The Trillion Dollar Plan to Transform Waste: Dan Nienhauser’s Vision for a Cleaner Future

Adam: 

Welcome to This Anthro Life. I'm your host, Adam Gamwell. Today's episode is going to turn everything you think you know about waste and energy on its head. Now, our guest, Dan Nienhauser, takes us on a journey through the unexpected intersections of waste management, business, and sustainability. But he's not just talking about reducing, reusing, and recycling, although those are nice ideas. Dan is a business capacity builder with a ton of varied experience, including as the business leader of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. And today he's the CEO and co-founder of Stellar 3, an organization that transforms waste into energy. Now, his work is about unlocking the groundbreaking ways that waste can be repurposed and the opportunities that waste presents for sustainability and innovation, including creating positive impact on communities that are around landfills. Now this is more than about just waste management, you see. It's about reimagining and reshaping our relationship with our environment, and creating a cleaner, more economically viable, and socially empowering future. So you can imagine a future here where waste isn't something that's just disposed of, but rather it's the start of a new life cycle, and that it is a valuable resource that can actually drive innovation and generate sustainable solutions. This is just the tip of the iceberg in the conversation we had with Dan. So, stay tuned to hear how Dan's insights challenge our assumptions about waste, energy, and community impact. You don't want to miss the mind-bending possibilities that lie ahead. So go ahead and smash that like button, hit subscribe if you haven't already, and let's dive on in. to kick us off, I just want to say, Dan, I'm really excited to have you on the podcast today. And when I first heard about your organization, I was really intrigued because obviously waste is a problem that we are all going to be increasingly facing. And also on top of that, a question of energy and how we're going to build energy into the future, I think are two really important areas. So very excited to see that you're working at the intersection of these. And so just off the top, I want to say welcome to the program and thanks for joining me today.

Dan: 

Thank you very much. You know, it's an honor to be here. And there's nothing more than wasting a little time talking about waste.

Adam: 

So speaking of waste, like, let's walk us through a little bit about your work. So now you're kind of a waste-based fuels expert. So how does one even get involved in that space? You know, so you're working at Stellar 3. Tell us a bit about that process and your journey of how you got here today.

Dan: 

We'll use the term expert loosely just because a lot of my knowledge is enough to make it dangerous. I'm a business capacity builder. I've had a great career where I've been able to have opportunities to build capacity in a number of industries. I came into an opportunity to be the business leader at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. over 20 years ago now. And, you know, the exciting thing was it was an opportunity to take Columbia worldwide in topic areas that weren't necessarily comfortable to an Ivy League school because, you know, we were going into Africa and India and Southeast Asia and really focusing on the UN Millennium Development Goals, the relationship between human beings and the earth, and how we could better, I guess, evolve as a global culture. And what that taught me was how little I knew about sustainability. And you know, despite having been in the apparel and accessories business for over 20 years all around the world, I really didn't understand a lot of what our activities were doing to Mother Earth. And that's, I guess, a sad thing to say for someone who was, you know, relatively educated and well-traveled. And that stuck with me. Years later, I had worked in education for 10 years, really focusing on building capacity for higher quality charter school systems in the United States and just providing opportunities in public environments for kids to really excel, but had watched what was happening in the world of waste transformation in particular. You know, unfortunately, it was, it tended to be a cycle of scientists who couldn't quite do what they thought they could do, or salespeople who were pitching things that weren't yet plausible, so to speak. And then in the last five years, there's been some breakthroughs on the science side. And two and a half years ago, I was asked to come in and consult with my co-founder, George Weiss, who'd been dabbling in waste transformation. He'd been very involved in a public company on the energy side, and that turned into become Stellar 3, which we founded a couple of years ago. I had an opportunity to travel the world and see what technologies were feasible and to what degree they were effective and economically plausible. And, you know, now today we've arrived at a point today where the exciting news for the world is scientifically, we can take waste and transform it into, uh, circular products and into energy. And so we've finally arrived at that point. Now the challenge is we just need to spend, you know, one or $2 trillion to sort of get that going. Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting.

Adam: 

And I appreciate you, you, uh, sharing your story there in that process too, because it's, it's interesting. when we think about, you know, our backgrounds and what we're, we're coming into a conversation with, you know, and so it's interesting to kind of, kind of learn from you too, that you, you came from the kind of apparel and accessories side of, of things too. And so I've worked in consumer research for, for years and it's interesting always to kind of see how, how consumers now folks are thinking about what materials their, their apparel is made of. Right. And we've seen interesting shifts in conversations. I'm sure you've seen the same, the same kind of thing too, where it's, there's been a rise in conversations of, of you know, are we thinking about the type of textiles and like both where they're made and what's the manufacturing process like and thinking more across the supply chain, which is something that to me was a bit surprising to see that we're seeing consumers kind of have more sophisticated conversations about that process. But also, I think, you know, to your point, too, really interesting to see that there's more awareness now in that space in terms of like, what are consumers coming to ask of organizations? and companies, you know, in that process. And so it's very cool to then see, okay, now we can kind of think about this from the waste transformation side, that we actually have some really exciting answers and possibilities that can come in this place. I think one thing I'd love to get a sense of too, so if folks are not super familiar with, this may sound like glib, but you know, what is, what's the scope of the waste problem? Like, what are we dealing with? We were thinking about, we got to transform our waste in the world. Like as, as folks are kind of saying, okay, well, I know there's a lot of garbage, you know, I've heard of garbage island in the ocean. Like, but what's the scope of the problem that we're thinking about here?

Dan: 

You know, I mean, it's just a north of a billion tons of waste a year that we're generating and you know, just plastics. We are now creating between 300 and 400 million tons of plastic every year. And unfortunately, despite those blue bins or whatever color the bins are in your community, only around 8% of plastics are actually recycled today. And, you know, in some parts of the world, you know, the developing world where they don't have as much recycling, even, you know, integrated into their whole waste community. none of the waste is being recycled. And, you know, I bring that up because the challenge there is, you know, the ocean is our ocean. It's not the coast off of California or Florida. So when the Philippines is putting a thousand tons of plastic into the ocean every single day, it's affecting, you know, everybody's oceans in a way. And it's, it's And I didn't, I don't mean to single out a particular entity but it's, you know, when you're an island nation, you run out of landfills. And so, when you put it on the top of the landfill, it rolls into the river, which then goes into the ocean. It's just this, you know, horrible scenario where, you know, you get these islands of plastic and other waste floating around the ocean.

Adam: 

And on top of that too, even if we kind of think about, you know, and I appreciate your point too, because it's like, it isn't one, never one nation's fault. I mean, obviously certain nations make more garbage than others, especially the United States. But obviously, even in this case, if we have more landfill space, we are still going to, we also still sell our garbage, right? To other, other parts of the world, what becomes landfills elsewhere too. So even, I think it's like, both you're right. We have to understand that the ocean is our ocean, but the land is also our shared land. I know we like, we, we say we have borders, right? But it's like, pollution doesn't care. You know, the, the, uh, plastic does not care if it leaches in the ground, right?

Dan:

Yeah. And I mean, there's huge companies in the U.S. and in Europe whose one job is to collect garbage and ship it places, including apparel, where, you know, we decide we don't want it on our landfill, so we'll throw it to another location. And then I think the other challenge even here is, I mean, we have a lot of land, so we're spoiled there, but for our great-great-grandchildren, it's not necessarily a good idea to be just burying things in the middle of what we think is nowhere, because that gets into your water systems, and it ruins ecosystems, and, you know, it's just In the end, it's an unfortunate, I guess, solution that we have decided was the best solution and have been using it for some time.

Adam: 

Yeah, and I agree too. And I think then this is the, I think the, you know, the hopeful part now here is that, you know, you work with Stellar 3 and kind of figuring out what does it mean to reconvert, divert, transform those kinds of waste streams into other options. And I think one of the, again, just the broad idea that we can transform waste liabilities into energy assets is very hope-giving idea. I think, you know, obviously you said there's a big price tag. We have to kind of get it to work on a larger scale, but let's dive into that. So one thing you said, you said up top too, is that As you're seeing the kinds of technologies that are being developed, you know, you travel the world to kind of get a sense of what's out there, what's feasible, what's, you know, economically plausible. So I'd love, love you to kind of walk us through, you know, one or two examples of the kinds of tech that you've seen out there. And like, is there other unique kinds of tech that we see based on mountainous regions versus, you know, rivers or like what, what makes a tech area unique in terms of the kinds of waste management stuff that we're seeing?

Dan: 

So we have wet waste, which is one stream of waste that over the last 250 years has been applied in composts and anaerobic digesters, where those are curing on their own and transforming into fertilizers and other methane type of gases that one can use. And then on the dry waste side, we've been doing a lot of mechanical recycling. where we cut things into little pieces and then melt them and create new plastics. And we do that only with a particular type of plastics today. So a lot of your soda bottles, as an example, those are a plastic type that we can do in that mechanical side. The new tech breakthroughs really focus on sort of these thermal approaches to converting and breaking down chemical chains to smaller chains. and so we have this opportunity and plastics are they're already made from petroleum so it's a it's a it's an easy fix to we put them into a pyrolyzer which is an oxygen free environment with a lot of heat and it turns the plastics into liquid and then the liquids into gas And then we can take those gases that are broken down into smaller carbon chains and condense them back into a pyrolytic oil that you can then use to make new plastics or new chemicals as a substitute for a petroleum raw material. And so that's the sort of the practical initial technology breakthrough that's happening today with both plastics, also with end of life tires which are made from, you know, a little bit of rubber, a lot of synthetics and a lot of petroleum, where that same approach can be used. that the same thermochemical conversion can be used on a general mixed municipal solid waste, where you are taking an entire community of waste and breaking it down into chemical gases. And then you can use that as a substitute for natural gas. You can burn that natural gas and generate electricity and also condense it. It's just not going to be as pure a pyrolytic oil there'll be some impurities there just because whatever goes in it's I mean we haven't yet invented the magic wand that changes things you know, from apples into oranges, you know, once, once you have a chemical component, you still have that chemical component on the other side, whether it's a liquid, solid.

Adam: 

So basically what I'm hearing is that we are able to take a typical kind of polymer or plastic, I'm thinking of like, it's like the, you have the recycling symbol one through seven that you'll typically see in a type of consumer plastic. and you can put those in an oxygen-free environment as a solid, melt it to a liquid, and then melt or convert it, I don't know, gas it, make it into a gas. I don't know what the verb is. Is there a verb from liquid to gas? Gasify? Gasify? Okay, so we gasify that liquid. And then that chemical signature is still similar, but then can be used to either make new kinds of plastics, and or fuel. I mean, that's really interesting to even, I guess I'm curious, like is the new plastic that's pyrolyzed chemically the same as the original plastics or is it different? It is essentially, yeah.

Dan: 

I mean, you can essentially, they will still treat it at a plastic refinery if they're going to make new plastic, but it would be the same plastic. And we've gotten it to an efficiency point where it's about 80% of an old piece of plastic, or an old piece of plastic creates 80% of a new piece of plastic. So there's a 20% loss, but an 80% gain is a significant move in the right direction. And so part of that, there's always printing and other things on these plastic bottles that aren't necessarily the best chemical chains. And so that 10 to 12% of gas that we are not condensing, we are also able to burn and use that to heat up the pyrolyzer. And so that once it gets going, you have very little external energy that's needed to keep up this process, even though you're heating things up to 600 degrees Celsius.

Adam: 

I mean, that's really cool too, to think about. that in essence, like what this, this can offer kind of in the, in the bigger picture, if I'm projecting it forward, is that it, it reduces the need, essentially, if we just put a number, like it reduces 80% of the need to make new plastic from petroleum, net new plastic, if we can then kind of recycle through it and kind of re, re-put it or repurpose it, I suppose, if we're not using it for fuel, if we're just making plastics or chemicals. Yeah. Yes.

Dan: 

Or chemicals. I mean, that's the other. Yeah. And it's also, you know, it's interesting from both a fuel and a plastic and a fuel and a manufacturing slash plastic standpoint, you know, you don't have to ship it from where you're taking it out of the ground, whether that's in, you know, Alaska or Texas or wherever, and get it to a place that is closer to consumers. You know, in the end, we tend to create waste where we live, And we tend to use energy where we live. So it's, from a distributive standpoint, you can save that carbon footprint of taking it out of the ground, shipping it to a processing point, and then shipping it to an end point. And that's to save on logistics.

Adam: 

I mean, on top of like producing less waste from shipping, it's like, it's actually logistically easier too, which is, which is, I know my operations friends will be like, thank God. You know, but that's, I mean, that's really, that's really interesting too, to even think about the, the, the tech itself. So we have the idea that like this, this pyrolyzer can then help put together an oxygen-free environment, change and kind of break down the plastic into other forms. But then also, so you said there's also a possibility, is it just end of life tires? But the other notion in terms of making substitute for natural gas is really interesting. So as a fuel source, that's also an interesting question as we're going to, as we, you know, natural gas prices are nicer than oil prices, but like, At the same time, it's still requiring a dependence on a certain kind of energy input. And so this is interesting to think about. We could also get that from, which makes sense, petroleum-based products. So that's interesting. Is the conversion rate also similar, where it's like if you put in 100%, you get 80% out in terms of if you went for natural gas? Yeah.

Dan: 

It's almost exactly the same because it's that same natural gas that you're then condensing into a pyrolytic oil and then distilling into, if you want to, into a blend ready diesel and a blend ready naphtha. And for electricity in particular, smaller gas run generators are very efficient. And so we've designed a project, we haven't built it, but we've been in discussion around As an example, an office complex that is sort of a destination location near the ocean, they have about 25 tons of waste a day between the restaurants and the office environment. That mixed waste can be converted into about 1.2 megawatts of power. using that natural gas and then having generators. And so they become essentially 70 to 80% self-reliant just based on using their own waste.

Adam: 

That's a really, really, that's a great example to think with. And I'm curious, like, to me, that's in terms of, you said before, like the, you know, when you were working with Columbia, it was like the scientists and the salespeople were trying to work together of like, I can't always make it happen in the science and I can't sell it to make people buy it. This is a pretty good sales pitch. of, you know, you can have an office park that is relatively, uh, relatively self-sufficient without even like tapping into something else like solar or wind, right. You know, um, in terms of their own waste itself. That's really interesting. Cause oftentimes you're right. Like waste in, in our typical cultural mindset is like the thing that I am getting rid of. It has no more use, but here it's, it's like, actually it has a ton of, a ton of tons of uses, right. Um, of what else we could, we could do with it.

Dan: 

Yeah, even the word waste, it gives this connotation of we don't want it, where in reality, it's an unrealized resource, whether it's a new raw material or an energy that we could use to substitute for another raw material energy that we're using.

Adam: 

Do you think we need to come up with another word or way to describe waste?

Dan: 

Yeah, it would be nice, but I think that's a battle that I'll leave to other people. I'll focus really just on, let's just turn waste liabilities into energy asset. And that said, I mean, so here's another, we have the other challenge in the medical community where we have like pharmaceuticals that we don't want people to flush down into the water systems. And if you put those in landfills, that's not good either. you know, there one can use thermochemical conversion to get rid of the pharmaceuticals. You don't necessarily have an energy asset that comes out the other side, but at least you chemically altered it to a point where it's something that won't harm the environment, so to speak, just because you've changed actually the chemical waste.

Adam: 

And biohazards are are a significant portion of waste concern, I think, especially, again, for landfills. And I mean, obviously, there's questions in terms of chemical runoffs and things like that that you don't want to just sneak out. And then obviously, it doesn't necessarily solve the problem if we just put them in plastic bags and put them in the ground, because then we have two problems, right? You've got biohazard waiting for plastic to decompose. That's also leaching.

Dan: 

And unfortunately, it becomes an economic, conundrum as well, because you have places like California that say, well, we can't put medical waste in landfills. So they just ship 200 million pounds a year to other places. you know, that economically accept. Yeah. So that's safer. It's just cheaper, which isn't good for them either. Yeah. It's just a way. Yeah. Not in my backyard.

Adam: 

I mean, the funny thing to your point of top two, it's like there is there, the trick is at the end of the day, it's actually all of our backyards. Right. So it doesn't matter where you put it. Like we have to deal with it at some point. Yeah, that's important. So I think that just as a, as a, also a technical reminder. So we've got pyrolysis and that's different from incineration, right? So incineration is like where we're burning garbage and that, that the differences that we're just using, we use oxygen. Is that the main difference or? The difference is it's,

Dan: 

Well, there's two big differences. One, we're using oxygen to burn, which is not as efficient an approach. And the other challenge is it's higher temperature, typically, and that's where we start to create really toxic elements at the 1,200 degrees centigrade, 1,100, 1,200 degrees centigrade, we create NOx and SOx. which are highly toxic. I use the term thermochemical conversion because paralysis is the middle unit, but you also have the preparation for the feedstock that's very important, how you get it ready for that point, and then managing the gas on the other side. is equally important because you have to separate out elements, you need to condense it in a certain way, you need to clean elements of it using thermal oxygen. Oxidization and other approaches depending on, again, what's going in. But in paralysis, oxygen is the enemy because you don't want it to burn because that's a very valuable gas, synthetic gas that you're creating. And then what you want to do is maximize the efficiency and the value of that gas by condensing it. And I think a good chemical engineer would say the mass energy balance is far greater in a paralysis environment than it is in an incineration.

Adam: 

That's perfectly clear. Yeah. And that's a good point too, to have us think that we are talking about a bigger process here, right? Because that's like, we're not just adding heat to something to then change its form, where actually the feedstock matters, how we convert it, and then what we're doing with the gas afterwards and capturing that properly makes a huge difference. So that's a good way to think about this, too, where it's like, it's funny because it's similar just to the part where it's like, oh, waste is something that we want to not have, but realizing that there's an entire series of processes that we can do with it. afterwards to rethink that is a powerful recognition that we, there is work to do to kind of rethink how, how we approach. I don't even want to say end of life cycle products, cause they're not the end of life. I mean, they're like their end of form, maybe, you know, but it's not end of life cycle because they can actually have an entire, another life. Is there a, I'm curious, you know, I don't know how deep the science goes in terms of, is there a more or less set number of times that I could do this with the same plastic or would it be like. more or less like what is it is 80% efficient every single time, meaning that after five times I'd have basically nothing of the original leftover. I'm trying to think about like, you know, does that make sense?

Dan: 

Yeah. I mean, I don't think mathematic statistically, I think it would be more than that. It's it, it goes down proportionally each time, but it would never go to zero, so to speak. I think the exciting thing, at least from our standpoint, is this is a very practical approach and we're using a modular strategy. And so. we'll learn as we go and hopefully we can get the efficiencies higher and have even, I mean, currently it's the final ash, which is something that you do make into bricks or mix with concrete or put in a landfill that isn't with any toxins in it. That's still in the, you know, three to eight percent, depending on what the feedstock is going in. So hopefully we can be able to find ways to reduce that and increase the other efficiencies. But I think equally important, managing the gas on the other side and different ways of condensing and creating new products, you know, may lead to an ability to do hydrogen and carbon and oxygen as the three outputs. Instead of today, all we could do is, if we do hydrogen, the other output would be CO2, which is not the the thing that you want to put out. But I do believe that science will alter particular aspects of the output. We're also looking on the tire side. One of the things we do when we make tires is we actually burn oil to create a charcoal, which is called carbon black, and it's used in paints and chemicals and tires and almost everything, because we love petroleum as a developer. We've also been looking at ways when you're transforming the tires back into carbon black and pyrolytic oil, improving the quality of the carbon black even into a graphene product. or something else that's a much higher value and needed around the world as well and a pretty expensive process to make today. So I think the possibilities are endless once we get gas and we just have the right minds working on what they could do with that gas. That's really cool.

Adam: 

And I think, I mean, something you mentioned there too is that as we think about what is available today versus where we might go. So, you know, we've kind of been talking about how you've seen some of the technologies kind of around the world, what seems economically feasible in different regions for different, you know, different inputs and outputs and And so the other piece there, I think, is also that the question of time that you're sharing, right? And how do we think about what it is that we're addressing today and trying to get everything right versus what's going to be available to us in 2040, say? And so how do you think about that process in terms of, as we're both developing projects and processes today, but then also we're going to be facing different problems, obviously, as different levels of carbon in the atmosphere and climate change and things like that. How do you think about that?

Dan: 

Well, I mean, I think the thing that I mentioned before is we try to build in modularity so that there are ways of swapping in and out new technologies as they develop. And I think the other thing that may be important to consider as a global community is differences in where we are on a regional basis. And I say that as an example, in the United States, we would more than likely not transform waste into blend-ready diesel and naphtha, just because it's, you know, we're moving to electric cars and other things of that nature, and it's less desirable in a developed country. We would focus more on the circular plastics or the circular chemicals, tires, etc. But in a place like the Philippines, where they're importing 100% of their refined fuels, there's a lot of energy that goes into extracting that from another location and then refining it in Singapore or in the Middle East and then bringing that and then shipping it to a gas station to put in a truck or a car. So in that instance, they might lend themselves to being, and they might not have electric cars, broadly speaking, for another 20 years. And so from that standpoint, that particular solution might, you know, might warrant both an economic and a practical use for 20 years.

Adam:

I think it's an important point, too. And so even to this point, too, because I've seen that some of the work that Stellar 3 is doing is you're really focusing global, too, to this point, which I think is important, right, to recognize that plastic might have or different plastics may have a common chemical signature. But again, to your point about car adoption of fuel needs, importing versus exporting energy, those needs are going to depend on one's economic situation and options. And so in this case, this is a good example of why we might use a slightly different output from the process. But when it comes down to it, still the nice thing to see too is that the input can still be… The process can still be helpful across contexts in terms of using pyrolysis.

Dan: 

And I think from a circular standpoint, that's really where the long-term output is, and we'll continue to focus on ways of improving it so that as much of what goes in can come out in a substitute for a virgin raw material, so that literally you can remake new product from what we used to just put in a big pile and bury.

Adam: 

What's a typical, like in terms of a, trying to put an idea of the machine in folks' heads, like how big are we talking for a pyrolysis? I mean, they could be modular, so it could be different sizes, but like, how do you think about that?

Dan: 

So we, we've broken it down into 30 ton a day units that you can daisy chain together. And that 30 ton a day unit is, you know, it's smaller than half a football field. including tanks and preparation, etc. And so it's not a particularly large unit. It would be two 20-meter long tubes that are about three meters diameter. And it's something you could literally put at a landfill site in a developing country or you know, at the edge of a 250,000-person city and literally take all the plastics that they have in that particular community and transform it.

Adam: 

I think that's the other powerful point there, too, where it's like, you know, as you said before, too, where it's like we make waste where we live and we use energy where we live, too. So it's like thinking about placement like that makes a lot of sense, too. You would actually ultimately shrink, theoretically, the size of a landfill, too. if you're consuming enough or thermally, you know, altering enough of the dry waste to do that. Imagine that too, right? It's like, imagine we're actually shrinking landfills based on the process here, which is really cool. And we need.

Dan: 

It is. And we need, I mean, I'm sure in some communities that land could be used for, you know, many other productive activities that instead, and it doesn't just affect the landfill itself, all the areas around it. you know, are impacted as well. I will say, you know, even just last night, from an economic development standpoint in the developing world, you know, one of the things we also want to address is helping those communities clean up landfills, but also have employment opportunities for, you know, people who can sort and or collect waste and avoid it going into oceans and other places. which we don't want that to go on in our country, but at the same time from, you know, from in their zone, that's what is necessary or helpful at this point. And I think that's similar to apparel. I mean, a lot of people used to, you know, criticize what I was doing, making products in low-income countries. And at the same time, I've seen like Taiwan as an example over a two-decade period of time, go from an apparel manufacturing, tough environment into one where, you know, 100-story office buildings and middle-class communities and really built themselves into a newly developed country. And so, you know, sometimes work that might not be deemed as as the most enjoyable work to do, it is what is available.

Adam: 

So yeah. And also, like, I think it's really important to think about this idea too, because it's, we are talking about, you know, you know, waste transformation, but then also, like, there are outputs and like, obviously, that can that can do things like provide jobs that can provide, I mean, it has supply chain implications too, right? Because if you have, if you suddenly have a new essentially a new economic output as a country or community, right? You now have gas, you know, or, you know, plastics or chemicals that you could then sell. You know, that's an interesting question for like net importer communities. If you're thinking, you know, thinking of Singapore and Philippines or something, it's like, you could actually then sell that, you know, depending on the relationship with the technology. But like, that's an interesting point.

Dan: 

And we were also one of the few waste transformation groups that, I mean, we have a CIO who is a machine learning expert, and we see that supply chain consideration as a real valuable opportunity for us to improve efficiency, both for waste and other supply chain elements, and also use machine learning like visual recognitions and infrared lights to do a better job of interpreting the waste as it's coming into a facility. and possibly, you know, changing temperature and time, et cetera, that's involved in the transformation process.

Adam: 

I guess you're thinking about, right, there's going to be technology on top of the technologies. That's a good, that's a good point in terms of like how we, we might think about where we're going to see both incremental, but maybe even exponential improvements in terms of getting that quote, 80% of, of usefulness to like higher, higher parts, right? If we're, if we're actually burning at a better rate or like collecting the right kinds of plastics only, that's an interesting kind of addition there too, in terms of like what else that could be. It makes sense, too, why, as a modular system, you could add in sensors, conveyor belts, or in a sorting bucket or something like that.

Dan: 

Yeah, exactly. I mean, they have. the coolest sorting things now that pop air and, and we'll pop plastics into different like baskets. Yeah.

Adam:

That's, I mean, even like this, cause it's, it's obviously it's, you know, we, I mean, I'm coming at this from a consumer side, but it's like, you know, you know, we, we think about, Oh, there's new tech. We have chat GPT, but it's like, actually we have really cool sorters that you've never heard of that can actually like move things around for you, uh, to make that process even easier. So it's like, yeah, recognizing that innovation is always, I mean, it's across the board. Right. And so like recognizing that, I think it's really, it's really cool.

Dan: 

And I think the other exciting thing for us as consumers to think about is there will come a point where we're going to challenge the consumer that you have to do X, Y, and Z to further improve efficiencies and things of that nature. And I don't want to say that we should have people wash things and have 50 bins to put things in, because that, as we've, I think, found doesn't work. But there are some things that we can do better. as a society that will enhance what we can do on the waste transformation side. And that, I mean, first we just, we have to get started. I mean, now, now, and once we have these facilities, I think the excitement will be there where it won't be as hard to sell because people will actually be able to see, you know, what is happening scientifically and get connected to it. I mean, that's really any brand success is you know, how much can you connect to the heart of your potential consumers or partners?

Adam: 

So as you're thinking about that, you know, so it, thinking about the, the challenge of both broader consciousness and adoption of, of, you know, this, this kind of mindset and set of practices, um, how are, how are you approaching that with Stellar 3? Like, are we thinking about getting education, installations, um, you know, showing folks what you got? Like, I know you work on a project in South Africa, for example, like how do we, how do we get people to know about it and then get them, get them kind of on board?

Dan: 

So we do, you know, on the broad brushstroke have an educational component that we would like to do on sustainability in particular, because we think in addition to just learning about it, also empowering advocacy on a local level is important and helping people learn how to advocate on their own. And I think the other piece is we want to work together with our competitors to create communities that discuss what we're all doing that is contributing to this transformation process. And there's enough waste that we need, you know, a thousand billion dollar companies doing the same thing that we're trying to do. So, you know, as much as my investor might say, I'd like you to be individually focused on success. It really is about us collectively talking about the challenges and the opportunities and creating some buzz that way across borders and around the world.

Adam: 

I agree there too, because it's funny that it's the kind of new paradigms that we're thinking about, you know, with waste, that waste transformation opens up in terms of opportunities, like also do require us to kind of think about business a little bit differently too, right? This is not a zero-sum game. It can't be. I mean, the zero-sum game is not the business is competing. It's like the environment and us. You know, that's a different problem that like says we actually do have to work together, you know, in order to help solve the challenges that we uh, are mounting through garbage. And that's an interesting piece to see too. Like, like, how do we, how do we, how do we help change the conversation around business? Uh, also that like competition is not between us, but, but we're doing this together.

Dan: 

Yeah. And also we're doing it together with the industrial partners who have challenges on waste or challenges on accountability for where their plastic ends up. And so it is, it really is about a community that is committed to doing things. So we've been sort of through this decade of, I don't know if it's all whitewashing, but we've been through this decade of talking a lot about things. And now we really need to start doing things so that we can figure out what is best and then improve it. And then hopefully the trillion dollars will come. you know, that's honestly what it's going to take on a, on a yearly basis in the 2030s. I know it's, it sounds crazy, but that's, that's, that's what we're hoping to be.

Adam: 

By itself, that number is, is like astronomical, but you know, both in terms of national budgets and also like we're seeing in the venture capital community, it's like, that's not impossible. Right. That is, I think that's, that's pretty exciting. Cause it's like as much money as we're throwing at like a chat bot, like there's, there's VC money that can go towards waste reduction. I think too, which is important. Yes. This has been great, Dan. I want to thank you so much for joining me on the pod today. And I'm excited to have folks check out Stellar 3. And if folks are interested in learning more and getting more involved, I'll throw some folks your way. Obviously, we can send them to your website. But I'm curious, what are you most hopeful for going forward in terms of connecting with more communities and more people?

Dan: 

Exciting components of connecting with people today for me is finding out, you know, what we can do to help their community address waste and also answer questions. Because I think, you know, transparency and this fear of, because over the last hundred years, we've done some weird things with waste that hasn't turned out particularly well. So I have no problem talking about you know, what we do with the air emissions and how things are cleaned. And that's as important part as, you know, the energy, so to speak, that you're coming out. What you don't want to end up with is a scenario where, you know, people feel that they've been taken advantage of. And that's the other, I think, exciting piece is, you know, these are all below California and EU air emissions facilities that are, you know, safe and can be in anyone's backyard and shouldn't be just put into sort of the lower income communities where they, you know, where incinerators have been put for the last couple of decades.

Adam: 

That's a great point, too, to remind us that the technology is advancing to a point where that we can have them closer to us, closer and closer to our own communities, right? And to feel safe about that. And also, I appreciate your point too, where it's like we, yes, I saw this too, like for consistently in consumer research, folks are tired of greenwashing and being told like, this is great. And like, then a company doesn't actually do anything. And so It's important. I agree. And I applaud that. We need transparency. And I think that's, to your point, also an important piece of how we tell the story, right? It's that we can show transparently how it works, why it's safe, why it's a better option than what we're doing, and why it has options to work across a number of contexts that we don't often think about. So a lot of opportunity there, which I think is really cool.

Dan: 

And it'll get better. I mean, that's the other thing. I also admit it's not perfect. And we have challenges of improving it and continuing to make it more efficient and more adaptable to a broader mix of waste feedstocks. And so that's I think that's the other challenge we just have as a waste transformation community is to continue to invest in R&D as well. 100%.

Adam: 

And we're recording this during New York Climate Week right now, so it'll come out a little bit later, but this is good timing for folks to say, as you're thinking about this, the time is now to kind of think through this and to work on it. So awesome to see it. I appreciate your perspective and how you're building both the product and tech modularly, but also thinking about it modularly. We have to change pieces as we go because that's just how this works. Tech's going to change, time's going to change, context will change. And so build things that can swap out and that'll keep both the brand and the product Doing what it needs to do.

Dan: 

Exactly. Thank you so much for your time today and for having me on.

Adam: 

I really appreciate it. Thanks again to Dan Nienhauser for sharing his invaluable insights on waste transformation and its profound impact on communities and the environment. Dan's expertise has shed light on the immense potential for innovation and positive change in waste management. and his dedication to sustainability and collaboration inspires me to rethink waste as a resource and work towards a brighter and cleaner future. I hope it's done the same for you. Now, throughout this episode, we've delved into this multifaceted world of waste transformation, exploring its implications for developing nations and urban centers, and the significance of consumer behavior in driving sustainable practices, and even the promising advancements of technologies like pyrolysis. Now, we've gained a deeper understanding of the pressing need for a global shift in waste management, and the multitude of opportunities it presents for businesses and communities alike. So as you reflect on today's discussion, consider how waste management practices intersect with your own life and the society that you live in. How might we reimagine our relationship with waste, turning it into a valuable resource rather than a burden? What changes could we individually and collectively make to contribute to a more sustainable and environmentally conscious future? So, as you think about these, I invite you to check out the Anthrocurious Substack blog for further content related to today's episode and encourage you to share your feedback or suggestions on future topics. And of course, if you think someone you know would love this episode, go ahead and share it with them too. It's still one of the best ways to help grow the podcast in our community. Your input helps shape the conversations that we bring to life on this anthro life and I always want to hear more from you. So please join the community and stay connected as we journey through this multifaceted landscape of anthropology and its relevance to the modern world. Thanks again for tuning in and until next time stay curious and keep exploring the many layers of this anthro life. I'm your host Adam Gamwell. We'll see you next time.