Ep. 279 (Coffee Time) Plastic That Biodegrades in Hours and WE'RE HIRING!!
Welcome back to the Prairie Farm Podcast Coffee Time Wednesday! This week we discuss Kent's frustration on planes, an innovation in plastic that biodegrades within hours, Nicolas’ coffee shop plastic problem, and the exciting news that WE'RE HIRING! If you want to work with the Hoksey Team, reach out at social@theprairiefarm.com or info@hokseynativeseeds.com
This episode was an absolute riot, and we think you’ll enjoy it just as much as we did.
Check out this episode of the Prairie Farm Podcast to find out more!
Listen now on Podbean!
You can also find this episode on other popular podcast networks:
-
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;23;23
Unknown
It smells. I mean, it smells bad in here. It smells real bad. Ooh. You know, it's weird. On my way here, I thought about that refrigerator smelling bad. Really? Yeah. And the thing, it was top of mine, ratchet would say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, then what is it? I could do some lunch. The subway. What a funny guy.
00;00;23;24 - 00;00;46;11
Unknown
Chett, remember, everyone, you need to look up Chett. Kit. He might ruin your lives, but, it smells terrible in here. Riley and I were digging around in the corn. Riley was rolling around in it. Yep. Good old rotten corn. I'm an Iowa farm boy. Is this old grain bin we have? We haven't done corn on this farm for literally, like, a decade or more.
00;00;46;13 - 00;01;03;28
Unknown
And, so that tells you how old that corn is. Totally rotted out. We tore down the grain bin this summer, and, there's, like, metal in it. Right. So when you do something with corn, we got to take the metal out. So Riley and I, picked through it while Kent was eating Culver's or something, and, Altoona.
00;01;03;28 - 00;01;25;21
Unknown
Where do you eat? I went to the burger shed. Oh, I feel medium about the burger shed. I've had it both medium and great. Okay, not this time, but the time before was great. All right. I believe it's about the time before that was medium. So I was actually kind of wasn't planning to ever go back to it.
00;01;25;24 - 00;01;48;20
Unknown
And, then, when I was with my parents this summer, we couldn't find a restaurant anywhere that we. That didn't have a wait. Really? What about this place? And so we went there, and it was great. It's fantastic. My, the best restaurant I've ever been to. And it's not close. There's no close. Second was a place called Yak Yaks in, Northern California.
00;01;48;20 - 00;02;10;04
Unknown
Like, tucked away in the mountains, literally in the middle of nowhere. And it is unbelievable. And it's worth going to Northern California to do that. But usually what my friends and I would do is we go on this big hike or something, you know, out in the mountains and then we would hit up yaks afterwards. Hall. The two best restaurants, I think I've been to number one Omni.
00;02;10;06 - 00;02;31;07
Unknown
Remember we went there? Oh, yeah. Omni. That was fan tastic. Restaurant forever in the Twin Cities. I was pretty sure I'd never eaten real food until I thought that that place was fantastic. And then, I don't know, I don't I don't know if this one. Well, it's up there. It's very good. Probably the best Russian I've had in Iowa, at least.
00;02;31;09 - 00;02;54;16
Unknown
Twin Springs Supper Club in Dachau, Iowa. And that kind of like what you were describing there. It's way off the beaten path. You have to like drive through like a campground or something. And you're following this like trout spring and all of a sudden boom, there's like this log cabin in the middle of the woods and that fantastic food really?
00;02;54;18 - 00;03;19;00
Unknown
I'm a very, I'm a simple man. I like Culver's. I don't know. He is a simple man. The the brass armadillo cafeteria. Yeah. You know what? You know, you go to, you get a couple beers, then you go to the brass armadillo, or there's a day right there. You got to clinch. Oh, man. Well, Riley and I are pretty tired.
00;03;19;00 - 00;03;36;25
Unknown
We actually did a little work today. Yeah, I can see. I'm gonna have to carry this. Riley sounds tired and hollow inside, and. Yeah, well, Nicholas just smells bad. Dude, it smells so bad. That corn was terrible. I got me gagging a couple times. Like it would just, you know, wear a mask. I don't remember those guys told us about that corn.
00;03;36;25 - 00;03;56;25
Unknown
That just puts you on the only. The only thing I thought of the entire time we did that was. Man, now, I don't have to hear about. Can't complain about how he's gonna have to do this. He still complain about the smell? Yes. Now, here's the thing. I will be the one scooping up that gourd. No. We need to just throw it in a hole, dude, just light it on fire.
00;03;56;27 - 00;04;19;25
Unknown
That's fertilizer and fantastic topsoil. And those it breaks down over the next 20 years. Yeah, but it has to get to that hole. Yeah. That's true, that's true, man. You see, like, got a lot of work cut out for it. Yeah, I bet. Oh, man. Well, back to it then. We.
00;04;19;27 - 00;04;31;29
Unknown
Coffee time Wednesdays with, the Prairie Farm podcast. Can't hit us with the jingle read due to the.
00;04;32;01 - 00;04;56;29
Unknown
Welcome back to the Prairie Farm podcast. Coffee time Wednesday. I'm your favorite host, Nicholas Leary. Their favorite co-host, Ken Belcher. Hey, fresh. Fresh off the airplane. Yes, he is. Got us. So we smell worse in that airplane because airplane smell bad. I have never seen more people use the bathroom on an airplane than I did today, but it might be because I was like six seats away from the bathroom.
00;04;57;06 - 00;05;22;26
Unknown
Well, yeah, do not close enough to hear what's going on in there. But but, definitely close up to be annoyed by the bathroom traffic. Oh, man. Now only can get annoyed by someone just walking right next to him. Just go before you get on the plane. Don't drink so much. I don't know. Oh, man. Well. And the coast to coast Riley Rosendahl.
00;05;22;28 - 00;05;48;20
Unknown
I don't think I can follow that up. Complaining about people going to the bathroom because you're tired and I don't think I've ever been boomer behavior. They walked past me. Help my rights. Well, my dad's my dad's boomer friends used to have this line whenever somebody would do something like that that annoyed them, they would just say, control yourself and control yourself.
00;05;48;22 - 00;06;09;05
Unknown
That's what gets yelling at yourself. People also can't cancel. The guy who stands up the gate goes, oh, now everybody please go to the restroom because I'm sitting 60ft, six seats away from the bathroom. Okay? Yeah, he's that guy. I'm not. I'm not getting I'm not kidding here. At least 30 people walked by me to go to the bathroom on a three hour flight.
00;06;09;10 - 00;06;25;00
Unknown
Man. 30 people. Yeah, but, like. And you factor in the time when you're not allowed to take your seatbelt lock. Yeah. That's fair. That's very well. So you got 2.5 hours. I think mathematically that evens out based on how many people are on the plane. But I'm at the back to play. Imagine I'm here. Go to the front.
00;06;25;04 - 00;06;48;26
Unknown
Yeah. That's fair, that's fair. It was ridiculous of telling you there's something in the way there. There was like nobody I don't know what it is. It's like it's said. Kent is the highlight of his days week. Honestly? Yeah. Oh, man. Control yourself. I should also say we're not pooping on boomers. We're pooping on Kent. And, today a lot of people are pooping.
00;06;48;26 - 00;07;10;16
Unknown
Next again. But, we should jump into a real topic for everyone who's been sending questions. We thank you. Here's what we're doing about it. We have a secret that we are working on that we all announce later on getting more of these questions answered by more people than just us get, more experts on the scene.
00;07;10;18 - 00;07;29;18
Unknown
We have not forgotten about you. We are very grateful for you. But there were a couple things. One, people were sending very similar questions to questions we had already gotten. And even though there's a lot of nuance on Prairie, it's hard to cover that nuance on a podcast. That, you know, we're trying to be a little more broad with our full audience in mind.
00;07;29;26 - 00;07;48;16
Unknown
And secondly, there were some weeks where we didn't really get any, and some weeks, well, we got a bunch. And so we were like, okay, we need to just think of a different way. So we've thought of a different way where currently working on it. We're excited for you guys to be able to get even more of your questions answered with more expertise and more nuance.
00;07;48;16 - 00;08;03;19
Unknown
So just keep that in mind. I feel like I had something else. Oh, keep an eye out for the habitat podcast. I don't know when I'll drop, but with Jared. And then he's, He did a great job hosting Kent Nye. I'd love to say that, Ken. I did a good job, but, at the very least, Jared did a good job.
00;08;03;24 - 00;08;30;01
Unknown
You guys get the side, on how we did. I've got a topic for today, and it's pretty cool. I saw this article and I was digging around, doing a little history digging. Has any guesses as to what that word stands for or what those letters stand for? He h is, meaning, I don't know. I'm gonna say it starts with poly.
00;08;30;03 - 00;09;04;01
Unknown
Nice B for poly, but the rest. Yes. Yep. So I have practiced this word like poly times poly. He dropped alkaloid. That wasn't really close. Were you just guessing or mean science? Poly hydro hydroxy Alka. No, wait. Alcan? No. No eight Alcan. No eight. Man, someone listening to this knows how I just butchered that. But, the point is, is it's like, a ball, a biopolymer.
00;09;04;04 - 00;09;30;00
Unknown
So basically, it's not a forever chemical. It's a plastic. That's not a forever chemical. And it was actually invented like a long, like in the 20s, 1925 by Morris. Lemoyne, from France is a French microbiologist. I would have guessed that. Yeah. What other options were France or New Orleans? Yeah, yeah. Well, no, it could have been, Canada.
00;09;30;00 - 00;09;59;04
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Montreal. So he invented it, but, like, not a lot was done with it. But along comes a company. A chemical company out of Japan called Kanika. Can Kanika Corporation, and I don't know, dude, a lot of a lot of fucks with Nicholas. Less painful. It's only six letters. You think it'd be easier to say that it's part of a hollow, tired, right?
00;09;59;04 - 00;10;25;05
Unknown
Lazy last four. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all he has left. That's all that's left. The lights are on the way home. Ability to laugh, dude, we sweat a bunch. Can. All right, we need some electrolytes. So. So what? They did. Let's see. I gotta pull this part up. Oh, no. It's on the next page. So basically, they took what was already invented, but they commercialized it by doing a few very key things.
00;10;25;07 - 00;10;44;17
Unknown
One, they actually sold the product. They were able to make it into things. Straws was kind of their first big one. And then they were able to, sell it to big corporations, Starbucks, Starbucks of Japan uses it. There's a lot of and they're starting to use other ones. But here's the big one. This is the one that happened recently.
00;10;44;19 - 00;11;17;07
Unknown
They they made it biodegradable, marine, biodegradable. And it's actually like a matter of hours that this, biopolymer breaks down in, in the ocean. And I didn't see any detail on this, but they did clarify that it was saltwater. Not going to pretend to be a chemist to know why that matters. But, and I saw a little, a little time lapse video of a bottle, like, look like a 20 ounce plastic bottle, degrading.
00;11;17;07 - 00;11;49;29
Unknown
And so I don't know, maybe that was days, but it it looked not that long of a time period, and it was just it was just shriveling away. And that was kind of cool. But, also, let's remember that's not just like plastics that are really bad. We, we call them plastics, but for the forever chemicals I think aren't technically, the, the what we consider is they're not technically microplastics, just a manmade, chemical that is extremely resistant to degrading under normal Earth conditions.
00;11;49;29 - 00;12;10;29
Unknown
Yeah. And we had a whole podcast on this, like, a year and a half ago, with, Genevieve. Yep. Yeah. And I don't remember the number. I am so. I'm really sorry, guys, but she was, she's a PhD candidate. That studying is basically, like, exactly a year ago, I think. Really? Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, she was awesome and and made my life worse.
00;12;10;29 - 00;12;29;01
Unknown
And having to think about all this all the time. My wife still uses the, the resource that she, gave us, like, all the time. Oh, yeah. In fact, my wife is looking at somebody for some product. This is like a, hand soap or something. That or a face cream. I think it was face cream that she liked.
00;12;29;04 - 00;12;58;13
Unknown
And, she's like, no, I'm going to look this up on Etsy. I think it's equal. Yeah. See if it's, you know, if it's compliant with. Well, what what's interesting, what I wrestle with when we have these conversations is like, wow, silver bullet. But like, almost never. Is there a silver, you know, there's a I mean, we might find out that this is great, but it kills all the barracudas within ten miles, you know, you know, like like crazy like that.
00;12;58;13 - 00;13;19;04
Unknown
And so I, I'm interested to see how it plays out, but it is not. It's not a small deal that, we're able to biodegrade. Not over, tens or hundreds of years, but over ours over less than a month. And I'm, I'm eager to see how far it goes, but I'm also, I wonder if the product.
00;13;19;06 - 00;13;41;10
Unknown
I wonder how like, a consumer would enjoy it. It's interesting because we talked about, was it Uganda that banned, styrofoam, styrofoam or those in the process? And then it was gone in Ghana? Yeah, yeah. And, they I'm curious to see where the world is headed because one, Japan's actually on the forefront of technology. Ghana is not.
00;13;41;10 - 00;14;09;15
Unknown
But I bet they deal with a lot of pollution. You go I don't know if Ghana's a third world country. You go to a third world country and you think we got bad pollution. I mean, they just got filth sitting in the rivers like terrible, terrible filth. Just landfills of stuff in their rivers. And so when they're talking about cleaning up their water, they're talking about cleaning up like landfills worth of garbage, let alone the pitfalls that go with it, let alone the nitrates, let alone the feces, all that stuff that that now we're talking about in our water.
00;14;09;15 - 00;14;32;18
Unknown
They have like, physical things that you can touch and feel and see in their water. So what I mean by that is you've got a country that's not at the forefront of technology who's saying, hey, we're doing something about this plastic, you've got your pan. And now, traditionally, I mean, Japan's a a plastic user. They are, really into or traditionally have been really into over packaging.
00;14;32;24 - 00;14;58;00
Unknown
And that's kind of been a criticism of theirs. Is they over? But I don't know if they over packaged compared to the US. You know, we love our packages. Yeah. But, I'm curious to see how the world together evolves on on our stance on plastic and will, our values of, ecology and health, both for the Earth and for our personal beings.
00;14;58;03 - 00;15;35;23
Unknown
How that will weigh against convenience and and, cheapness. Yeah. You know, I was thinking of the, you know, plastic. I don't remember what it was. I might have been fixing something on my car or, There was it was something where I recognized, like, you know, I'm glad whatever this thing was that I was messing with is made out of plastic because it's like the right amount of durability without all the weight that it would add if it was made out of a metal, and it, alas, resistant to rotting and things like that was would would not be right.
00;15;35;26 - 00;16;13;18
Unknown
And not that those are your only options, but then our main three and so in other words, I was having this reckoning in my mind of plastic isn't always evil and terrible, right. There's there's plenty of uses for it where, you know, I think of, you know, some of the medical instruments that are used, right? That, you're glad that they don't absorb, you know, bodily fluids like wood, but they also, you know, aren't super expensive or don't require the mining of a ton of metals or whatever to everything be made out of metal.
00;16;13;21 - 00;16;37;26
Unknown
And so there's a place for it. However, there's a lot of things that we use that are made out of maybe not the exact same plastic, but a similarly durable plastic that is just a single use item that could easily be made out of something else. Right? Yeah. And maybe, an alternative. Like what? Your, your, report is, is talking about here what was called that.
00;16;38;02 - 00;17;02;09
Unknown
Oh is that is right. Yeah. So maybe this is saying and then I was this was maybe this is a product or base products will be able to replace some of that, you know, like like plastic cups or plastic silverware or something like that. You know, where it's clearly single use now it can decompose much more.
00;17;02;16 - 00;17;21;19
Unknown
Yeah. Well, if, if they can work it into a significant amount of the, the single use stuff that's going to end up in rivers anyway and flow out to oceans, you know, it, it might not degrade in the river systems, but at least once it gets out there, it'll break down before it, you know, hits the patch, the garbage patch or whatever.
00;17;21;22 - 00;17;56;13
Unknown
I also wonder if you couldn't just, like, have vats of salt water that could decompose as these and then. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know, I, I think that it'll be interesting to see kind of who popularized it here in the United States. And if, if it is a product that people probably coastal, right. It'll probably be anyways where there's tons of readily available salt water, maybe not be a huge thing here in the Midwest, but but, or maybe it opens up a new, you know, line of, of work where there's recycling or mitigating.
00;17;56;13 - 00;18;22;27
Unknown
It's probably what they call it, mitigating, services that ship that out to coastal areas for. Yeah, for, you know, being dealt with. I, I mean, because of the coffee shop, right. Just gobs of plastic and I'm, I, I'm racking my brain trying to figure because the vast majority of people that come in our regulars, and if they're coming in and leaving, they're getting some sort of plastic.
00;18;23;00 - 00;18;41;15
Unknown
If they come in and get a hot drink and they're going to stay, then we can give them a mug or whatever. But, and if they get a cold drink, we've thought about doing like glasses. But the, there's a huge issue with, health wise with people coming in and bringing their own cups. Right.
00;18;41;15 - 00;18;59;03
Unknown
But I just, I feel like there's got to be a better way, and there's going to be some sort of brilliant innovation that allows that to happen. Yeah. Like a five second wash or something like our five second sanitation, where you can take any cup, stick it in the thing for five seconds, and then you can pull it out and pour their yeah into it.
00;18;59;03 - 00;19;20;07
Unknown
But yeah, I don't know the industry. I mean, like it or not, so much of it comes back to the consumer. Right. Yeah. What do they want. We have to, we well, not just what do they want, but them changing their want to match what's good for. Yeah. For everybody. That's what I'm saying. Like, businesses just end up doing what consumers want.
00;19;20;07 - 00;19;42;08
Unknown
So maybe you can have because you don't have a five second sanitize, but maybe you have a five minute sanitizer. And you could say, hey we would love for all of you that are willing to wait an extra five minutes when you come in, you know, or maybe you have every on the zero's right. We run the five minute cleaning cycle.
00;19;42;08 - 00;20;02;27
Unknown
So if you're going to participate in our Clean Cup program, show up at 7:10 a.m. and that thing will be ready. We'll have a whole batch of your cups ready by 715. You know what I mean? I also thought it would be cool if we had. Okay. Hey, one time you pay eight bucks for this cup, and then next time you bring it in, bring it in dirty.
00;20;02;27 - 00;20;24;13
Unknown
That's fine. We'll give you another one with your drink to go, and we'll take the one you had, and we'll sanitize it here. Yeah. You cycle them. Yeah, something like that. I mean, it's going to take something, you know, we're we're analyzing your business here, but you offer it up as a sacrifice. So, so it's going to take it's a lot of these changes are going to take give and take from both ends.
00;20;24;13 - 00;20;52;00
Unknown
Right? The the dealer and the consumer are going to have to, both be willing to lose time mostly, but also maybe even a little bit of, financial support. Absolutely. A a little bit of resource sacrifice from both the consumer and the distributor. I, I totally agree with that. I and we've talked about like Danielle and I would love to give up a little money or give up a little bit of our time at the coffee shop, you know, have a little more work to do if it meant that.
00;20;52;02 - 00;21;15;03
Unknown
Yeah. Big impact. Yeah. And that, you know, that started becoming the accepted norm across society. You know, that would that would be huge. Yeah, that would be all right. Well, guys, we're not done yet. We've got one more thing for you all. We are hiring. We are looking for someone who loves Prairie and who wants to be part of the team.
00;21;15;06 - 00;21;40;00
Unknown
So if you think that to you reach out either at social at the Prairie farm.com or info at Hoxie native seeds.com, you can you can find us I will say have your resume ready. You don't have to send it to us right away. But just have it ready. And we're looking for a land consultant, someone who's going to spend a lot of time on the tractor, a lot of time on the phone with customers, a lot of time on customers land, and a lot of time hanging out with us, yelling at us.
00;21;40;03 - 00;21;56;10
Unknown
Yeah. So we have a really fantastic time. We're looking for one more team member over here. You do have to be fairly local. So, we would, I mean, if you want to commute every day from Chicago, I'm not I'm not going to tell you what to do with your time, but, just don't recommend it. Anyway, think about it.
00;21;56;13 - 00;22;19;16
Unknown
So short. The Prairie farm.com can I. I want to hear from both of you guys here. What do you think? What do you think have been the best things about you work in Oxley so far? Riley, I'm coming for your next, Well, while we were, doing our little, our little, virtue signaling there on what everyone needs to do with on the consumer and dealer and society.
00;22;19;19 - 00;22;38;26
Unknown
I was just thinking, like, one of the things I appreciate the most about this job is how much I slow down my life, even though I'm insanely busy, doing the different projects that we have around here, I don't feel mentally busy usually. Now, you know, there are times a year where it's one thing after the next, right?
00;22;38;29 - 00;23;04;28
Unknown
But I don't, I remember when I made a post after I'd been here for, I think, six months. So this was several years ago. I one of the things I included as a, a notice difference was I was driving way slower. Yeah, like I used to. You know, I'm a big nine year fine ten year mind kind of guy when I'm driving, and, I don't I'm not anymore.
00;23;04;28 - 00;23;28;17
Unknown
You know, I rarely in a hurry now, and, I it just reflects the, balance that we have here. The work life balance most days. Except for when you're, Riley right now. But, we're going to we're going at 100. You guys got to know this. Riley works for ten. For 11. Really? But, he, was supposed to have last Thursday off.
00;23;28;17 - 00;23;47;26
Unknown
Didn't get last Thursday off. Worked crazy long day on Friday. And he was supposed to have today off. Well, I was doing that podcast with Jared I was doing over zoom. So I got here at ten maybe, and Kent was out of town. Apple and Riley was here and I just yell, Riley, what are you doing here? And he literally, I forgot I was supposed to have today.
00;23;48;01 - 00;24;08;13
Unknown
So I just gave it. He just forgot to stay off. Well, I was working. I'm like, where is everybody? And nobody's here. I just work it away. And then I realized, yeah, Nicholas said that I'm like, wow, I was supposed not to not be here. What's your favorite part of the job? So besides, I guess here every day, besides being a workaholic, what's your favorite?
00;24;08;16 - 00;24;32;01
Unknown
Well, I think, my favorite part of working here is, is the the impact. You can have one on the land and two, you know, you meet customers. You're, And then being part of a small team, you know, you're, It's nice to have your boss go. Why are you here? You know, like, it's, it's it's not detached.
00;24;32;06 - 00;24;49;28
Unknown
You know, some organizations, there's nothing wrong with being in a big organization, but, Yeah. Just prefer. Yeah, I know, I want to echo that the on the purpose side, I was just talking with my father in law this morning on the way to the airport, and I said, you know, after working with Carol, I kind of changed how I think about retirement.
00;24;50;00 - 00;25;07;27
Unknown
It's like, if you really enjoy what you're doing every day and you feel like what you do has purpose, like really talking about, what do you retire from? Carol, don't want to retire. You know, people might look at it as a tragedy that he never got to retire. But I'm here to tell you, Carol did not want her.
00;25;07;27 - 00;25;29;03
Unknown
Yeah, I offered it to several times. Said, do you want to start working towards retirement? He laughed in my face. And, I don't know his. His words are I want to farm. Yeah. And and, he had he truly enjoyed what he was doing every day. And he got a ton of purpose from that. Yeah. And I've been around a lot of people who retire.
00;25;29;03 - 00;25;49;07
Unknown
And when they retired, they felt like they've lost that, that purpose, you know, and, so that's something you have here, and you never have to question that, like what I did, what I did today, did that matter? Involves digging metal out of a corn pile, rotten corn pile. It's it's always. It's always there.
00;25;49;07 - 00;26;05;00
Unknown
But to be frank, it's hard work here. You're going to work. You know, it's, you know, it's a very physically demanding job at times. Not always. It's a, some, you know, as would say, you got to make hay when the sun shines. And so you got to be here when you got to be here.
00;26;05;03 - 00;26;25;07
Unknown
But I love that aspect of it, too, because there's something that feels really good about having a ton of calluses on your hands and dirt under your fingernails, and. And, you know, a redneck. Yeah, yeah, that's real man. Well, we love being here. We love hanging out with the team. We love that we actually make a difference.
00;26;25;07 - 00;26;46;13
Unknown
It. There is something special about feeling like, man, I, I made a real difference today. So we'd love to invite one of you all to be on our team. Please reach out social at the Prairie farm.com or info at Hoksey Native seeds.com, and we'll talk to you again next time.
