RODMAN: In this episode of Urban Conversion: I'm shocked that this office does not have a recycle bin in it.

A sustainability consultant crashes my office.

So what's my grade?

It's gonna be an F. But, I'm adding one more stop to her list.

You're wasting energy.

That might be my big weakness.

Before Gina and I learn how yesterday's garbage is tomorrow's problem.

I wasn't expecting a landfill.

I got the landfill.

All in this Urban Conversion.

GINA: My husband Rodman is passionate about creating new businesses and opportunities, but let's just say he's not too eco-friendly.

RODMAN: My wife Gina, she's amazing, but she can be a little over the top when it comes to going green.

GINA: The sustainability movement is not just a trend.

It's a concept that will impact the future.

RODMAN: I'm not against sustainability.

I just need to understand it first.

Yeah, now we're talking!

So I'm taking myself out of my comfort zone... sometimes to extremes.

Wow.

GINA: And we're making it part of our lives.

(horn honking) RODMAN: Yeah, well, most of it.

GINA: Who knows where it will take us?

Welcome to Michigan, welcome to Detroit, Rodman.

RODMAN: It's all part of making our own "Urban Conversion."

♪ GINA: Now that my kids are both in school, I devote more of my time to different projects that Rodman and I have been working on.

I do not think the office is a green office.

The biggest offense is garbage.

I'm shocked that this office does not have a recycle bin anywhere in it.

My office building is where we do pretty much everything.

All the business is run out of here.

GINA: Do the employees think that the office is environmentally friendly?

We've seen you print out a lot of paper that nobody ever looks at.

Uh, gonna have to get back to you on that one.

Nope.

I don't think so.

I'm not a great example, because I'm still learning, but there's a lot to learn.

GINA: If it could start with Rodman, it will go down into the rest of the company, because as a small business, it's easier to make the changes, but it might be a little bit more costly.

If you can reduce cost, it's always good, because when you are in business, you're always balancing that bottom line.

Is it a financial bottom line or is it a conscious bottom line?

I have a friend Stacy and she helps businesses become more ecofriendly.

I'm gonna invite her to the office to see if she can give us some ideas.

I'll just be very interested to hear what she has to say.

I encourage people to make behavioral changes to prevent pollution, reduce waste, save natural resources, and save money.

I don't know what I'll see today.

It'll be interesting.

So you are our zero waste expert?

Good.

I am.

Thanks for having me today.

Glad you're here.

I assume you're gonna want to walk around the office Sure.

and do your, to do your thing?

My first impression of Rodman, he was standing there with a disposable coffee cup.

Have fun, free reign.

I think it's gonna be great.

Okay.

Thank you.

Perfect, well thank you.

Yeah.

When I go into an organization, what I want to see is where they are and what changes they could implement.

What I'm looking for when I'm taking pictures, if people are wasting energy, if they're leaving their lights on and going out to lunch.

If they have a trashcan full of things that could be recycled or composted, I'll make note of that.

And then, in my report, show people some practices that could be changed.

She's taking pictures, she's going diving in our dumpster, looking for evidence of what we're doing here.

STACY: When I'm looking in someone's dumpster, I am looking to see what percentage of your trash is actually recyclable.

RODMAN: It's not like Stacy's getting in the way, she's just doing her thing, she's taking her notes.

I can't help but feel like maybe she's right around that next corner judging me.

The next step is I will grade a report... We'll see how they did.

Today we're gonna talk to Rodman and give the results of the report.

Do I think Rodman should be nervous?

Of course.

My goal is to let him know what he can do with his business and make it grow and make it green.

The good news, you actually had a professional energy auditor do an assessment of your facility.

A little bit above average.

Alright!

Definitely got an A.

They're doing some good things with their appliances, their furnace.

However, I do see a lot of room for improvement.

When I went through the walkthrough, the heat was on and the door was open.

That's not something we recommend.

She starts pressing photos over to me showing me all the things that we need to change in this office.

She had these pictures of me doing things that I do every day, I don't even think about it.

STACY: On your thermostats, I saw a lot of people coming and changing the temperatures.

Like that not to happen.

Crank it up for one person, and the other person's cold.

It's just a back and forth, up and down.

I just wanted to highlight the amount of paper.

Where's that's going?

It typically goes to clients.

With your clients, really promote that your company is going green.

Will you please help us and accept electronic PDFs?

Then you're reducing waste and hopefully making a difference in their office.

A little bit worried at this point...

The category that I'd really like to focus on is waste.

So what's my grade?

It's gonna be an F. One thing I want you to think about is really where your trash goes.

I think what we should do is a walkthrough together.

Stacy's gonna take me through my office and show me exactly where we can improve.

We always look to see if it's an Energy Star appliance.

She opens up the refrigerator and bam!

There we go!

Gold star for this guy.

That tells that this is rated for energy efficiency.

We're doing a lot of good things, but, uh, of course, I can't really take credit for 'em because I didn't know we were doing them.

Then one thing we really want to do, is unplug, right?

Okay.

At the end of the day.

Let's unplug these, because they're still drawing energy.

You assume once you turn something off that it's off, and in fact, it's still drawing energy.

One of the things I do, always, is I look in people's trashcans.

Yeah.

You're just gonna grab right in there, aren't you?

RODMAN: I don't know what's in there.

I don't know what people are throwing away, but there she went, digging deep.

What we're gonna do is see what you guys have.

What percentage of things should be going to compost versus going to a landfill?

90 percent of what you think is trash actually can be recycled or composted.

Where are we gonna compost?

I don't want a big compost pile out in front of the building.

Look into having a compost service where, just like a recycling cart outside, you'll have a compost cart.

You throw these items in there, and a company takes it and makes it into finished product -- compost.

Some of the deterrents for businesses in particular are the cost.

I'll work on the compost thing.

Okay.

Ready?

Gross!

Copy room.

Making copies.

STACY: The average office worker goes through Wow.

10,000 copies of paper a year.

The good news is you do have something for your confidential papers.

They're going into this container that will be shredded and recycled.

We need to talk about what you're doing with your documents that really don't need to be shredded and they're not confidential.

High grade, white office paper can be recycled up to 12 times.

Once you compromise that by shredding it, you're losing the value in the paper.

What about the cans and bottles?

We don't do that.

We really want to see them recycling.

I'm always just kicking myself, going, oh man.

I hate sticking this in the receptacle.

Well, let's do it!

You know, this is the first day that I felt like I was not the boss.

We could see about a 90 percent waste reduction.

Okay, well let's take a look at your restroom.

The good news is, you have toilets that are very water efficient.

A +!

I'm doing a lot better than I thought I was going to do.

Okay.

However... C-.

...do you know what a faucet aerator is?

No.

Let me show you.

If you switch it to one of these aerators, you're going to save water.

All you do is unscrew this and then go ahead and put the new one in.

What an easy, simple fix to do!

STACY: Your incandescent, inefficient light bulb.

Wow, I didn't know they were called that.

I'd go through and replace them.

Recommendation now are LEDs.

What's an incandescent light bulb?

Your old school light bulb.

A CFL light bulb kind of looks like a pigtail light bulb.

LED bulbs are the next generation of light bulbs.

How much does a bulb like this cost?

Fifteen dollars.

For the bulb, okay, gotcha.

Even though they're still more expensive, prices have gone down significantly.

They're going to be around for ten to 15 years in your house.

You think about the cost savings over time, there's going to be overall savings long term.

You currently have CFL light bulbs.

Keep those in until they wear out, and then replace them with LEDs.

The good news about the mechanical room is the auditor found their equipment definitely was good quality.

You can control the temperature of your water heater and right now it's on hot.

So ideally, what we want to see is you move it, kind of in the middle, right there.

And they've indicated what is a good setting for that.

Now, if you were to ever go on vacation, there's a vacation setting as well.

Have you ever seen a filter?

It usually starts out what color?

Um, I'm going to say white.

White.

What color is this?

Well, it's kind of an off white.

From the looks of that thing, it hasn't been changed in a long time.

So, change the filters once a year... No, we're going to do it more often than that.

It's not that hard.

It's just educating and motivating.

Industry standards say about once a month, if you can do that.

It looks like you're maybe every six months, I don't know.

I, I have never changed that.

Okay, let's get you to every other month at least.

Okay.

That would be a good goal.

Your thermostat.

Your employees tend to come up to this often during the day and make changes, right?

Yeah, they can't agree on a temperature.

RODMAN: I've got 40 people in here.

It's really a no-win situation.

We have a solution for that.

It's to program your thermostat.

Have you seen the cages that they put around here?

Ah, I lock those things up, man, there is going to be a riot!

If they're going to fight me on anything, it's going to be that thermostat.

Really?

No one should touch this at all.

Educate them and let them know why we're doing that because that's important.

They can decide what the temperature should be and that way everybody's on board, everybody's buying in.

STACY: Rodman seems very receptive of the recommendations we have for him.

That's a good start.

You need that from the leadership on down.

One last thing that we want to talk about is green culture in the office and it really starts with you as the leader.

If they're seeing that you're making a change, it's going to reflect on what they do.

Do I think Rodman's that guy yet?

Not yet.

It's going to take a while for the culture change to happen here.

Stacy, I'm going to get to work on this, but in the meantime, if you could do me just a little favor... (knock on door) Will it be weird doing a walkthrough with a friend?

No, I don't think so, 'cause Gina, I think is pretty green.

What brings you to Arvada?

Rodman invited me.

He did?

Since I came to the office, I thought maybe I should check out your home.

Evaluation, alright.

Let's do it.

STACY: When I'm doing a home consultation, I'm going to look to see how they're doing in terms of energy efficiency, waste reduction, where they're recycling, are they composting, take a look at their water usage.

Did Stacy bring something to my attention?

I'm all about learning and trying to be better.

If you talk about a green leader, I'm definitely the green leader here.

Let's go ahead and start in the kitchen.

Do you guys maintain your appliances?

What does that mean?

Oooh, it's so dirty!

Because of all the dust, your refrigerator has to work harder.

No.

Most homeowners don't know this... ...so don't feel guilty.

Apparently, I'm supposed to clean these.

I wish every home had reusable shopping bags.

Even better, I'm noticing something that you use, probably for the girls' lunches.

Yes, I buy things in bulk and just fill in here and then wash it every day.

Instead of using disposables, they pack their lunches in reusable containers.

Another common household item, paper towels.

Have you recycled paper towels?

You cannot recycle paper towels.

What?

They can go in your compost bin.

Yeah.

Oh, can they?

Even in my own home, you know, I'm guilty.

I have paper towels every once in a while.

You can use this instead of a paper towel.

You can throw it in to the laundry.

You have a spill here.

We're going to wipe it up.

No one can be perfect.

I mean, it's like picking my battles.

I noticed a lot of lights were left on.

That might be my big weakness.

I know, I leave lights on.

Lights are on in pretty much every room.

And she wasn't in the room.

I like lights to be on in my house, like in my bedroom or over here.

It's not a good thing.

You're wasting energy.

Dark spaces are not inviting.

Have you replaced all your light bulbs with either a CFL light bulb or an LED light bulb?

I have an issue with these environmentally friendly lights.

They're blue and florescent and I just don't like 'em.

Go to the lighting section, you can turn them on, you can see how warm they are, if they give you enough brightness, and I think you'll be happy.

If I get an LED bulb in there, can I still leave it on longer?

Gina...

I like a lighted house.

I can't advise you to do that.

It's going to be your choice.

I will try to turn them off.

Alright.

Let's try to get more natural light.

If we could put skylights...

I would be all about skylights, those natural things.

I just cannot stand dark spaces.

What are offensive in the restroom could include leaving the water on when you're brushing your teeth, taking really long showers and baths.

Ten percent of homes have leaks that waste 90 gallons of water or more a day.

Ninety gallons?

Right.

That seems impossible, just on a slow drip.

Um, that's a lot.

No leaks here.

Nice.

The good news about your toilet, it's a dual flush...

It's the first time we've ever had that.

And, it's a low flush toilet, so you are saving water.

It's a dual flush.

When you go number one, all you need is 1.2 eighths gallons per flush of water.

I do have some friends who are even more extreme than I am as far as flushing, that they don't even flush number one.

So, let me show you something kind of fun, for the shower.

GINA: She showed us this handy dandy tool we could just stick into the bathroom that would tell us when it's been like five minutes.

So this is called a shower coach.

A five minute shower, you got to get everything clean, in and out...

I love it!

You're going to save water.

Recycling the right way is really important.

There are some things that don't belong in the recycling bin.

I am really thrilled that you're recycling this much.

This is great.

However, let's look through here and just to make sure you have the right stuff.

General things like your newspaper, your computer paper, is great.

Your glass bottles, take off the metal lid.

I always wondered about the lid.

I see some packaging items that will not be accepted.

Not all paper can be recycled.

That is why it's so important to read your guidelines.

A lot of people think because it's paper, I can recycle it, paper plates, napkin or cup, none of those items can go in the recycling bin.

That's one of the reasons I always get paper plates, so, throw that out the window.

Pizza boxes.

So, if there's some grease stains, go ahead, rip that part off.

Are you kidding me?

Once it goes in the paper mill, the grease kind of compromises the recycling process.

I was definitely surprised at some of the things I thought we could recycle, could not be recycled.

I imagine you're composting.

Yes, want to see it?

I do.

Come see it, it's really pretty good.

GINA: All of our waste, either the chickens eat our scraps or the compost gets it.

STACY: Compost is lookin' good!

This is exciting.

The reason there's this pile over here, it's been sitting there and kind of cooking all summer and it's ready to go in to the garden.

This is beautiful.

Look at these worms.

It's amazing that it turns into earth again.

Seeing red wiggler worms in your compost bin is a good sign.

It's like black gold out there.

It actually smells good to me now.

Maybe that's really weird, but it smells just like good earth.

My compost is actually much better now that I found animal manure in here.

That definitely helps.

A steamy compost pile means that your compost pile is working because all those microorganisms in that compost pile are doing their job and they're creating this energy and heat.

You probably put some grass clippings in here Mm-hmmm... and your food scraps from the kitchen?

That's excellent.

The largest component in a landfill is actually organic material, and that includes paper, paper board, cardboard, and food scraps.

I love Gina's compost pile.

So Gina, what do you think?

Definitely some things that we can improve on.

I'm pretty impressed.

And like you said, there's always room for improvement.

Right.

Hello ladies.

How's it going?

Yeah.

Great.

You sent her to check in on me?

Really?

Yes.

You sent her to check in on me.

Overall, what about a grade?

A grade... We're kinda like what, C+?

I think it's, it's about the same because Rodman, really, you think you got a good grade?

I, we recycle, we compost... Every night when I come home, every single light in the house is on.

So how else did Rodman do at the office?

No recycling or composting.

But I will take that on and I will try to be better at it.

Will you commit to being a bit more responsible with turning the lights off?

Are you going to commit to doing a recycle program at your work?

Yes, I will commit to that.

Unlike you, who just didn't commit to anything by just turning the question back around to me.

You know, a little heated.

I felt like a green marriage counselor.

I will do it.

You'll do what?

Yes, I will get new light bulbs, I will live in the dark.

Oh my gosh.

Guys, let's, let's talk bigger picture here.

Is it okay if I take you somewhere that is really going to show you why we're doing all of this in the first place?

I'd be in for that.

Me too.

Okay.

GINA: Knowing Stacy, she wants to shock us a little.

MAN: We get a million cubic yards a year of trash coming in, across our scales.

We're doing about a thousand tons a day.

We take it all except for hazardous waste.

Every day we open up an area, a hundred by hundred.

We work that cell for that day and we start and we just keep raising it up to 15 feet and then we stop and we'll move over.

We'll put dirt on it, but if we don't finish it, then we have alternative daily cover, a mulch that we spray every night.

We don't want to use the dirt if we don't need to.

Today, I wanted to show Rodman and Gina what happens when they throw stuff away.

GINA: There's this huge mountain of garbage.

I wasn't quite expecting a landfill.

I got the landfill.

GINA: The fact that we're standing on 90 feet of garbage right now, it's crazy.

This is a peppermint rag.

It stinks out here.

I'm not going to lie to you, it stinks.

Help me so I don't gag.

I've seen pictures of landfills, but I never really anticipated the smell.

RODMAN: I'm looking around this landfill and everything that you can imagine is here, couch cushions, beat up footballs, plastic bags, shoes, cans, bottles, cardboard, tires, there's everything here.

I brought you here today for a reason.

Rodman, where do you think your coffee cup goes?

Probably a few sitting right back there.

Uh huh, it's definitely an impact when they say, gosh, there's my cereal box or my tennis shoe that I didn't donate.

251 million tons of trash is produced each year.

I mean, how much of this that's sitting behind us could actually be recycled?

There's communities in the United States that are recycling and composting and diverting over 50 to 60 percent of their trash.

A lot of the stuff that's here, absolutely can be reduced, reused, recycled.

It seems kind of like it's composting here, right?

Every day they cover it with more dirt and it's basically making a tomb of trash.

Most of the stuff in this landfill is organics, but because they're putting that daily liner on it, things will anaerobically decompose.

What happens is, methane is created, the large contributor to greenhouse gases and climate change.

How long do you think plastic will stay in a landfill?

I'd say a long time, I don't know.

A plastic bottle, they've only been around for about 50 years, there's estimates that it'll stay in a landfill for about 500 years, but we really don't know.

Microorganisms will not go to a plastic and eat it for dinner.

It's going to be here, not only my lifetime, it'll be here for hundreds and hundreds of years.

When you think about our population in general, I can't imagine that waste is going down.

The average amount of trash that people produce is going down.

We're seeing some good things happen.

Americans also recycled 87 million tons of things that could be recycled or composted.

And that equates to 1.1 quadrillion BTUs of energy.

That's the same amount of energy consumed by 10 million homes.

RODMAN: I think coming out here really does make me rethink about how we're doing everything in my office.

We should make sure that everything that can be recycled does not end up here.

This landfill that we're standing on has about ten more years.

After ten years, what's going to happen?

Imagine, if we started recycling and composting and reducing that waste, we could actually have this landfill a lot longer.

And that's our goal.

Thinking through, at home, my own habits, sometimes when am I'm too lazy just to throw that one thing into the recycle bin?

I don't want more land just to utilize for this.

I would put a nice subdivision up here.

You've got a nice hill, you've got some nice views.

It'd be perfect.

Do you want to live there?

No.

You use all these products and then it's as simple as just putting it by the curbside and it goes away.

Oh, it's gone, it's gone, but you know what?

It's not gone.

It's never gone.

It's right here.

This has been eye opening.

Thanks for bringing us out here.

Well, I'm glad you could come and see the visual impact.

I think everyone needs to see it.

And you say I never take you anywhere nice.

GINA: I'm so lucky!

GINA: Visiting the landfill has made me rethink so many decisions.

RODMAN: I was kind of blown away by the landfill.

Next time I throw a disposable coffee cup in the trash, I'm going to think differently about it.

GINA: Definitely caught me off guard to have Stacy point out certain things that I really need to improve upon.

It's made me turn off the lights when I leave.

The biggest thing that I came away with is we're not doing terribly bad, but we could do a lot better.

All of these changes have a cost factor.

We're a business, and we still have to make money and we still have to survive, but then there's that other thing, there's the piece that you go, you know what?

Is this just a responsible thing to do?

GINA: Sustainability is a journey.

No one's got it all figured it out.

Rodman and I always take different paths, even driving to our house, we go different routes.

We always end up at the same place and I think this is no different.

RODMAN: We all have the same responsibilities, whether we're at home, whether we're at the office.

We're all in this thing together.

Learning how to make my own urban conversion has me all over the map.

Cars that run on hydrogen gas or veggie oil?

Making things at home that you can just buy at the store?

Chickens, goats, and bees in your backyard?

It all sounded pretty crazy at first, but the more I explore the sustainability movement, the more fun I have.

Come along with me as my family and I figure out what will work in our household.

It's all a part of making our own Urban Conversion.

♪ ♪ Sustainability is a huge topic.

On urbanconversion.com we cover it all.

We bring you news, how-to, the quick tips for going green and much more.

My education may start on the show, but it continues at urbanconversion.com.

Full seasons of Urban Conversion are available on DVD for 20 dollars.

Follow Rodman and Gina as they explore the sustainability movement through unscripted fun with education as the goal.

To order, please visit urbanconversion.com.