Group Lead, Ved Krishna
World Centric has done so much for the compostables industry, and inspired Ved in his journey as well. Having them on the show was a no-brainer – but what we learned was so much more than we expected. The paths that resource recovery managers Elly Ventura and Erin Levine have followed are so exciti
0:00 – waste or trash anymore but we were trying to get sustainable materials...
hello hello I’m so excited today to have Ellie Ventura and Erin Le is that how you say your name Erin LaVine LaVine I thought I must have mispronounced that sorry for that but excited to have both of you on the show and of course as we were saying before we started that world Centric has played such a huge part in our journey I don’t think even aim
11:00 – industry and I coming from the composting space I trusted the brand...
people that were in the agricultural space who taught me so much and and I started getting more interested in soil health and really this connection you know to our food system and that was to me I I was I did that for a long time with with a lot of pleasure and joy I just really thought and then seeing the end product after 3 years in place when p
23:00 – compost is a much more powerful solution to climate change than recycling...
of operations serving about 26,000 humans um so I’ll just give the the secrets to to that success is that we as a solid waste management um operation we had six drop off facilities that were all fully staffed and so that was the main way that materials came in so we had sitec site attendant there who were monitoring and talking to people as they we
34:00 – petroleum based plastic or recycled content plastic were were purely compostable and...
not super stable way to to run his to run a business so started selling fair trade and compostable Food Service items as a revenue line to help support those um events those awareness raising events and then pivoted in about 2009 um the compostable part was really catching on and getting really popular so pivoted then to a for-profit business selli
46:00 – P out of all of the molded fiber packaging and paper products...
legislation now for labeling on compostables and the material either like for Washington State needs to be green beige or brown and because our products are naturally brown with because we don’t bleach them we already are in compliance so it’s it’s it’s like one of these things that it’s just been the right choice from the beginnings and Asim has a
58:00 – you're going to have to recycle your Plastics and metals and cardboard...
see an end of life option in their region they kind of disregard our product potentially like I’ve heard when I’ve promoted the the concept of being compostable I’ve heard in feedback oh is it combustible and things like that because people are not even aware that’s not a um a regular term in some regions of the country that just simply don’t have
69:00 – Plastics and compostable Plastics um and fiber that has a lining that's...
challenging reality is our lack of infrastructure in general right we we struggle in the US to have organic processing facilities located conveniently to the outlets where we need them to be permitting is really hard it’s expensive to get new ones up and running so there are some real challenges to accessibility I think that is the big thing um and
81:00 – excites me is innovation and really working again with the natural materials...
of that how do you guys see World Centric impacting in the next say five years Horizon what will be your dream Erin maybe you go first yeah I wish I had a crystal ball to really to do uh but I what excites me is innovation and really working again with the natural materials without chemical modification I want to just emphasize that because it’s I
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