Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging
Industry Experts discuss all the new materials and ways that packaging can be more sustainable and how we can do our parts to help recycle and reuse. Sustainable Packaging is and will continue to affect us all in our daily lives. We have lots of fun and get down to the real data of what's working to help our planet!
Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging
Lady Green Recycling / Founder and President Michelle Salas
https://www.ladygreenmiami.com/
How a small independent recycling company is making a big impact?
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Welcome to sustainable packaging with Cory Connors today's day. Yes is my friend Michelle Salas, the founder and president of lady green. Recycling. Am she,
Michelle Salas:Hey, Corey, thank you so much for having me.
Cory Connors:Oh, you're welcome. I, I really, really appreciate your time and I'm totally impressed with what you've built from, and it's incredible. So kudos to you. You're making a huge impact in the world of sustainable packaging and recycling. And I would just like to, before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about your background.
Michelle Salas:Sure. And before I get into that, thank you so much for having me and congrats you too on all the awesome things you're doing as well. Oh, thank you so much. And so, yeah, for sure. So a little bit about me. I'm originally from UA UA. I was born there, but I was raised in south Florida and Miami I've spent here most of my life. I lived down in California for a little bit, but other than that, this has been my hometown. and I was in commercial real estate in 2008 and that's when I noticed that a lot of businesses weren't recycling and I. Since I was like a teenager, I always knew I wanted to, to start a business, but I wasn't sure what kind of business I just knew it had to be something meaningful and, and involved in something that I'm passionate about. So I've always been passionate about the environment and animals. So that's when I first thought of the idea of started recycling a business back in 2008, when there was a lot of contamination in the recycling bins, a lot of businesses weren't recycling, and I just saw an opportunity there, but it wasn't until two years later in grad school. That I took a class on sustainability and talked about the natural process of recycling and and how nature sustains itself for billions of years through one of the main principles, which is cycling. And then that's when it clicked for me because I had that idea for two, for two years almost, and I still had that plan to do it, but I was just very busy working full time and going to school. And so, but, but once I got that knowledge and, and I felt like I, I had those tools, I was inspired enough to, you know, what, let me start my, the business. And that was when I really started it in 2010. But it wasn't until about the end of 2012, 2013, that I was able to quit my full-time job. I had, I had up to three jobs. I had lady green, a full-time job, a part-time job. So around 2013, that's when I finally was able to focus 100% on lady green. And I've been doing it
Cory Connors:since. Wow. Sounds like you don't shy away from hard. Well done. No, absolutely not. yeah. Well kudo to you, anybody that founds a company of you gotta love what you do. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. So, 2008 was a tough time to be a realtor. If I recall. Yeah. well,
Michelle Salas:yeah. Well, I wasn't, I wasn't a realtor. I was in I was doing like marketing and stuff, so I was an assistant to the, the vice president. And so I was involved like looking around in the commercial buildings and that's really when I got a knife for it. But I had no idea about, , the industry or how hard it is to get in and how monopolized it was. So it was very the, you know, if I knew that, you know, I probably wouldn't have started it because I just, you know, I went in there just like with all the optimism and, and thinking, Hey, since there's like, no businesses are recycling and I knew there's a. Here. I might as well start. And , it's hard work like you said, but it's, it's worth it. So, yeah.
Cory Connors:Well, before we started the podcast, you told me the story of how you came up with the name of the, the company. Can you tell us that.
Michelle Salas:Yeah. So I was thinking of a couple names of I had one that was treasure collectors. I kind of liked that one but then, you know, I, I didn't really think much of it. I just thought lady green recycling, because my dog's name is, is lady green. She passed away in 2015, but you know, she's my best friend. I was very close to her. And so that's why I came up with it. And a lot of people think that lady green is because of me, but it's not. It's because of my dog. And, but, but I don't mind because you know, a lot of times maybe somebody may not for remember my name, but they'll remember lady green. So I don't mind it's and to represent a lot of things really.
Cory Connors:So, yeah, it's a, it's a memorable name and it's a, it's a great one. So good choice.
Michelle Salas:Thank you. She's, she's part of the brand. My animals are part of my brand and part of my story, because we focus a lot on education. We have a lot of educational books and tools. And so I was I've always been wanting to incorporate my story and my animals because they are part of my story through me, you know, starting the business. Lady, , I, you know, I feel bad that I, I was working so much and she sacrificed a lot. While I was working those, , the first few years, and I didn't get to spend a lot of time with her, but you know, they, they were my support system. So
Cory Connors:they're family. Yeah. Animals get us through things. And I, I totally believe that and, and love that So tell us about lady green. Recycling., what do you do? What's your focus?
Michelle Salas:Okay. So we are a grassroots, sustainable waste management company, and we offer waste pickup services. Our garbage goes to the waste to energy facility. We also collect near conventional recycling materials from cardboard paper, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and we've recently the last year and a half. We started taking on more materials, from flex packaging, shrink wrap PP many different types of materials. And we also started processing some materials in house and that's also been really exciting. So it's opened up the door. Many doors because I'm sure you know, that recycling hasn't been easy for, for many years, for a long time, especially for a small business like myself, like, like lady green, but thankfully things have really turned the corner and a lot of things have changed for, for the better. I see. At least. So
Cory Connors:do you feel like it's getting easier , to set things up , with resident.
Michelle Salas:Well, we mainly do for the recycling. We mainly do commercial and okay. Yeah. And as far as the, the recycling for business, yes. I see like there's a lot more interest in recycling than there were years ago in general, from small businesses to mid, to, to large businesses, which is really good. Cuz I remember, you know, years ago it was really hard to. Be able to get recycling clients, but now, you know, a lot of things have changed. There's a lot of , a lot of different components, why this is becoming more of an interest and a demand. So yeah, it's, it's been good. A lot of work, I don't mind, but you know, that, that's what we wanna do. We wanna be able to scale.
Cory Connors:It seems like the time in, , in the history that I've seen where recycling is really growing the most and the fastest, would you agree with that?
Michelle Salas:Absolutely. Yes. I mean, there there's been so much investment, pour. And from, you know, different types of industries come together which that's what we need. And because we, we are strengthening numbers. And so like never before. Definitely. Ever since COVID things have picked up and also because of all the ESG and SDG standards now that's also created a motivation for businesses as well, but everything that we're seeing too. Everything that we're seeing on social media nowadays. Now a lot of people know how bad it is out there when it comes to pollution and waste. So I think that's also taking you know, an effect. So I just see it continuing to grow. I mean, there's been, like I mentioned, there's been, I'm sure, you know, there's been a lot of money being poured in this that I think we're gonna start seeing the impacts of it. We're already seeing. but we're gonna continue seeing it in the next couple years and more. And so I, we're also seeing a lot of interest from municipalities and you know, different parts of the city. So that's also good. And yeah. So how about you? Have you seen any, any more momentum going.
Cory Connors:Yes, absolutely. It's things are changing fast and, and companies are pushing hard and laws are polling harder to encourage gently and not so gently these companies to get their act together. And I think you'll see a lot. What we're seeing, what we're calling zero waste or zero waste to landfill which is exactly where you fit in cause you're diverting and diverting and diverting and keeping up that supply to recyclers rather than to or to, to reuse or recycling rather than to landfill. So that's, to me, that's you're doing good work we appreciate it.
Michelle Salas:thank you. And like I said, I. Thankfully, I love what I do because things are just, you know, we, we're getting more busier. And, and I couldn't be more grateful because there's so much opportunity. I really wanna create like a lot of impact. And I, I think finally, I, I, that, that I'm having more of that opportunity, you know, come along because we, we really don't have a lot of time to, to waste.
Cory Connors:That's it. So there's a sense of urgency, right. And that's good, right? Yeah. There you go.
Michelle Salas:Yeah. And that's why plastics that's, that's been my, our main focus. And as far as we're our clients, you know, we. We can recycle just about whatever they have, but I'm really more interested in, in, in recuperating as much plastic, too different kinds of plastics you know, going after the businesses, the supermarkets are not necessarily recycling their cosher bags and stuff like that. Yeah. And Corey, but way I'm sorry.
Cory Connors:I was gonna say, do you work with
Michelle Salas:Yes. Yes, we do great company. Yeah. We process some bad. Yeah. They're a great company. And we always wanna keep it domestic as well. You know, any of the materials that we collect from the plastic, the P E T that's something that our goal is to. Keep that material domestically and, and yeah, TRX is a great company. We do process some of those plastic bags in house to make you know, different products like, Oh, Yeah, actually what I was gonna say is that I got a little sidetracked and I forgot to mention a couple other services that we offer, please. So
Cory Connors:it's your show? Yes.
Michelle Salas:Thank you appreciate. Yeah. So some other services that we offer, we also offer recycling metrics to our clients. And this is something we've noticed that our clients really enjoy and appreciate. And we also see that it, it helps when it comes to motivating their staff members to recycle more and properly. And so our clients get to see their monthly reports, how much they, , how much they recycled per pickup. They can also check it on our lady green app. They can check their recycling metrics other services that we offer when we started recycling service with a business or school, whoever it is, we always create an education campaign. All of our services are completely customized, so we create flyers videos and everything, you know, To the, to the organization. And we also, as you know, we have educational books. We have a lady green club children's book. A recycling activity book and a compost toolkit. So right now, since we've been so busy, acquiring more business and operations, I haven't really spent a lot of time trying to develop like, like selling it. So what we're doing right now with our books is that we are you know, giving access that access to that, to our, all of our. So then they can already start. So that's something that like all of our,, schools or the younger folks have access to when they sign up with us, but they're also they can be doing it too donated too. So we are, we do work with sponsors. Like for example, they can sponsor a school like one year recycling program, you know, and, and they have, they get all the recycling tolds education campaign, the books. And so we do, we also offer sponsorship services, which that has always been, that's also been like a good ad for us because it opens up more opportunities. And now for example, we have clients that we re they recycle with us, but then they also sponsor one or two schools. And and, and we also noticed that they love, they enjoy that too. They really appreciate like, oh, we would be happy to sponsor a school yeah. For a year. And so, and the schools love it too, because it's free. And it's, you know, we, we are very, we cater to our, our clients, like we'll go and introduce the recycling program. We also you know, we keep in touch with 'em. If we see contamination, we send 'em reports. Send them pictures because we wanna make sure that the material that we collect is clean. And if we are seeing contamination, we, we wanna communicate that. So we can, you know, avoid that and then they're also learning as well. So that, that's amazing. Yeah. Education.
Cory Connors:Yeah, I was just gonna ask you about the books and the, the educational part of your business. Can you, yeah, lady green club. I love it. And just very well done. I was impressed by your, website and Michelle is for those listening is showing me on the, on the camera. So I'll put this on YouTube so you guys can all see it. Oh, okay. And I would like to know. Just outta curiosity. How much would it cost to, for somebody to come in and sponsor a school? A business maybe wants to sponsor what's what's an average.
Michelle Salas:Something like that. So I'll give you an average and, and this would be based on some schools and depending on the size, they may just need a once a month pickup or once every two weeks. So for example, if a, if, if a school's gonna get sponsored for once a month, it could be anywhere between. 1500 to $1,600. And that includes the education campaign, the recycling pickup, the processing, everything and that's worth for one year. So I, I actually think, you know, I, I personally think that's, that's a great deal. For everybody and schools, like I mentioned, they loved it.
Cory Connors:Well, and what an, a worthy cause we need to teach our youth what to do with this stuff. And so well done, $1,600 for a year to teach a whole school. Wow. What a, what a deal and good for you.
Michelle Salas:Yeah. And then we also, for example, we offer that like. Technically schools from outside of our region can, can also be sponsored on the education component. So for example, we don't have to be the haulers, but we can for ex implement the whole education campaign. So we'll study their actual recycling program. Then we'll create all the campaigns, all the videos, the videos will show, like, for example, the, the school logo or the company logo. Like I said, everything tailored to it and and yeah, so that's another way too, that we're able to ha reach outside of south Florida, you know? And, and because education is important, as long as they have the education part. Because every, as you know, as, as I'm sure, you know, wherever you go, depending on where you go, the recycling markets may vary. Yeah. For example, in Miami, there's not a recycling market and other states, I'm sure there's, they're recycling or they're composting, stuff like that. So every program needs to be customized to whatever they're picking up.
Cory Connors:Wow. No recycling in Miami that's really. That's for glass, for glass. Oh, just for glass.
Michelle Salas:Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's something that we also wanna be able to, to accept eventually. But it is it is a material that you know, it's. There's other materials that are easier to process, and these could be and you mix them. And but, but hopefully, maybe within the year, I wanna start collecting that. But right now we're, we're really starting to like focus on just, well, like getting a lot. We're, we're really busy getting all these type of materials and processing them. So I wanna just make sure that, you know, that continues growing steady. and then I'll worry about that stream, because like I said to us, the urgency is the plastics and there's so much of it and that's not being collected that, you know, we gotta, we gotta go after it
Cory Connors:and you're not just recycling. You're turning that material into new things. Mm-hmm is that, is that true? Can you speak to that a little bit
Michelle Salas:for the audience? Yeah, absolutely. So we're currently processing in house H D P E . And P P plastic and some L D P, which is like the soft plastics and the, for the P E T bottles, actually, that's what I originally wanted to start processing in house because there's, there's a lot more of that. But since we currently have semi-industrial machines, because what I wanted to do too, when I launched, I, I pivoted about a year and a half ago, I like to start processing our plastic. So this happens like, yeah, almost maybe two years. I had for a while, for years, I've been like always been wanting to do this for a long time, but you know what? It was hard getting funding and all that. And, but, but things are, are better now. And so I wanted to find a way how to strengthen the plastic recycling market. So finally, I got my machines and what I wanna do is like our, our goal is to build a demand for. Before I invest in, in more robust machinery. And so and also part of this, what I'm doing is, is part of it's. It's mainly because of the education part, because we also do a lot of educational footage and videos about the process, how it goes. And we also make products for our clients, from the waste, the recyclables that we get from them. So that way they can see the, you know, the entire circle. So these processing, we're doing it for clients. Lemme see, we have a, this is like a coaster that we made for a client. Awesome. Thank you. And so we can also, we have a a CNC machine, so we can basically make, you know, many different kinds of molds from whatever the client wants. It could be different kinds of key chains, coasts, whatever you name, but we also make other, we make tables, recycling bins. What else? Key chains. And
Cory Connors:could you, could you make some with some key chains with this logo on.
Michelle Salas:yes, we can. But that's one thing I have learned though. One thing we have learned in this process of, of, with the CNC machine, because we it's only been we got the CNC machine, just, I think sometimes this year and basically it's doable, but we know it's with this one. The more details you have it on it, the more work.. And so that's just something to take into consideration. Like, cause we'll do it, but it'll take us, it'll take a long time when you have more details like that. Yeah. But if you, if you need something more simple, like something like with wording or shape, so that's part of also like, there's definitely been a learning curve on, because I'm involved in this and it's been exciting because I didn't, you know, I didn't know anything really about machines, so yeah. I've learned a lot in the process of like building our machines where, you know, our. Or processing tech that, you know, he's very talented in creating our machines and in process. So it's been fun. And so this is what I wanna show our clients, our our schools, this whole process. So then they can see you know, from the cons, you know, what happens to the material from the point that you use it to when you take it to the recycling bin. And then what happens after that? Yeah., the PT that's that material, the bottles we bail. And so we bail onto the point that once it gets once, once we're able to fill up a container, then we sell it. And like I mentioned, we're only our goal is to only work domestically with buyers because we're really just trying to close the loop here, , in the us, there's, there's a lot opportunity. Anyway, there's a lot of buyers now that are very interested in PT versus few years ago. So that's that I remember years ago, that's, that's why I actually started. I decided to start, you know bailing our stuff and because I couldn't find buyers for any of this. and I knew I had to do something because it's either you know, I, I risk losing business or I, I just need to expand, I need to find other ways. And that was a scary move. You know, honestly, that, for that I did, but I'm glad I did it because you know, it really turned everything around and and. And that's what we need to do. That's what we need to do. So now we bail and we try to process as much as we can in house. So
Cory Connors:that's excellent. What do you think of the new I think it's Coke or Pepsi that has this new program where the cap is designed to stay on. Is that helpful for a recycler?
Michelle Salas:Yeah. You know what I would say that's helpful for, for general. Recycling. I, I say like that should be the like real thumb. But for example, we do have programs where we'll promote like accumulate your bottle caps because we do have a rebate program for the hard to recycle plastics, which would be bottle caps, HTP. The PP, any of the plastics that we're processing in house. And so when it's like a specific recycle, like a customized program, we can announce it that way. But generally we tell our clients just leave the bottle cap. It's, it is easier. And I know that that's what recyclers in general prefer. So we are trying to avoid confusion, but at the same time, I do think it's important that. You know, that education is, is customized to the specific region because I that's also where there's a lot of wish for recycling. And yeah. So anyways, I think it's a, it's a good idea to leave it on.
Cory Connors:Well, thank you so much. What about you? Oh yeah, so much, so much going on, but I really appreciate your, your wisdom and your time today. Is there anything else that you wanted to tell the audience about, about your capabilities or anything new coming up that you, you wanted to announce?
Michelle Salas:Yeah, well, actually we, we have some really exciting news that I hope to announce soon I can right now cause it's not final. Okay. But that should be some really exciting news to, to announce. And what I would say if anybody would like to reach out to me For any questions. If I can help feel free to reach out to our Instagram, I'm always like reading emails there at lady green recycling, or you could go to our website, lady green, miami.com. You can email us at the email on the website. I read them all. So if I can help you in any way, I know there's a lot of startups or people interested in getting into the business and you know, I'm always happy to share, you know, any information that I.
Cory Connors:Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Michelle. Awesome, awesome story. And keep up the great work I'd like to thank Lance Aurora for sponsoring this podcast. If you're listening, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the next episode and, and give us a review. We appreciate that. Make sure to download all the episodes so you don't miss them. Thank you so much, Michelle. We appreciate it.
Michelle Salas:Thank you so much, Corey, for having me on had a great time.
