Trash Talk
trashy people making a less trashy planet
Trash Talk is a comedy-meets-journalism series about the stuff we throw away, and the people, systems, and planet it affects. Hosted by Ren, a garbologist-in-training, each episode picks up literal trash while talking trash: interviewing experts and novices and digging into everything from fast fashion to food waste to human composting.
Trash Talk has 3 main components:
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Longer video essays for deep dives on different types of waste
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Short interviews where comedians pick up litter and give us their trashiest takes
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A live comedy show fundraiser in America's "dirtiest" cities
Help Us collect 100k lbs of trash
now seeking partners, sponsors, and performers
Our goals:
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Make trash interesting, funny, and impossible to ignore
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Spotlight real solutions from local nonprofits to weird innovations
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Pick up 100,000 lbs of trash through community events and content
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Build a trash hall of fame (and shame) worth arguing about
Why trash?
it's the most shared problem in the country
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The average American throws away 4.9 lbs of trash per day, that's nearly 1,800 lbs a year per person.
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The U.S. produces more than 260 million tons of municipal solid waste annually. Only about 32% is recycled or composted.
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40% of food in the U.S. goes to waste, the single largest category of material in landfills.
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Fast fashion produces 92 million tons of textile waste globally every year, that's a garbage truck full of clothes dumped every second.
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8 million tons of plastic enter the ocean each year, and at current rates, there could be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050 (by weight).
