Town of Southwest Ranches: South Florida’s Sustainability & Zero Waste Leaders

Sneaker Impact News visits the Town of Southwest Ranches council meeting with the Zero Waste Advisory Board, where chair Harold Gubnitsky, board members, and council leaders discuss making the town a sustainability leader while preserving its rural lifestyle. They highlight key initiatives and challenges including education to reduce recycling contamination, increased outreach via newsletters and social media, and a composting pilot with Filthy Organics using five-gallon buckets that has already diverted about 6,000 pounds of food waste and returns finished soil to residents. Officials describe efforts to oppose a nearby incinerator proposal, encourage equestrians to route horse manure to agricultural reuse, and explore diverting yard waste like palm fronds into mulch. They also discuss quarterly hazardous waste drop-offs, a proposed reuse/swap program, and a potential partnership with Sneaker Impact to collect and recycle footwear with diversion and carbon-savings reporting.

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♻️ Celebrate International Day of Zero Waste in Southwest Ranches! 🌍
Join us Sunday, March 29, 2026 from 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM at Southwest Ranches Sanctuary Park Pavilion, 16020 Griffin Road, Southwest Ranches, as we come together to promote sustainability and simple actions that make a big impact in our community.
✨ Event activities include:
👟 Sneaker donation drive
♻️ "Thing swap"
👜 Plastic bag exchange

More About The Town of Southwest Ranches Zero Waste Board
This Board provides input to the Town Council concerning environmental safety concerns and issues as they pertain to the health, safety, and well-being of the environment and the Town’s residents. The purpose of the Board is to chart a path towards zero waste by reducing the amount of waste disposed in landfills, promote waste prevention and reuse of materials. Meets: The 1st Tuesday of every month at 7:00PM at Town Hall, 13400 Griffin Road, Southwest Ranches, FL 33330.

In Attendance: November 4, 2025 Board Meeting
Harold Gubnitsky, Chairman of the Southwest Ranches’ Zero Waste Advisory Board; CEO of Clean Earth Innovations, LLC.  

Rose Allbritton, board member of Town of Southwest Ranches Zero Waste Advisory

Town of Southwest Ranches Vice Mayor Gary Joblonski

Town of Southwest Ranches council members
Bob Hartmann
Jim Allbritton
Debbie Green

Council Liaison: Council Member David S. Kuczenski, Esq.

Staff Liaison: Dan Stewart, Deputy Town Clerk

Transcript

Welcome and Setup

Town of Southwest Ranches 0:05

​welcome back to Sneaker Impact News. Uh, I have a very special episode tonight. I'm so excited to be at the town of Southwest ranches for their council meeting with the Zero Waste Advisory Board. And so I wanna go around and introduce everyone who's here today, and then we're gonna get into a couple questions about sustainability recycling zero waste. So, would you like to start off, Harold? Yeah. Hi. Uh oh. Hi, Harold Gubnitsky, and happy to be here and, and, uh, and really proud that, that the town has a zero waste advisory board, uh, and the position that, that Southwest Ranches, ranches has taken in. Although we're, we're not the largest town in the county, I think we, we were the loudest on this particular topic and sustainability and really promoting, uh, zero waste as a goal and, and, and sustainability in general. And so really happy to be here and, and as we have these meetings every month and we're, our goal is to advise the, the council as to direction and, and recommendations on how to proceed and how to have Southwest ranches be one of the leaders in, in sustainability. That's amazing. And you're the chairman? I'm the chair of this advisor advisory board. Amazing. Thank you, Harold. Hi, my name's Rose Albritton. I'm a member of the board. Um, we we're eager to start and to keep going with this as much as we can within the town and get the support one by one, you know, uh, advance things like, um, excuse me. Uh, we're doing composting and we have a pilot program for that. Amazing. Yeah. I wanna jump into those topics next, so we'll come back to you on that. Alright, next we have good evening, Jim Albritton, Councilman from District three Southwest ranches. Uh, this sustainability and the uh, zero waste has been spearheaded here in Southwest ranches. The other towns, the other cities that I have a part that I sit and talk to are, are learning from us. And it's really nice. We have a great group of people really, uh, intense studying and, and getting the message out. And we notice it when we see our recycle bins full. Mm-hmm. Not empty. And, and it's recyclable the right way. So it's really nice and town council's proud of the board and everybody that's involved. Hi. I am Vice Mayor Bob Hartman, and, uh, very proud of our town's commitment to recycling. We've actually been recycling since we started as a town 25 years ago. So we've got a long history in, in preserving our rural lifestyle and, uh. And doing what we can to, to mitigate our waste stream. About two years ago, we found out that there was going to be a incinerator potentially built right within a stone's throw of our community. And when I heard that it's. I could probably see it from my house when, if they were to build it. When I heard that, I started, uh, shaking the trees and trying to get the word out. This is a bad thing. We started it, this advisory board. We also have a. Um, uh, another group that meets tomorrow night here. That, and the name is a Force Task Force. Task Force. Task Force Zero. Waste Task Force. And that's a county wide group. People come from all over the place on that. Okay. But our, our goal was to get the word out every way we could. So we have lots of participants from all over Broward County that show up now. Uh, uh, between our boards and the mayor, we've gotten the word out to all the, the cities and municipalities within Broward County. Wow. We've gotten the county to listen to us, so we've really been, you know, the mouse that roared compared, we have 8,000 people in this town. We are the, I think the second smallest after lazy lakes. So, you know, we've really done what we can to try to change the mindset against incineration and, and, uh. That whole approach. You know, the board has made a lot of recommendations to the council. Mm-hmm. On, on how we can move forward. Uh uh, rose mentioned the composting, which I know you want to get back to. Mm-hmm. But we're trying to do as many things as possible, including improving people's recycling participation. There's always opportunities to improve there. Yep. So, thank you for coming out tonight. Absolutely. Yeah. So Southwest ranches is all about horse land and preserving the rural lifestyle. How can the equestrian community support your sustainability initiatives? Well, I'll, I'll just jump to that. That's a very specific Yeah. Around, yeah, exactly. Most of our equestrians HA card off their, their horse waste, essentially manure. And, um, you know, what we've been encouraging for the last couple of years is to use a sustainable method once they haul it off, to haul it off to the dump doesn't do us any good mm-hmm. In terms of zero waste, but. I was in farming as a kid and growing up, you know, manure is fertilizer. It's used throughout the state as fertilizer. Mm-hmm. So the encouragement is for those who do, you know, make their living from hauling off the horse waste, put it back into agricultural as opposed to into the landfills. Anybody else wanna make a comment? I think that's, I think otherwise we can bring up another question. Sure. Sure. Um, with the many changes in demographics and development over the last 20 to 30 years, how has that affected the town's visions and plans for the future while preserving the historical heritage of Southwest ranches? Boy, that is a tough one. Uh. I actually bought my property in the early seventies when I come back from service. There was nothing out here, absolutely nothing. The town was formed in 2000, still very, uh, you know, the development that's taken place. Everybody wants to live here. Mm. The residents that currently live here that live on the bigger properties. It's a lot for them to take care of. You see a lot of subdividing starting to take place. It a lots that people wanna buy. We have no street lights, dark skies, you know, no sidewalks. It's, it's a place where everybody wants to live, but we're running outta room. It's just it. Everything that comes here, every piece of land is, is being bought up. And to sustain that. It's tough. It is just absolutely. So are there zoning regulations that help preserve? We're constantly fighting with zoning regulations and, and to make it tougher for the developers to come in. But you can't tell'em that they can't bill. You have to set the regulations as to what they can bill, but you can't tell'em they can't bill. And we have a bunch of property that recently sold and there's gonna be some major development taking place with that. But I love that you're preserving the night sky and reducing pollution of light pollution and other things like sidewalks, which you know, are important in certain cities. But here, this is more of a rural, um, part of a very populated area of South Florida. Absolutely. Uh, let me just add to, uh, the things we're doing to try to a, preserve the lifestyle and also mitigate some of the waste streams. I am on, uh, three acres of land. I've got about 60 palm trees. Mm-hmm. Every week. Putting out Palm Frans, that's a big thing for a lot of properties and trimming. And, you know, I take care of my lot myself. Royal Palm, POM Frans are 25 feet long. Wow. Each one of'em. So they're way off and they weigh a lot. Now what we're looking at is right now, all that green waste goes into the landfill. We're working with, you know, as, as things are beginning to evolve as far as WM is concerned. Mm-hmm. And the companies to do the waste hauling. We'd rather see that waste be converted to mulch and you know, products as opposed to landfill fodder. Mm. So again, we're looking at different ways to take what we have these days instead of sending it to the landfill, diverting it into a better use. Anything else to add about, um, how you can protect through, um, again, on topics like, you know, yard waste. And we're gonna get into some things like what can citizens do? Uh, would you like the next question? Yeah, sure. Okay. Um, what are some of your biggest challenges in terms of reducing waste? Uh, great question. And I think the biggest challenge is awareness and education. Awareness and education. We'll just keep saying that and over and over. I think once we get through to people and they understand that this is how you recycle. And, and this is what you can do to compost either on your own or through the third party composting programs. That's where we start to make progress. And, and then as we do that, then we introduce more programs, and that's our, our vision here is to educate and, and bring on more programs so that everyone can be part of the zero waste aspirational goals. How are you raising awareness and spreading the message specifically? Does it start in the schools? Does it start through things you, I'm sure emails, mailers, online resources, like your website, Instagram, social media, everything. How do you get the word out? It's, it's, it's a combination of all that. I mean, we're even looking to have some contests here among the different districts about who can recycle. The best. Um, we're, we're certainly doing email campaigns, we're doing other messages. We're giving tours to the recycling so people can actually see for them themselves. What happens when you put something out in the road in recycling and what are the right things to do? What are not the right things to do? Um, there's composting awareness and so there's a variety of things. Rose, would you like to add to anything? Sure. Um, through the high schools, they have a group. That's helping. Uh, we have a farmer's market, um, that's every Saturday and Sunday, and they started, uh, with the, like the food trucks or any, anybody that, um, is, um, they're selling, uh, they have started making them aware. Of what, what goes do you use like renewable materials? Garbage can, what goes into recyclables? Okay. You know, uh, even, you know, there's like five, you could have glass, you could have plastic, you could have, um, different things. So they are, and they're getting the high schoolers involved with going there and volunteering to stand by the, the garbage cans. And they're labeled. I mean, I'd like to see'em landfill, you know? I mean, you know, so everybody really knows, you know, in the pictures what goes in and, and what doesn't. But we've started doing that through waste management, and they're on our lids of our garbage cans. Mm-hmm. And composting, which I thought would be. Uh, difficult and overwhelming. We did the pilot program and it's free to Southwest ranches this year. Um, we started doing that as a team with Jim and I, and after a week it seemed like the simplest thing in the world with everybody saying, I'm not keeping the garbage in the kitchen. I'm not doing the smelly thing. Mm-hmm. Nothing like that. Filthy organics. Um, I have a small composting can and everything that's. Right on that list, I put, Jim puts it in the five gallon. That's what I was gonna ask you. Is five gallon buckets or do you provide the buckets or you just teach them how to do it? Um, ugly organic fil provides filthy organic. I'm sorry, filthy organic. I'm so sorry. Yeah. They're a provider. Yeah. And they give us a five gallon bucket and they pick it up. Um, and um, they even have something on their truck that cleans it out after and they give it back to you. So the residents set it out next to their other trash. Yeah. In a separate container. Yeah. And if you don't want a compost at home in your backyard, this is such an easy way. And last week we just got a bag of beautiful, dark, um, dirt from it. Yeah. You know, so from your personal one or back From Filthy? Back from Filthy. So they bring it back to the residents? Yeah. Amazing. They're doing that. So you can do it in your vegetable garden. Wow. You know, that makes it easy. I mean, I have a backyard and I compost with a small Tumblr. Mm-hmm. And I used to work on a farm and I know you gotta rotate it. You gotta add hay. Absolutely. You gotta add things in. You can't just put pure, and you can't put meat in there, right? Oh, no. No oils with them. You can put meat. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yep. Because I thought it was only vegetable and wanna separate it. Okay. I don't know what they do, but they, because Debbie's, she can't put, um, a bones or, or anything. But to me this is the easiest thing, and I'm not sure of the amount that, that we have lowered from that, but it was. Um, forward. Do you know, um, from us composting, we don't have numbers yet. I know we've got, we're probably close to a ton of it already. No, they sent out one thing from, got a email back. Uh, we are close to 6,000 pounds. 3000, yeah. 6,000 pounds that we've, that the town itself has. Right. And food waste. Right. Been stopped from going in just 2025. Or when did this program begin? Since months since the program started, probably what, six and a half, seven months is, it had been six A full year. Six months. Not even a full year. Right. Yeah. So I was quite proud of that. And yeah, I got my 20 pounds, pounds of, of dirt. It was delivered and I was thrilled and I haven't planted anything yet. I'm looking forward to that. But yeah, it's really nice, very simple. Like she said, you just put it in the bucket. They pick it up twice a month, every two weeks they pick it up. Okay. They send you an email ahead of time telling you tomorrow's pickup date. Wow. If you can't make it. You send them an email saying, skip this date, make it the next date, or whatever. That's incredible. Very, very simple, very easy, clean, nice. And, and it's well worth it. Wow. And to serve 8,000 residents like that is amazing that Filthy Organics can take that on. Yeah. Well, we've started off as we're starting off a pilot Oh, you have a pilot program, so people sign up for it. Okay, got it. Yeah, let me just add how we're trying to get the word out. Mm-hmm. So I've been the town's unofficial photographer for like 15, 20 years. Um, and, you know, forever, we had a two color newsletter that went out that the council contributed to well, over the last year, we've really upped our game on that. It's full color now. It's absolutely beautiful. Wow. It is, it gets the word out where we were maybe a 20 to 30% penetration rate. Um, we're probably closer to, to 40 to 50%, but in this day and age, that's not even close to enough. We went into social media, we've, we've got a Facebook page. We've got, uh, Instagram. I think we're on X. Don't quote me on that one though, but TikTok just kidding. I'm not on TikTok either, I don't think. But yeah, the kids are on there, so you gotta find Gen Z. Well, uh, well, is there a lot of Gen Z? That's a high school though, so maybe you're getting to them at the high school level in the university. I don't think we're on, uh, ins, uh, TikTok, but I think we get pretty good penetration through Gen Z. On On Instagram. Instagram, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, where we're going though is, you know, in government, in in municipal government, everybody wears a lot of hats. We, we, we demand a lot from our team. Well, finally, we realize that to, to do this the best way possible, we've actually, we're hiring a social media specialist, okay, who's going to take, we, we get content monthly from WM on what's going on, how they can help, uh, different content that. Portrays better recycling methods, all types of zero waste diversion techniques we provide. We use that content to get our social media out on a regular basis, so we're constantly pushing it. Now, we should be able to get even more coverage by, by adding an additional staff member to get that work done. Incredible. Um, that's so important. And I know it's a lot of work to get the word. You can capture the media, but then to get it out. Yeah. You have all these other roles to have someone special, you know, doing that. There's another side of it too. We have a lot of happy residents out here. I mean, and we tell by our, the lifestyle is incredible compared. I live in the city of Miami. There you go. We don't have composting. We have to do it all on our own. And some people have even said only 8% of recycled materials actually get recycled. Right. In South Florida. Right. Um, and there's other issues like the incinerator, which we were talking about. One went down, now they're trying to build a new one. The biggest one in the country. Yeah. We also, south Florida creates, on average double the amount of waste per person that the rest of the country does. Wow. Something like five to eight pounds and the average person, another parts of the country somewhere around two to three pounds a day. So five to eight tourism's definitely a big part of it. Of course. Um, you know. So that's, yeah. They're talking about that a lot in Miami is how much waste is getting created here versus other parts of the country. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But in Southwest ranches, you guys are all about that rural lifestyle and farms are a big part. But I was going, I'm sorry. Where I was going with it is when we don't get it right on a particular topic, people come out and let us know at our council meetings. Okay. I mean, we'll have a hundred people if they disagree with the position we're taking. Lately, one or two or three of the regular people are showing up. A lot of the regulars aren't showing up because they can watch it on, uh, on YouTube or they, uh, they're, they're comfortable with what's going on either through their communications at the newsletter. A lot of'em reach out to the council, so you know, it, it's hard to make that additional penetration. When people don't have any reason to, to pick this stuff up and say, I'm, I'm really upset. I need a number to call. Mm. Because we, we seem to have a pretty good satisfaction level Right now. Their voices are being heard and they're being served in a good way. Exactly. Versus being, you know, serving the interests of, you know, what, what goes against your heritage, which is preserving rural lifestyle. Like if you guys all of a sudden brought in towers, you know, building towers or like the incinerator, like you said, it would destroy the community. Yeah, it absolutely would. The farmers would look for somewhere else to go. Yep. The tree farmers, all the other farmers are horses. I saw a lot of horses when I was driving in today. Um, how can residents get more involved, um, on top of everything you're doing? What can they do as an individual that like is going above and beyond what you guys are doing? Are they native plantings? Are there other ways to mitigate waste? Are there any creative ideas coming up lately that, or anything else that you can think of? Or is it just getting the word out through all these channels? Is, is the start just getting the word out? Harold mentioned education, education. Education. We just have to keep reminding them, reminding, reminding them, uh, you know, that this exists, that these programs are there, that they exist. Right. Because they're busy. Well, everybody's set their own life. Exactly. And, uh, to get the board members to volunteer, these are volunteers. They're not paid. They're not, you know, these are volunteers Wow. To the different boards that you have. And it's very difficult sometimes to find members to sit on the board. But, uh, we appreciate those that we do have, but education, just keep hammering it to'em and telling them, you know, this is what we have to do. Are there any environmental or did you want to add on to that, Harold or No, I, I, I, I think, you know, that's, it's all as, as, as Jim was saying, it's, it's about that education we, and really looking to be innovative in a, a lot of different ways. We're, we're, we're in touch with what the other towns and cities are doing, not only Broward County, but across the country. And so as we were developing a strategy and a, a game plan for the, for the town, uh, for sustainability, and, and we're not only where we're at today, but where we're going. And looking to take best practices from around the country to implement that so that we can be, and continue to be hopefully a leader in, in, in, in representing the, the sustainability path. Can we introduce our newest uh, yes. Member council name? Gary. Good evening. Um, introduce yourself. Hi, I am, I'm, uh, I'm Councilman Jablonski from district two in Southwest ranches, and it's a pleasure to be here. Um, is this a, uh, I'm not quite sure of the, uh, Sneaker Impact News podcast for recycling. No, I got that part. Sorry. Video cameras and the mics gave it away. But, um, I'm curious as to, is this a q and a or you're just trying to get thoughts when both Yeah, I have a series of questions. Um, it's live. Yeah, one is live on Instagram right now, my personal, but I'm recording all this to put on YouTube and Spotify and it'll come out makeup, but, well, for Spotify you don't need it, Gary. Well, the cameras are a little far back, so I was kind to us. Yeah, it's like a panel. But, uh, my next question is actually like, what is mandated through regulation. And what is voluntary? Like, is it all voluntary? Is there anything mandated? Are there any upcoming items being voted on? I know there's no elections today, even though today's election day in South Florida, but in, in southwest ranches there's no, no, no voting today. But when is the next election? What has been next November enacted? Next November? Yes, sir. Is there anything that's absolutely required? According to law, uh, you have to be a resident for a couple of years. You have to have a heartbeat. Sustainability For sustainability or for, yeah, for, we're not talking about running for office. Uh, as far as, um, sustainability, you know, for sustainability, do they, do they have, do they, like, in Europe, you actually will be fined if you don't separate your trash. Say that again please. Europe has regulations often to, you know, so we don't have, we don't have, there are fines. You know, we, we trip. Here you go. You guys, we, we tread very lightly. Um, our residents, for the most part when it comes to regulation, wanna be left alone. And we recognize that, you know, the only things I believe we have out there, you have to use a certain percentage of zero fitted landscape when you do new development or you build a house. But in terms of participation, we don't regulate. Now, that may have to change in upcoming years because, you know, one of the things that is becoming very evident is landfill property is getting to be more and more expensive. So if we can reduce. Our trash hauling costs by diverting more, more to recycling, to reuse, to, you know, all the different things that we're, we're promoting and we're investigating at this point. Mm-hmm. Hopefully we can save some money for the community and, and for the residents as well, but we're not at the point where we have any regulation at this point on anything to do with trash. That's good because you're getting the buy-in without that. Yeah. And you're gonna also create value that's gonna come back to the residents reducing their taxes. And providing more city services. Um, so I heard some of your team got to visit the Sneaker Impact headquarters in Miami. Yes. Debbie? Uh, Debbie, would you like to introduce yourself and on the advisory board part of that, and tell us what you felt or thought when you were, when you witnessed introduce yourself. I'm Debbie Green from the town. Um, we, we, I thought it was incredible. Visiting the Sneaker Impact and just seeing, just seeing the whole process from, you know, how all the sneakers, how they're collected and the different things, whether it's either reused or that it's recycled and just the, the, the sneakers that are then reused and sent to, you know, 20 plus countries. The Con 20 Yeah, the countries. It, it also just showed that Sneaker Impact. It just has a conscience because there's thought into what gets sent where. Yes. So you're, yeah. We're not sending, um, our founder says like, size 13 or 15 shoes to Guatemala or. Uh, you know, just things like that. We're not sending winter coats to Haiti, right? To Haiti, you know, we're, we're, we're sending the right materials to the right place. Right. They really do need running and walking shoes because that's their Honda. We like to say their Honda, their Toyota, their car, uh, is just traveling and just being able to work and go to school and farm and do all the things they do. They need a good pair of shoes and they could be resold in the us, but no. Our partners where we're collecting'em from that would come back to haunt them. So everything we collect that has a second life leaves the us. Anything that does not have a second life, because it's been too used, and we look at the tread on the bottom of the shoe, the mid sole, the outsole, if that's destroyed, we can repair the upper. But if the midsole and bottom are destroyed. Too much. We wouldn't ever ship trash. That's another one of our mandates. We don't ship trash over overseas. That all is grind, grinded up and goes through a, a sorting process through, um, air separation and infrared technology. As you saw, it's proprietary top secret, but we are now creating sandals, yoga mats. I wish I had some today. We can go on our Instagram and see our sandals, our yoga mats. Flooring, we're now making shoes, the midsole only with certain shoe companies. We're not making the shoes. We're finding partners that we're providing the materials and we're providing data back to the, um, industry about what models and com companies, brands we're collecting from each location. And we're in 3000 plus retail locations around the us so we would love to be anywhere. You guys need us. In city of south town of Southwest ranches, we have collection boxes that we can provide free of charge with. Prepaid FedEx shipping labels. We also have a system where anyone in the US can order a bag and it comes with a prepaid label, and the bag can hold up to seven pairs of shoes. It's a, it's a biodegradable bag and, um, they can order it for free. Right now it's still free on our website and my mom in Wisconsin ships her shoes back to us. So shout out to my mom. That's great. And, uh, yeah, so we've got a system for the public and we've got a system for universities, businesses, gyms, running stores, you know, and a lot of the universities are getting involved in high schools, so. Yes. Yeah. Anyone else have any thoughts about, you know, shoe recycling? Have you guys looked into that? A, a apparel. We also recycle apparel, clothing. We really got a great view of the, the sinker impact side of the business. Mo showed us everything. Oh, you got to visit? Yeah, Bob, I, I had an opportunity to visit and it was interesting because we had seen a video, uh, with our task force back about three months ago on. How disposable sneakers are. People buy'em and never wear'em. They wear'em two times and they're off to the landfill. And when I saw the answer to that in Sneaker Impact, I was very impressed because first off, great entrepreneurial spirit, but then when it was explained to us the uses from, you know, things that look brand new right on through to unusable. Phenomenal. It's a phenomenal scenario. We're diverting waste and creating values and jobs out of it that was just gonna go in the landfill. And there's a lot of entrepreneurs now diverting things like wine bottles, like I watched this couple on Instagram, this young couple, they're like 20 to 24 years old. They started out with just a small pile of wine. They got a giant mountain. Now they're grinding it up and making these sandbags that are helping rebuild. The, um, the bayou down in Louisiana. Wow. Like the shoreline. Um, and they plant trees that grow into it. Mm-hmm. And it reclaims that, that wine bottle or glass. Um mm-hmm. So there's just so many uses for everything that can help the environment or help people. So we're doing environmental and social good. Mm-hmm. Um, the social good is by helping those, less fortunate with providing them footwear at a, you know, pennies on the dollar, and then they can clean them. They put the sweat equity in and they can resell'em and uh, yeah, we facilitate it all through our exporting. We also export. We're a full fledged export company and yeah, we're just really excited. Our founder lives in the town of Southwest ranches. Right, right. Moe Hachem Chem, and he's in Lebanon right now visiting his dad. He just left last night, but he wanted to be here and he sends his love. And you guys are all welcome to come visit us. Oh yeah. Excellent. Thank you. Yeah. So again, anything going on right now for apparel or footwear up here, or is that something you're looking at in the future? I think we're gonna bring a footwear box in. I'm not sure who knows the details on that. Yeah, on the apparel side, we haven't had contact yet, but they have other places they can go. Sure. Like you said, um, or like, you know, that's whether it's your local Goodwill or your Yeah. St. Vincent's DePaul or Oh yeah. There's opportunity. Your women's, that's all part of our journey though, is to continue to look for. Um, innovative groups such as Sneaker Impact and, and, and, and continue to do that. So we're open to ideas and we, we want to go ahead and do that. It's all part of the education. Yeah. Awesome. Um, so what question did I forget to ask you guys about sustainability tonight? And what's youre up to, like, you guys are volunteering to do this, um, you're putting your heart and soul into it. Um, how, what else can you tell us that, that, that, that is interesting and, and you wanna share with the public right now? Do you want to add to it? Um, I know the composting program, we talked a lot about, well, we, you already talked about the composting Yeah. And all that. I, I think education, I know you probably talked about it, but that's really the key thing, uh, when I see on recycling day pickups is mixed containers that have trash in it and the recycling, the proper recycling stuff. And people don't realize that they. The company is not gonna sort that trash out for you. It's just all gonna go to the landfill. So the, all the good work that they've done is not going to accomplish anything because half of it was trash. Mm-hmm. You know, that should have gone to the landfill, you know, so that, that's I think is our hardest thing. We've gotta convince everybody up and of course, their shoes, clothes. You name it in there and stuff like that. And do you offer like e-waste recycling throughout the year? Uh, yeah. We have, we have, uh, four times a year we have hazardous household waste. And we can bring in tires. You can bring in, uh, engine oil, engine oil, uh, batteries, pesticides, half, you know, computers, medicine. We have a medicine, okay. Um, drop off with the police for, uh, expired stuff or no longer used that. Uh uh, so diverting as much waste as possible. Yeah. Tar board is part of the recyclables glass. Exactly. Certain plastic. You're educating about the numbers on the bottom and like a pizza box that's got greasy pizza and it still can't be recycled. Yeah. We, we, we have all those, all those sort of problems where clean out the can boxes and the recycling and it's, and it's shot Wash out the salsa jar before you throw it in. Right, exactly. Recycling bin, you know, and stuff like that. Like, and I know in my own personal case, I'm an empty nester and our, our re our. Trash that goes to the landfill was down to a third. Wow. After we started recycling. And my recycling bin is three times what the trash bin is. Sometimes I don't even put out trash. There's none to put out. Right. You know? Um, we get twice a week pick up. Okay. And, but the recycling goes out every week. Wow. In Miami, I think it's every two weeks. Yeah. We do it twice a month. Recycling every two weeks. Yes. Twice a month. We couldn't live that way. We have, I know I fill mine up too fast. Yeah. Yeah. I would have it. And my garbage is like, you know, it's very little. And then my recycling, I mean cardboard boxes and I mean, we wash out all the, all the clear food containers are cleaned out and you know, there's a lot you can do when, when you see stuff that's con could be considered contaminated, but it's salvageable. You just take it to the kitchen sink and, and rinse it out. Mm-hmm. I mean, if something as simplistic as that, you have to teach people that, believe it or not,'cause they go, goes right into the, the wrong. The wrong bin and off it goes to the landfill. So if it's contaminated, it can't be picked up? No. The the, they make that, and the driver makes that call when they do it, and they, they, it comes off of the, uh, truck and then they sort it and, and it immediately goes into the landfill pile. Okay. And so it's, it's a pretty, pretty sophisticated thing the way they've got it going. But it, it ha it really starts on the consumer end and then it goes, you know, it goes from there. Okay. You know. Debbie, you want to add to that? No, I was just gonna echo you. The, the biggest thing is the education. Because once people learn that, okay, so you have to rinse it out, you have to do this. But once you start doing it, you realize it's really not that hard and it doesn't take a whole lot more, much more effort to do it. That's right. So hopefully between all the efforts of this and the county is looking at, it becomes a habit and they're trying to, so if the county then. Um, passes the solid waste authority, this new, um, master plan. It would then take all the cities within Broward County and everybody would be recycling and composting in the exact same way. So it would be uniform and it would make that education so much easier because everybody's giving the same message. Yeah. Um, south town of Southwest ranches is a small percentage of Broward County, which is one of the biggest counties probably in the us. We are, but, and we're, and we are. The leaders we're the leaders in Brown County. Wow. So the smallest is leading the way at county level. They all look to Southwest ranches. Yeah. You asked, uh, Gary about, uh, hazardous material. Ms. Debbie came up with an idea a couple months back. We haven't got it implemented completely yet, but for people who have furniture or people who have uh, uh, something that they don't want anymore. We're looking to bring it to the site. And other people, if you come up and, oh, Bob just brought this chair pretty nice. I'm taking it home. So you take it home with you. But the problem is, at the end of the day, there's nobody to pick it up, to haul it away if. Nobody picks it up, but somehow we'd like to implement. If you bring something and somebody wants it, they can take it. Like a recycling center. Just a recycling center. They Right. No cost, no anything. But the thing of it is reuse center, we don't have a re center. We have no place right now to implement that, to store it. Uh, you know, if we had a nice building somewhere where we could store stuff, people come just swap stuff out. Yeah. So, but we're looking to do that. That's a great idea. Debbie's idea. A really great idea. So zero waste is a journey. Yep. And we started ours two years ago. We had something that kickstarted us in the incinerator that really got our attention. When I look around the world right now, and I'm hearing now that major chunks of icebergs are breaking off in Antarctica. We were in Northern Europe last summer and we saw the last glacier in Norway. Wow. Okay. Ice, uh, Greenland is melting like crazy. Mm-hmm. The glaciers now in Iceland are melting like crazy. The rivers are raging Torrance now because it's all melting. Our kids are recognizing this, all my kids, if, if I throw the wrong thing in the wrong place, I hear about it quickly. Their children. It'll be second nature for them. We still have to educate our peers, the people that are, I would call'em, uh, recycling immigrants as opposed to recycling natives or zero waste natives. Europe has got years on us right now. When we were in Europe a few years ago, you mentioned. Uh, how it's required. In Italy, you've got nine bins to separate your waste into. When you get down to the little rough use, uh, where, where it's picked up. Um, and machines you can like put like the plastic bottle and that suck it in. It just bins. I remember in Germany I saw machines that would suck in your, can maybe give you some money back. So the same thing in Austria. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I, I went into this yard in Austria as we were waiting for a bus and I said, what is this? Oh this is a local and they used the German word, but recycling center. And there was everything that we normally throw out and they were, you know, basically sorting it out. So I think we as a society will get there. It's just how quickly we get there is gonna be how quickly we mitigate the big problems we have. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for doing that. Yeah. No, this is great guys. I know we're, we're up against, uh, the time limit here. You guys have a big meeting starting in eight minutes, so thank you all for if I can. Ask for final thought if anyone has one before we close out. But just thank you so much for allowing me to be here today in your town hall meeting, inviting me up. It's an honor. It's my first time ever being able to speak with a city, a town, and um, you know, I'm just really blown away by your commitment and your passion and your creativity and purpose. Great. Yeah, thank you. Or maybe we could ask the council to invite him to a council meeting and have him speak for a couple minutes. That'd be nice. Actual to the town council meeting, you know? That'd be nice. Yeah. You looking for a vote? Yeah. Yeah. We got three votes there. Got three votes. Oh, thank you. And, and thank you for what, you know, Sneaker Impact's doing and, and absolutely we're looking forward to being an active sponsor supporter for that. Awesome. No pressure. We would love to just, we'll provide all the boxes, we'll do all the work for you. Okay. You know, if you want to come out and give us an update on an annual basis and exchange notes on how far we've progressed and in our journey, uh, you're welcome to come out and, uh, if you gimme your card, I'll, I'll talk to Russell, our town administrator to see if we can't put you on the calendar for once a year. Okay. Yeah. Great. And we do reporting, we give our partners reports on Oh, excellent. Every single box they get, uh, how many pounds you're diverted from the landfill. And also how many pairs of sneakers, different categories. Um, just three categories, like good sneakers, which are ones that live a second life. Um, second category would be casual mixed, and the third category is end of life. So there's three categories. You know, the, the best sneakers are the good sneakers. Mm-hmm. Those are the running and walking shoes. And there's like the cheaper models, right? And like the kid shoes and the heels and the dress shoes. Those are casual and mixed. And then end of life is end of life. It's time for it to get made into a new product. Right. Um, we also give them in the report, the num, the estimated kilograms of carbon emissions saved by their recycling box. Excellent. Wow. So how much carbon they're sequestering itself. 14.5 kilograms per pair of sneakers recycled. So a box kilograms, kilograms 14. Wow. We report the pounds of waste diverted, total waste diverted in pounds. Mm-hmm. But in terms of emissions saved, it's an estimate. Mm-hmm. Of the carbon emissions saved, it's reported in kilograms. Mm-hmm. I don't know. It's a, because it's like the universal way they do it, but the rest of the world, it's, it's a significant amount. Like each box of like each box holds 30 to 35 pairs of shoes, and it'll be like. 500 kilograms of estimated carbon saved by recycling those 30 pairs of shoes. Wow. That that's an important number. That should be on the back of everything. Yeah. You know, how much does it cost for your coffee? Exactly. How much does it cost for your, like when to create a pair of shoes, it costs about 15 or 17 kilograms of carbon to create it. So recycling it, you nearly get back 90 to a hundred percent of it press. It really is. There's a true, I think recycling a pair of sneakers is equivalent to. Driving something like 60 miles or one pound of cheese or a pound of coffee, they're all equivalent. So like I did a study for a marathon'cause I was trying to give runners a visualization of recycling one pair of shoes. What does that mean in terms of like something you'd buy or mm-hmm. How far you had to travel, but you know, a flight that's really creating a lot of carbon. So when you fly, that's like you're creating probably hundreds of kilograms or thousands, you know, depends how far you fly. But yeah, flights are one of the biggest contributors in driving and. Not to mention generic pollution, anything you're contributing to. I work directly across the street from Miami International and my walk to the car, all I smell are the tires burning up and the jet exhaust. It's amazing the amount of pollution that comes off that facility. Yeah. Well, this is amazing. I need closing thoughts. I'll pass the mic around. Got a minute or two left. Well, I think what y'all do is fantastic, and I'm looking forward to the town partner partnering with Sneaker Impact and us getting a box here and so we can start saving all the way around. Yeah, I second that motion. Well, we're, we're really, we're really happy that you're doing this. Um, I hadn't heard of this previously, uh, you know, like several months ago, and then I was really impressed once I got into the. The details and what was told, what I was being told about how, how this works. And the now hearing the impact in real numbers makes it even more worthwhile. You know, it's, it's nice to know that it, that a product that you're basically, you're giving, you're, you're discarding, you know, is now coming back into. Community in a or other communities in a meaningful way. And it's creating jobs in Miami. We have a good 30 to 50 people we're employing through Sneaker Impact. Um, some of them are Haitian families that are actually putting in the sweat equity of not being paid by us. Our founder likes to say, we're teaching them how to fish versus giving a fish. Mm-hmm. And the only other thing I forgot to mention, I'm sure the cameras can pick this up, people have heard it, is, um, only 13% of running shoes are, I'm sorry, only 13% of footwear is recycled in the US every year. 13%. That's according to Google Statistics. I'm surprised it's even that much. So 87% of. And it's over 500 million pairs are thrown away here. That's a conservative estimate, but it's an easy, probably closer to a million. It's, it's something that's very achievable if, if you know how to, what to do with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the kids want to do it. When we go to the high schools and the universities, the kids are all, in fact, our founder, we looked up a lot of statistics. 92% of Americans approximately want to recycle, but you have to make it easy. Oh yeah. You have to make it easy. Yes. So thank you for what you're doing. We look forward to partnering. Awesome. Thank you. Town of Southwest ranches for having me. Uh, thank you Vice mayor and council members for having us in the zero waste advisory board. This is really inspiring. I'm all about zero waste and there's an initiative in Miami too as Zero Waste Miami Group, which I'm a part of. So Good. Excellent. There's there's people down there that care, but we're up against a big, you know, problem. Yeah. And that's where, you know, that's why you guys are. It's a really pretty wildly Yeah. And, and you guys are setting a standard that the whole co county and, and South Florida is looking at.'cause Southwest ranches has developed a reputation as one of the nicest places to live. Yep. Good. So thank you guys for having me and thank you. Kudos to you all. Thank you.