Archive for the ‘Podcasts’ Category

Eric Ritz Discusses Global Inheritance

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Check out the transcript of RFC’s conversation with Eric Ritz.

Recently Dario and Kelly sat down with Eric Ritz, the founder of Global Inheritance to get a better understanding of what Eric is hoping to accomplish. Started in 2002, Global Inheritance is a 501C-3 non-profit working to empower individuals worldwide to think and act creatively in solving global imbalances. Global Inheritance raises the bar in environmentalism by partnering with big businesses and artists to push for progressive social change. With Eric’s experience working with the Truth Campaign, he gained insight on how to reach people for non profits.

“American Legacy was one of the first, if not the first, sort of [Non Governmental Organization] that went out there and really transformed their messages based on the audience and really did a good job of empowering versus guilting and really playing to people’s intelligence versus fire and brimstone preaching.”

With his fresh and open minded outlook on getting attention for his worthwhile causes,Ritz decided to start his own non-profit.

“I’d always really wanted to start my own non-profit, and I felt that due to technology and the direction that we were going and what you could create on the web, that it was the perfect time because I felt like I was experienced enough, I had enough energy, and with the Web I could be a lot bigger than we were without any sort of funding.”

By partnering with fashion brands ranging from Levi’s to Diesel and from American Apparel to Puma, Global Inheritance started to use clothing as a canvass for supporting causes and as a platform for the artist’s ideas.

They “felt it was a great way to communicate ideas and have people take a vested interest in what they believed in.”

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Detroit’s Green Garage: Peggy Brennan

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Check out the transcript of RFC’s conversation with Peggy Brennan.

Peggy Brennan
The Detroit area is not always known for its forward thinking, Green initiatives. More often, Detroit is often coupled with negative press whether it is for its politics, its economical troubles or its crime news. Until now, that is. Tom and Peggy Brennan are heading up Detroit’s Green Garage. Luckily Peggy carved out some time in her already busy schedule to sit down and talk with us about their project.

“The Green Garage is basically three different things, a building, a business and a community. It’s a building in midtown that used to be a Model T showroom. We bought it at the very end of 2007 and right now it is undergoing a green and historic renovation. It is going to become a green business incubator and finally the last component of it, is it is a community of people,” said Brennan.

With the help of a team of architects, designers, and people from the community, the Brennan’s are undertaking this renovation with high hopes. They are looking to bring people together with a common goal. They are taking a “community based approach” to the renovation with plans to take everyone’s opinions into play so that it is not just one persons plan but yet a group’s collective decision.

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Benjamin Gott Proves Boxed Water is Better

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Check out the transcript of RFC’s conversation with Benjamin Gott.

Back in late September we wrote a blog featuring Boxed Water is Better, a water company that takes a more environmental approach than your traditional bottled water company. Boxed Water is Better is a company based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan that distributes water in cartons oppose to plastic bottles. The concept derives from the environmental issues that are caused by the overwhelming amount of plastic bottles entering landfills.

We were lucky enough to get in touch with the founder and designer of Boxed Water is Better, Benjamin Gott. He agreed to be a guest on our Recycling for Charities Podcast Radio Show to sit down and answer all of our questions about Boxed Water is Better.
Benjamin Gott

It all started with a simple idea of creating a new bottled water brand. Sounds simple right? Well Gott didn’t want it to be just like every other brand. He wanted one that was kinder to the environment and also gives back at the same time. His solution was instead of packaging water in a plastic bottle he would bring back the old school carton and use that instead. Hence, the name Boxed Water is Better.

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Ron Gonen: RecycleBank

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Check out the transcript of RFC’s conversation with Ron Gonen.

RFC recently interviewed Ron Gonen, Co-Founder and CEO of RecylceBank, to discuss the success of his company and how he and business partner, Patrick Fitzgerald, came up with the idea of rewarding participants for recycling. RecycleBank was recently recognized by the UN for their current environmental efforts across different socio-economic lines.

Ron Gonen

“We feel very fortunate to have been recognized for the work that we’re doing regarding the environment,” stated Gonen

RecyleBank helps divert waste from the landfills, and we also reward people for their positive green actions. The way that works is we sign a long-term contract with a city, every home gets one of our large RecycleBank recycling containers, there’s a chip embedded in the container, we retrofit the city’s trucks with a mechanical arm that picks up the container, reads the chip, identifies the home recycled and how much it recycled. The amount they recycled is translated to a recycle bank point that they can then use to redeem and shop at over 2,000 local, regional and national businesses.

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365 Days of Trash & Sustainable Dave

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Check out the transcript of RFC’s conversation with Sustainable Dave.

Everyday people throw away trash into bins, dumpsters, compactors and from there it is out of our hands. Once it’s no longer in our possession it is easy to assume that all of our trash has gone away. Where exactly is away though? Sure it does not get piled up in our own homes, it has to go somewhere right? Well, that was not the case for Sustainable Dave, who decided to keep all his trash for one whole year. Dave Chameides decided to turn the basement in his tiny Los Angeles home into his own personal landfill for a year starting the 365 Days of Trash initiative.

Sustainable Dave
Crazy? Yeah we thought so too until we had a chance to sit down with Dave for our Recycling for Charity Podcast. Dave is a passionate environmentalist who promotes conservation and living a more sustainable lifestyle. Over a year ago he decided to put together a blog that would document his 365 days of trash, where he did not throw anything away for a whole year. Sustainable Dave has garnished press not only locally or nationally but world wide to showcase his endeavor. We just had to sit down with him and figure out how the idea of 365 Days of Trash came up and why he decided to do this.

The nickname Sustainable Dave is not derived from some great story but just happened to catch on from word of mouth and stuck with him. It all started as Dave was thinking of a name for his website but could not come up with anything. One of his friends had told them that in her household he was known as Sustainable Dave. Turns out that was just the name Dave decided to use for his website. A local radio station picked up on his story and gave him a call asking for an interview and throughout the interview he was known as Sustainable Dave, “And then within ten minutes, I was suddenly this entity that has kind of like grown into its own life.”

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