do a bad job in the sense of confusing people, because every market, when you're in Wisconsin, I'm sure, you know, you recycle certain things there. Yeah, they started

Bryan The Botanist:

composting up there, I believe, collecting, you know. So, food

Mike Fernandez:

waste. So, and then, and composting is not a one size fits all for everybody either, and we'll go into that in a bit. But, um, but the recycling program, even from a city, a city of Miami, may be different than Miami Dade County's recycling program. What's acceptable is not acceptable.

Bryan The Botanist:

Okay, so it can be confusing. It could be

Mike Fernandez:

confusing. You have to do

Bryan The Botanist:

some research online, and

Mike Fernandez:

if you have

Bryan The Botanist:

batteries, or if you have like something that's more toxic, you gotta, or let's say computer stuff, you would just go to Google, right? And can you just search like, Search,

Mike Fernandez:

call to Recycle is a great website that

Bryan The Botanist:

Tell Call to recycle. Call to recycle.com. Okay. Dot com. We'll put that in the link.

Mike Fernandez:

Um, what else? There's, you know, there's tons of people wanna

Bryan The Botanist:

learn more. I think Mo told me a stat like 92 to 94% of the Americans wanna recycle.

Mike Fernandez:

I, I agree. Like

Bryan The Botanist:

with sneakers, only 13% are currently recycling, so we need to do a better job of educating and making it easy and simple for them.

Mike Fernandez:

Yeah, and I think that's it. It's just, it's how easy can we make it for them. Let them know that, right? It's just letting them know that it's maybe working in conjunction with some of these sneaker manufacturers and clothing lines and the media opportunity or even Or even in some cases you got this extended ERP basically but which is the extended, I'm trying to think of the what it stands for now, but basically it puts the responsibility on the manufacturers to do something Somehow provide an outlet.

Bryan The Botanist:

Similar to like, water, water,

Mike Fernandez:

bottled water

Bryan The Botanist:

companies.

Mike Fernandez:

Exactly. Trying to get plastics, take

Bryan The Botanist:

responsibility for their materials. Correct,

Mike Fernandez:

correct. Post

Bryan The Botanist:

consumer.

Mike Fernandez:

Right. So, yeah, so on the recycling side, so we confuse people already enough from market to market, uh, but if we could do a better job, and again, acknowledging, not educating, acknowledging people for their great work, great efforts, because if, I think if folks could recycle more, And kind of, uh, pull off from the waste stream. One, people are going to start feeling better. I think people do feel better that they're doing something beneficial with it. And rather go to a Uh, landfill or an incinerator, yeah, but I'll be honest with you on the incineration. It was talking about uh, it's called waste

Bryan The Botanist:

innovation solutions, right?

Mike Fernandez:

Waste to energy, Waste to Energy, sorry, waste to

Bryan The Botanist:

energy. I always heard waste innovation. It's

Mike Fernandez:

called thermal treatment, thermal processing, there's a lot of euphemisms. All sorts of stuff, but I'll be honest with you as part of a So, it's kind of a sustainable circle. I know people tend to hate or have bad feelings about incineration. You know, these are not your

Bryan The Botanist:

traditional

Mike Fernandez:

grandfather dumps, basically, incinerator sites, where it used to be open pit. Yeah, I always tell people

Bryan The Botanist:

it's EPA mandated, because one of our solutions for the end of life, before we had our grinding program, was, you know, the incineration. But it provides energy for the grid.

Mike Fernandez:

It provides energy for the grid. There's filtering. There's tons of filtering. It has a whole Cowlick converter muffler be on the back end. Wow. That, you know, you got scrubbers for, you know, for any type of particulate matter. Mm-Hmm. you have, uh, bag filters that collect the particulate matter. I'm sorry, you got scrubbers for any type of, uh, chemicals that may want try to get out. You, you kind of pulling that in and you're, you're, you're absorbing all that and at the end, all you're really releasing is like water vapor. That's it. Wow. Um, and believe it or not. All these incinerators have a, what I like to call, a black box inside, like an airplane. So it records any type of exceedances, it records all, you know, what parameters are set by EPA and DP and the state of Florida, at least. And EPA across the whole country, but basically, it's like a reporting mechanism and you can't screw it up. Mess around with this stuff. I mean, it's set in stone. So you have to actually send that Data to the regulator so they can see if you had an AC and if you did guess what you're gonna get you're gonna pay A big fine. You'll pay a fine. So there's no fast and

Bryan The Botanist:

loose with this. No,

Mike Fernandez:

so people don't realize that there is a mechanism It's called a continuous emissions system. CES Continuous Emissions System and it basically records all that and but at the end of the day Look, you're reducing the volume of the waste by close to 90 percent Okay, you're making that's huge 90 percent reduction percent 90 percent because 10 percent on the back end you get an ash from the burning Okay, incineration of it. Okay, you you know you you generate electricity that provides power To that plant to, to actually process the garbage. Okay, so it's self powered? You have recycled, metal recycling, you're pulling out metals, ferrous and non ferrous, before it even gets burned. So it's So there's separation beforehand? Before and after, actually, depending on how the design of the plant, but Typically, it's after the, when you burn it, you're pulling the metals out before it goes into the ash. And then lastly, we were actually trying, here in Miami, we were actually trying to do something with the ash and making it into some sort of construction road base or something. So then you have the whole full closed loop, you know, closed loop circle. Circularity. Now, I always used to tell people, look, incineration is just a piece of the puzzle, and that's why we call it an integrated system. Um, incineration was a part of, you know, you gotta have your recycling part of it, too. You should be recycling as much, because this, incineration should only be your last resort after you've done everything else. You've done your recycling. So it's well sorted by that point? By that point, it should just be strictly Through machinery, through Well, beforehand, I mean, that's why you have a recycling bin, that's why you have a garbage bin, so we're hoping folks are pulling out as much recycling, and guess what, any metals, anything like that, we're going to pick it up there, and we're going to pull it out, you know, we would have pulled it out, or any incineration, any plant. Do they use magnets or AI? They use magnets, they do use magnets, they use eddy current magnets for the aluminum. Yeah, I would guess they use magnets for such a massive scale. And we, I mean, you probably could pull out a good 10, 20 percent in metals compared to your total volume that's coming in. So people still leave metals inside their garbage bin.

Bryan The Botanist:

So you shouldn't put metal in your garbage bin, you should put it in your recycling. I always thought more cardboard, some plastics, you know, the numbers on the bottom, and then glass 100%. Metals, all your

Mike Fernandez:

cans. Oh yeah, of course, cans I've always put in. I guess I was

Bryan The Botanist:

thinking more like, Construction, you know, fencing or something. This

Mike Fernandez:

is for municipal solid waste, this is for industrial waste. So cans, like also obviously something like this. And by the way, your household recycling, your residential recycling should be strictly just for that, not to be putting Your weekend, you know, project that you just redid your bathroom and you're trying to throw all these metals and throw all these huge pieces in there. That's not what that's for. Because at the end of the day it goes to a recycling facility, a material recovery facility, and it goes through these conveyors and a lot of times if it doesn't fit in some of these areas, guess what? It's getting thrown in the garbage. It's not going anywhere. Okay, so you don't want to put that in there.

Bryan The Botanist:

So, and the county offers sites for certain waste. Exactly,

Mike Fernandez:

so even in the county, I'll be honest with you, the county does have, and whoever your local jurisdiction is, you could probably take it to them, larger size metals or whatever, and, or take it yourself to the metal place and make some money off of it. You know, you could take a couple, you know, for

Bryan The Botanist:

computers there's e waste collection constantly happening.

Mike Fernandez:

Which a lot of time that e waste, they're, they're, what they do there is they're taking these things apart. And pulling out the, the boards, some other boards on that. Mm-Hmm. and sending it to some companies that are refurbishing. Yeah. There's some valuable materials in there. Absolutely. Absolutely. Rare earth

Bryan The Botanist:

minerals and

Mike Fernandez:

Absolutely. Yeah. So anyways, um, on the, I think again, going back, I think more education and acknowledgement of what people are doing. I think mm-Hmm make them feel good about recycling.

Bryan The Botanist:

Absolutely. We want to make people feel good. That's really important. We're not here to scare people. Um, but we want to raise awareness and educate. I know we were talking before the podcast about the amount of waste generated in Miami Dade versus other parts of the U S and it's, it's, it's higher. Let's be honest. It's from what I've seen, it's three to four. Yeah. And it's, it's every single citizen. It's not just, One entity at fault, like a business or the county. It's, why is that such a problem? Is it tourism? Is it also, why does Miami Dade have a higher amount of trash per citizen than? It's

Mike Fernandez:

a combination of tourism as well as vegetation. The amount of vegetation. We have

Bryan The Botanist:

year round sun. Yep. So we have more biomass.

Mike Fernandez:

Look around, everything is green, even in the winter.

Bryan The Botanist:

People are constantly Cutting their trees and the combination of that palm trees and

Mike Fernandez:

last number I saw I think we averaged What was it? I think the it was 9. 8 pounds in Florida And the national average was what, 4. 4 pounds? Yeah, I heard 4.

Bryan The Botanist:

5 to like, I heard like 8 or something. So we're kind of

Mike Fernandez:

double in floor. That has a lot to do with tourism and the vegetation. So it's not

Bryan The Botanist:

people that are just being terrible citizens. It's that fact that we have an influx of a lot of people visiting Miami, one of the tourism capitals of the world, and unfortunately, that attracts a lot of plastic use, you know, single use plastics.

Mike Fernandez:

So think about that. You have a, when we report Um, number of people that live in a county or a state, those are your constant residents, right? So, like, let's use Miami Dade, we're having 2. 8 million, but then you have another million. So, it seems like it's a much bigger population. You have Let's say you have, let's use Miami Dade, you have 2. 8 million. You're generating 5 million tons of waste, right? But then, what you're missing at is basically the other million of people that are coming in also, and, and, and, There's waste being generated from them, but you're not counting them in your number. So when you divide, you're throwing it all over the place. So that's why the number is so skewed.

Bryan The Botanist:

You're dividing it all around

Mike Fernandez:

the 2. 8, so then you get more

Bryan The Botanist:

Versus a less populated state like North Dakota, where you don't get as much tourism, they probably have a much lower number. Okay, so per capita, it's skewed.

Mike Fernandez:

It's skewed, yeah. I mean it's, that has a lot, tourism has a lot to do with it, as well as the vegetation that we have in the state.

Bryan The Botanist:

But in terms of education, Miami Dade is committed to that, and WastePro, how do you guys educate the consumer to do the right thing? So

Mike Fernandez:

look, we handle over 90 municipal contracts throughout our footprint. We've worked together with the municipalities in providing education to, you know, ways of getting rid of your waste, basically. Like mailers, or? Between annuals, between events, and functions we're at, I mean

Bryan The Botanist:

Online resources, social media, do you use everything? Social media, we have Facebook What's your social media so we can send people there? Not your personal, but your I have that in the bio. It should be WasteProUSA,

Mike Fernandez:

it should be on our website.

Bryan The Botanist:

Waste Pro USA, we'll put that in the link. And the website's WasteProUSA. com. And you're on Facebook and Twitter as well.

Mike Fernandez:

Yep, we're on Facebook and Twitter. And LinkedIn. And LinkedIn, and those three sites, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And then we have our website, but yeah, I mean, a lot of it's just partnership, just relationships with, you know, municipalities that we service, and doing events, barbecues, you know, we do everything, Just consistency over time. You were at a Chambers event. Yeah. I mean, I, I actually, I was the, the chairman of that sustainability group for that, Chambers. Mm hmm. A couple of years ago, I actually spoke at it. Wow. When I was the director of the Department of Solid Waste. And, you know, so those are opportunities there that you could. A lot of business leaders,

Bryan The Botanist:

business leaders, big time business leaders. Ford was there, Ford Motor Company was there, Goodwill, Carnival, Goodwill, all these great companies, Sneaker Impact. Yeah, Sneaker Impact. So Mike, we only have a couple minutes left, let's get into the personal, the fun section. It's all fun. So you're a runner, I see the garment on your wrist, I was looking at it throughout the, is that a Phoenix?

Mike Fernandez:

Mm hmm.

Bryan The Botanist:

It's a nice one. It's a Phoenix. I got it right. I think it is. So tell us about what you do. Tell us about your running. Because we're a running company as well. So what, have you done a couple of marathons? A

Mike Fernandez:

couple of marathons. I did, um, New York, Chicago, two Miamis, and I actually did the Disney, the Disney one was pretty cool. Yeah. The Disney Marathon.

Bryan The Botanist:

The one in January.

Mike Fernandez:

Was it January or November? It was cold, I know that. Yeah, January. It was cold, and you run through the whole, all the whole park, and then you end up at Epcot. And I remember when I finished at Epcot. My family's like, Oh, let's go hit the park. I'm like, hit the park. I've been up since three. You know, when you go with these races, you're up at three in the morning, four in the morning, getting ready for your corral at six o'clock and you're, it's a whole day event, you know, and then you run for four, you know, four or five hours. You know, I don't know how fast you can run a marathon. I can't run. I

Bryan The Botanist:

still don't want to walk around Disney afterwards as much as I love Disney. Just give me a beer

Mike Fernandez:

and let me take a nap. But actually, I remember in Chicago, they were giving out Goose Island, I did the last year, Goose Island, and they're like, hey, you want another one? And let me tell you, after you run 26 miles, 26. 2 miles, and you drink a beer, it hits you like a bus, you know, you're like whoa, wow, that was

Bryan The Botanist:

quick. It's, it's, some people, it's a good reward and not everyone, most people like it though. You don't normally have a beer at 8am or 9 or 10am, but after a marathon or a half marathon, and you do triathlons, you need that. If I wanted

Mike Fernandez:

to do a triathlon, the closest I've done is something like Spartans, I've done a few Spartans, all three Spartans, the Beast, the Sprint, and the, uh, The super, I think the 26 mile one. Wow. And with obstacles, so yeah. Did that I, I, I got a bike. I do, I do have a road bike. I was thinking about doing a try and I haven't, I haven't done it yet. Um, I actually fell off my bike, had all. Yeah, about a year ago, last, actually last April, and I haven't, believe it or not, I haven't gotten back on my bike since. I hit the, I hit the street good. Were you

Bryan The Botanist:

in the clippings? Yes. So it was hard to get out of, yeah. I

Mike Fernandez:

flew right, yeah, I hit the curb and flew right over and broke some ribs and all that, so I haven't gotten the courage to get back on the bike yet, but It's gonna happen. I got in a

Bryan The Botanist:

bike accident too last year in front of my office. It was my fault, 100%. I broke ribs, yeah. I went through a red light in the daytime on a sidewalk. The building was blocking me in my defense. I got hit by a truck, broke ribs. I was scared for a little bit to bike to work. I didn't bike to work for I've done the bike ride a thousand times. Moe came out and scooped me off off the ground and took me to get x rayed and I went to Bogota to get help afterwards. I'm lucky you're alive. Yeah. No, I, I.

Mike Fernandez:

It was

Bryan The Botanist:

a lower speed. It was like five miles an hour. I hit the

Mike Fernandez:

median. That's what I did. Oh, wow. I didn't know you were going fast. I was going, I was, you know, I'll finish, I did 18, I did 18 miles that day. I was heading back to my house and then I hit the median. I, I, I wasn't paying attention. I looked to my right because I saw a car coming and the next thing I know my tire warped up on the median and I went flying. Wow. It just caught, you know, it just catches you and then you're clipped in. You can't put your foot down. So it's like. Sure. And then I ended up. Opposite traffic on the other way. Oh my God. Luckily it was early and no one was, car was coming and they stopped right in front of me and oh my God, they saw everything go down there and I walked off the street like a. Injured dog, like, you know, like, just, you know, like I just got hit, you know. You had your helmet

Bryan The Botanist:

on though? Had

Mike Fernandez:

a helmet on. Helmet cracked, actually. So the helmet saved your life? Saved my, my head, yeah. And, but, broken ribs, I had to deal with that, and that's no fun. You just gotta let them heal. I went

Bryan The Botanist:

through broken ribs too, yeah, about two months. It's over, yeah. You just gotta

Mike Fernandez:

let it heal. You can't laugh. You can't do no, nothing quick. No sneezing? No sneeze. Oh my god. But, um, yeah, I mean, look, I still run. I love running. I still, you know, stay active, um, because Any races coming up in the next six months? You know, the last one I did, I will say, the last one I did was a few years ago. It was a half, half a marathon, 13 miler, um, and it was in Nashville. And it was the St. Jude, for St. Jude. And it was a great event. You know, it's for the kids with cancer, and it was one of the hardest courses I've done so far. I forget about the marathons, I forget about the 26 miles, that was the hardest course I've done, because it felt like you got on the treadmill and you put at 12, and you ran for 2 hours on 12, basically, all the way up there, you know. Hilly too? All hilly, all uphill, all uphill. Um, and when you think you're already at the top, you, you, there's another level keep going up. So, I did that, that was the last one, but I think I'm, lately I've been sticking to some 5Ks. They're fun, you know, quick, 30, you know, within 30 minutes you're done and you get to party afterwards. But, you know, I try to stay active. I haven't, I don't know if I'll do another, maybe I'll get courage to do a try one day or Maybe do another marathon, challenge myself for another marathon. It's just the training behind the marathon. It's grinding. Forget about the marathon

Bryan The Botanist:

itself,

Mike Fernandez:

just

Bryan The Botanist:

the training. Yeah, I have one in a month in Spain, in Valencia, and I'm, I'm in the grind right now. I did 15 yesterday, and the other day, and those,

Mike Fernandez:

those long days, you know, the three, I was running a short time, you know, short distances during the week, and then that long, long on Saturdays. You know, especially during summer, especially if you're training in the summer, it's brutal. Yeah,

Bryan The Botanist:

I train year round, but it's so hard, and it's such a grind, and, you know, we had the New York City Marathon Race Director a week or two ago, Ted Metellus. It was a really interesting conversation. So you did that one?

Mike Fernandez:

Yes, yeah, so What year did you do it in New

Bryan The Botanist:

York?

Mike Fernandez:

Twenty so I did it twice. Let me tell you what happened the first year. 2016, I was trained, ready to go, I was pumped. I was like, I'm gonna make this, this is gonna be a new PR for me here, I love it. Went to, uh, the, uh, convention center there, the CATS convention, I think it's the, uh, CATS convention center, and, um, anyways, went to the convention center, got my, my package, my, my, uh, and then I went back to the sub, the, uh, subway, was on the phone, not paying attention, fell down the stairs, sprained my ankle. Oh my god, right before the race? Right before the race. The day of? The day before, at the pack and pickup? Yeah, two days before. At the expo? Oh my god. The race was Sunday and it was like that Friday. I went to the, they have these Empire Urgent Cares or something, these Urgent Cares, went there. And, uh, I remember my ankle looked like Fred Flintstone. It was black and I tell her, is there any way? She's like, crazy. And I had, you know, I had no, you know, no, no alcohol. I was strictly That must have been

Bryan The Botanist:

heartbreaking.

Mike Fernandez:

Oh, I went straight to You trained for six months and then you flew to New York and it was So I went back actually to the, uh,

Bryan The Botanist:

to the

Mike Fernandez:

convention, and I had, I came in crutches back. I just picked up my pack. I go, hey, I need to get a rain check for next year. And, you know, so I was able, I deferred it and then, uh, went back in 2017 and ran it and did it. Wow. That takes

Bryan The Botanist:

patience. And, yeah. It was a good run

Mike Fernandez:

too. You don't realize how hilly Central Park is when you get to that finish line. No, it's,

Bryan The Botanist:

I've done it one time, 2010, and you start off on the Verrazano, and then you got the Queensborough. Yeah. And then the entrance, you're right, to the last three to four miles of the park coming into Central. Yeah, those are the last three miles. You're just climbing up and down. Climbing, climbing. Oh my

Mike Fernandez:

god. And then, yeah. But it's still an amazing experience because of the crowds, oh my god, and the different, 50, 000, 60, 000, five

Bryan The Botanist:

burrows, you're counting them down. Oh

Mike Fernandez:

you're counting them down, yeah. I love, there's so much

Bryan The Botanist:

energy, New York and Boston are the two, and Chicago is right up there too. Yeah,

Mike Fernandez:

Chicago, Chicago is fun too, I did that one, it was great.

Bryan The Botanist:

And Miami, we gotta give a shout out to Frankie Ruiz. Yeah

Mike Fernandez:

Frankie! He

Bryan The Botanist:

listens to all the podcasts. He's one of my mentors here. So he actually helped me become part of this company.

Mike Fernandez:

Great.

Bryan The Botanist:

He knew I loved environmentalism and running.

Mike Fernandez:

You know, Frankie's trying, you know, and I think Frankie's been successful. You know, Frankie and I were trying to work something when I was the director in Miami of opening the landfill. Because at one time I was trying to do a 5K at the landfill, a closed landfill in Doral. And, uh, we're partnering up with him, doing something there, then, you know, obviously I, I moved on, and I think he's been successful, and I think he's, he's almost there, and I think it'll be great, and it's a good way of showing how these landfills can become something that's part of society, and can be used for other things later on, later on. Just like in Broward County, Vista View is another landfill, and it's a park, and people go running. Let me tell you. If you want to challenge your body, you go running up a landfill, up a hill, you know, that elevation.

Bryan The Botanist:

Legendary park. For those who live in South Florida or Miami, everyone knows Vista View if you're a runner or a triathlete because it's a, it's a hill that was made out of the trash collection. But then they restore it, well how do they do it? They cap it and they do a lot of restoration.

Mike Fernandez:

So what happens is, so by rule you have to have, you have to take care of these landfills for 30 years. We call it long, post closure long term care. And what happens is you cap it, yeah you cap it, there's like about 24 inches. Is it concrete? No, it's, uh, 24 inches of, uh, there's a, there's a, a synthetic liner that, imagine, like a tarp that goes on top of the land, and then you put dirt, earth, earth, you do some earthwork, and then you put, you sod it, and then you cap it, basically, so water doesn't infiltrate inside the landform, but between year 1 and year 30, by that time, It's still settling, and the water's coming out, and it just becomes a natural hill, basically, at the day. I mean, there's still garbage in there. You can't disturb the garbage. But you don't see any garbage in there. You don't see anything. Not a piece. It's beautiful. You're good to go. There's birds everywhere, yeah. You know, it's almost like a natural habitat, and it looks like it, but It's

Bryan The Botanist:

done with regulation. It's done with the EPA monitoring it and everything. Absolutely, all that's

Mike Fernandez:

regulated. Local agencies. But, but, if you want to get a challenge, if you want to challenge your body and have, And, and go up some slopes and run because the only best, other best thing is, is doing bridges. Like the Rickenbacker, 395. I mean it's great, you can only do, how many, you know, how many times can you go back and forth over the bridge, you know? Yeah. I mean, so anyways, going around the hill, all that, and then you're out in the open, it's like a natural habitat, it's beautiful.

Bryan The Botanist:

And most people learn the history when they're using it at some point. So Mike, I know we're wrapping up soon, but I have two quick questions because we got to get out. Get you out of here for your next important meeting of the week. But, um, I saw that you're doing an American Cancer Society Men's Wear Pink campaign, so tell us a little bit about that.

Mike Fernandez:

So, yeah, so, uh, there's 11 days left, if I remember correctly, uh, as of today. I am one of the ambassadors, so what that means is we're, it's a, it's a group of us in Miami that are raising money for such an important cause, um, We've all been impacted and aside this for breast cancer, but cancer in general, I think we've all been impacted either directly or indirectly through a friend, family member, or even oneself has been impacted. But I think it's a, you know, this is an important cause. I've been doing this for a few years. It's a competition between a group of us. I'm the only garbage man in the top five right now. I think I'm number three now. I hope to win it in the next 11 days. In terms of donations? In donations, right. So we all raise money. We're going to put

Bryan The Botanist:

that link in the description here. We

Mike Fernandez:

always appreciate it. Yeah, we always money for such a great cause. And again, you know, it helps somebody else that really needs it. Well,

Bryan The Botanist:

that made me, you know, feel a certain way when I saw that, you know, and it's so important that people recognize that there's, there's just so much going on in the world that we don't. No, the deeper like this conversation today was about going deep into waste management and we just scratched the surface and we're going to have you back on again. We have a little bit of a time limit today, but just, we appreciate everything you do. I don't think people appreciate enough, you know, but you saw it in Miami beach. I did see it on Alton road or it was on Bay road. I used to live over by Mount Sinai and these, this neighborhood, they did something very special for the, for the waste management collection crews that would come by their house, the garbage men. And we say men, but I'm sure there are women too. They did something very special around the holidays for them. I think they gave them some extra money and some food and like just gave them big hugs and like they know them because they come by every week and you gotta be, we all should be nice to everyone, you know, like hug our garbage man. Thank him, shake his hand. How you doing? Have a great day, you know, like care about them. They're not They're not any different than anyone else, right?

Mike Fernandez:

Yeah, because, I mean, a lot of times we take for granted. I mean, again, we just put our can outside, it gets picked up, bring it in. The only time we really think about it is when it doesn't get picked up. And there's a lot that happens with, it's still a manual way of doing business, from picking up the garbage, putting it in a truck, dumping it somewhere, then putting it into a tractor trailer, taking it somewhere else, processing it. And, you know, there's, there's a long, uh, Uh, line of things that happen before it gets to a final phase. Moving parts

Bryan The Botanist:

and people involved. And people don't realize that

Mike Fernandez:

behind the scenes how much happens, but yeah. The transfers

Bryan The Botanist:

and everything.

Mike Fernandez:

Yeah, so take a moment, thank your garbage man or garbage woman. And, uh, give them a hug. Awesome.

Bryan The Botanist:

Do that. And remember to recycle your shoes by Recycle Your Shoes. SneakerImpact. com. Yes. Alright, Mike. Well, we're going to wrap up now, but what inspiring message would you like to leave the Sneaker Impact community with?

Mike Fernandez:

The Sneaker Impact, well, I'd like to say, uh, you know, think about, think, we all have to, uh, take pride into our planet and, you know, do the right thing. Um, and if there's outlets for it, take, take that outlet, use that outlet, don't, don't go the easy way and just put it in your garbage, you know, and throw your, your, your, anything that's recyclable into a, into a waste bin.

Bryan The Botanist:

So small little actions can make a big difference. Big difference. It's not

Mike Fernandez:

one person, it's the whole, it's the whole society has to do it.

Bryan The Botanist:

And once you start doing it, you might influence your neighbor or your brother or your mom or dad. Yep. Awesome, Mike. This is really great. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. We'll have you back in the future because we have so many more questions. We didn't get to talk about some things I had on my list, but, um, we covered a lot of subjects and I really appreciate you, Mike. Thank you so much. Alright, have a great day. You

Mike Fernandez:

too. Thanks.

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Bryan “The Botanist” Huberty

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