Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - Bonnie Wright: Going Gently This Earth Day

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

Potterheads and Earth-lovers rejoice, because Bonnie Wright AKA Ginny Weasley is joining Kaitlyn on the pod today to celebrate our planet. Before they dive into Bonnie’s vast knowledge on living sustainably, Bonnie shares with Kaitlyn what it was like to star in such a huge role starting at the age of just nine years old. While it might take a minute for Kaitlyn to catch up on all the Harry Potter movies and learn about the best ways to take care of our planet, Bonnie is here to fill KB and the vinos in on steps they can take to learn and invest in the world around us. Firstly, what does it mean to live sustainably and to reduce, reuse, recycle? Is that saying even up to date? Bonnie is answering these questions and giving us tangible tips to take action, such as doing a trash audit and meeting up with others around you with the same interests. Her confession proves that she has a ways to go - nobody’s perfect - but by checking out her book at gogently.earth (out today!) and learning more about our planet, we can all make a difference this Earth Day and beyond. EUROPEAN WAX CENTER - Make a reservation today - your first wax is free. ATHENA CLUB - Sign up today and you’ll get 20% off your first order! Just go to AthenaClub.com and use promo code vine. PELOTON - Visit onepeloton.com to learn more . PROGRESSIVE - Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 27 million drivers who trust Progressive. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hey, everybody. You're listening to Caitlin Bristow's podcast. Off the Vine. Take it away, Bree. Wine. Lots of wine. Hey, be on the mic. Turn it up. Let's go. Hey, ramen. Pino. Ready for the show. Everyone's welcome. So come on in because OTV, it's about to begin. Hey. Welcome to Off the Vine. I'm your host, Caitlin Bristow. Earth Day is this week, everybody. And if you don't know, now you know. And if there's one thing we all have in common, it's that we all live here.

So I brought climate advocate and author Bonnie Wright to your earholes, also known as Ginny Wiesley for you Potterheads. She is here with me today to talk about things that we can all do to be a little better and save our planet. And she explains it in a way that we can all digest. And she has a book and it's called Go Gently. So it's not too overwhelming. There's no Planet B, you know what I'm saying? Bonnie is a wealth of knowledge. So I hope you learn as much as I did today.

And we can all work together towards making a difference. Hi, Bonnie. Hi. How are you? I'm very good. How are you? I'm good. Thank you.

I am just cozied up in my little PJs over here, ready to do a little podcast. I always try and be super comfy. I've got a blanket. I've got my little golden retrievers at my feet and a better job in the world. Yeah. Best place to be. It really is. Where are you right now?

I am in San Diego right now. Oh, San Diego. Oh, it's one of my favorite places. I was just there. We had a Dancing with the Stars live tour and we stopped there. And it was like the most perfect day. And I just, oh, it's just gorgeous there. Yeah, it's lots to do outside here and be absolutely.

Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I appreciate it. I said in my notes, I was like, I have to address the elephant in the Zoom. You played a character obviously on Harry Potter. And I know it's been so many years and decades of like, so. many fans and people obsessed with the show. I have committed that next weekend. I have a downtime weekend. I am going to binge watch Harry Potter. How long is it going to take me? Oh, that's going to take you a while. But it's a good commitment. And I think you'll get by the

second film, you're wanting to finish it all. But I don't know. I mean, some of the later films must be like two and a half hours long or something or three hours. And there's eight films. Well, oh, oh, shoot, there's eight. Yeah, there's eight. So you're going to have to do an overnight kind of, you know, watching. That's okay. I have Friday, Saturday, Sunday with nothing planned. And any time I tell people that I have not watched it, they look at me like I'm absolutely insane.

And it's, I just feel like I'm like, how have I not done this? I'm so behind. But I'm going to spend a weekend bingeing and a lot to catch up on. But I do know the Harry Potter fans are diehards. And they call themselves Potterheads, right? Yeah, they do. Yeah. There's even a band, I think, called like Harry and,

the potheads or something. So when you go out in public, do you still get recognized by the Potterheads like when you're out and about? Yeah, definitely. And I think what's so interesting about it now is you'll meet, you know, kids who weren't even born when we were making the films or the films are out. So this is kind of like new entire generation of Harry Potter fans as well, which is always so like wild to me to fathom that it will just kind of keep going. But yeah, definitely still get recognized. It can really depend where I am. If you're somewhere where it's, you know, busy and people are kind of looking around or more like tourist areas than often.

Yeah. Wow. And do you still keep in touch with the cast? Because I saw you guys just had like a reunion or something. Yeah, we did. We had a reunion back in November last year. And it was it was such a surreal and fun experience because I've seen people individually and maybe a couple of people that's all the in one place at the same time was like very surreal

and just lovely to like catch up and like break down the whole experience on reflection of finishing yeah when did it what year did it start filming um it started filming in like i want to say 2000 or 2001 or something i was nine and i'm 31 now so what the heck do you even remember that time in your life i mean that was very like a obviously crazy time so i feel like when you have these big moments in life sometimes you'll remember them but at the age of nine i'm like i have no idea what i was doing at the age of nine I was probably like picking my nose and you were like having the biggest role of your life.

Probably still picking my nose too, you know, doing normal things too. But I guess I have, yeah, like as we all do, those like weird moments and pieces of memory. I mean, I think honestly the first day I stepped but on the film sets, I was in just one scene, the first film at the train station at King's Cross

when they're all going to off to Hogwarts and I'm like a year below them. So I haven't, I'm not going yet to Hogwarts. And I remember that like very vividly. I just having absolutely no idea what I was doing and he quite like lost. Yeah. You know, probably was, didn't even need to act because my kind of wide eye thing was just naturally what I was doing. And then it was just this immediate kind of like family and we spent so much time together that yeah. No kidding. I think part of my early childhood memories and certain things that really stand out to me was I grew up dancing.

And so to have that little family that you spend every. every day with and you're doing something that you're passionate about with each other and you have no choice but to hang out with them all the time. It's just, it becomes something so memorable. And then you go from such a huge role in huge movies and you are now a climate advocate. Now, I'm so excited to talk to you about all this because I want to do better and I love your whole motto like going into it gently and that's kind of your whole brand, which we'll get to. But what does it mean to you to be a climate advocate and have you always been passionate about the environment? Yeah, I think without knowing it from kind of young age, I was definitely taught to be just kind of like very mindful and not overuse things that I didn't need to or not overconsume or buy things that we didn't need or kind of not waste things, kind of and be sort of like thoughtless, I guess.

So there was definitely an intentional kind of way that I was brought up. And then I think I was always definitely the kid that loved to like take part in everything. So I think showing up to stuff and like physically showing up was definitely part of my kind of characterist. And then when it came to environmental work, particularly, I have always loved the beach and the ocean and I was really seeing firsthand how much more plastic pollution was ending up on the beach. And I was just really confused, like, why is this here and why is this problem getting so bad? So that kind of led me to be curious. And then that led me to, I think the minute you get really exposed into the reality of these issues, you have this joint feelings of feeling totally hopeless and then also really kind of angry and, charged up. So I kind of needed to understand where I could like put that energy and how could it

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You're in California, but in Tennessee, I feel like nobody cares about recycling. And it is so interesting how each state is so different. Like the recycling doesn't even come to my house sometimes and like it piles up. And I feel like half of my neighborhood doesn't even recycle. And for somebody like you who's doing so much and so passionate about it, it must be frustrating to be like, you're one person and you're really trying to help everyone. And that's why I'm excited to have you on the podcast because I think your approach of go gently

can help a lot of people and your voice, obviously, you have a huge platform and you're able to go on these podcasts and inspire a lot of people. But I just can't imagine how frustrating that is when you're so passionate about something and you see so many people, not even making small little changes. in their life that could be so simple. So I think one of my favorite parts about podcasting is being able to learn from other people and having people teach me certain things. So can you tell me a little bit about Go Gently, both the book and the brand you've created from it? Yeah, sure. I guess the inspiration behind writing the book was I was doing these more kind of like bigger actions with Greenpeace

that I began to work with and more sort of actions that were about changing policy or kind of calling out corporations and big businesses on the pepsies, Coca-Cola's kind of, you know, polluting businesses. But then I would come home and I'd feel like actually my like home life and my day-to-day practices didn't necessarily reflect as much as I wanted to the things I got about. For instance, you know, you go into your life and there is single-use plastics everywhere, but I was really worried about the amount of plastic pollution. So in my own sort of like quiet, intimate way, I began to sort of like try and learn. learn different, you know, shiftings of habits or how could I use less plastic?

Like, how could I buy something from somewhere else or cook more things from scratch or make my own products or get better at mending things or whatever that was? Just like, I guess, practices of being more resourceful and learn a bit more about my consumer choices and how to make better ones. Right. And I had been quietly kind of doing these at home and then I realized actually maybe this is the most interesting part, these kind of quiet things that I've just been not really sharing. So that's what the book is about, basically me sharing all these different things that I've

been interested in. And I think the most important thing, or my intention behind the title and the whole book is really to make sure that people kind of don't take action because their friend is doing this one thing or they think they should, but actually like find some sort of intersection that meets them where they're at. It also meets their interests. Like, you know, I might suggest something that maybe of no interest to someone because they don't like that, but then three pages later, there's something that's like, oh, okay, I get that. Like, I like that. So a big thing I kind of say in the book is to like find an issue you care about. For me at the beginning, it was single use plastics. And then in fact, it was something I love to do, which was cooking. So I just started in

my kitchen. Because I think that's the hard thing. You can't like overhaul your life overnight. It just not. That's why I love like it. It even just sounds a. when you say go gently. I'm like, I can do that. I can do that. So I think that's great. I always think about getting so overwhelmed if you like your house. There's always something to fix. You've got to focus on one thing at a time and otherwise you're going to get so overwhelmed. And then you're not going to do what you need to do. So it's probably the same thing when approaching like, you know, changing a bit of your lifestyle one step at a time to feel like you're living a more sustainable life and doing the right thing. try and live sustainably, but I will admit, like, I do get overwhelmed, like you were just

saying with the right and wrong thing to do. And so they just got me thinking the basics. Like, what does it mean to live sustainably? Yeah, I think for everyone, that's different. And I think a lot of the language around sustainability is kind of becomes quite, you know, it's used in a lot of consumer language or brands use things to make us think it's sustainable. or clean something, but that can be a lot of gray area in what that actually means. Like, my understanding of sustainability could be very different to a brand saying

that their thing is sustainable. So I think, you know, there isn't, unfortunately, actually realistically much that is truly sustainable unless it really was like a closed loop something where there was no byproduct or waste or whatever. Right. But I think to me what living sustainably means, is more like implementing practising so that you can actually sustain because I think if you just

kind of do, if all your kind of actions you take kind of ebb and flow and they're not kind of really committed, then it kind of won't really make an impact because things take a long time. So if you can sustain a simple practice that you do once a week, like that could be, you know, sustainable and being more sustainable to the planet. and I think, you know, it's mainly essentially just, you know, there's no right or wrong sustainable thing. I really like try to stress that in the book that like there's no perfectionism within it because that kind of distracts us from just giving it a go. Right.

I think what's more important is just being more informed in our choices. So when we are making choices or doing things, we can like weigh up the pros and cons of something as it relates to the environment. Totally. And I, like if somebody was listening to this, and they're like not even recycling. They're not doing things. They just want to get started. What do you think the best way is like small steps that you can,

I mean, of course, buying your book would be a great help. But what are other ways to like small steps to get started? Yeah, I think sometimes people can feel quite alone when they're trying to do these things. Sometimes either it's like finding a friend, a family member, a colleague or something to kind of do stuff together with or even, you know, whether that's even typing in your town

and finding, like, an environment meetup group, even if that's maybe not even in person, it could be still virtual, whatever that may be. I think you can immediately get resources that might more match where you live because a lot of these issues can change quite a lot to the town you're in, like you're saying, like some places only are able to recycle certain things

or whatever it will be. So I think massively just connect to maybe a local kind of group or community. And then I would just try and really like hone in on maybe a more specific issue within the large umbrella of the environment like you know do you or like I was saying finding something you love like you know it could be beauty do you look at your beauty products and the ingredients that went into that and the practices that went into those cosmetics or the packaging of those cosmetics like do you love sports and you're trying to think

about like maybe the pitch that you play your game in like how environmentally friendly is like the practices of that pitch I think yeah I think finding. something that's like how do you relate to the environment like what do you love about like you know how you connect with it but yeah i think it's hard to give one like blanket like definite one start thing i think people think like myself even you think oh there's just got to be one step to get started but now that you explain that you're like we'll find something that like relates to you that you can just start off with i was like yeah put your plastic in the recycling great let's start but you're right there's so many other bigger better ways to do it and especially in your

own community. I feel like there's certain common habits that we all have. But what's like a practical way to change and make a difference? Like what's one simple practical thing that somebody, like a common mistake people do in their everyday life that they wouldn't think of that you're like, you probably do this every day. Instead, try this. Yeah, I guess a big thing is obviously not just recycling, but when another big thing that we throw away is like organic waste. So like food scraps and things that can buy degrade. And so if you could look into composting those food scraps, so basically giving them the environment that can allow them to turn into like healthy fertilizer to then help grow more plants. Now obviously for the first few years I started composting,

I didn't have any space to do that. I was living in a kind of more apartment living. So I went and found like a community drop off to drop that compost. Or I know friends who have like clubbed together the five of them and they have one kind of compost unit. So you can either buy units online that contain the compost and you can turn that into the fertilizer or you can quite simply create a mound in your yard in the corner. So just simple things like that, realizing that we actually don't need to put that in the general trash that will not really decompose the rate it will if you compost it yourself. I think it's quite a like overwhelming big topic. Again, I kind of break it down in the book because it's kind of like,

How does that even happen? Right. It's quite hard to fathom, but that's something that I really like to do. And then I think another thing is a lot of the times that we can be more wasteful is when we're like in a rush, we're busy, we have a busy schedule. So I find that like if I just think about my week ahead a little bit more and notice maybe times that I'm going to be, you know, on the go and need to get a coffee takeout or I'm like, oh, actually I'm going to be out. maybe I could pack lunch myself and all those little moments can enable you to be just a bit more prepared and like have food for yourself on the go or bring your reusable cup knowing you're going to a coffee shop. Right.

Organizational like just planning two days ahead. I know you said earlier something about like calling out big corporations. Is that something you see moving in the right direction? Like with all these big brands that are just putting out so much, you know, plastic or like cups that aren't reusable. Do you see it moving in the right direction or is, do we still have such a long way to go? I think it's moving, but just at a pace that's just very frustratingly slow and like however much, you know, it's been so much work of different organizations campaigning against big organizations like that. And I think, you know, unfortunately, all those companies are led by

the bottom line of like, what's the cheapest thing and they'll do it. Often like virgin new plastic is even cheaper than recycled plastic, let alone cheaper than creating systems that are like refillable. Yeah. I think so many of these people, obviously, they are based on customer opinion and they are, they will completely fall if no one starts buying coffee. So a massive part of it is to do with, you know, being heard, even if that's in your kind of personal, like the coffee shop that you go to. Those companies have so much access to. resources and ideas and materials that they could be shifting towards. Right.

But it's that kind of sad thing that it's like driven by the bottom line. But the other thing it's really driven by is customers. So that is to do with like our opinions, calling them out. Yeah. Yeah. Quick little pause here to talk about one of my favorite things and I'm talking about Peloton. I've been a fan for, well, since the pandemic started.

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I think it's so, I mean, it's impossible to know. I think it depends what kind of mood I'm in. The answer can change. You know, feeling like hopeful and positive and I've just woken up. Then I'm like, everything's great. We're going to turn this around. and then from nighttime, I'm like, we're doomed kind of thing. So I think my mentality is always more optimism. That's definitely characteristic I go for. But I think we can't wait for it to be done by someone else. Like, it's quite clear that a politician is not going to,

oh, I'm just going to write a great policy to help the people on the planet, just all on my own. It doesn't work like that. So we do need to take responsibility. But it's this dual approach. Like we can't have the weight of the world on. our shoulders. So I think it's always this kind of like dual approach. If you do get for straight, you know, for me, that's why I do these practices that are outlined in the book. When I do

get like totally overwhelmed, I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to go and like make myself a salad or I'm going to go for a walk or I'm going to journal or whatever that may be to just like help you kind of bring yourself back to like a scale you can understand rather than this huge epic scale. But yeah, I think for me, I think. For me, I think for other generations too i think you know when i meet kind of real like youth climate activists who like in their teens they are just like so intelligent they see through all of the just like rubbish that can be told to us by politicians and corporations then they really seek transparency and they kind of get it so i guess it's just that hard like waiting for some people that

are still in positions of power that feel like very of another time to kind of shift out and people with ideas because the thing is the solutions all exist. It's just like there's other big companies and things like that and governments that are kind of in the way of the solutions. That's kind of the same thing in the world of like politics or you have all these kids who have so many ideas and who can like you said see through all of the bullshit and they have like they're so intelligent and they want to make a difference. And I feel like there is a shift that will happen eventually.

It's just like a matter of when waiting for that, like you said. Yeah. And I think it's like also while those people wait, like even younger people who, you know, I feel like for me when I was born, like it wasn't a topic everywhere in the news. But for so many people, they've literally been born into this very kind of doomism language around their future. So it is that reality. So I think for them, while they're obviously still believe and understand policy, they're also just implementing the changes on their own in grassroots movements.

They're doing it. They're kind of, but I think what must be frustrating for those activists who are really doing this every day is just like how slow things move. We just don't have that time. So it's like, yeah, it's not even about patience sometimes or it being frustrating. It's like it's literally the world that we are living in and going to live in and what that's going to look like. And, you know, Earth Day, I always laugh at people.

when they like post a picture they're like I went to the dead sea like Earth Day is important but they just want to post a picture of something I'm totally making fun of my fiance right now he did that now but whenever I think about Earth Day I always think of the phrase like what you're taught in school reduce reuse recycle and I was I was thinking about this before I came on this podcast I'm like what does that even mean so I tried to do research but again it's like so overwhelming there's so much information out there but like in simple terms what do these three words mean to you like reduce what reuse what we like of course recycling but there's so much more to that yeah it's definitely like you say like a saying that was around like when we were when we were younger and it's

interesting to me as i've learned more about recycling i definitely have like lots of opinions on recycling but we'll do reduce reuse first i guess reduce is obviously like don't buy more than you need and reduce you know really the amount you're doing and maybe bring balance into what you're doing You know, a lot of people obviously talk about that with, like, food when it comes to kind of animal protein. Like, it's not realistic. I don't think for everyone to, like, eradicate that from their diet, but could you just reduce the amount that you're having? Like, that's as big of an impact and more realistic for, like, on a systemic level, whether that's kind of reducing, you know, more wasteful type products in your home. So just, yeah, being more mindful of, like, what do you really need?

is what you want. I think that's something I need to focus on with, and as again, I was doing this research on like, I have way too many candles because like the glass in all that, like I'm always, my garage piles up with glass that I take to recycling, but still glass is hard to break down,

right? Like glass is something that we should be reusing, I guess. Yeah, exactly. So like then going on to the reusing, you know, like candles, for instance,

like I found this local company that you can take back the glass and they'll re-pour the candle into that same glass. So, you know, people are coming up with these great ideas because we love the candle looks beautiful in the glass, but then what do I do with this now? Right. So, yeah, upcycling and reusing things. So, I don't know, I have a jar here that had, like, jam in it

and I'm using it for a glass of water as simple as that, maybe. And then, or it could be kind of repurposing and reusing it. A lot of people, you know, have done that a lot in clothing and fashion. is that about repurposing, you know, something by altering it that you didn't like before and now you've like altered this skirt you had and you've repurposed that because you've given it a new cut or something, you know, or just containers to store food or, you know, they will just pad food in it before. And then recycling, as you say, like when that reduceries recycling kind of came out, it was very much at the same sort of time when recycling was

beginning to be sort of like told to us that it was a good thing. And I think the very complicated thing about the recycling system, it was actually really heavily funded by the fossil fuel industry, the petrochemical industry, because they were making plastic. So there was this moment in time where people were like, maybe this plastic isn't that great kind of thing. I think it was in the early 80s or late 70s. And the plastic industry who make, who are the same, the possible fuel industry are the same thing as plastic industry we're like oh no like our plastic sales are going down let's create a great system where we tell people it's good for you because we can recycle it right they basically lobbied and spent a lot of money to make us all think that like

oh it's fine we can buy plastic bottles of water all the time because it'll just be recycled but the reality is it's not really recycled plastic it's kind of downcycled to make make more sense for people like a plastic water bottle that you may even put in the recycling bin, most of the time that will be downcycled to a plastic that's got less strength and less properties to it. So it won't often become another plastic bottle. So there's only so far like when does it end on the scale and landfill. So the recycling one I think is like while yes we should all recycle what we can, I think it's more like actually how do we not put it even in the recycling. Yeah, that's a good point. Like, I feel like there's so many rules and stuff around

recycling and people are like, they think of recycling and they think, well, I'm doing something good. But that's an even, you know, further step to take is to not even have to recycle it to do, you know, reuse glass and other things that you can do around your household. I know, like, I've been lately going back to the kitchen or stuff in your fridge, if I see that, like, I'm probably not going to use the rest of my carrots or tomatoes. I'll, like, put everything in a freezer. And bag and just put it in the freezer and then I'll like make a soup out of it and I got that idea from something I saw off Instagram and I was like oh that's such a good idea I I hate wasting food and I think going back to our point earlier about finding something that like relates to your

passionate about it's it's doing that one small step and then thinking okay what else can I do what else you know what other things are around my house that I could reuse and I know one of your YouTube videos, you suggested doing a trash audit. Can you explain to my listeners what that is and why someone would want to do this? Yeah, sure. It basically is to come, I mean, in my book as well, I kind of use this similar idea, but I call it just like an inventory table for anything in your life, but essentially the trash audit is, you know, sometimes we just kind of forget what we put it in there. We just don't even think about it. And we don't really ever truly like hold something and really like ask questions about it called wish cycling which is like you just like hope it's going to be recycled

you just put it in their way which we're all you know very we've all done so the trash order is like say you could take three to five items out of your recycling and your trash like five total and just kind of lay them on the table and just be like okay what is this soft potato chip bag made out of and you kind of look a bit closer in the packaging or you do some research and you realize okay this soft type of plastic packaging actually isn't recycled. So maybe you put it in your recycling, but you from research, you realize that actually can't be recycled. So unfortunately, that has to go in the trash.

And then you could pick up a soda can and you're like, okay, this is aluminium. Aluminium is infinitely recycled and pretty much all across America is recycled. And it is truly turned into another soda can. aluminium is kind of best material on the recycling chain and so on and so forth you kind of take an item you ask questions and like do i really know what this is made out of or oh this is kind of made up like mixed materials like what right so yeah it's just kind of like a practice of being a bit more kind of like you know getting a kind of closer look on these things that we just that are a bit careless with i mean even lows i saw one where you went through your entire

closet, which I would want to do. But obviously, I want to do it the right way. If somebody is to go through their closet, you're saying like, you shouldn't throw it in the garbage, right? Like, throwing clothes in the garbage. Why is that, why is that bad for the environment? Sure. I mean, you know, the fashion and textile industry is like one of the most, you know, wasteful industries in terms of the amount of stuff that is sent to landfill, just obviously fast fashion, the way that fashions and trends move. So many brands, make clothes so quickly, but are inexpensively made. The quality is not very good, and people will just, you know, maybe wear them four times and throw that item out.

So there's a lot of waste from, you know, clothing and textiles. So why we don't want to throw that away is because it won't really, nothing really properly buy the grades in a landfill, you know. It's soon just going to run out of space to have landfills. So other things that you could do, obviously, is you could. donate that to, you know, kind of like a donation or thrift store. You could obviously resell it. Like obviously, the resale market these days is like massively booming and a lot of people, you know, resell their clothing online. You could even find a more specific like homeless shelter or a shelter

to specifically take those clothes to that you know are just going to someone else. Or there are also places that you can recycle textiles. You kind of have to like send your clothing away and like a bag, but that those textiles will actually be recycled and re-spun into the clothing. Oh, that's cool. I didn't know there's places that do that. Yeah. I just take, like, I just cleaned up my closet not that long ago, but I took seven huge bags to the Salvation Army. This just triggered my brain with the Kardashians. Why do they feel the need that they can resell their clothes? Do they need any more money? What, like I just, I saw that like Chris and Kim, they resell their clothes.

And I'm like, that money could be going towards, like, where is that money going? I'm not making the money that they are selling their clothes. Gosh, it's wild. And we were talking about clothes, obviously. A few years ago, you collaborated with Fair Harbor on a swimwear collection. And that was all made from recycled plastic bottles. That is amazing. How does that process even work?

Like, how do you turn recycled plastic bottles into clothing? Yeah, so similar to how I was saying, like, how a lot of plastic bottles, plastics are like, you know, changed into different types of plastic. You know, there's about seven types of plastic. And so with the PET, which is the type that a plastic water bottle is made out of, that the most often thing that that is recycled into is kind of like a nylon fabric, because obviously anything that stretches from yoga leggings to a swimwear is made from, you know, polyester like nylon. So essentially there are facilities that like make, you know, recycle, you know, break down the particles of a plastic bottle and make it into spinnable

like nylon thread. Right. That's wild. I feel like people would never know that. You know what I mean? Like you would never know that you can do something like that. You think about plastic and you're like, why would I want to wear that? Another significant way you made a difference is by creating the Waste Watch group, which is a sustainability meetup group. So where can people go if they're listening to this and want to get involved in that? Yeah. So I started that with my friend Georgia before. It was kind of before the pandemic. We were both living in the same city and then the pandemic here and we sort of weren't able to do physical meetups because we were like, we wanted to find somewhere to go and meet up and sort of not be on our own in this

kind of like challenge. So it basically started as a small little meetup group on my living room floor and developed into kind of bi-monthly meetups of like about 70 people and we used to kind of curate these like talks with like a panel of speakers around a certain. and it was so interesting and I met so many great people through that, but then the pandemic hit and we kind of haven't restarted it back up again. But it did just always that whole process remind me of like just the importance and like sense of relief. I think you can feel when you're just around other people talking about these things and how much quicker like shared resources can happen. Like someone may be like, oh, I tried this the other day or I just

signed up to this thing and how quickly you can like gain information that of course we can gain online but like there's nothing beats kind of like real one-on-one kind of conversation so I'm not still doing that at the moment but I feel like there are definitely other kind of similar type groups in different towns and cities I'm honestly inspired to I'm going to look up in my community groups like this because I don't know if it's just Tennessee I'm from Canada and I feel like my dad and my mom and everyone has like a whole system with their food scraps and everything like it's amazing and then I feel like everyone in Tennessee now I don't know if that's people around us to or other states but I feel like the state specifically does not do a lot of recycling so I'm curious to see what

you know who's in my community that does stuff like that every podcast that I do I have my guest confess something to me Well, I guess, I mean, I can say things about my own personal life, but I think what's quite, like, good to admit in talking about all these actions you can take, people made the assumption that, like, everything I do is now, like, perfectly, environmentally, kind of friendly. Right. And that's just not the truth. Like, I definitely am the first to admit that, you know, I can get a craving and I want a certain type of food that is, like, you know, highly packaged in plastic or imported from really far away. But, you know, it could be, I don't know, I'm having a down day, I'm on my period and I want all of those snacks or whatever it may or that. Or it could be, you know, down to like, I wish cycled and I definitely threw something in the trash that like actually afterwards I'm like, oh damn, I realize that's not where I meant to put it and I'm in bed lying there and I can't be able to get up and, you know, out the trash and put in the recycling. All those like human moments of, yeah, just like admitting.

that just because you made that right choice one day, like other days can happen and you like to do things, whether that's like, you know, you still like to travel or you have a car, like all those kind of realistic things that quote unquote are kind of can create, you know, carbon emissions. Right. Do it in balance and you like admit to those things. I think it's like better. So I don't know if that gives you a specific thing. But yeah, I think it's, I mean, that's.

people would assume that you, you know, have all these perfect things. But I think it, I always love when people, you know, can be real, like, actually, just because I'm passionate about this doesn't mean I'm perfect at it. You, you know, that's, we can all feel human in that way too. Well, where can people get your book and do, like on your Instagram, I know you share a lot. So give everybody your Instagram and where they can buy the book. So people can, that's even a small set. People could take right there is just following you and reading your book. And that's why I really want to do with the book. Like I think, you know, we can obviously follow people and can watch things online.

But I really wanted to focus on having a book that could be like a real resource that was just like it out. So, yeah, the book is called Go Gently. And it's out on the 19th of April in the US, North America and the UK. And my Instagram is, this is Be Right. And then my, the book has one to go gently. Dot earth. And our website is the same, go gently. you do earth. And yeah, everything's on my website doing different things around the book and

hopefully get to connect with more people. I love that. You have such a lovely voice too. I'm like, is it an audiobook or is a lot of things that you kind of like need to have in your hand to look? Yeah. So I did the audio book, which is quite a strange, surreal experience, like reading out my own writing. So yeah, you can also listen to me reading you the book too. My fiance said the audio book recording. He's like, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. the reading and hearing your own thoughts and reading them out specifically and doing that for like eight hours a day. I was like, my gosh, didn't you think about that? That is a lot. And you keep getting stuck on this one sentence. You're like, well, I wrote that. So I can't really like, why you know

anyone else that it's all to read. Yeah, exactly. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. And you've inspired me. And I know you'll inspire a lot of people that listen to this podcast as well. So we'll get everybody to go get the book. And yeah, I can't wait to start making my own small steps. And you're just a ball of knowledge when it comes to this kind of thing. And it's just fascinating and it makes me want to learn more. So thank you for doing what you do. Yeah, of course. I appreciate that.

And I really hope that more people will be inspired and enjoy the book. I'm Keatlin Bristow. I'll see you next Tuesday. Thanks for listening to Off the Vine with Caitlin Bristow. Get new episodes every Tuesday exclusively on Podcast 1.com, the podcast 1 app, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts.