Stay Tranquilo - Miami’s Mangrove Hero: 37,000 Lbs of Trash and Counting

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

On today’s episode of Cafecito y Croquetas we’re sitting down with Miami native, author, and environmental advocate Andrew Otazo – a man who has personally picked up 37,200 pounds of trash from South Florida’s mangroves… and is still going.Andrew walks us through his wild journey: from West Point and the U.S. State Department, to Harvard, Cuban policy work in D.C., launching his own PR agency, writing The Miami Creation Myth… and then becoming the guy who decided, “If nobody’s going to clean this trash, I will.”We talk about his legendary Miami Marathon stunt carrying a 35 lb trash bag (and later a 135 lb trash cart), how that trash bag ended up in the HistoryMiami Museum, and why mangroves might be the most underrated heroes protecting our city.In this episode we get into:🌊 Why Miami’s mangroves matter for hurricanes, wildlife & our coastline🗑️ How street litter actually ends up in the bay & mangroves (it’s not what you think)🐢 Microplastics, manatees, sea turtles & the real impact of our plastic use😳 The craziest things he’s found in the mangroves… including a bank robber🏃‍♂️ “Miami’s Trashiest Run” 5K & how to plug into local cleanups and activism🤝 Simple daily things you can do to help – starting with picking up that one wrapperThis conversation is all about purpose, community, and taking ownership of our home. Whether you love the ocean, care about Miami’s future, or just need a push to start doing your part, this episode will hit home.👇 Tune in, share with a friend, and if you pick up trash in your neighborhood,tag Andrew & @staytranquilo so we can keep modeling the change together.Suscríbete, deja tu like, y nos vemos en el próximo Cafecito y Croquetas ☕✨ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Good morning and Buenos Dias. Welcome back to another episode of Caffecito and Croquettas, brought to you by Stay Tranquilo and Achenko. Today we're joined with Andrew Otaso, who ironically enough was one of our segments on a previous episode. So I just want to say thanks so much, Juan, for being here. And I'm excited to tell your story and the work that you're doing. My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. Absolutely. So for those that may be tuning into this episode and didn't see one of our previous episodes, Andrew has been doing, that God's work, right? You know, like, it is incredible what you've been able to do, you know, taking care of our oceans, removing, you know, so much waste and trash that exists that some of us may know, right? But I don't think we realize how much there is, right?

So for today, I want to definitely, one, be able to tell your story, one, like how you got into all of this, but two, like the inspiration behind your work and what you want to achieve in the long run by doing this. So before anything, tell us a little bit about yourself. And where are you from and all that fun stuff? Okay, where am I from? I'm from Miami.

Easy answer to that question. I was born and raised here. Both my parents are Cuban. Then things get weird. So I graduated from high school and I went to West Point, the U.S. Military Academy. Okay. That was an experience. Absolutely.

I lost a bunch of hearing and I broke a shin. And after two years, I came back to Miami. I graduated from the University of Miami with my bachelor's, my master's. my master's. I studied in Buenos Aires. I studied in San Paolo, in Brazil. And then I went to DC for the first time, and I worked for the U.S. State Department. Then I went off to Boston, and I became the assistant to former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who had just finished his term of office and started a fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School. I was also a researcher at the Kennedy School. When he went back to Mexico, I went over the Harvard Business School,

and I was a research associate. So I wrote 17 different academic publications there. Then I came back to Miami, then I went back to D.C. And I was the executive director of an organization called the Cuba Study Group, which is involved in Cuba policy and supports the Cuban Civil Society.

Did that for three years. Came back to Miami again. Then I worked out... The funny thing is, like, I picked up all these skills everywhere, and I kept coming back. Can I curse on this podcast? Of course.

Amazing. And, you know, I had all these skills, and I came back to Miami, and people were like, cool, that's cool, you did that. But can you sell real estate? And I'm like, no. They're like, all right, get the fuck out of here. Wow. So I had to, like, basically reinvent myself. And I started working at public relations agencies.

So I worked at a couple different national and international agencies. And then about three years ago, I went off on my own. And I've got my own PR communications agency now. Nice. And I work with a lot of environmental. nonprofits. So that's my professional side. On my personal side, I wrote a book called The Miami Creation Myth, won an International Latino Book Award. So that's cool. That's awesome. Thank you. And yeah, more to the point to the podcast. I've picked up 37,200 pounds of trash from South Florida's

coastal ecosystem, so mostly the mangroves. That's incredible. That's incredible. I mean, what a lineup of a life. It's been a lot. from, you know, from D.C. and like living that life, right, to obviously your life here in Miami. I think it's intriguing, right? We were talking before the pod, right, about like the educational component. And I think, obviously, I could tell you're an advocate for that, right? Like, not only being able to learn yourself, but being able to learn what you know and be able to provide for other people to be informed, right? Exactly. We live in a world in today's age, right? Social media and just so much information

at our disposal, but it's like what's real, what's not, right? And that's progressively only going to be harder and harder to realize with AI and all these things, which are great tools, but they come at a cost of misinformation, right? So the more we can be informed, I think that, you know, the more powerful we can be. You bring up a great point. So, you know, the reason I'm on this podcast is because, you know, I posted on, so it's been eight years of this, right? So I documented every single day.

It's been 192 days that I've gone out into the mangos. And every single day I documented, I documented how many pounds of trash are picked up, and then I posted that on social media. But that was really just like the very beginning. That's what gets people's attention so that I can then use it as an opportunity to educate them, right, about what the sources of this trash are

and what they can do about it and why they should care. And that's really what I've been doing. That's what this has turned into. It's been an eight-year-long public relation campaign. Yeah, that's incredible. And the fact that you had that vision going into it showcases like, hey, I wasn't just doing this to want to take care of our oceans, even though that's a huge priority in all of this. But it's also letting people know, like, we got to, you know, what you're doing is not helping the cause and how can we help the cause, you know, moving forward. So tell me a little bit about, right, like you said you started eight years ago, right?

What was the inspiration to wanting to do this? I know you talk about education, but. why say, hey, I'm going to go pick up trash, and why am I going to document this process? Well, it started because when I was a teenager in my... Well, first, it started because I'm a recklessly curious person. So... I get in a lot of trouble, and I get injured a lot. But I'm the kind of person that needs to fill in all the white spaces in the maps.

And this was even when I was a teenager. And when I was a teenager growing up here in Miami, my parents... would take me to keep it skiing. And I would just, you know, the beach is nice, whatever, but I'd always wander up to, like, Cranion Park. And from there, like, you keep going north and you get to Bear Cup Preserve, which is just wild. It's just, like, a mangrove swamp.

And it looks, like, really intimidating that I'm like, I want to go in there. So, like, I would go in there and get eaten alive by mosquitoes, and I'd get cut off and all sorts of terrible things so I had no idea what I was doing. But eventually, like, this is a place that it's gorgeous. It's beautiful. It's globally unique.

There's nothing like it. So I fell in love with it. And I'd go back to this place trying to seek that sense of peace, right, in solitude and just quiet. And then as I grew up and became an adult and I'd go back to these areas, instead of finding that sense of peace, I'd get really upset because it's not an exaggeration to say that I couldn't take a step anywhere without stepping on a piece of plastic. Wow. It looked like a landfill that had accumulated... accumulated ever since the 1940s, essentially.

And then eight years ago, I, you know, I tried reaching out to local newspapers and to my commissioner and to the mayor and being like, hey, can we do something about this? But like, nobody cared, nobody answered. Right. And then I was like, all right, whatever. I guess no one's doing anything. So let me just start picking up trash. Wow.

And I bought a GoPro on a whim. And I bought a tripod and just started recording it. and just like, I'm the most stubborn person you've ever met. So I've been out of ever since. That's incredible. And it's funny, right? Because you said how when you were a kid, it was like your place of peace, right? And then, you know, years go by.

And that piece was gone because of essentially what it turned into, right? Like this beautiful landscape. Everything we talk about being here locally or, you know, tourists, right? It's all about the beauty of Miami, right? But that beauty of Miami can't continue to exist if we continue down this path, right? And I think sometimes like we see it, right? And it kind of like goes right by us, right? Like you'll see the trash on the beach.

And it's like, oh man, trash on the beach, right? But we don't realize there's trash there, there's trash there, there. And it's just accumulating and accumulating and accumulating. It's like that snowball effect, right? That one piece turns into two pieces, that two pieces turns into the 10. And it's a never-ending cycle. And you have thousands, millions of pieces of trash, you know, just in one little area. And it's frustrating.

Right. You bring up a good point. So, like, you'll see that trash on the beach. But honestly, there are a bunch of groups, and even the hotels on Miami Beach, like, have their own crews go out there and people trash because the church don't want to see that. Of course.

But when it comes to the mangroves, it's very much out of sight, out of mind. Like, nobody goes to the mangroves. That's so true. Because it's dangerous. Right. And they're mosquitoes. So in 2019, I decided, like,

I'm going to take this problem in a very literal sense out of the mangroves and expose as many Miami's as possible to it, And what I did was I built a 35-pound trash bag with my friend. And I'll compose completely of trash from the mangroves and walk the Miami Marathon with it. No way.

Yep. All 26.2 miles. What? Yep. What year was that? That was 2019. Holy cow. And yeah, that was awful.

And it was a fundraiser for an organization called Miami Waterkeeper. And it took me nine hours and 50 minutes to do it. And it was horrible. But when I was done, I sat in a tub in the bathtub and ate an entire large pizza by myself. Well deserved. Yeah. We raised a lot of money for Miami Waterkeeper. And then the next year, I learned from my mistakes.

I was like, that sucked. Let me rope in some other people to help me. Right. So we pulled this 135 pound trash cart, the length of the marathon. And together we raised $30,000 for my waterkeeper. Yeah. And now the bag's in the history. Miami Museum. No. Yeah. Dude, that's amazing. Holy cow. I'm like generally stunned right now.

That's that that's impressive. I don't recommend it. No, I obviously not, but like, but you talk about like, you know, an advocate for change, right? And sometimes it's like doing drastic things to get attention. Exactly. Because here you are. You're calling the commissioner. You're calling this person, right? And you're like, hey man, like, we have a problem here. Is somebody going to do something? And then it's just cricket. So you're like, okay, well, you know what? I'm going to go carry trash around in the Miami Marathon. everyone's, you know, celebrating this amazing thing. We don't realize that there's just trash all over the place

that no one's caring about. Right. That's insane. Props to you, man. Thank you. And what was kind of like the reaction after the fact? I know you guys raised, you know, a good amount of money, but like, you know, you're running, people are running the marathon and they're just seeing this guy.

Yeah, it was wild. It was wild. So the Miami Herald published a front page story about it. So, like, people found out about it. I didn't think anyone would know. And then, like, I'm like there at the first. starting line like, oh, it's still dark outside. This sucks. And like people come up to me, they're like taking selfies with me. And like the entire way around, everyone was super supportive.

People were taking pictures with me. It was really, really cool. Runners World wrote a piece on me. I was on Onevician, I think. So yeah, it was cool. And that's the point, right? You do these, you do these drastic, dramatic things to get the attention so that then you can educate people. But the thing is like I don't want other people, I don't want other people to like spend eight years picking up, you know, 18 tons of trash. I want them to think about, oh, there's a piece of trash in that traffic meeting over there. Let me pick that up. It's something I can do in my personal life. And trust me, it's so much easier to pick up trash on the sidewalk than it is in the mangroves.

Absolutely. Because that trash on the sidewalk will wind up in the mangroves. what happens is people litter on the side of the road. Rain comes, you know, we live in a subtropical area. It rains that goes directly into the street gutters. There's no filter whatsoever. And it goes right into the bay and right into the mangroves. And people ask me all the time, they're like,

how can people be so terrible? How can people go into the mangroves and dump all this trash? My friend, they are not dumping millions of water bottles. Like this is coming directly from the city. Interesting. All right, because you think, okay, this is just, stuff that's maybe in the surrounding areas of the mangroves and just ending up there. But you're saying that, hey, this is actually happening right here in your everyday backyard.

Exactly. And then filtering down into the oceans. That's exactly where most of it is coming from. It's funny. So this was like two weeks ago. I was filling up gas right here off Bird and Tropical Park right there by Tropical Park. And there was a guy there with a garbage bag. And he was just going up and down the side of the road, Tropical Park.

And he ended up actually making it all the way to the gas station. He was there in the gas station picking up trash. on the ground. Good for that guy. Yeah. Yeah. And it reminds, when I saw your story, I'm like, that's the irony. Because I even, I don't know why, you know, you're there.

You're filling up your tank. You're kind of, you're not really like paying attention to your surrounding, right? You're just there filling up. You might get on your phone while you wait. But that guy caught my attention. I'm like, I saw this guy like 20 minutes ago all the way over there. Now he's here at the gas station and he's still picking up trash. So it's like, imagine if you get a couple people doing things like that.

That's literally what I'm trying to. do. Like, if you, if you tag me on Instagram with you picking up trash, I will share it. I want, I want to model behavior. Right. I want people to see that this is something you should be doing. It should be part of your everyday life. Absolutely. No, I agree. And it would be, my, my, my, my, my, my head's already like spinning of, of ideas, right? You, you see, like, I've done a couple of, like, these groups where we actually went into the mangroves, uh, on kayak and went and started picking up tribe. Would you do with? That was with a blue missions. Okay, cool. Yeah. So we did that with them. And, you know, that always kind of like sparked, one, it sparks like a crazy level of awareness of what exists in there, right? You're talking about rope. Plastic. So much rope. Yeah. We had knives there. We're there cutting off the, you know, the ropes off the mangroves. You're picking up, obviously, all the water bottles. But there's just like the most random of the random stuff that ends up there, which I know you've had some crazy experiences with random stuff in there. Tell us, tell us a little bit about some of the crazy stuff that you found.

Okay. Picture anything that human beings make. I have found it. Okay? So like some of the wild, so the most common items are plastic bags, plastic bottles, things like that.

But like, you know, I found a virtual reality headset, multiple microwave ovens. I found it a whole kitchen stove, like four range stove top with like you pull down to get the oven. Yeah. Found that.

found a 220-pound tractor-trailer tire that came up to my chin. And I had to then roll and push up a freaking hill to get out of the mangroves. You did that by yourself? Yeah, it fell on my head. It took me three times. It was this water log, too, I can imagine. Yeah. Yeah, I had to scoop it all out.

What else I got? Multiple vacuum cleaners. Many mattresses. So much underwear. Just too much underwear. I saw you found like an underwear and a bra. Yeah, just like a week ago. Yeah.

People just be throwing off their clothes. So how does that type of stuff like end up there, right? Like you talk about an oven, like that oven, you know, a mattress, like those things. Like that stuff gets dumped. No, no, it's not floating. That does not float. Yeah, that's people dumping. That's people going in there and like setting up a little camp for a little bit or like, you know,

fucking, literally fucking and throwing off their clothes and leaving it there. Or this is what often happens. Whenever you have a wild space right next to a road, and it's kind of secluded, people will dump there. They'll throw tires, they'll throw construction equipment, they'll throw anything and everything so they don't have to take it to the dump. Right. So like just in North Point Park, which I've been cleaning for the last year, and I got 10,200 pounds so far, I picked up 47 tires from this one park. But I haven't told you the craziest thing I've found. The craziest thing I have ever found in the mangroves is a bank robber.

A what? Strap in. No. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. I got a story for you. Oh, yeah, I'm for this one. Okay, so I was walking to the mangroves with these two high school students.

Okay. Because they'd reach out to me and I was like... Is that in North Point Park? This was in Barricot Preserve in Cranon Park. Got you. So like right after you crossed the small... You got the big bridge going over to Virginia Key. than a smaller bridge over to Keep Skiy.

If you look to your left, it's all mangroves. That's where I was. Okay. So I was walking through the mangroves with these two high school students, just telling them about the mangroves, explaining the ecosystem. And then I hear EDM blasting in the mangroves. I'm like, well, that's freaking weird.

And it's like middle of the day? Yeah, middle of the day. EDM, going hard, drops. And then I'm like, all right, let me stash these two kids away. Right. Put them somewhere where they're not going to be seen. and I make my way over to the sound, and I know the mangroves,

and I can go wherever I want without being seen. Lo and behold, there's this freaking dude. Blonde hair, shirtless, freaking white dude. Just like, he built himself a little platform out of the mangroves, which is illegal. You're not allowed to chop down the mangroves in the state of Florida. And he had these two big speakers. He had a tent on top of the platform.

these two big speakers and just blasting house into the mangroves. I'm like, huh, that's not normal. Right. Okay. So I come back, I grab the two kids, we go back, I leave them in the parking lot, and then I go to the counties, like, building there. And I'm like, hey, this is kind of weird. This guy's out there.

This is his pin. This is the exact geolocation. Go get them. They're like, all right, we'll go get them. I check in a couple months later. I'm like, hey, did you get the guy? They're like, we sent a pair of cops out there, but they couldn't find them. And in my head, I'm like, how?

I literally sent you the pin. It's impossible. Yeah. And in my mind, the cops just were scared of the mangroves. They didn't want to go into the mangroves. I'm like, all right, I will literally physically take one of your employees to the exact location and point them out to you. So I go with this county employee. We go through the mangroves, and there he is, 20 feet away.

Months later, he was still there. Yep. On his platform, putting it on deal. And I'm like, there he is, please go get them. They're like, all right, we'll go get them. Well, they don't get them. So this is what this guy does. He has a canoe, and he grabs his canoe, and he paddles to Miami Beach from Key Biscayne, which is impressive in and of itself.

He saw these people coming, got into his. No, no, no, no, this is on his own volition later. Got it. So he gets on his canoe, goes to Miami Beach. Impressive, because you're crossing. government cut, right? You're crossing the port of Miami where there's like cruise ships and container ships and it's eight miles, okay? I've done that. I've done that trip.

It's eight miles to South Beach. So impressive. Canoes all the way to South Beach, beaches his canoe on the sand, walks into a bank, no mask, no gun, demands money from the cashier. The cashier gives them whatever they have on hand, grabs the money, goes back to his canoe, paddles his ass back across the port of Miami all the way back to the mangroves and then finally

the county was like shit we have to do something about this and they sent the SWAT team are you for real I'm dead serious holy cow and did this guy have like a record before like who was this guy like I don't know who the guy is

like I didn't ask there's some weird freaking people in the mangrove stories you would never I know. There's like, I found, you know, there's square groupers out there. Yeah. There's like some shady shit going on in the mangroves. I mean, when you look back at Miami, the mangroves were like the, where things went down kind of thing.

You know, God knows what. I mean, you've heard like human trafficking stories. Yeah. Obviously, you bring up the square groupers and like that whole era of Miami and that whole world still obviously exists down here. So it's like you can only imagine half the stuff that goes. was down there. There was a time I was in the mangroves and my phone blows up. Everyone starts calling me in texting. They're like, hey, are you okay? Are you alive? I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. There was a decapitated head found half a mile away from where I was.

Holy cow. Yep. That was where, same area? Same area. Keep us game. Jesus Christ. Yep. Wow. You never know what the hell can go down in the mangroves. Holy shit. Wow. I'm actually stunned. Holy shit. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. It is crazy, right? Because like, like, what the mangroves serve, right? You hear about like the protection. Yeah, yeah. Erosion, especially like with hurricanes, right? The importance of the mangroves, you know, not only to the city of Miami, but just, you know, overall in the ecosystem, we talk about education. Can you tell people like how important the mangroves actually are and like why we rely on them and why they're so protected? Absolutely. So first and foremost,

Mangroes, so for those who don't know what a mangrove. Well, there's different kinds of mangroves, but I work a lot in red mangrove forest, and they're like the most famous kinds of mangroves. They have these big sweeping roots that arc into the sand. So, like, they're the most aquatic. They live in the saltwater, basically, and it's a tidal ecosystem, so they can be submerged, you know,

four, five feet in the water and saltwater and be absolutely fine. And what they do is that their roots quite literally hold down the soil and the sand on the coastline. And they also serve as this like shock absorber and this giant sponge for when storm surges and hurricanes hit us, they soak up all that water and energy so it doesn't hit our infrastructure

and doesn't like degrade all that. So like if you like paddle past a seawall and the waves are hitting it, what you're going to see is like a ton of turbulence. So the wave will hit it and bounce back and interact with other waves because all that energy is getting like directed directly into the seawall and that's why they break down in like a decade.

But if you paddle past, you know, with the same choppy whatever outside, you paddle past a mangrove forest, it's completely calm because all that gets absorbed into there. So that's the first thing that they do. The second thing that they do that's very important is that basically 80% of the reefish offshore. So like think tuna, think marlin, swordfish, whatever, every group or everything that we love to eat, they spend their juvenile stages within the mangrove roots. They act as protection. And I've swam through the mangroves at high tide,

and every single tree has hundreds, isn't that thousands of fish, just around the mangrove roots. It's incredible. And they also serve as a rookery for local birds. So you look around at our pelicans, our egrids, our ophspray, ibis, whatever. A lot of them are born in the canopy,

in the nests of these mangroves. So without the mangroves, we literally don't have an ecotourism sector in this city. And so what's really important about making sure that our trash specifically or plastic doesn't wind up in there is that when a piece of plastic

gets thrown in the ocean, it doesn't like a water bottle. It doesn't remain a solid piece of large plastic. It breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces is called microplastics. And then the animals at the bottom of the food chain will mistake those plastics for food. So like you're talking your crabs, your worms,

your filter feeders, whatever. And then the larger predators eat the smaller prey until the largest, you know, the largest oceanic predators have the highest concentration of plastics in their bodies. And like you'll also see like Ibis, for example. So they have these long legs and like a long arc to beak. They're called waiting birds, and they're all sorts of different kinds of waiting birds.

But basically, they move their beaks around in the mangroves, in the shallow seagrass areas, basically right along the coastline, and they eat whatever they find there, and they ingest a ton of these microplastics when they're doing that. Also manatees. So those microplastics filter to the seagrass beds, and they use their snouts and their flippers to bring the seagrass up into their mouths. But they're also ingesting all of this microplastic, and it kills them.

Yeah. Like a couple years ago, we had a record-setting number of manatees die in the state of Florida, and, you know, something like 70% of them had significant amounts of plastic in their stomachs. Yes. Wow. And then, of course, you also have, like, whales. You know, whales get beached all the time. And a lot of them are filter feeders. They're baling whales. So, like, they'll go up in massive amounts of water, and then they'll filter out the water and keep, you know, the krill or whatever else they're hunting.

But the plastic bags get caught in there as well, and they swallow them, and they can't digest plastic, so it stays in their stomachs. And they feel full, and they literally starve to death, and they wash ashore. Holy cow. So, I mean, obviously, every single facet of life, you know, is affected at some capacity.

I mean all the way down from like the lowest part of the food chain All the way up and it's just kind of passed on You know from I guess level Yeah to level right and another thing people don't notice or don't really think about is like say you go fishing off a bridge Yeah and your line gets caught up so you cut that once Yeah ridiculous you cut the line right and the line just goes into the ocean Well guess what man that line ends up between the mangrove roots or between the mangrove trunks and I've seen it A bird will come flying through

Decapitated yeah I've actually seen that before too It's terrible. Those fishing bridges, like, I mean, I get it, you know, creating something for people to do. But, like, everything's got to be done responsibly. Right. Because if not, then you've got to take those things away from us, unfortunately. Because if we're not doing our part to do it right and well, then we're going to have issues like that. And you see it all the time on these fishing bridges, like lines just hanging the nets, right?

And birds getting stuck in the nets. I saw a video on Instagram, I think it was yesterday, actually. And it was a sea turtle. a little sea turtle probably about this big, just all tangled up in a fishing net. And ironically enough, a boat happened to be passing by, sees the net, sees that there's a sea turtle in it, and they grabbed it, were able to cut the net open, and the sea turtle immediately took off. But it looked like the sea turtle had been in there for God knows how long. Yeah, they drown like that. And dolphins too and manatees, they'll get caught up in the netting and they'll drown.

Yeah, no, it's unfortunate. So like, obviously we're talking a lot about the issues at hand, right? So how do we prevent this from continuing? We know we could do our part. If we see trash in the streets, go out there and pick it up, right? But now it's also the prevention component. Right. Because you could do all this work, but if we're not doing our part to prevent,

then it's just a never-ending cycle. You're never going to make progress at the same rate of, you know, fixing the issue, right? Yeah. I think of it at a systemic level on two different fronts. So there's the cultural front. So like, you know, I go to Western North Carolina every year and I hiked the mountains there. And there's no trash.

Like, anyway. I hiked the Art Lobe Trail. It was 32 miles in one day. And didn't see a freaking piece of trash the whole way because it's part of the culture. Leave no trace is part of the culture in Appalachian. It really is. So that's one side of it.

So like seeing the trash picking it up, you know, consuming less plastic. your life. But then honestly, man, like I see trash as a stream and I'm all the way downstream. I'm picking up trash and the mangroves people who pick up in the beaches. We're all the way downstream. And all the way upstream are the manufacturers, right? And in the middle are the consumers and the distributors. And we need to shift the system. We need to change the way that we consume plastic. So it didn't always used to be like this. There were other systems in place. So for example, your milkman used to come by with glass vials of milk, drop it off at your house. And I remember

this growing up. And you'd leave the ones that you used outside. And that was a system that was reusable, right? And it didn't, like, you didn't need to consume all this single use plastic. But, you know, I'm not a fan of politics. But like, at the end of the day, like you can march and you can rally and you can post and you can do cleanups and all these things. But if you don't have legislation and regulation passed that addresses this at its core, nothing's going to get done. Right. And like the state of Florida has a preemption law.

It's called basically any city or county, they pass an ordinance like banning whatever styrofoam or plastic bags. The state of Florida will come in and go, nope, and cancel it. So like that needs to go. Wow. Yeah. So like I'm about, I'm all about local home rule, right? Of course. Like coming up with solutions that work for your community, but this doesn't allow local communities whose residents want to address this problem to start addressing it. So that's the first thing.

You can go ahead and create that, you know, systematic kind of approach to fixing the problem. But coming from the, you know, higher part of the state, they're going to be like, hey, this is so it's immediately wiped. Right. Exactly. Got it. That's unfortunate. But you know, you bring up like politics and, you know, kind of like legislation component to it, right? And from like a big picture, obviously, like those are always the approaches, right? Like if we could just get the right processes put in place and make sure legislation is attached to it so that people have to follow the rules, right, that are in place. But it's an uphill battle, right? I mean, I'm sure you know, you've, you've been an advocate for this and you do your part to kind of at least bring. awareness to the issue, right? But I also think, like, when you kind of look at just, like, I guess, the way certain infrastructures are put in place, right? You talk about, like, the drainage system, right?

And how most of that pollution is actually going through there. Is there anything that we can do to, you know, maybe create a better system? Yeah. Like, you mentioned that there's no filters, maybe some sort of, like, filter component. Obviously, there's a lot that goes into, I'm sure, like, building that out. But when you said that there was no filter, like, immediately off the top of my head, I feel like that could be a cool, like, resolution. There's actually a local company. The name escapes me at this moment that creates these, it's called smart grates. So basically, they have, like, a little sensor that tells you when the grate, like, gets covered in trash.

The problem is, like, say you put, like, more, like, fine grading on top of those, what's it called? the intake where like the water comes in off the street. So like what happens is that those get covered and then it produces flooding. Right. So it can get covered with whatever leaves or trash or whatever. So they came up with a smart grate that lets you know, oh, this grate is covered in trash. So people, then you can come by and you can take that trash away. So it doesn't go in.

At the other end, you've got the outflows. So the water comes in through the gutter and goes out into the ocean through the out, through the outflow. You can install, they're called trash traps and they're giant nets, essentially, bags that the water can flow through and then the rest will fill up with trash. That is

also a possible solution. Okay. In Baltimore, in the inner harbor, you have this thing called Mr. Trash Wheel. And if, you know, you haven't seen it, please go just go look at it on social media. It's hilarious. It has this giant mouth and it's basically like this conveyor belt that just

like feeds the trash in the inner harbor, up into this dumpster in the back. So something like that, like, I have pitched Señor, what is it? Senor trash wheel for Miami with, like, maybe a mustache. Like, I would love to see that here. That would be crazy. Yeah, yeah, like, like... I mean, that seems like logistically, like, obviously there's a little bit of a buildout

to that, but if some, like a city like Baltimore was able to accomplish that, you know, why not us? Exactly. Exactly. So, like, there are all these, so it's not a one... It's not like there's a single solution. Of course. You can pursue multiple routes at the same time. And here's the really nice thing.

We live in a very polarized time. This is not polarized. Like, it doesn't matter where you are on the spectrum. 100%. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you're super less, super right in the middle. Nobody wants more trash in the ocean. It's so true. That's been like the best part of this.

Yeah, that is true. And I think that's like the beauty of it, right? because we're dragged into so many kind of like political thoughts and, you know, ideologies that, you know, wherever you stand on it, at the end of the day, like, this is our home. Exactly. And whatever you believe is kind of irrelevant at that because if you don't have a home, then none of this even matters. Yeah. And the more we could do our part and align as a, you know, society. Community, yeah.

And community, right? Like, we're going to accomplish things that are going to be for the common goal at the end of the day. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, you grew up here. Yeah. You stick 10 Miamians in a room. You'll come out with 11 opinions. But like, this is something everyone agrees on. Yeah.

Like, there's no one's like, let's pull more trash in the ocean. 100%. 100%. So obviously, you know, we've talked a little bit about like the solutions, you know, things that we can do. But what's like, what does this look like for you like in the next five years? I'm sure you're going to continue to pick up trash, right? you're going to continue to do your part.

But do you see any sort of movement? Do you see any sort of traction? Like, I think we're aware of it. Yeah. Can we all be better in like doing our part? Absolutely. But what does like the path forward look like? So the first thing is that things have changed a lot since I started.

Okay. There are so, I'm just one part of a much bigger movement. There's so many different groups, so many different individuals doing awesome work. Mani Ronda at Fillabag. M.J. Algara from Clean This Beach Up. Mangrove Sasquatch. Yeah, it's great names. That's a great name.

But like all like volunteer cleanup is another thing. Like I highly suggest like if you're looking for a cleanup in Miami, go to volunteer cleanup.org. Like, and you will find the entire list of cleanups like start to finish. So like in your neighborhood, beach cleanup, neighborhood cleanup, mangrove cleanup, whatever. You can find it there. So like I've seen it grow a lot over the last eight years.

And I've seen people get more like, aware of the scale and the scope of this problem. So that's a good thing. As for me, dude, when it comes to cleanups, I'm going to keep doing this until my arms and legs fall off. Like, there's no point where I'm like, all right, I'm done. Like 50,000, whatever, 100,000. Nope, until I literally die.

I'm going to keep doing this. That's amazing. And I'm going to keep talking to whoever will have me, not just on podcasts like yours, but I talk to local middle and high school. to colleges, graduate programs, companies. I had a talk at the zoo recently, so literally whoever will have me, I will talk to you.

And yeah, man, and, you know, trying to reach a wider audience lately, I don't know what's in the water, but like I've gotten more attention than usual. The Washington Post came out there. Yeah, I saw that. That was awesome. Yeah. Sen.

And Español came out. there, Bebesse Mundo, and there's some other ones I can't mention yet that it's going to be big. So I'll keep doing those as well. Absolutely. But you know, you talk about I don't know what's in the water, right? Microplastics. Yeah, exactly. Microplastics.

We do know that. But it's like a common theme in a lot of the conversations that we like to have, right? And it's when you align yourself with like a larger purpose, everything else kind of just starts to align. right because you've been doing this right and you said you've been doing this for eight plus years right and you have a level of compassion and passion towards this initiative right and these and these problems that exist and you're just doing your part right and that there's like no reward for you right like there's no there's no money in trust yeah exactly right like you're not doing it for you know any really selfish reason by any stretch of the imagination like it is one of the most selfless acts somebody can do right

And when you do those things, universe, God, whatever it is that, you know, believe in at the end of the day, is going to reward you for living a life of purpose and, like, very intentional in, like, the direction of the line of work that you want to do, right? And I think it's just a testament to, like, who you are or what you represent and doing something that's greater than yourself, good things happen to those people. I'm a massive believer in that. And I think this is just like the beginning, right? You start seeing this. You start getting an article here. You start getting an article here. And the change and the mission becomes so loud that people are going to be like,

I got to be a part of this. Right. And I think that's the motivation, right? That's the motivation for you, right? Getting more people to become aware, getting more people to do their part. And you just continue to do what you do. Yeah. And I think that's the beauty of all of this.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. It's awesome. Congrats to you, man. we're obviously here to help as well. You know, I'm very passionate about the ocean. I love the ocean.

I grew up around the ocean. I'm passionate about Miami. And I definitely can do more 100%. I think we all can. And I just think the little acts that we can all do multiply as a collective, as a community. So anything we could do to help, I'm here to help as well. And I'm sure everybody that will listen to this as well will be more inclined to

want to help and maybe we organize like a massive cleanup one of these days. I know you mentioned there's sites that have already existing but you know anything we could do more to supplement that I think is great as well. I do I do group cleanups every now and then. So most of the like especially the last year because I've been working in such a sensitive area. Yeah. I've been doing it by myself just to like just to minimize my impact. But yeah hopefully next year I'll start doing more group cleanups. Absolutely. I think it's just a great like community builder for you know for yourself. and just obviously a way to see to get with people that may have this like in their back of their head right and you know a website is great right but like having like a direct connection point to someone I think is always good right I mean that was a big reason why I did the ones that I've done in the past is just like feel comfortable with somebody that I know and you know feel comfortable doing something that I want to do but like not really knowing where to go and having some sort of like hey we're going here at this time we can rally a bunch of people We know the space is safe and we're going to go pick up a bunch of trash and do this together, right?

Yeah. Actually, so I'm glad you brought this up. I partner with another nonprofit here called Debris Free Oceans. And I believe it's going to be March. We're going to do an event called Miami's Trashiest Run. And so it's going to be a 5K on Virginia Key in the Marine Stadium Basin. Okay. So we're partnering with the city and the county.

And we're going to do like this 5K out there. and then it's going to be kind of like a team competition to see which team can collect the most trash. Nice. And then whoever collects the most trash wins, you know, whatever. And then, you know, we're going to run back. So that's definitely going to be a good event for people to join. Absolutely. I mean, it's like connecting like the mission of all of this with like an event that, you know,

people are just engaged and can have a good time doing it. Yeah. And that's the cool part about it. But listen, I appreciate it. Like some crazy stories that you. witnessed and obviously some amazing work that that you're doing so congrats to you and we're we're excited to see where this whole movement goes as a whole you know where hopefully continue to change hopefully people partake and doing their part even if you just see that little wrapper right there on the side

just pick it up because that makes a huge difference yeah and thank you so much for having of course absolutely appreciate it everybody all right guys well thanks so much for tuning in and we will see you on the next one