Episode 126: A Chat with WM’s First Chief Sustainability Officer (Tara Hemmer) (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Liz Bothwell: Hi everyone, welcome to Waste360's NothingWasted! Podcast. On every episode, we invite the most interesting people in waste recycling and organics to sit down with us and chat candidly about their thoughts, their work, this unique industry and so much more. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode.

[music]

[00:00:27] Liz: Hi everyone. This is Liz Bothwell from Waste360, and I'm with Tara Hemmer, Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer at Waste Management. Welcome, Tara, and thanks for being on the show again.

[00:00:39] Tara Hemmer: So nice to be here, Liz, and nice to be back. Thank you so much for having me. Excited about the conversation that we're going to have today. There's so much to discuss, and so much excitement at our company. There's a lot to unpack, for sure.

[00:00:55] Liz: I'm excited to dive into that. Just for context, could you please just give an overview of your impressive journey within the industry?

[00:01:04] Tara: Sure. As you mentioned, I just took a new role effective July 1st. I am WM's first Chief Sustainability Officer, but I've been with WM for over 22 years and started my journey in a technical role in New York City, building pretty large infrastructure projects on behalf of the company, and then moved over time into operations roles, and lead in the greater mid-Atlantic area, so New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania.

Led our recycling operations there, and built a couple of facilities, and then ultimately had the opportunity to lead the business in that particular market, and then ultimately took on a role leading the entire southern part of our operations. A big piece of that was really trying to leverage and grow our company and our platforms, not just in the traditional collection, and landfill space, but also a lot of our sustainable service offerings.

In the role that I'm in today, I have all the traditional aspects of a Chief Sustainability Officer. Think about reporting and a lot of the things that we have to report to broader stakeholders, but the other key piece of my role is I have growth elements. I lead our recycling organization, organics, renewable energy, and partnering with the rest of our senior leadership team to really look for other opportunities to use our platform to grow the company in the sustainability space.

A couple of other things I'll just mention. Like I said, I've been with the company for 22 years, and the industry that we're in, there's so many people that have been in companies, and industries for long periods of time, and the reason for that is there is so much opportunity, and there's a lot that still needs to be done. Our issues are complex, and we are at the intersection of so many different aspects of challenges for our customers. We're really excited to tackle that with them in a collaborative way.

[00:03:21] Liz: I bet. So exciting. I know you want to get your hands into everything, and just congrats on your new role. When I saw that, I couldn't think of a better person to really lead all of these important sustainability efforts there. What's interesting is this role really is the first of its kind among the larger public companies. What made you and Jim realize that now was the time to really create this role?

[00:03:45] Tara: It's interesting for us because if you look at our journey, we've been producing an environmental report before they were even called sustainability reports since 1993. We've been on this journey for a while related to transparency, and measuring key metrics, but when Jim and I talked about it, we are at this crossroads when we think about broader trends that are happening in the world.

You look at decarbonization, circularity, and supply chains, [inaudible 00:04:21] and customer preferences around sustainable goods and services, and you look at the diversity of our customer base. All of our customers are asking for sustainable solutions, not just today, but they're really thinking through what are some of the things they're going to need 10, 20 years from now. We really took a step back and said, "We're in a great position to offer these types of services in a consultative and collaborative way with that customer base, so what better time to have a senior leader focus their efforts on it, and really work very closely with the entire senior leadership team".

I like to say this is absolutely a team sport, and while I own big pieces of this, the only way that we're going to accomplish our goals around growth and also mitigating some of our own impacts is through the collective efforts of our senior leadership team, and most important, all of our people. If we can galvanize all of our people on the journey, we're going to have phenomenal impact for our stakeholders, for sure.

[00:05:37] Liz: For sure. I know that Waste Management just released its Sustainability Report, so our timing is impeccable. Can you dig into that a little bit? I know you mentioned recycling and people, and I know that's really what's leading the way in the report. I'd love to hear more about that.

[00:05:53] Tara: Sure. I think it's so fitting, and I mentioned people before, but when we took a step back and we were thinking about how to frame our 2021 Sustainability Report, which reports on the year 2020. We really send-- the year of 2020 was about our people and so the title of the report is the people behind our progress. Because there are so many things that happen on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis. If you look at our almost 50,000 employees across North America, and the work that they do each and every day.

Some of the things that we've been able to accomplish in, probably one of the most challenging years, and isn't one of the most challenging years, it was the most challenging year in our history. The fact that we were able to drive significant change, both in our environmental framework and also with our customers, our communities, and of course, from a social perspective with our people, that happened because there was clarity of focus around what we wanted to accomplish.

We set goals in 2018 that were 2030 goals, and two years ago we set interim goals to March towards 2025 in six key areas, and you're seeing us make progress there. I'll talk about those in a minute. The other thing I'll say is when you think about our people and what our people have done, they tackled challenges in 2020 and had to adapt to things that we never really thought possible.

The fact that we made progress on inclusion, equity, and diversity, and standing up programs like that. We reduced fleet emissions. We made progress on measuring landfill emissions. We increased the recycling of plastics quite significantly with the backdrop of all the other challenges that we had. It just gives me such hope and optimism for the future.

[00:08:11] Liz: That's fantastic. I'd love to hear how [inaudible 00:08:12] you are, especially in the role that you're in right now.

[00:08:17] Tara: Sure. I can talk a little bit about recycling, perhaps. I think that would be a good one to discuss because we've been on a journey related to recycling and really trying to drive increases in the entire recycling ecosystem. One of the things that we did was to start with driving strong demand for products that come through our material recovery facilities.

We did that in a couple of different ways. Two great examples is the partnership that we have with Cascade where we now have the cards that are at residential locations, that are made out of post-consumer content material. Then in 2020 and early 2021, we rolled out our employee uniforms, and what a fantastic story where you have one of our drivers who collects your recyclables and collect that PET bottle, that water bottle that you might've thrown in there, and were able to take that material to one of our partners, Unifi, and they turn it right back into a uniform that that employee is wearing.

All of these demand signals are critically important, and what we started to see in late 2020, and early 2021 is brands really wanted more recycled content material. Some of the investments that we made in our recycling facilities, really were showing that we could look for those types of materials that brands needed. Polypropylene is a great example where our polypropylene capture is up over 37% year over year, and we were able to sell that to markets.

Then the other key piece is on the plastic side. In 2020, we increased our plastic capture by over 25% and we're able to help many of the brands make progress on their goals. Plastics has been a huge focus of ours. It's 5% of our stream and 30% of the revenue from our MRFs and often 100% of the conversation. There are a bunch of different examples on the fiber side too.

Certainly, the investments that we've made strategically for the last three to four years, over a hundred-million-dollar investment per year in new recycling infrastructure technology. In 2021, we're on track for a hundred- and fifty-million-dollar investment and looking at strategically where there are infrastructure gaps that we can fill and help drive more materials into the recycling stream.

[00:11:09] Liz: Now, Tara, with that investment, was that actually building infrastructure? Was it the technology itself? What was that spent on?

[00:11:17] Tara: It's a myriad of things. We built a couple of what we were calling MRF for the Future. Now we're saying it's MRF of today, because the technology is here today, but also state-of-the-art technology. We have the Chicago facility, the Raleigh facility, the Salt Lake City facility, but beyond those three big facility rebuilds, we're looking at others like that going into 2021 through 2024-25.

We also are making targeted investments in many of our facilities with the goal of getting some of this next-gen technology in 95% of our single-stream facilities within the next three to four years. That is things like optical sorters, robots in some cases. What we're able to do here is take more material that might've been going out in residue that now has markets. Polypropylene is a great example of that where prior to us making some of the investments that we made, those are materials that didn't have markets.

Once we were able to work with brands on markets for those materials, we were able to capture it, take it out of the residue, reduce our contamination rate, which we measure and is one of our 2025 goals, and drive greater value for our customers.

[00:12:58] Liz: Great. How about organics, Tara? I know you all already do a lot in organics. With the policy changes and New Jersey really leading the way there as well, are you ramped up to really build that business now?

[00:13:16] Tara: Yes. Organics is interesting because it clearly is something that is very geographically focused, and it depends on what policies exist within certain states. Certainly, we've been on the journey on the West Coast for quite some time and have made some targeted investments in the East Coast. We have what we call a core facility in the Boston area, one in New Jersey, one in New York City and these are facilities that take source-separated food waste.

We are able to convert it into a bio-slurry, then we move that material to an existing municipal wastewater treatment plant and use their excess digester capacity to create renewable energy. We're looking at what other solutions are necessary in markets across the country, also partnering with our national accounts' customers. Especially within the food and retail space to understand what sort of solutions they need.

We certainly see this continuing to roll out in a more regional way, but we're also seeing that there are a lot more customers who are interested in the service, so we're looking at what sort of infrastructure is necessary for us to deliver the solution to the customer base.

[00:14:43] Liz: That makes sense. You touched on it a little bit here because it makes sense with waste to energy. But there is an increased focus here, too, whether it's on policy or consumer interest. You guys really seem positioned to expand in the waste-to-energy world as well. How do you plan on doing that? What are you working on now around that?

[00:15:03] Tara: Our team has been on the energy journey for many, many years. One thing that I'm really proud of is, if you look at our traditional landfill gas-to-energy portfolio, which is historically where we collected landfill gas and converted it to electricity, we generate over five times more energy through that than we consume at WM. That's huge, so we're able to help other companies with their renewable energy goals, certainly, in the electricity space.

The renewable natural gas space, which is emerging, we were really an early leader here. If you go back about five or six years, we built our first plant at our Milam facility in St. Louis. This is a great story because we generate landfill gas, we're able to then convert that landfill gas into renewable natural gas that can be used as a transportation fuel. Because WM operates the largest compressed natural gas fleet in North America, we're able to close the loop and use that fuel in our trucks.

Over the last several years, we've made pretty significant investments in renewable natural gas facilities, close to a hundred million, and that number is continuing to grow as we look at evaluating an additional 20 plants within our portfolio. Beyond that, we do have some existing partnerships where other entities have built facilities at our other landfills. An example of that is in Houston, Texas, a [unintelligible 00:16:50] where we have a third-party partner there that built a renewable natural gas facility.

We have roughly another 14 of those that help drive that renewable energy circular economy. One thing that I'm really proud of, if you look at our 2025 goals and the report that we just issued. We had a 2025 goal to have, basically, 50% of our compressed natural gas vehicle fleet run on renewable natural gas. We actually exceeded that goal in 2020. We have 55% of our CNG trucks powered by RNG. This is a great example of a circular story involving our landfills and our fleet as a whole.

[00:17:42] Liz: Definitely. That's a great story. You guys have been committed to that from the beginning, which is great.

[00:17:48] Tara: Yes. It's been fascinating to really watch it come to life, expand, and grow. It's been growing as our collection fleet has grown. It's interesting because if you look at 2020, we completed the advanced disposal acquisition. We actually added more trucks to our fleet and ABS ran much more of a diesel fleet.

Even in spite of that, we were able to increase the percentage of our collection fleet that runs on compressed natural gas. We're at 53% based on 2020 numbers. We have a strong platform to continue to grow that number as we execute on our fleet replacement strategy.

[00:18:35] Liz: That's great. I know you've been doing this a long time and WM has been doing this a long time. When we talked before, you were talking about how this industry as a whole has been an environmental leader, and a lot of it is about communication and really showing what you're doing and communicating that. Is that part of your plan as Chief Sustainability Officer, leading the way there and maybe showing others how to do the same to really lift the industry?

[00:19:05] Tara: Absolutely. The work that we do each and every day, that our industry does, that WM does, and our team of fantastic employees do each and every day, I like to say we make living in cities and communities possible. The work we do is at the heart of sustainability, and sustainability is in our DNA. Once you have conversations with folks, and it could be your neighbors, it could be your customers, about the complexities of the waste industry and what happens to their materials when they discard them, or it's the end of life for that particular material, it really opens people's eyes to all of the things that happen behind the scenes.

I think we have made concerted efforts to really think about. We have a network of landfills and that is a significant portion of our business today. We really have been working on how do we think about landfills as a modern landfill. That is what they are. We've invested quite significantly in infrastructure at our facilities, including enhanced gas collection systems, including the renewable energy systems that I mentioned previously. In doing so, since 2013, we've driven pretty significant reductions in our emissions platforms.

That's something that doesn't always shine. We're not always able to shine the light on that, but when you see the investments that we've made in capping, it is a tremendous feat. The other thing is, for now, at least in North America, particularly in the United States, we're looking for alternative options to landfilling. We have a organization within WM called Corporate Development and Innovation Group, who's always looking for those next-gen technologies.

Today the modern landfill is the asset type that can handle the most material in an environmentally friendly way and then also in an economically sustainable way. So we'll always look for opportunities to move material types into other asset categories, but we have to continue to evolve what we have today.

[00:21:44] Liz: Absolutely. I loved your keynote last year at the Global Waste Management Symposium. Really, what struck me the most was you were one of the first ones to really make the connection that climate change is real and our industry has a role in tackling that. You talked a little bit about emissions, but is there anything else, any advice you have for the industry on really how to do this? I know it's a big topic.

[00:22:11] Tara: Here's what I'm saying. I think the Global Waste Symposium meeting is interesting because, at our heart, our industry, and certainly WM, we have a lot of very passionate people who understand the complexities of our industry. We have a lot of folks who have science, technology, and engineering backgrounds. They understand and appreciate the science behind some of the challenges that our world is facing and some of the challenges that our industry is facing. I'm a firm believer that our people, they can solve almost any problem that you put with them. It might take a little bit longer than others, but if we pulled together and galvanize the WM family and rally them around solving a problem, they will solve it. I think what happened with recycling and reframing our business model around recycling. We did that over a two to three-year time period. That's a great example.

The same is true related to climate change and climate impacts. Our industry, and it's not just WM, it's other companies, roughly 90% of our scope 1, scope 2 emissions are from our landfills. We know there are some things that we can do and we can partner with governments and NGOs to really work on those tough issues. That's one of the reasons why we've really been trying to tackle how do we really measure our emissions, because today we model them. How can we leverage some of the rapidly emerging technologies to drive greater insights and then put into action some things that will help reduce emissions, be better community partners, and extend the life of some of our assets long-term.

I think the reality is we're going to need this infrastructure for a while. Landfills are not going away any time soon in North America, so we have to run them well. Our scientists and technology folks inside our company, they can help us solve this problem. They built this industry, so who better to help us make some change? 

[00:24:36] Liz: Exactly. I love that you really put it out to that audience because it made it concrete and made it real. Especially the science behind it so that you know they can relate too.

[00:24:47]: Tara: Yes, exactly.

[00:24:50] Liz: Are you still involved in the Phoenix Open, Tara?

[00:24:56] Tara: Yes. As many folks know for well over 10 years now, also at the Phoenix Open Golf Tournament, we've been hosting the WM Sustainability Forum where we really try and convene thought leadership around bigger, bolder, broader sustainability topics. It's been quite successful. We've attracted a fantastic audience. In 2021, we were not able to convene everybody together so we tried our hand in a virtual forum. Which was fantastic because we were able to tap into a much wider network of folks.

As you can imagine, people want to come and be a part of the conversation, but not everyone can travel. We were able to tap into thousands of people instead of hundreds. So for 2022 we're also going to be leveraging the virtual platform for the sustainability forum. Experimenting with some other things that we can do to collaborate in a more meaningful way at the forum with some of our customers. That's something that we've been doing for a couple of years now where we have customers be part of the conversation, but more to follow on that.

We're proud of the work that we do at the Golf Tournament itself. A couple of key points on that. When we think about the Phoenix Open Golf Tournament and a lot of the work that we've done to really think through taking all of the materials that get managed as part of that tournament and finding the best next use for every material that enters the golf tournament, and that goes from, if you think about it, from beverage cups, to plates, to all of the construction materials. It really has become an incubator around what is possible and how do you create the system that you need in place to think through everything before you even start.

We've been able to take that and we now are contacted by other sporting events for them. They ask us like, "Can you help us think through how would we frame our sporting event? What are some of the things that we need to think about on the front end?" It's been fantastic to leverage that community. We have an individual in our company who leads that. It's a growing portion of what we do and how we're positioned as a sustainability company.

[00:27:39] Liz: I bet. It's phenomenal, the work that you've done there. The fact that it's a zero-waste event and the scale that it is. Just that you've kept it so vibrant and there's nothing lacking. A lot of people think of zero-waste will be much different. No, you are so innovative and it's really an astonishing event. 

[00:27:57] Tara: Yes, I think what's so fascinating about it, too, is the work that we've done over the years to engage the fans. We had zero-waste stations where fans can learn about what it means to recycle right, learn about composting. We've taken people on tours to do a behind-the-scenes tour of all the operations that go into running the day-to-day operations of the Phoenix Open and moving the materials around. When you give people a peek behind the curtain, it's fascinating and opens a lot of dialogue around what's possible in other places.

[00:29:02]: Liz: I bet. I might have to get that tour or talk to the fabulous person [crosstalk].

[00:29:08] Tara: Liz, I'm surprised you haven't been on that tour because I know you've been out a couple of times. We'll definitely have to get you on that tour. It's a good one.

[00:29:16] Liz: I would love it. We'd love any tips on how to really make WasteExpo a little more sustainable as well. Maybe we can talk offline about that.

[00:29:25] Tara: Absolutely. I'm sure we could.

[00:29:28] Liz: It's just fabulous that you're in this role. You've done such a great job of helping to elevate other women and other groups within Waste Management itself. I know that's a focus obviously of Jim's as well, to really put the people first, but have you changed anything since you've become Chief Sustainability Officer in terms of really bringing up the company in a way that shows that you can do this in a sustainable way, but also that diversity is top of mind as well?

[00:30:03] Tara: So, a couple things on how I view my role as Chief Sustainability Officer in a lot of ways, a big piece of it is to be an integrator of all of the good work that we're doing across the organization. Some of our listeners may have met Tamla Oates-Forney, who's our Chief People Officer, and under her leadership, and really the leadership of the entire senior leadership team, we convened an Inclusion, Equity and Diversity Council, and that Council was led by our CFO, Devina Rankin, and our Chief Digital Officer Nikolaj Sjoqvist. They led a diverse group of folks, not just in gender or race, but also diversity of thought throughout the organization.

We have finance folks, we have folks in operations, we have folks in digital roles, to really help us frame-up in how do we take our inclusion equity and diversity efforts to the next level. We've been talking about this and doing some things for years, but how do we embed this into the work that we do each and every day, and make sure that our operations reflect the community communities that we serve. We were very intentional as a company about calling it inclusion, equity, and diversity. I know others call it DEI, but leading with inclusivity, so everyone feels like they have a voice and they matter.

We've done a lot around having courageous conversations on different subjects. In fact, because we're closing out on Hispanic heritage month, our SVP of Field Operations for the Eastern tier, Rafael Carrasco, gave an all company talk on his experience as a Hispanic man, and his journey within not just the industry, but prior to coming to the industry, and what his experience has been, and these conversations have been fantastic. They've opened doors, and we now have really employee resource groups that are aligned around inclusion, equity, and diversity. We're looking at ways where we can tap in to potential employee populations, and make sure that we're thinking about different team member types. 

A great example is what we're doing with women in trucking. Typically, the trucking industry has roughly 7% women on average, and WM and most of the waste industry runs below that average. This is a great example, is we've been able to change the type of work that we do by automating our trucks. We've moved to more automated side loaders, that there's opportunities to make sure that women think differently about professional truck driving as an opportunity, and that we provide pathways from a workforce development perspective to thinking about it as a career. If the obstacle is, "I don't have a CDL", but the job is attractive because we have great employee benefits, we rolled out through guilds an education benefit where we pay, not just for an employee's education, but for their dependence, and there's no one else in the industry, or really in North America, we were the first one to launch that benefit.

But we want to make sure that we eliminate any barriers to entering the workforce at WM. If it's you need to get your CDL, if it's we need to improve some of our facilities so that we have the right bathrooms. These are all things that we're in the process of tackling when it comes to attracting women into WM in more non-traditional roles. The same is true when you look at some of the other population types. We're looking at from a diversity perspective, making sure that we have racial diversity, and what are some of the obstacles to that, and how do we tackle those. I work very closely with Tamla Oates-Forney and her team, and the entire SLT on that. I can tell you, our Senior Leadership Team is very aligned and engaged on moving the needle, and we're really pushing that down within the entire WM family.

[00:35:02] Liz: Well, that's good to hear. It's great hearing that you're doing that from big picture all the way down to the considerations of the environment within the buildings themselves. That's wonderful.

[00:35:14] Tara: Yes, absolutely.

[00:35:15] Liz: This is similar to this, but does environmental justice fall under [unintelligible 00:35:20]? Just sort of company-wide.

[00:35:25] Tara: Yes. Environmental justice, it does fall under me, and we've been working on and partnered with EPA on environmental justice for quite some time. You'll see in our sustainability report that we've updated the-- EPA uses a tool called EGA Screen, where you can really visually look at where a company's facilities are, and how many of them are located in low income or minority areas.

We've done a great job of first and foremost mapping out which of our facilities fall into which categories, and then we're in the process of really framing up the community engagement model. We've been at community engagement and community relations for quite some time, but we want to make sure that we're evolving our model as this space evolves, and make sure that we give our team members the right tools to engage in the right way with communities, in particular low-income and communities of color. Make sure that when we're making investments or potentially changing some of our operations, that they have a seat at the table.

[00:36:48] Liz: That's great to hear. I know that's part of the policy really getting pushed through, and obviously on everyone's mind. It's great to hear what you're doing there, and what you have been doing, really.

[00:37:01] Tara: Yes. I mean, I think it's very much an evolution. We have team members in the field that this is what they do. We have community relations folks who engage quite directly, and candidly we have a lot of our district managers who run our hauling locations landfills, recycling facilities, organic's facilities. They're fantastic community partners too, and often are called upon to work very, very closely with community leaders. Making sure that we're plugged in with the right NGOs in those communities is going to be key going forward.

[00:37:41] Liz: That's great. I know you've had a lot of short-term and long-term goals, and you've laid a lot of them out within the report, but if I were to talk with you in 10 years, what do you hope you accomplish under this new role?

[00:37:57] Tara: I think the biggest thing, and many companies are grappling with this and I truly think that all of this is opportunity, companies really are embedding sustainability into their broader business strategy. We are absolutely doing the same, and if you look at what's happening with those broader external trends, for me, what I hope to accomplish is that we have been able to grow the company through sustainability, and I'm talking about growing the top line quite significantly.

At the same time, had a dramatic effect on some of the climate change elements, and also related to recycling. Recycling is a huge opportunity for WM. We are really well-positioned, the investments that we've made, we're really proving that they do what we thought they would do. When you look at the broader demand for recycled content products, and that's not a beating we expect that that's going to be with us through at least 2030, we want to unlock that supply, and be a strong part of the circular economy. If I think forward to 2030, my hope and expectation is that our top-line will have grown quite significantly from our sustainability efforts, and our ability to partner with our customers.

[00:39:35] Liz: That's fabulous. I love the business aspect of this that you're focused on, and obviously, I knew you would be, but I think that's a big hurdle with a lot of companies. They feel sustainability is hard to attain, and really they look at it as an expense, but the fact that you're making it work really well from a business perspective and see it as an engine for growth is amazing.

[00:39:58] Tara: Yes, and I think you're going to see more, and more companies think that way. I think we're seeing in the space that there are industries where they're really grappling with their ability to operate and be relevant long-term. I think you're going to see many, many companies evolve. What they may be seeking today five years from now may be fundamentally different. That's what we're trying to think through.

[00:40:22] Liz: Well, that's great. Is there anything else that you're paying attention to or that you want to share today?

[00:40:30] Tara: The one thing-- I feel that's a lot, but the one thing I just want to end with is the fact that I really do have a lot of optimism for what our company is going to be able to do long-term. I just finally want to thank our people. Some of them may be listening today because this is really hard work. Our industry and our company is very complicated, and the progress that we've made over the last, really, if you go back to 2010 has been quite astounding. I know that if we are able to galvanize the power and continue to galvanize the power of our WM family we will accomplish great things.

Really, really excited about where we're headed, and the journey, and certainly want to continue to lead, not just the industry, but in North America with many different companies that are at the intersection of what we do each and every.

[00:41:41] Liz: Well, I love hearing that, and I love ending on such a positive note. Waste Management is lucky to have you in this position. I'm so happy to hear that you're doing well, and good luck with everything and all of your audacious goals, because I know you'll achieve them.

[00:41:57] Tara: Thank you. I feel very fortunate to be a part of the WM family. I'm humbled each and every day when I meet some of our people in the field and hear some of their stories. For those of you who do have some time to take a peek at our sustainability report, we highlight some of the stories of our people in there. They're just astounding. Thank you very much, Liz. I really appreciate the time.

[00:42:24] Liz: Well, thank you. Thank you for listening. It would mean the world if you would take a moment to rate or review this podcast, and if you share it with us on one of our social networks, we are giving out some fun, Nothing Wasted podcast swag. Just tag us and see what you get. Thanks so much.

[music]