Podcast Episode 135

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A Fair Deal: Recycling & Giving Plastics New Life

A Fair Deal: Recycling & Giving Plastics New Life

Episode 135 | 16 min

With Guest:

Multiple at the Minnesota State Fair – Lauren Lewandowski Hamer, Communications Specialist at Minnesota Pollution Control Agency; Jennifer Skuza, Associate Dean & Head of the Department of Youth Development at the University of Minnesota Extension; Anne Stevenson, Extension Educator, Youth Development at the University of Minnesota Extension; Jacob Wolf, Sr. National Sales Manager at By the Yard

Jamie takes a trip to the Great Minnesota Get-Together to talk with people and hear their thoughts on recycling, water quality, and products made from post-consumer plastics. He had some great conversations, including a chat with Lauren from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. They discussed how HDPE plastics can be recycled to make products like picnic tables and birdhouses–as well as drainage pipe, which uses a large volume of post-consumer plastic.

Jamie also talked with Ann and Jennifer from the University of Minnesota Extension about the opportunities that exist to educate young people about local water quality, the role that plastic pipe manufacturing plays in recycling efforts, and potential careers in the water management industry.

The last conversation in this episode is with Jacob from By the Yard, a Minnesota-based company that manufactures and sells lawn furniture made from recycled plastic. He and Jamie discuss their shared goal of keeping plastic out of landfills and how rewarding it is to do something good with recycled plastics.

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That's ultimately our goal. We want to keep plastic out of landfills.

— Jacob Wolf

Guest Bio

The Water Table Podcast took a trip to the Minnesota State Fair where host Jamie Duininck interviews fairgoers about recycling and plastics! The resulting conversations range from how post-consumer plastics are used in creating new products to educating young people about the importance of recycling to the impact on water quality.

Lauren (00:00):

A milk carton. You can see the product it gets ground into, and then you can also see that end product. Stuff like birdhouses and new picnic tables, park benches.

Jacob (00:09):

We take recycled olds, turn them into mulch or anything else, any type of waste. Even aluminum cans, make sure they go in the recycling.

Anne (00:16):

One of the strong messages that they’ve gotten is plastic in the oceans. And so what we have worked on over the last few years has been, what about the water here in Minnesota?

Jamie (00:30):

The Water Table podcast had an awesome experience here in late August. We got the opportunity to go to the Minnesota State Fair and talk to all of the people at the fair. The fair is Minnesota State Fair, for those of you that are not from Minnesota, it’s one of the largest state fairs in the country. People are happy. They’re eating a lot of food and walking around. And we thought, if we could just go in there and ask anyone that we see, that’s willing to talk to us, what do they think about water on the landscape, on an agricultural field? What are their feelings? What do they think about recycled plastic? Those kinds of things. And to get some information back so we know how residents of Minnesota are thinking and then be able to share our perspective on it. So that’s what we did.

We spent some time at the fair and today I want to focus on three conversations that I had around recycled plastics at the fair, something that we weren’t as focused on when we got there, more water quality. But I think you’re really going to enjoy these, some pretty educated people about them and want to share them. And then we’ll talk a little bit at the end of the episode about what we heard. We’re at the Eco experience booth here, our building at the state fair for the water table, and I ran into Lauren here. Lauren, are you a DNR employee or who do you work for? State of Minnesota?

Lauren (01:51):

Yeah. I work for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which is a state department.

Jamie (01:56):

The MPCA.

Lauren (01:56):

Yeah.

Jamie (01:57):

Yeah. Great. Well, Lauren, thanks for joining us today and there’s a lot to see in this building, a lot of educational things and some of the stuff I noticed was the plastic over there, the plastic waste, and I looked at it from the perspective of recycling and how we could use that. But tell me a little bit about the intent of that here at the fair and how you guys see that.

Lauren (02:17):

So our reduce, reuse, recycle area is very focused on plastics recycling, how to prepare your recyclables for the curbside bin, cleaning up your stuff, keeping caps on, making sure you’re recycling right. So you can come here and learn all about that. On the flip side then, we have information about what happens when you do put the right things in your recycling bin. A milk carton, you can see the product it gets ground into, and then you can also see that end product. Stuff like birdhouses and new picnic tables, park benches, and all of that stuff is made right here in Minnesota too, which provides a lot of jobs and is awesome.

Jamie (02:57):

That’s awesome that you’re sharing that. What I do is I work for a company that manufactures corrugated plastic pipe for storm sewer agricultural water management, and we use all kinds of that, of the milk jug type. HDPE plastic in Kandiyohi County. We can take what they collect in a year and we can make that into pipe in two days. What they collect in a whole year.

Lauren (02:57):

Oh wow.

Jamie (03:22):

And then that’s going into treatment devices and creating cleaner water.

Lauren (03:26):

Yeah, that’s awesome. Definitely fits our mission here.

Jamie (03:29):

Yeah, for sure. Well, thanks for your time, Lauren. Appreciate it.

Lauren (03:31):

Yeah, thank you so much.

Jamie (03:33):

The conversation with Lauren from the Minnesota MPCA or Minnesota Pollution Control Agency was a great conversation. She is trained spokesperson for the agency, so it was fun to be able to talk to her as she had great comments about plastics and how they perceive plastics. The one thing that I took from that is the Water Table podcast is really most of our listeners, we track that pretty closely, come from the industry, are farmers, are drainage contractors, people that are concerned about water within the agricultural system. And what she didn’t mention in there, she didn’t mention that those milk jugs go to drainage pipe or to storm sewer pipe. I shared that with her and I just find that interesting because it is by far and away the biggest use in the state of Minnesota of those products, those HDPE products. Especially the high molecular weight material is great for making drainage pipe and she didn’t mention that.

She mentioned bird houses, park benches, things like that, which is awesome that we can do that with that same product, but the volume that happens, really happens. The volume of milk jugs, Tide bottles, things like that continues to increase, not decrease. So we need to find a home from that. When you’re in rural country like we are, it has an opportunity to build things rurally because of those tax base. The tax base that’s created because the farmer, they’re a cultural supplier in the rural community. All of them are making more money, they’re paying more tax. We’re building schools, we’re building roads, we’re building communities, and that’s exciting. All starting with a piece of plastic that was in the form of a Tide bottle or a milk jug, and now it’s being molded and shaped into a plastic pipe and it’s molding and shaping our communities. So that’s pretty exciting.

It’s exciting for me to be able to go and listen to her and then be able to just share my perspective. And we can only do so much, but if we can get that word out to somebody like Lauren, hopefully she can start sharing that within her communities. She’s got a podium, she’s got a platform, and we can continue to grow our perspective in water management and how we can have a positive impact on the recycled plastics that are used in the industry. We’re in the 4H building here at the State Fair. Jennifer and Anne are joining me here. We just had a nice little conversation and you guys both work for the Extension, University of Minnesota. Just tell me a little bit about what you guys do. Jennifer, I’ll start with you.

Jennifer (06:37):

Sure. Well, I lead the 4H program and we have over 50,000 young people in the 4H program. And they’re between the ages of, or grades five through one year out of 19. And so we are running youth development programs. So they’re programs that take place either in school or out of school, but a lot of them have to do with the environment, but it could also be the arts, it could be agri-science, really any topic that you’re interested in, we probably cover it in 4H.

Jamie (07:03):

Anne, what’s your position?

Anne (07:05):

I’m a Regional Extension Educator and I work in the central region, which is Metro up to St. Cloud, as well as on our statewide STEM team. So any projects that relate to science, technology, engineering, math, that’s my area of work.

Jamie (07:21):

Awesome. Let’s talk a little bit about water. What keeps you up at night or what do you think about when you think about water and the future challenges or how we deal with it, especially in agriculture?

Anne (07:32):

One of the projects that I actually work on is around the plastic issue. Young people are really aware of that, and one of the strong messages that they’ve gotten is plastic in the oceans. And so what we have worked on over the last few years has been, what about the water here in Minnesota? Well, we know it flows ultimately to oceans, but we don’t always think about why it’s important to care about it right here in our backyard, or the creek down the street. And so that’s part of what we’ve been doing with our education, is thinking about what impact can they make and then why water matters locally as well as globally.

Jamie (08:10):

So the conversation I had with Anne and Jennifer at the State Fair in the 4H building was really a fun conversation. And you got to see some of the clip that built on some of the conversation that I had had previously in the day with Lauren at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency booth. But the parts of that conversation that you were not shown, and that happened that was really exciting to me, was around making a connection with somebody that was a supporter of agriculture, but didn’t know much about the water management industry, or for sure about the manufacturing side of that, that Prinsco would be in. And so our conversation led down the path of, hey, we have opportunities for education with teenagers, with high school students. They want to know. High school kids, college kids are very interested in plastics and they see they’re interested from the perspective that they show up at as, plastics are bad.

But if we can tell this story, and when we do, oftentimes a light bulb goes off for those students and they see an opportunity to make a positive out of a negative. But the point is, that’s what we’re here to do at the Water Table is to educate. We had an opportunity to talk to two leaders within the Minnesota 4H system, and now we’re trying to develop what that could look like, how we could bring them some information that could be educational and could set students on a path of understanding, and possibly even careers within what we’re doing. So exciting conversation and exactly what we wanted to do was just get out there, hear what people were thinking, and then be able to tell our story. Well, the Water Table just walked by the By the Yard booth and I ran into Jacob here. And Jacob says you guys have been in business 35 years.

Jacob (10:16):

Yeah, actually 30 years. This is our 30th anniversary. The fair’s where it all started for us. So yeah, now we’ve got showrooms throughout the country and sell everywhere, but Minnesota’s just home for us.

Jamie (10:27):

Yeah, another great Minnesota company. And one of the things we have in common in Prinsco and By the Yard is we do a lot of recycling of plastic. Talk a little bit about the process, the kind of plastics you guys use and how that works.

Jacob (10:42):

So we use all number two recycled plastic, so your milk jug, water jug, laundry detergent jugs, things that people know in their home. But yeah, we use all post-consumer. So our goal is really to keep it out of the landfill. Milk jug takes about 400 years to decompose, so we give you a 35-year warranty on our furniture, so that shouldn’t be an issue at all. But whether it’s the pallets we take, recycle those, turn them into mulch or anything else, any type of waste, even aluminum cans, make sure they go in the recycling. So that’s our story.

Jamie (11:11):

Yeah, and when you think about that, Jacob, we’re doing the same thing at Prinsco, and so think of how awesome that is and what we get to do, you and I get to do for a living.

Jacob (11:20):

You nailed it. Yeah, you’re a little bit more on the necessity side. We’re probably a little bit more on the luxury side. We know we’re not like a need to have, but we’re really, really nice to have, and that’s really ultimately our goal. We want to keep the plastic out of the landfills because landfills are going to eventually fill up and where do you go with it?

Jamie (11:37):

I think the moral of the story here is, it’s not plastics are bad, it’s what you do with them. And we can do stuff here.

Jacob (11:42):

Hey man, you nailed it. I couldn’t agree more with you, Jamie.

Jamie (11:44):

So thanks Jacob for the time today.

Jacob (11:45):

Yeah, absolutely.

Jamie (11:47):

Have fun at the fair.

Jacob (11:47):

You do the same. Thank you very much.

Jamie (11:49):

Well, that conversation I had with Jacob from By the Yard was really fun for me. It’s a company that I’m not super familiar with, but I’m familiar enough because I hear their commercials all the time, being a Minnesota resident over the years on the Good Neighbor WCCO Radio is where I would hear them, but they’ve expanded nationally. It’s been a fun story to watch a small business grow like that. But knowing that we had the connection of recycled plastic, I just went up and found Jacob there and asked if he’d be willing to do that interview. And very rewarding I think for both of us as we talked afterwards, because of the opportunity that we have, like the clip said, to do something good with these recycled plastics rather than allow them to go into the landfill. But whether it’s to build wealth on a farm for generations through proper farm drainage and a proper corrugated plastic pipe, or whether it’s for a outdoor table in the upper Midwest or anywhere in the country.

But especially when you live in Minnesota, you know how awesome it is to be able to sit outside in the summertime with your family and have some fresh sweet corn in a burger because it’s not going to last forever until the next time you get that opportunity to do that. And it tied the knot really well. That was one of the last interviews we did at the state fair, and it tied the knot really well on, Hey, if you understand what we’re doing, we’re doing really great things in our industry and it’s fun to continue to tell the story. So I hope you enjoyed those conversations with Lauren, Jennifer, Anne and Jacob. Something that we’ve, like I said in the beginning here, we’ve wanted to come to the state fair. We wanted to ask people questions, understand how people were thinking and what they thought of our industry so that we can tailor future Water Table podcasts to maybe some misunderstandings or double down on where we’re at and talk more about water quality and plastics in general.

But this is going to be a two-part series. Today we talked more about plastics, as you can see, just a little bit about water quality. But we also had some guests that really focused on water quality and their concerns about what’s happening with our water quality and our lakes and rivers, especially our rivers, with the amount of rain that we had here in the summer of 2025. Rivers are high, their turbid, and what that looks like and what the impact is from a water management on the farm standpoint. How is that contributing or not contributing to that? The next episode here in a couple of weeks, I’m going to be sitting down with Trey Allis from Prinsco. We’re going to do the same thing. We’re going to look at these clips and we’re going to discuss what our industry is currently up to through the ADMC, the Agricultural Drainage Management Coalition, as Trey is very involved. And what Prinsco is doing, and how we are attacking those problems and making water quality in our world better. So thanks for joining the Water Table, and I hope you enjoyed this episode.

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