S8 Ep 2: Regen Reset Wellness: Driving Continuous Waste-Reduction Through Digital Solutions with Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli
“We're doing some work, but not enough work. We need to move away from just talking about our impact, and we need to actually start making an impact.” —Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli
Digital tools hold great potential to transform waste management strategies. By tracking waste data and providing actionable insights, new technologies can optimize diversion efforts and maximize recycling rates. This revolution in waste analytics promises to make resource recovery vastly more efficient and sustainable.
Waste Administration and Tracking Software (WATS) is a waste management software company co-founded by Meredith Dannenberg. It provides tools to help businesses track, measure, and reduce their waste streams like trash, recycling, compost, and e-waste.
Listen in as Meredith shares insights about digitizing waste data and processes, understanding local composting guidelines, choosing a co-founder wisely, addressing the issue of food loss, and focusing on action over just measuring impact.
Connect with Meredith:
Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli built services and operations as Exec Director of Common Ground Compost LLC from 2017-2022. She sits on the US Composting Council board of directors and was a founding member of the New York City Microhaulers and Processors Trade Association. She believes that materials literacy and upstream/downstream supply chain transparency are foundational building blocks of the circular economy. Meredith is a TRUE Zero Waste Advisor.
Episode Highlights:
03:48 Waste Reduction and Entrepreneurship
09:26 Recycling Best Practices
16:03 Streamlining Waste Management with Digital Tools
22:01 Co-Founding a Software Company
29:13 Addressing Food Loss Across the Supply Chain
Tweets:
It’s time to get smart about your scraps! Tune in as @jreichman and WATS CEO, Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli share how technology is revolutionizing resource recovery. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #Season8 #ModernTechnology&Innovation #WATS #SAaS #greentech #ZeroWaste #wastemanagement #recycling #compost #circulareconomy #foodloss
Inspirational Quotes:
04:25 “It's easier not to try… as opposed to the conversation about the larger picture and finding your place in there to have your own impact.” —Justine Reichman
09:19 “A zero waste ecosystem, a circular economy looks very different than our economy today. And it's much more mutually supportive than the way we operate right now.” —Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli
09:51 “Try to compost… because it's not always possible and it's not always easy and that's not your fault.” —Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli
10:35 “Food waste reduction is one of the biggest things that we can all do at home and in our businesses to reduce the negative impacts of waste disposal.” —Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli
12:33 “Humans are the first line of defense at the recycling center.” —Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli
13:29 “If you contaminate your compost with the wrong thing, it discredits the whole thing that you're doing.” —Justine Reichman
17:04 “If we're able to see and understand the systems that function behind the scenes, it's easier for us to participate in them, and it's also easier for us to trust that they're actually working.” —Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli
21:08 “We're doing some work, but not enough work. We need to move away from just talking about our impact, and we need to actually start making an impact.” —Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli
33:44 “We already produce enough food to feed all of the humans on planet Earth. We're just failing at it as a civilization.” —Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Good morning and welcome to Essential Ingredients. My name is Justine Reichman, and I'm your host. Today with me is Meredith Danberg Ficarelli. And I'm super excited to have you here to learn more about what you're doing, and to share that with the community.
So welcome, Meredith.
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: Thank you.
Justine Reichman: For those that are not familiar with you and what you do, would you please introduce yourself, your position, and what you do?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: Sure. Meredith Danberg Ficarelli, I am the Co-Founder and CEO of WATS. As an acronym, it stands for Waste Administration and Tracking Software, the more colloquial version is that I am a waste expert. I'm obsessed with trash. I've been working at the intersection of commercial waste and sustainability since about 2011. I sit on the Board of Directors of the US Composting Council. And I think that's really what brings us here today. It's love of food and a recognition of the massive loss of nutrient density and value in our soils that brought me to becoming obsessed with composting. And that was my gateway drug into waste management. And here we are.
Justine Reichman: So with all of that, because that's quite broad. I do want to get further into and talk about the difference between food loss and food waste, and where you sit in there. But I'd love for you, can you just talk a little bit about your speciality and where it fits within this larger picture?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: Sure, thank you for asking that. I am a true waste advisor. True Zero Waste is the US Green Building Council's Certification that people can get focused on waste reduction, essentially. And on the steps that businesses can take, initially, the target was really manufacturing entities. But any business can become truly certified. True stands for total resource use, I always forget the E. Excellent. Anyway, the goal with the work that we do, whether it's as a true advisor or more broadly as a waste consultant, a waste expert is to understand the full picture. What type of business are you? Where are you located? How many staff do you have? What type of work do you do? And especially looking at what's leaving in the trash cans. But it's not just about educating people on where to put the empty can at the end of the day. Why is that in your hand in the first place? Who did it come from? Is there a way that we can shift purchasing so that we can make sure that the materials that are in people's hands or in our manufacturing processes and off cuts can be reduced or shifted towards more reusable products that will ideally save money over time. And of course, reduce waste, which will also ideally reduce costs as it associates to your waste bills. But it's fairly complex.
Justine Reichman: The goal is to really change the conversation in people's heads.
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: Behavioral changes are part of it. We like to sneak that in there by building transparency into an operation. We find that there's a lot of cynicism. A lot of apathy from people who say recycling isn't real. Only 7% of the plastics that were produced have been recycled, and these statistics, 7 to 9%, that whatever it changes depending on where you're getting your data while they might be real. There's an entire realm of materials management, Reclamation reuse recovery, that not only already exists, but is growing really rapidly as a result of demand investment. And what we're trying to do is show people how these things are functioning as a method to motivate them to participate and to see that there are things actually going on.
Justine Reichman: I think it's so important because I think, many times, we feel overwhelmed by how to address these things? What to do? And oftentimes, there's just so much. It becomes overwhelming, and maybe even a little intimidating. And I think that sometimes, at least I can speak for myself, I get overwhelmed by how I'm not going to be able to succeed that it's easier not to try, and then it becomes a focus on what you're not doing as opposed to the conversation about the larger picture about the environment and the planet, and finding your place in there to have your own impact.
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: That's right. I think a lot of people who are either already climate aware or becoming aware, maybe see the fact that, gosh, it's a very large percentage, 90 something. I'm making that up so don't quote me on the world's emissions. I think it's like 97 or more percent come from companies, right? It's a result of companies, use of utilities and manufacturing of products and all of these things. The individual portion is so small that it's very easy to say that it doesn't matter what I do. Why should I bother walking instead of driving two blocks? But the impacts of just using that idea that I pulled out of the back of my head, walking two blocks helps you to build community which helps to build resiliency, which helps to support essentially a continuation of civilization when things happen, which they do. They are happening at an increasing rate right now. We need to take a much broader perspective into what it means to participate, and what it means to matter as well.
Justine Reichman: So what drew you to waste?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: I'm really lucky. My master's degree is in urban policy and sustainability management from the new school. I was in that program in the summer of 2011 when I traveled with some other students to Beirut in Lebanon. I was placed by my professor with a nonprofit organization that runs the oldest Farmers Market that has a farm to table restaurant in Beirut. I got there by the second or third day and they were trying to figure out like, what do we do with these interns that we have for the summer? And they said that they had always been interested in being a zero waste restaurant, but had never had anyone to step in and help support them, do the research, figure out what steps to take. And I was like, I'll learn what a waste it is. I'll try to figure that out. And it was really that I learned about waste, I learned about food waste. I learned that they as a farm to table restaurant actually generated almost no trash, less than 5% by weight of their waste was not organic. Meaning plastic, or metal, or glass or any other material type, which is very unusual. Generally, a restaurant will have anywhere from 35 to 60% by weight of their waste will be organic waste. We'll get to the point about food loss versus food waste later, but like the bug bit me or whatever. I got home to New York, I had one semester left, I wrote my thesis on this project and actually moved back to Beirut for 15 months. Co-Founded a nonprofit organization. They're focused on waste reduction. The timing wasn't great. Refugee crisis among many other things going on at the time there so I ended up coming back to New York. And it's actually where I met my now Co-Founder. We started working together in 2015. So it's been a long and slow build to where I am today.
Justine Reichman: So you came back to New York, you found your Co-Founder, and you built this company. What are you most hopeful for with this company?
“A zero waste ecosystem, a circular economy looks very different than our economy today. And it's much more mutually supportive than the way we operate right now.” —Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: Scaling the impact, scaling access to tools that can help businesses reduce waste, that's our goal. We were consulting together and then separately, but on kind of parallel tracks in New York helping businesses with waste reduction, and recognise that he didn't feel like our knowledge was reaching as many people as it needed to have the impact that the world needs in terms of waste reduction, in terms of access to information, access to services amongst so many other things. And so that's what I think about it's waste reduction at a very large scale. And the broader vision which I will only say in brief, because I will talk about this for hours, is more decentralized, more opportunities and more localized areas for reuse, for example, glass bottles that can be recollected and sanitized instead of single use. That's not just about, oh, we need to demonize single use products. It's also about needing to rebuild infrastructure to wash materials, and create small companies that can provide those services. So a zero waste ecosystem, a circular economy looks very different from our economy today. And it's much more mutually supportive than the way we operate right now.
“Food waste reduction is one of the biggest things that we can all do at home and in our businesses to reduce the negative impacts of waste disposal.” —Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli
Justine Reichman: So if there was one thing that you could recommend to a new business owner or an existing business that wanted to make an impact, but maybe can't do everything, one small step or one small thing that they could do to have an impact, positive impact.
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: Part of compost, that's the first one. And I say try, because it's not always possible, and it's not always easy. And that's not your fault. Not every municipality has a composting service available, whether through the municipality or through a private entity. But there are a lot of small scale, frequently minority and women owned businesses that are picking up food scraps on foot, or by bicycle, or in a small box truck. But you might need to do a little bit more research to find out. But those are going to have more of an outsized impact in terms of your carbon savings, and in terms of the support that you have for your community. But the reason I say that is that food waste reduction is one of the biggest things that we can all do at home and in our businesses to reduce the negative impacts of waste disposal.
Justine Reichman: I think I'm gonna go look for one of those organisations where I live.
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: I don't know where you are in California, but we can talk later.
Justine Reichman: I have a feeling that if any place is going to have it accessible, it's going to be here. So what do you wish these Founders knew or were more educated on in this process to break down barriers and make it more accessible?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: When you say Founders, do you mean the companies that we're working with?
Justine Reichman: Anybody that's going to potentially be a client, or somebody that is starting a business because our listeners are Founders, researchers, everyday people that are just trying to make more informed decisions. So yeah, if you're talking to this audience, is there one thing that you wish they knew that is often not known or overlooked?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: I mean, I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier where every little action really does matter. The butterfly effect is very real. Knowing the rules, knowing how you're supposed to participate in your waste and recycling program in the place where you are really matters. This is because waste infrastructure is highly localized, every city, or every municipal area, or district, or region, or county depending on the municipal breakdown is going to have different waste infrastructure. So what you can recycle in one place and which bin it goes into is going to be different than somewhere else. It is very confusing. But generally, you can visit a municipal website, and it can guide you to understand how you're supposed to participate. That is really important because humans are the first line of defense at the recycling center. So once your bin gets emptied into the bin outside, gets picked up by the truck, it goes to a place where it usually gets tipped onto a big recycling floor. And then there's some machinery that starts to move that material over a very complicated set of conveyor belts. But the first thing that happens is there are people standing over a conveyor belt trying to pull out the contamination, things like plastic bags, if those are not accepted in a program. If you clean out your refrigerator and you see that moldy jar of marinara sauce on the back shelf, empty it out and rinse it before you put it in your recycling bin. These small things make a really big impact on the people whose job is to make sure that the systems function the way that they should.
“If you contaminate your compost with the wrong thing, it discredits the whole thing that you're doing.” —Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: You touched on, if you contaminate your compost with the wrong thing, it discredits the whole thing that you're doing. And then none of it is compostable or recyclable. Is that accurate?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: It entirely depends on the system. So I'll use a couple examples. When I was still running the last company that I was running, which was originally founded by now Co-Founder, a lot of the family here, we were picking up food scraps by bicycle from offices in Manhattan. That company still exists, it's called Common Ground Compost. And that service is called reclaimed organics. They're still collecting food scraps from offices. Initially, they were hand removing contamination when they saw it in the bins. But truthfully, it just started to get too much. And so they would either find the companies for non compliance or essentially leave the material and say that this isn't clean enough because they were composting that material in a community garden by themselves or bringing it to a really small scale compost facility. Granted, though, in those environments, it's still a person's first line of defense. They can remove that contamination by hand, it's just a lot of extra work. It's pretty gross. I don't think people contaminate waste streams out of spite. But at a larger scale, it really does depend if it's many, many, many jars of moldy marinara sauce in the recycling truck. When that truck compacts the material, those jars explode. And then marinara gets all over everything. That's gonna be a problem. It's hard to clean. It's pretty oily. But if it's contained, it really depends. And before I get too deep down this rabbit hole, it's always best to read the rules. And generally, the concept to think about is 10% contamination. If there's more than 10% contamination, which is like marinara sauce in a jar on the item, you either should rinse it first or put it in the trash. But ideally, we're not putting things in the trash. But when it comes to greasy pizza boxes, some facilities have no problem taking greasy pizza boxes. They just don't want pizza in the box. But other facilities can't take any grease at all. So it really does depend.
Justine Reichman: Wow, that's super interesting. I feel like I got a really good, useful education there. It makes it more tangible because my challenges, as I explained, I just don't know. And you're right, it really is town or city specific. I know where our compost, our garbage is all part of Mill Valley. Mill Valley has really strict guidelines. You go somewhere else, maybe San Rafael, or I don't know, Brooklyn or New York City. And maybe they have a different set of rules. So it's really important, I think, to check those out. And if you get those guidelines, put them up on your refrigerator and see if you can. Because by the time you do it and become rote, then you remember it, I think.
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: That's right. And it does change sometimes. Again, not your fault as a result of new infrastructure or changing product materials. So it's something that we have to be re-educating ourselves constantly, which is certainly a challenge. But it's where this idea of transparency comes back in. If we're able to see and understand the systems that function behind the scenes, it's easier for us to participate in them. And it's also easier for us to trust that they're actually working.
Justine Reichman: I want to talk a little bit about what you do for your client? What impact have you seen as you work directly with these clients? And you see them implement these new processes, so I'd love it if you maybe could share a story about one of the clients, what you've created with them and the impact it's had on your company and on the environment.
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: We're still pretty early. Our software has been live and in use by companies for a little more than a year. And as an early stage software company, it's been like Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill tried to just get stuff into people's hands. Kind of like stories of success that I have are pretty niche right now. But for example, one of our customers is a burger chain that has 400 locations, and a lot of the work that's associated with managing the contracts for their waste vendors for those 400 locations. The service issues, my dumpster has a broken wheel, or pickup issues. The recycling truck never came was very manual. They basically had a massive spreadsheet, and they were trying to organize all of the contact information, the collection schedules and the infrastructure, all of these things in this one spreadsheet. We've digitized all of that into a few features. One of them is called Waste Flow that actually digitizes the infrastructure at a site, how it moves through the site, who's responsible for moving it so that you can have stakeholder accountability, but also training can be a lot more efficient. And just by centralizing access to the contact information and the vendors, and then the data that's associated with all of those invoices, we're saving them a lot of time, and being able to really focus their energy on working with the sites that have the lowest diversion. Meaning they're recycling the least, rather than just trying to keep their heads above water and responding to these service issues that are happening.
So right now, the software is very focused on Waste Operations and Metrics Management. So making reporting much easier. So another one of our clients is using WATS, because we are automating the ingestion of their waste data from all of their invoices across all of their sites, as well as some other data sources. And then we're automating the calculation, what percent is each site recycling? How much carbon savings? Does that equate to, which is making their job easier because they're not in an Excel sheet all day long. I'll just wrap by saying, what we're building towards is an automated ecosystem that helps these businesses know what steps to take in order to reduce waste over time. Now that we have the foundation, WATS can start to learn about an entity, where are you? What business type are you? How much waste are you generating? What are your goals? And they can start to push these action plans that can be basically assigned to different stakeholders so that they know what steps to take, and they can track that progress over time.
“We're doing some work, but not enough work. We need to move away from just talking about our impact, and we need to actually start making an impact.” —Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli
Justine Reichman: That's amazing. There's so much to what you're building and so many objectives and goals. I know that you've gone over a lot, but what's the most revolutionary aspect of what you're building and offering?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: From what we've heard from the businesses that we work with, just to try to pair it with some of that feedback, it is the fact that we're stepping into the building itself. We're not just focused on accounting, we're really trying to focus on action. And this is something that we're starting to hear, today was a big day for climate announcements. I know this will come out a little bit later. But November 14th, if anyone's curious, basically, the globe is not on track. We're doing some work, but not enough work. And that we need to move away from just talking about our impact, and we need to actually start making an impact. And that's the thing that I think really stands out is that we've built our software product with this vision towards action, as opposed to just focusing on helping people measure the status quo.
Justine Reichman: There's so much to that. And I think that a lot of the folks listening to this podcast or tuning into the videocast have a lot of takeaways from this so that they can make small improvements. The goal is not to overwhelm people, but to give them baby steps in mind, so that people feel like they're having success. And as they have more success and they get access to more information, they can have a greater impact. And it sounds like you're giving them the tools that they need to be able to do that. That's certainly the goal. That's your goal. You keep mentioning me, and I hear you mention your Co-Founder, so tell me, how do you guys work together? What are your respective roles here? What do you guys each focus on with your different specialties?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: Yeah. My Co-Founder's name is Laura Rosenshine. We met back in 2011. Actually, we sat next to each other when I was in grad school and she was taking a continuing ED course in Sustainability while she was transitioning out of the advertising industry. But we didn't know each other then. We re-met, probably 2014, when my job brought her in as the local waste expert. And I was like, well, I wonder what she knows about trash. And we stayed in touch. After that, she had founded a small consulting company and hired me at the end of 2015 to join her team. And then whatever, long story, we've now created a new company together. We're still learning what each of our strengths are and what we're best at. She recently took managing PTO off my plate, because it's like the thing that's at the absolute bottom of my preference list. Thank you, Laura. But she's really focused on the product and runs our engineering team. So she's really deep in what we're building, what our roadmap is. And she's also managing our active client conversations.
So our current customers, she's their touch point. I'm focused right now on sales, business development, fundraising when we're getting back into the fundraising motion, and kind of the strategic side of the business. But we make decisions together. We kind of brainstorm all the time. I work remotely, she's based at our office in New York City. I'm there about once a month. So when I am there, we're pulling like 18 to 20 hour days just talking all day long. And we speak multiple times a day to catch each other up. But I'd say that one of the things that we're working through now is kind of where to draw the line in terms of decisions that have to be made so that we can move on in our day, versus things that we really need to talk through and kind of chew over together. But I think that this is all part of the growing pains of running an early stage software company that needs to grow really quickly.
Justine Reichman: Yeah. And I also think it's interesting, because I've been a solo founder a couple times. And so my question to you is, you're not a solo founder, you are a co-founder and working with people is like being in a marriage. So what's that like?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: It's like being in a marriage. That's the shortest way to put it. My friend laughed that it's like I'm in two marriages. I have a husband and I also have a co-founder. And for her, I think it's the same thing. There are good days and bad days. It can be as much as we communicate. Sometimes we realize that we're not really communicating. So we have a lot to learn. We're working with a founder coach, as well to kind of help us alleviate some of the pressure, and make sure that we can focus on doing the work rather than focusing on the fray.
Justine Reichman: I think that's so important. And what do you think she'd say about you as your biggest asset or the thing that she relies on you? And she's like, no, go talk to Meredith. She's the one.
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: That's funny. I actually thought you were gonna go the other way and be like, what's the thing that makes her want to pull her hair out? I think it would probably be kind of like, we both have a really intense and massive vision for what we're building. And we've grown that vision together. But I think part of it might be the succinctness with which I can communicate based on who I'm speaking to, what it is that we're trying to build here. And generally, the communication skills side of things. If somebody needs to write an email, it's gonna be me.
Justine Reichman: Well, that's a good person. I get one of those because I'm good. I want to have conversations. But finding the emails, the salutations, I just want to get down to business. So what do you think she'd say, oh, my God, Meredith makes me pull my hair out on this. This is my biggest pet peeve.
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: I get really excited about new ideas, or new things, or ideas about the vision and will say them at inopportune times when maybe there isn't time to dive in. So I think that's probably a meeting to focus versus time to chat.
Justine Reichman: I think it's like a genetic part of being an entrepreneur that we always have more ideas. You're always creating in our head, oh, my god. But you're still here. And you still need to dig into this and digest that before you can go to the next one. Or else you're gonna be scattered everywhere. But I empathize with you there because I'm always coming up with new ideas. I'm like, wait, focus, focus, focus. Yeah, write it down. Take a note.
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: I have to always have a notebook open next to me or nothing gets done.
Justine Reichman: For those founders that are watching this, people starting new businesses with co founders, do you have any tips for them in choosing their co-founder?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: I feel like I'm a bit of an anomaly where we've been working together for so long at this point. And lots has been something that we've been thinking of building towards since 2018. I feel like I don't really have the same experience to point to when choosing a co-founder. I know other founders who have been through the process. And I guess I can share a little bit of what they've said, which is like, take your time before you get married. Make sure you really know the person, know your values. I guess this is relevant across the board where you want to be five years or what considering your exit plan, your hope is different than what your potential co-founders hope is for where the company either will lead itself, where you will lead the company, or where you will be at that point? I think that's a really, really important one.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, I think that it's so important, because we get excited. And sometimes, getting excited moves us along at a much more rapid pace. And you need to take a moment and pause. Get to know each other, get to understand our shared values, our different skill sets, and how they come together,to see how we're going to work together. I try everything for three months with people, whether it's a partnership or anything. Let's see how we get along for three months. Let's see if we share our core values. Let's see how that works. It's like dancing. You go back and forth so you want to see how you dance together. I don't know if that makes sense.
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: Yeah. Oh, totally. You said three months, and I was thinking about what they say about when you adopt a dog, but their personality changes in three days, three weeks, three months and three years. There are different kinds of tears to the dog getting used to you and the new situation. So there are a lot of parallels.
Justine Reichman: We had touched on this a while ago in the very beginning, and I just wanted to go back to it. So it's taking a little detour from talking about you and your co-founder. But equally, I didn't want to forget that we were going to chat about this and talk a little bit about food loss versus food waste. And where your organization comes into play. Is it just for food waste? Or does it also talk about food loss, and helping people on those journeys as well and cutting down on it?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: WATS focuses on all waste streams. So trash, recycling, compost, reusable electronic waste, mattresses, whatever you have. But to drill into the kind of organic material. Specifically, there are a couple categories that we can think about composting or organics recycling more broadly, because composting isn't the only type of recycling should ideally be an outlet only for food scraps, as I call them. Many people call them. The pits, the peels, the stems, the leftover parts of food that arguably, we could also probably use more than we do. But once I eat the banana, what's left? Food donation is another waste stream that a user could add in the WATS platform to their building or their business. So if you imagine a hotel or a large office building that has a cafeteria with a kitchen, food donations are the kind of the outcome of overproduction, which ideally are kept in a food safe environment. They're packaged in a way that can be easily transported, and the way that one can think about what food should be donated versus not donated. It's a question of dignity. If you were the person who was eating that food, would you want to eat it in the state that it's in?
Of course, there's a food safety layer on top of this. That's arguably more important, but that's the thing to keep in mind. And food loss can be thought of on a spectrum that happens across the food supply chain ranging from production to harvest. I'm probably going to get the statistics wrong, and folks should look at the ReFED website, R-E-F-E-D, if they're curious about these statistics. Unbelievable mind blowing stats built in a really, really cool interface. But I want to say that about 16% of agricultural production are rather 16% of wasted food comes from the fields, which is basically farmers can't control how large or how wonky their vegetables they grow. And we have a very, very massive and industrialized food manufacturing industry that doesn't accept carrots with two legs instead of a carrot with one leg, for example. But food loss can also be that wasted food in the cafeteria. And so there's a whole spectrum of business opportunities and also opportunities for restructuring how we think of systems in order to solve these problems, feed more people. We already produce enough food on planet Earth to feed all of the humans on planet Earth. We're just failing at it as a civilization.
Justine Reichman: What are some hard hitting stats that you could state in regards to food waste?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: 40% of what we grow in the United States never makes its way to a plate. That's number one. Again, that's a stat from ReFED. Might be a little bit old, maybe it's not 40% globally, that's 30% ish. Again, the US is ahead of the curve. That's the biggest one for me, recognizing that now it's probably more than 11%. But a good percentage of our population is food insecure. They don't know where their next meal is coming from. And the fact that when we put food waste in landfills, it is the largest contributor to methane from the landfill. And methane is a more potent greenhouse gas in terms of its warming potential than carbon dioxide. So it's a vicious cycle. Food can feed people, organics can be recycled and can become soil amendments for our soils, which have been massively depleted of nutrients and biodiversity as a result of conventional agriculture. This is an entire system that touches so much of our economy. When you think about these different phases, there are so many pieces of it that can be resolved if we think about reducing food waste, feeding people who are hungry, feeding animals, even before we get to the point of composting or anaerobic digestion to produce energy.
Justine Reichman: Meredith, thank you so much for that breadth of information. The resources that you've provided, and statistics that are staggering will hopefully inspire someone to start to make some change. So for those folks that are interested in learning more about whether it's you or your organization, how do they get in touch?
Meredith Danberg Ficarelli: As far as I know, I'm still the only Meredith Danberg Ficarelli on LinkedIn, so find me there. Lots is at getwats.com. You can see a little demo video there among other things. So find us on the internet. We'd love to talk to you. And if you work for a business, especially one that has multiple sites, multiple locations, we'd love to talk to you about potentially using the software.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thanks so much.
