Rob: Hey, Alex.
Alex: Hi! Good to see you!
Rob: Thanks for meeting me.
All right, let us see if I can sit down.
Alex: Got it?
Rob: OK, so I have a question.
Alex: Yeah. What's up?
Rob: All right, so many people out there
have been telling me
that if I just simply recycle
the plastic in this suit,
then everything would be fine,
and that there is no problem
behind all of this in here.
I am excited to talk to you about
the Solving Plastic series.
So what is your thought on that?
Alex: Recycling is definitely not
the answer here.
There is a lot of plastic.
I can see a lot of it on your suit.
Our new series, Solving Plastic,
talks about real solutions
to the plastic problem.
And we consider real solutions
to be ones that tackle the root problem,
which is just that we produce
way too much of it in general.
Rob: When you look
at your social media feed,
so much of what you see
is these ideas that you have bacteria
that can eat plastic
or the vacuums that suck up plastic.
And this is like what is super viral
and where people are excited
and that is where so much energy is going.
What do you think about that?
Alex: I think it is great to see people
excited about solutions,
but we have got to think critically, right?
Are these effective?
Do they address the root cause?
Are they accessible?
You know, are they scalable?
Can we really have giant robots that are
cleaning plastic pollution in the ocean?
Does that make sense?
Rob: My belief is no.
My focus is always on true solutions.
That is why I have been following
the Story of Stuff for ten years.
They were one of my first inspirations.
I am always excited to share
about the real solutions.
What would be some
of the the solutions to plastic?
Alex: One of them that we highlight
is a glass bottle re-use and refill system.
It does not have to be a new idea.
This is not a new idea.
We know the milkman, right?
Maybe it is not as exciting and headline
grabbing as the bacteria that eats plastic,
but this is something that worked before.
It tackles plastic.
And guess what?
We have done it before.
We can do it again.
Rob: Yeah.
The true solutions generally,
for me, that I focus on, are simple.
They are accessible.
They are what we have been doing
before plastic ever existed.
So some of it is going back to the basics.
Some of it is re-innovating as well.
Alex: Right. Exactly.
What we want to see is that these
simple solutions can be the norm.
Right? We want them to be the norm again.
Rob: What would be some of your thoughts
on the systemic changes that would
actually help us break free from plastic?
Alex: We have got to tackle it
from the very root.
Just stop producing so much.
Any kind of system or solution
that keeps enabling plastic production
at its current or increased pace,
that is not going to get us
to where we need to be.
Rob: Nice.
I really encourage you to watch
Solving Plastic, the series
from Story of Stuff.
It is an incredibly educational series.
It really goes beyond
all of the greenwashing
that is out there.
I really think that it is so important today
to be focusing on the true solutions,
because if we are not really focusing
on the true solutions,
we are perpetuating the problem.
So I am so grateful that
you are a part of the Story of Stuff.
You are helping get the real
solutions out there.
How can people support the Story of Stuff
to get this these messages
of solutions out there?
Alex: If you want to support
and help us continue to profile real solutions
you can do so at our donation page.
You can watch your videos,
you can check out Rob's stuff.
Rob: They are one of my greatest inspirations.
Alright well, thanks for being here.
Trash man hug?
Alex: Thanks for being an inspiration.
Rob Greenfield Films