A friend asked me to help her out at an event the other day. She has created a magical sustainability coaching business that provides support to businesses, homeowners, and humans of all kinds. She helps people understand the importance of being eco-friendly and reduce waste around the house (i.e. using glass containers to store your leftovers/lunch instead of Ziploc bags or setting up a home milk delivery from the dairy instead of buying it in the plastic gallon jugs); she outlines small steps anyone can take to decrease the speed of that tear in the Ozone layer,. You know the hole I speak of, the one that is causing catastrophic weather events, bouts of unexplained skin cancer, and is the copyright owner of the tagline, “Damn it never used to be this hot outside.”

My friend is a world-saving, bold, warrior woman who tells people how to shape up and be more friendly to Mother Earth, the OG mother who never gets a break.

My friend’s company is called Eco-Minded, and she is lifting it off of the ground like a mighty rocket. With blood, sweat, and probably tears, she has spread her roots to the music festival scene.

What Eco-Minded does is incredible. The team goes to festival events and they sort the trash to ensure that the recycling actually gets recycled and also decreases the amount of unnecessary waste going to landfills by sorting compostables in a compost bin as well (biggest compost bin ever by the way).

Take a peek at her website if you have a minute, she is a badass lady.

Think of the countless concerts and jams you have attended where all of those shiny, groove-inducing bottles and cans containing remnants (or full gulps) of magic juice go straight in the trash, where they do not belong. We all used to think, “Man, if someone recycled this stuff, they would probably make the world a better place.” She capitalized on that shit if I ever saw it.

My friend asked me if I wanted to work one of her events, AND she even paid me, which was a sweet bonus considering the job description was made of dreams and rainbows, dumpster-diving aside. The gig I signed up for was Trash Sorter, but we all know the actual title was Waste Warrior- A Simple Music Festival Lover, Showing the World How Easy It Is to Do the Right Thing, One Compostable, Half-Eaten BBQ Platter and Recyclable Plastic Cup Full of Unfinished Beer at a Time. Note, both platter and cup were harmed in the making of this story; both were thrown in the trash. In front of my very eyes. Ouch, humanity. Hit me, baby, one more time. Right in the gut, please.

Our team was mighty. Made of five, steady full-timers that expanded as large as nine deep at one point in time (we had some floater litter patrollers who knocked the socks off of the gig). We fought hard, we braved the extremes, we took shit from no one (and got shit on no one), and we smiled at everyone.

Kindness was our weapon, and we were so green we even reeked of a certain semi-legal green plant that some of you are familiar with. In fact, that plant might have helped us cope/mask that garbage smell that followed us around like Pigpen’s cloud of shame. We were Helicopter Parents to the trash, recycle, and compost bins, never letting them out of our sight and always poking, prodding, and peering in. If someone threw something in the wrong bin, not only did they get a lesson in accountability (they always looked back to see how we handled it; some apologized, some grinned out of embarrassment, some did not look back until they were out of sight), but they also became educated on how we can help keep the world in OK shape if we take two more seconds to think and make a decision about that beer can we just chugged.

Do I want that beer can to live longer than I will, or would I like to help it reincarnate into a new beer can, meet a new lip lover, and fall in love all over again, only to be left for dead in a can with the other suckers? Of course I choose the latter, call me a hopeless romantic.

My observations from my eight hours I spent digging in the trash and sorting out the recyclables (all while jamming to live bands might I had…Third Eye Blind might I add; my 90s heart is happy):

1. PEOPLE ARE AWESOME. Today I heard and felt more gratitude than I have received in quite some time. And trust me, I worked in the LAB during COVID. The department where all the testing was done. During COVID times at the hospital, people thanked us all of the time, they bought us lunch, they sang us praises, hell, they even howled for us night at 8pm on the dot for a good year or so. But the genuine and kind nature of the thank yous that came my way during the festival event today were of an alien nature (a nice alien, in the same category as ALF and ET). Yes I know, I bitch a lot on this blog about how rude people can be, but deep down I know the world has a fine balance of good vs evil, the great usually outweighing the rotten. The kindness that came my way proved that people want this whole eco-friendly thing to work, but they are hesitant to put in the work. Rightfully so. It is not for the timid.
2. Being environmentally-conscious is worth the time and energy. Not only does saving the world require you to stick your arms two feet in a trash can to pull out a plastic cup and place it in the recycling bin, but being eco-friendly is sometimes more expensive and laborious than going to the store and buying a preservative-packed Lunchable that is drowning in plastic and probably shedding plastic into the processed lunchmeat section. It is easier to do the wrong thing and use the plastic, and that is what is wrong with this picture. Be prepared to work hard for sustainability, but please, please, please help us work diligently now to make it easier in the future. I am referring to the life that your cute grandkids, nephews, nieces, and children will be living out. You determine if in the future you would like for them to be able to walk outside safely or not.
3. Trash Juice, the name of my next band. Not sure how many times I said “trash juice is on my pants” today, but the group I was with probably wanted to drown me in it at some point in time out of annoyance. I am turning into my mother, and it is terrifying. Nonetheless, my pants, shirt, and arms were doused in a healthy dose of “trash juice” today. You decide what color it was.
4. Some people will do the wrong thing, intentionally or not, mostly because it is easier. They will look you in the eye, ask you which bin to use, and then throw the item in the opposite bin. People used to tell me, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
5. More people will throw the plastic cup in the trash bin when you aren’t looking. For the plastic cup, the trash is the wrong bin for all viewers out there – plastic can be recycled). Said people who gave the plastic cup a death sentence at the landfill will turn around to look at what happens next. They know you will not see them looking at you since this Waste Warrior is forearm deep in trash juice (literally cannot help myself from reincarnating this definition), digging out your plastic cup along with three other passerby’s cups. And if the person performed the act out of poor intentions (which I was told in corporate leadership that all people have good intentions) they usually move on, quickly, perhaps walking even faster than before, realizing the retributions of their choices they inflicted on the Recycling Queen. Who is soaking in a tub of beer remnants and pizza crust.
6. The work itself was easy, mostly because we were doing the right thing. Colorado Sunshine. Bluebird Day. Live Music.. Walking. Talking. Beer. Buds. Buddies. GOOD STUFF.
7. A tiny part of you dies inside when you find a full beer, an uneaten meal, an untouched cigarette, or an entire anything on the ground or wasted away in the garbage. An entire Oscar the Grouch has a seizure whenever this happens. You deal with that guilt and tell me how you go to sleep every night.
8. Stats Save Lives: At a glance, here is how the waste broke down for the day: Roughly 15% Landfill (the bad place), 35% Compost, 50% Recycling. That’s 85% eco-friendly if you think about it. Impressive. Here is a picture to prove it.

9. Had we not been there to sort it throughout the festival, it would have been about 75% Landfill, 20% Recycling, 5% Compost. Sad, but true.
10. ….we can help you. People are scared to understand how to save the world, recycle and compost.
    • Compost at a festival or live event (different from composting at home) = anything that can rot in less than one month. Not a McDonald’s French Fry, a cigarette, certainly not a plastic straw. Think napkins, paper plates and to-go containers with food.
    • Recycling = Aluminum, cardboard, plastic, sometimes glass. Teach your children well.
11. I walked 9.8 miles today, and it felt damn good.
12. The people who were on my team were true artists, and not only did I enjoy their company, but they helped me get out of one of my first bouts of writer’s block that has been haunting me this month. I have always dreamed of finding a troupe like the one Bob Dylan used to run around with, one full of storytellers and dreamers. It felt good to be around like-minded company.
13. I learned that the Ronald McDonald House pays its electric bill using soda tabs. Apologies for fry-shaming you earlier, that is a cool technique.
14. On top of all of the fun, we even squeezed in an impromptu dance party right before the last set was over. Dancing while picking up trash? Yes, please! Put me down for two.
15. Today was an awesome day. I hope you had a good one, too.