Ep. 48: Overwhelmed by Sustainable Living Advice? Start Here (with Alexa Pavan)

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (00:00.994)
How do you know what sustainability advice to trust anymore? Because there’s so much information out there and even when you care, even when you’re trying to pay close attention, it can be really hard to know what actually matters. Welcome to Sustainable in the Suburbs, a podcast for the eco-curious who want to live a greener life and are looking for a place to start. I’m your host, Sarah Robertson Barnes, a soccer mom with a station wagon and a passion for sustainable living.

Each week I’ll bring you practical tips and honest conversations to help you waste less, save money and make small doable shifts that actually fit your real life. Because sustainable living doesn’t have to be perfect to matter and you don’t have to do it all to make a difference. Hello and welcome to Sustainable in the Suburbs, the podcast where we start where we are, use what we have and live a little greener, one small shift at a time. My name is Sarah and I’m so glad you’re here. And if this podcast has become a part of your week,

The best way to support it is by leaving a rating and a review wherever you’re listening today. You can also click the support the show link in the show notes or share your favorite episode on social media. And just a reminder that starting in May, the show will be going bi-weekly until the fall. So for the next few months, new episodes will be coming out on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month with maybe the odd bonus episode in there here and there.

but that means that the next episode after today will be out on May 12th. So please follow the show wherever you get your podcasts to make sure that you get each new episode when they come out. And if we’re not already connected, come find me on Instagram at Sarah Robertson Barnes. And there are links to the newsletter blog and all that stuff down in the show notes for you. Now today’s conversation is one that I think a lot of us are feeling because sustainability advice is everywhere.

Hello, you can open up Instagram, read a headline, listen to a podcast, and within minutes you’ll hear 10 different things about what you should be doing, what matters most, what doesn’t, what’s worth your time, what isn’t. And even when we really care, even when we genuinely want to make better choices, it can start to feel really confusing. Like where do I even start? And I can’t do everything, so what actually matters?

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (02:21.01)
and are all these things that I’m doing making any difference at all? There’s just a lot of information and misinformation that can sometimes leave us feeling stuck in the now what space. And I’ve been finding myself in this place lately as well. And I just wanted to sit with that for a little bit and do a reset. So today let’s talk about how to make sense of all of this, how to better understand the information that we’re taking in.

how to connect all the dots between different sustainability conversations and how our individual actions can actually build into something bigger at the community level and beyond. And to help me do that, today I’m joined by Alexa Pavan, a climate communicator, copywriter, and sustainability content creator behind Go Green with Alexa.

With a background in science and public health, Alexa focuses on making sustainability and environmental issues more accessible, more understandable, and a lot more approachable. She grew up in a family of composters, has been scuba diving for over 20 years, which brings a really unique perspective that connects things like composting with ocean ecosystems and human health, all through the lens of everything is connected.

She uses storytelling and clear communication to help people make sense of the environmental issues we’re facing and to figure out what that actually looks like in our day-to-day lives. We’ll also be talking about how this doesn’t have to feel heavy all the time, how there can and should be room for curiosity, creativity, and even a bit of fun in how we approach sustainable living. Here’s my conversation with Alexa.

Hello, Alexa. Welcome to the show. I’m glad we are going to have this conversation today.

Alexa Pavan (04:11.02)
Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. I’m so excited to talk to you.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (04:14.348)
Yeah, we actually just recently connected online and became super best friends. So I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to come across your work because I very much also believe that everything is connected. And so I just really appreciate seeing how different people communicate their experiences in sort of a same, same, but different way. So I’d love to start with your story and how you came to see sustainability through your lens.

So can you introduce yourself to the listeners and tell us about the work that you do?

Alexa Pavan (04:47.886)
Yeah, so my name is Alexa Pavan and I go by Go Green with Alexa online. But my journey actually starts like way back when I was a kid in my childhood. And a lot of it is credited to my parents. My parents are immigrants from Brazil. And I always start my story this way because for me, I guess the shorthand for saying that my parents are immigrants from Brazil is that they’re one care about the environment so deeply.

It’s so ingrained into the culture, into the fabric of their being, and that informed who I am. So I always introduce it in that way, but I also to say that my general feeling about immigrants is that immigrants are very resourceful and very scrappy and really good at making do with very little. So that was my upbringing. And my parents came to the United States for a better life, to start something of their own, and then to eventually have children.

show them that better life. So they started by, after many years of toiling in the US, after they got their footing, they started a scuba diving business in South Florida. Yeah, so I grew up in the scuba diving industry since I was a child and would work at this scuba diving shop many summers and any of my free time really. And then in high school, it was a more permanent position.

But basically, ocean conservation was a center focus of my life because my parents obviously understood that if you, which I say obviously, but it’s not so obvious for other people. my parents understood that if you have a business that’s centered on the environment, you must protect the environment. Like I said, they have innately grown up with that kind of thinking. So they just had that naturally was like, okay, well, you can’t shit where you eat, right? can’t, you can’t.

destroy what’s giving you your income and your living. And also it just wasn’t in their thought process to begin with. So basically that business really cultivated and set a foundational standard for how I view the world and how I see everything because everything was from that lens. And even in our day to day life, my parents composted at home and we grew fruit trees in our backyard. So my whole life I’ve been at have that

Alexa Pavan (07:05.25)
I’ve had access to fruit trees. And I want to say that my parents, were not well off. We were very, like I would say low income at the time. So we had fruit trees. I had access to the ocean and composting and all these things that were not, they were seen as kind of strange and kind of niche and definitely something of low income status kind of thing back then.

And it’s just funny to see how that shaped me over the years. anyway, fast forward to college, kind of really, that was just how I grew up and it was just normal for me. I went to college and I basically was like looking around and was like, wow, this is really not, even though I grew up with like going to other friends’ households and everything, it’s just not the same until you like really get away from your house and from your childhood home, you know? So when I finally got away and went to college, I was like, wow, everyone really is living so differently than the way I grew up. And it wasn’t until I was making all of my food.

myself, like I grew up making food, but like it wasn’t until I was doing it all myself that I was like, wow, I’m throwing all of this into the trash, all my scraps. And that just killed me because I had never done that before. I, my parents have a tiny trash can that’s literally, I’m trying to put into meters, but I would say like a third of a meter, a really small trash can basically. a fart. Yeah, it’s a fart. I don’t want to

Alexa Pavan (08:24.706)
I’m just trying to be…

Alexa Pavan (08:30.446)
Like, we just go back, go to the metric system? But I digress. So yeah, it’s a small trash can and we still have that trash can to this day because most of our waste was either composted and I will say most of it composted or it was reused or it was recycled. And so with that, we didn’t have much trash. And then when I went to college, I was just watching all the trash that me and my roommates were throwing out and it was driving me crazy. Like literally it physically hurt me to watch all this waste.

not waste really. don’t consider it waste. I consider it to be something that could be used as a valuable resource that we’re throwing into the trash. And that’s when I got my vermicomposter, which is basically a worm composting box. Yes. Love that. And yeah, so that was one thing that I started doing because I was like, I need access and I lived in an apartment. And so I was like, I need to have my own compost system. Lots of trial and error with that. Basically, over the years, I’ve realized that that’s not the best method for me.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (09:07.466)
I also have a vermicomposter.

Alexa Pavan (09:25.294)
but we’ll definitely talk about more composting later on. But anyway, so it wasn’t until I was a pre-med majoring college, I thought I was gonna be a medical doctor. I got to the end of my four years of university and I was just like, you know, I don’t want to be a doctor because what I really care about is treating the root of the issue. And I constantly kept coming back to, I have degrees in biomedical science and public health. And it kept coming back to the public health aspect that if your environment’s

unhealthy, you are unhealthy. So it really doesn’t matter if you’re just treating this individual or treating even a community, if you’re not really addressing the root cause. And that was my biggest issue with medicine, at least in the way it’s handled in the United States and, you know, all over and in many countries around the world that it could be done better, definitely in the United States. So for me, it was just like, I kind of took a meandering path to this, but basically it was always in my through line of environment is important to me, community is important to me.

and understanding that inextricable link between people, planet, and really how things are being separated from one another instead of showing that we all have a relationship towards each other.

And basically, so that’s a long-winded way of saying like, now I work as a climate communicator is what I call myself, but I specifically work with sustainable businesses and environmental organizations as a copywriter. So that’s my day job. I’m just helping people basically communicate with their audiences in a more effective manner, because I think what we’ve seen over the years is that, you know, lot of these organizations or even businesses that are interested in environment, they don’t know how to

properly communicate and it either becomes too sciency and it’s out of the, you know, out of the realm for their prospects, for their prospective customers or members. And then they’re kind of losing people. So basically I’m just trying to make it more digestible, more palatable for the average person to actually feel like they have some agency and some, some autonomy in this fight that we all have like a part in it. And I really just strive to show people that through my writing. But then I also do content creation.

Alexa Pavan (11:36.706)
just for funsies and just try to connect with people online like you and really just show people that it’s much easier to be sustainable than they originally might’ve thought.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (11:46.498)
That’s so interesting what you just saying about sort of the unease that we feel in the environment, that you can’t heal in the environment that may do sick. And I think that what you’re getting at there is something a lot of people are feeling, even if we can’t quite name it, because it’s not just that there’s so much information now. That’s something that I noticed even over the last 10 years. There’s always a climate story on the front page, I guess, of the internet now. But it doesn’t always line up with what we can see outside of our windows.

And even when you’re trying to pay attention, which you and I both do all the time, it can still feel really hard to know what to trust or what to do with it. And I think that’s where a lot of us get stuck. It’s not because we don’t care, because I think we all really do fundamentally, but because it’s just a lot to sort through. you were just mentioning sort of the disconnect between science and the public. Where do you see that showing up the most?

Alexa Pavan (12:44.27)
I guess, mean, social media, like anything online obviously is really being overtaken by lack of, I would say, by lack of literacy, but mostly misinformation is just overtaking everything.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (12:59.414)
It’s so to trust the information that you read on kind of on from any perspective. You’re like, well, OK, but who said this and where does it come from? And can I trust that organization? And who is paying for this? Yeah.

Alexa Pavan (13:12.524)
And even the professionals like I would say the mainstream media, like we are all pretty distressing of the mainstream media sources now. So it’s like, who are we turning to? Everyone’s looking for an answer. And I understand that. So they’re looking to influencers or other people online. not saying influencers is a bad thing. I’m just saying that like we need to understand that these people need to have credentials and at least some kind of basic understanding of what they’re talking about or a background in it at least.

because we just don’t know if there’s malicious intent and all those things. And I feel so deeply for every person out there that’s consuming all this information and trying to be better and trying to stay informed. But it’s just so hard, like sifting through all this bullshit really. It can be so vast and it’s overwhelming.

So I understand and that’s why I’m just trying to cut through the noise. I go to community events pretty often and I hear misinformation constantly and I have to cut in and be like, hi, respectfully, can I add something to this conversation? And I kind of have to basically diffuse it in a very loving way and kind of explain to them.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (14:23.744)
it’s easier to trust face to face too because you’re having an actual human conversation.

Alexa Pavan (14:30.04)
Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. And that’s why I kind of do actually butt in nowadays. I used to just kind of listen to it and kind of go home and make a post about it. But nowadays I’m more inclined to cut in and say, you know, I understand why you’ve, where you might’ve heard this or why you think this way, but let me offer a different perspective. And so it’s not just online. It can be happening in person as well. So it’s just something to.

see how it’s permeating every area of our lives, but it’s not to say that people don’t want information and don’t want to be more knowledgeable about these topics. It’s really just that there’s too much going on.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (15:10.688)
Yeah, I think that’s the piece that people are really looking for is how to actually move through all of this. And so when you’re personally trying to understand an issue, how do you filter what’s actually credible?

Alexa Pavan (15:25.006)
That’s a great question. would say looking at the sources is the number one. I have trusted sources that I look to and I, even then I don’t stop there. I kind of make sure that there’s multiple sources saying the same thing as well. I want to bring up something that happened to me the other day on threads where I was talking about the drought in Florida. We have a severe drought right now in Florida.

And not even just here, it’s like 65 % of the United States right now is dealing with that. So it’s a really big deal and not enough people are really talking about that. And while data centers are a problem, there’s so many other issues that have been going unnoticed for decades that now data centers are getting the blame, which they definitely should in some respect, but not all the blame, right? Because there’s been like decades of poor policy and-

just overdevelopment. But anyway, that’s actually not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about that somebody commented basically posting their quote unquote source, but it wasn’t a source. What they had actually posted was a screenshot of a Google search and they use the preview text in the Google search to confirm what, you know, confirm their bias.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (16:35.66)
Yeah, the AI results.

Alexa Pavan (16:37.416)
Yeah, not even the AI results actually, without the AI, like when you go to click, before you even click into the actual thing, there’s like a preview tag. Yeah, so that’s called meta-text. And that’s technically a separate description box from the article itself or for whatever the page is, right? As somebody who works in this backend marketing world, and I also do websites,

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (16:45.58)
little break down.

Alexa Pavan (17:01.964)
I understand that those are two separate things. I understand also that the average person doesn’t understand that they’re two separate things. So they think it’s just being auto populated based on whatever the page is. And I just want to say that that’s not like using the preview text of even a reliable source is not accurate information and it’s not a accurate or reliable source. So you need to click into that article. You need to fully read that article. You need to figure out where the sources are for that article. If it’s not a primary source.

So that’s how I go about things. really am, I’m very careful about what I talk about. I only talk about things that I really know about. that’s things, information that I’ve gathered through my university studies, through my personal experiences, through books, through podcasts, through things like I constantly do in research and learning and reading myself. So if I don’t know about a topic, I’m researching it and I’m researching extensively before I bring it to the public. So I think that’s just another thing is just like taking it slow and kind of just,

you know, taking a breath before we are so quick to just, you know, post. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. React to whatever it is that’s happening and just taking a beat and thinking like, where is this coming from? Who is funding this? Who is, you know, just asking ourselves these questions before we get like too riled up. Cause I even noticed that happening with myself. Sometimes I would just read a headline and I would get riled up and it’s like, okay, let’s, that’s not the way to do it. That’s what they want to happen. You know, they want a reaction from us. And so what I do is like,

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (18:04.162)
retreat

Alexa Pavan (18:29.814)
Okay, don’t let the headline mean very much to me. It’s just like the, it’s the preview. And then I get into the actual article, I read the whole thing. So I think it’s really, right. So what I’m saying is not anything revolutionary. And I hate to say that it’s like really basic, but it’s pretty much how my approach to sustainability is. It’s like, follow, follow the money, first of all, follow the sources and make sure that you’re just like thinking things through instead of just constantly moving on to the next thing and just.

letting your nervous system pretty much be hijacked by all these external sources.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (19:02.094)
I’m saying that all the time on this show is like, just slow down is the best thing that you can do is just slow down. So like, what are, so what are some signs that a piece of sustainability advice, cause we do see on the threads just, know, do this, do this, do this. What are some signs that that piece of sustainability advice might not be as helpful as it sounds?

Alexa Pavan (19:26.296)
If it sounds too complicated, that’s when I kind of notice a little, something to be mindful of. Not to say that some have, you know, that’s subjective as well, but I would say that sustainability from my perspective is much easier than it’s portrayed online. I think it is kind of portrayed to be this like difficult ideal that you really can’t reach and that.

you’re running against the mud essentially. There’s just no way to do it. And I just don’t find that in my own life, but I also approach it from a very balanced perspective of I do my best when I can and when it’s out of my control, I don’t get upset about the situation unless I can do something to change it. So I guess some examples maybe of like, I just don’t think that anything has to be too crazy. I think that’s the other thing too is that

It’s less about the advice I see online and more about…

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (20:26.478)
Yeah, no, I think I’m following what you’re saying here. It’s not necessarily the advice. It’s what we do with that advice, right? So I remember when I first found the sort of hashtag zero waste, I was like, oh my God, this is it. This is what I’m doing as a way to sort of focus everything down one path. And then that made me feel very beholden to perfection.

that I have to do everything perfectly zero waste. can’t use anything plastic ever. I would be like moving things out of the way of the picture that I took. So that’s a problem. Exactly. It’s not realistic. I remember being upset that my meds came like heat packed and like those little punch plastic things. That’s insane. That’s not something that I need to be worried about. I don’t have a yacht. You know, like I’m out here trying to take my medication so that I can live.

my life and do all of the other things that I’m trying to do. I think that sort of sustainability advice that like, have to, if you don’t do this, you’re not an environmentalist. If you’re not vegan, you’re not an environmentalist. Like, okay, that’s not helpful to me because it’s like, if you’re not, or I get this a lot too, like, well, you have two kids, so you’re not an environmentalist. Like, well, can’t, like, should I pick one to compost? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. Like, yes, I have two children.

Alexa Pavan (21:33.525)
Right!

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (21:49.742)
and I’m teaching them to do the best that they can in this world as well. But, and I have a car, like I still have to live within the system. So there’s not a single human being is doing this perfectly. So we really, think that’s the sustainability advice that just really grinds my gears is, well, if you’re not doing this, then you’re not an environmentalist. We should all be environmentalists, whatever that looks like. It’s better than, it’s better than nothing. We can all be doing more for the most part.

But just being like, well, I can’t be perfect. I think that causes people to give up because shame is not a learning tool.

Alexa Pavan (22:25.94)
Never, it’s never going to work as something that’s going to last long term for behavior change. And even then, I posted something the other day that said, you don’t need to be anything or do anything to be an environmentalist, you just have to care. And someone had even commented like, wow, in a world of like shoulds and things, you’re telling people you just need to care, that’s revolutionary. And I actually didn’t feel like it was very revolutionary, because that’s genuinely how I feel. I don’t think that you have to do actually any one thing.

or a collection of things to be called an environmentalist. Like if you just care that this world is burning and then things are not as you want them to be, I think that’s it. You’re an environmentalist in my book. And I think that if you want to put that environmental love into action, because clearly you care, if you want to put that into action, you will see benefits in your own life, in your own health, but then also in your own community and beyond. And that’s like what it is. Like my whole thing is about imperfect sustainability.

I never advocate for someone to do any one thing. just think that sustainability should be tailored to your life. I can’t live without a car. Me and my husband, although we don’t have two cars, we have one car, we’ve downgraded to just the one. We can’t live in this city where we live without a car.

unfortunate. It would be better to have a walking city, a walkable city, but it’s actually pretty walkable, but it’s too hot down here to walk. So that’s the main reason actually. So it’s like things like that. Although I can’t get rid of the other car, can compost instead. I can go for more walks. I can carpool with a friend, which I do all the time. I can take the train, which we do all the time. So there are just other options. And what I love about sustainability that I don’t really hear people talking about.

is that it’s all about creativity. Like for me, I just see these things as like, these are just like little problems in my life, they’re not even problems. They’re just like tiny obstacles that I’m looking for a solution. And I love being like, ooh, could I do this or no, no, no, actually what I could do that would be better. I could go to the store and then I could carpool. Like, you know, I love creating like a little plan and then not, not just a plan that I do once. Ideally, these are things that I’m doing consistently. And that’s how I see my work is just that it’s an ongoing.

Alexa Pavan (24:39.338)
everyday thing and it’s just so built into who I am and what I do that now these habits like they’re just so second nature. I don’t even think about it.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (24:48.27)
Yeah, this is my love language. How can I solve this problem without just throwing something in the Amazon cart? Like what can I do here? What do I already have? How can I tweak this? How can we align our errands so that I can use the car today and you can use it tomorrow? Whatever it is, like we’re using our brains, we’re solving problems. It’s that reward driven effort cycle and it’s never just add to cart. And so that just makes us feel like we’re like we’re doing things and that’s critical.

Alexa Pavan (25:16.556)
And also like, let’s talk about that cost of convenience, know, like just adding the cart, like talk about all that lack of brain power that took, right? We’re becoming dumber as a society. And then we’re also not really like getting more from it. I don’t see how we’re benefiting from this convenience to be quite honest. It seems like it’s becoming more wasteful, more destructive, more energy taxing. It’s just like more, more, more, but not in the direction we need. We need more love. need more.

We need more agency. We’re not going in the right direction, essentially. So my point is that why is our instinct nowadays to add to cart when we could easily just either go without, which I do all the time. I don’t use Amazon. I don’t shop at most big box stores. I don’t shop at Target, Walmart, any of these stores. And I live just fine. I think actually my life is better for it.

I generally feel better off as a human for it. Like I remember the days when I used to go to Walmart or Target and I don’t enjoy those experiences and I don’t enjoy getting that garbage. So I just feel like nowadays my life is much more fulfilled and aligned with who I actually am. And I’m not saying everyone needs to stop tomorrow shopping at Amazon or Target or whatever. I’m just saying that maybe the thing that you’re adding to cart is not something you actually need.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (26:31.63)
Yeah, it is really sitting with that and thinking like, okay, so what am I doing? Yeah. What am I doing here?

Alexa Pavan (26:39.406)
disruption, right? And I think that’s the biggest thing is that we’ve become so automated, only as a society, but as like people, as individuals, we have become this way. And it’s kind of boring. And to me, I’m just like, I would rather like challenge myself to do like a little bit extra. And I don’t see it as like I’m wasting time. I see it as this is what being human is, is like figuring out these little problems and kind of being like, ooh, is this like a new interesting way to do this? Or, oh, maybe that didn’t work. like,

quote unquote failing and then trying something different. Like that is the fun of it. Like I don’t know why we’ve taken the fun out of everything and then considered it like adding to car is just so great. It’s like to me that’s the bane of my existence. I don’t want to add to car. I want to do that as my last resort possible.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (27:23.576)
to make the cart.

Alexa Pavan (27:26.302)
I would love to make the car, borrow the car, rent the car, whatever it is before I’m adding to my car. that’s just how I like, and I know that you’re the same way.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (27:37.018)
That’s where I think this all really starts to land too, is when you take all these bigger ideas and then we bring them into our day-to-day lives. Because we’re always hearing like, carbon emissions in the news. But it’s really difficult to connect that back to something like food waste in our own kitchens. Like, does that mean? So I talk about food waste on this podcast all the time, about food waste emissions from food waste for a country. would be the third largest emitter on the earth.

all that kind of stuff and you can go back and listen to the food waste episodes because they’re awesome. But for someone who’s just listening and wants to start dealing with their food waste at home, what’s the best way that they can do that?

Alexa Pavan (28:18.178)
I’m so glad you brought this up and I know you know it’s my favorite topic to talk about. So yeah, if you go onto my page, you’ll see compost is front and center on my page. So yeah, food waste is so important. It’s like you mentioned, it’s one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. And while I do like to talk about, I actually don’t talk about carbon emissions that much. I do talk about methane emissions a lot because that’s what’s actually coming from the landfills. It’s more potent than like any other greenhouse gas.

And it’s so preventable. This is what drives me crazy is that we are sending all of this usable material like organics, basically that’s any of your food scraps. And since you talk about all the time, I’m not going to get into nitty gritty, but just on a surface level, that’s more than just food scraps. It’s also your paper products that maybe you’re not recycling because for instance, where I live, they don’t pick up recycling anymore. So we have to take it to a facility. Yes. So I actually choose to compost my paper rather than recycle it just because it’s more accessible for me that way. Right.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (29:13.494)
So like paper.

Alexa Pavan (29:14.678)
Yeah. So paper is an essential part of the composting process. Like we need carbon, right? So the thing is that to back it up, food waste is the number one thing we should all focus on. If I were to choose one thing, it’s not something that we all have in our reach and we all eat and we all unfortunately waste. think some of us more than others, I see this like kind of like funny thing online that I can’t relate to at all where people talk about how

buying a bag of greens and like shoving in the back of their fridge and like waiting for it to go bad. And they’re like, oh, then I’ll buy it. Then I’ll throw it out and buy the next bag of greens and do the same thing. And I’m like, I just, just don’t buy the greens. Like this is like, this is hopeful buying hopeful eating, maybe hopeful lifestyle change. But the thing is that if you don’t actually do it, you’re not getting the benefits. how about we just stop wasting the money and stop wasting the food and the resources it took to get that money and just don’t buy it. So I think that that’s the number one thing is like,

buying less and using what you already have. I love to shop from my pantry and like use what is available to me. I actually just posted a bean tour video last night.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (30:18.126)
I said that the legume.

Alexa Pavan (30:20.334)
Yeah, it was more the legume tour because I hid it on lentils as well.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (30:23.576)
Well, I’m the target audience for that.

Alexa Pavan (30:26.702)
I it was like super cheesy, at the same time I was like, literally have like 10 different kinds of legumes in my pantry and it’s not on accident. Like I’ve been building this collection because like plants are amazing and not only that, it’s a self stable pantry item that I can have. It’s so cheap. It’s so easy to store. It’s so easy to make. It’s so.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (30:42.741)
So cheap.

Alexa Pavan (30:48.046)
nutritionally dense, like there’s just so many options. So instead of maybe always going for fresh food, maybe it’s like you try to shop more of the dry food that also has a lot of nutritional value, you know, because it’s like your oats and your grains on all that, like your quinoa and any of those things have tons of nutrients and, and nutritional benefits. So I just don’t understand why we’re always leading to, I don’t know, a bag of greens and things like that. think buying less is the number one thing. And then, you know, using what you actually have.

I think that maybe people aren’t making the meals they actually enjoy because I see people online, I’m just getting a lot of, even in my personal life, when people are like, I threw out that whole meal because I just didn’t like it. And it’s just like, we need to find a way to repurpose that leftover into something that can be something that you will actually enjoy to eat. also prices of everything are rising.

So we really can’t afford to keep doing this and from an ecological standpoint, but also from an environment or from a financial standpoint, like this is economically hurting us.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (31:54.444)
The average Canadian family throws out up to $1,800 worth of food per year, like the average Canadian household. $1,800!

Alexa Pavan (32:02.296)
and I bet you it’s more in the United States.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (32:04.31)
It’s wild and we don’t, can’t grow a lot of our own food here year round. obviously just geographically. so that just even thinking the distances that things have to travel before they get into it.

So composting comes up a lot. talk, you and I talk about composting a lot. But I think that’s really difficult for folks to get into if they don’t have a municipal green bin program. So I do, which means that we just put it out at the curb, just like with our recycling and then it goes to an industrial waste facility. But there are a lot of different ways to compost at home, which can feel very intimidating. So you mentioned composting in an apartment. Can we start there? And then we’ll talk about other kinds of compost.

Alexa Pavan (32:48.726)
Of course. So like I mentioned before, I had firma composted in my apartment since I was a teenager, essentially. And I, although it’s a great system and I highly recommend it, it’s just, it’s just one of the forms of composting. It’s not something that worked well for me because like I mentioned, I cook every meal. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I do cook every single meal at home and me and my husband are just big eaters. And for whatever reason, like I’m always like prepping something to my, like I said, my parents grow fresh.

tropical fruits. I’m constantly like, if I have too many, I’m processing lots of fruit at once and freezing it and giving it away and making things out of it. So I’m constantly in the kitchen. I’m constantly making things and the worms couldn’t keep up with how much I was putting in, how much nitrogen fueled material I was putting into their box because they really need a few days to break down just like a little bit of food.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (33:41.198)
It’s a small box too, like just so that people can get a sense of it. Mine looks like a stool. Like you wouldn’t know it was a worm farm if I didn’t tell you. just so that folks know it just, it’s like a box about the size of your instant pot sort of. Like it’s a big stock pot. It’s just like layers of.

Alexa Pavan (33:58.478)
Exactly. And that’s what mine was too. I still have it. But it’s like just a box that you can keep extending to, can keep adding layers to it to make it bigger and bigger. And so it’s not big and it’s a great option for people who maybe are not cooking as much as I am. But another option that’s becoming more more available to people in the United States and even abroad that don’t have composting municipal services is using a service like a small business.

And that’s how I primarily compost right now for the past three years. So I live in an apartment in a metropolitan area. I can’t compost. can’t even the, like I said, the vermicomposting doesn’t work for me. We don’t have municipal services and I don’t have a backyard. So the next option is to use somebody from the outside. So I have this small business that I work with or I work with on occasion. I actually just did Tortuga music festival with them last weekend. So we composted for the entire festival. That’s a hundred.

Over a hundred thousand attendees each day. Last year alone, did 24 over 24,000 pounds of material. Yeah. that’s a lot of especially. Yeah. And you probably understand because you know how light food waste is like food waste itself is not heavy. So to create that much waste, like it’s a lot of material. So we, think we did way more than that this year. So we don’t know yet, but we’ll see. But anyway, I use the service because they don’t, they come to my house.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (35:01.492)
It’s incomprehensible.

Alexa Pavan (35:21.588)
Basically, they give me a five gallon bucket. I fill it up with all my compostable stuff. Every week I put out the bucket, they swap it out for a clean one and I don’t have to do anything. It really works just like your municipal service. It’s just that I pay for it right now and they are trying to work with municipalities to get it paid for the residents. They just started working with the city of Coral Gables, which is a city down here in Miami. And they are now providing the services to all the residents because the

the city actually saw the benefit of composting and they’re like, okay, like we’re going to subsidize this service for our.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (35:55.232)
waste diversion. It benefits all of the residents.

Alexa Pavan (35:58.702)
And not just the residents, their health, it helps property value. It helps so many things. Like it’s an economic driver. It’s an environmental driver. It’s just so many positive things that right now we’re wasting and we’re putting into the landfill to be smothered by other trash that will not decompose. So instead of doing all that, why not use a service that is really affordable in my opinion? I know.

The thing is that I don’t think anyone should have to pay for it in general, but obviously that’s just the time we’re in right now. And hopefully I’m advocating hard for us to have municipal services in our area. And like I said, it’s happening. It’s just like city by city. It’s going to take some time for people to get on the bandwagon because this hasn’t been a thing before. Like we went from an agricultural society to kind of just like a blown up industrial situation. So we didn’t really.

plan well for this and for our waste management. like to like throw things away and think, it’s just out of sight, out of mind, but really it’s coming back to harm us in so many different ways. So I love that different cities in my area are seeing the benefit and then contracting the private business, small business to do all this important work. So yeah, they are doing this on a commercial scale, an industrial scale. They have like giant windrows and they take it to their facility. It’s basically like 10 acres of land and they’re jumped.

they’re doing tens of thousands of pounds each week because that only after are they working with communities in my area, but they’re also working with commercial clients like big names like American Express and Costco and Starbucks and like all these different businesses in the area collecting their compostable material and then composting that turning it into finished compost and then donating it to different schools and for landscaping projects. So like it’s all coming back full circle and that’s why I love supporting.

a business that’s actually doing good things in the community and creating this green economy that we desperately need. Because what we need is like, I think a lot I want to this kind of a little bit of a tangent, but I just see a lot of the time that people are talking about sustainability and they think that people who work in sustainability shouldn’t get paid fairly. And I just find it to be such a incorrect talking point because part of sustainability is equity and that includes equity for everybody that includes equity for the people.

Alexa Pavan (38:19.394)
you know, dealing with the compos, the people.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (38:22.414)
People who pick our food. Yeah, from start to finish. absolutely. Yeah.

Alexa Pavan (38:27.598)
And also thinking about the trash people and everything like that. All these people deserve to get paid equitably and the creatives that are helping push these messages across. Every single person has a part to play in it. And to think that because it’s environmental, it should be done for free or voluntary.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (38:44.45)
I run into this weekly as well. absolutely. Of course. Yeah. Like I’m also a freelancer in the sustainability place and it’s like, well, why can’t you just do this for free? like, like you were saying, like I also have two university degrees. Like I know what I’m doing here. I am a skilled communicator. I like, there’s a reason that you came to me for the services, but I also still have to feed my family.

Alexa Pavan (39:09.816)
Absolutely, we live in the system.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (39:11.15)
Yeah, exactly. it’s both. I can talk about the problems of capitalism till the cows come home, but I also still have to pay at the grocery store. I still have to live within the system that I’m trying to change. it is difficult to have those conversations. And it is strange how it’s it’s like any other sort of nonprofit. It’s just like, because you’re doing it for the love of it.

It’s like, right, but so you’re just saying this about compost. Yes, it is an economic driver. There are so many opportunities here to build a green economy. Absolutely. But that does require money and it doesn’t all have to be like carbon capture tech. It can be something as simple as a sharing app or a compost collection service or, or, or, or.

Alexa Pavan (40:00.438)
Right. And that’s exactly what it is. But I just, I specifically like focusing on composting because one, think, you know, the trash conversation is so taboo and I find it fascinating that we don’t talk about it. I find it such a, like, I can talk about it all day and sometimes they ask me to table for them and I’ll do like six to eight hours just talking to people about composting. And it drives me, like, it makes me so excited and fills my cup because I’m just like, this is

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (40:12.142)
I love garbage.

Alexa Pavan (40:28.302)
It’s amazing to me that people still don’t know that composting exists. And that’s why I’m glad to be that person to bridge that gap because it’s such a powerful tool. Like I always say that if there was one thing you could do, it would be to compost. Just like one of the most impactful things an individual could do. Not to say that an individual, that’s where it should stop or that’s what like the job of the individual. I think it’s like at the end of the day, collective, but we all have to make a choice, right?

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (40:55.752)
Something you can do from home today, right now. Like you said, we have to eat. We have to eat several times a day. And so it’s right there. And I’m always saying, I firmly believe climate action begins at the kitchen table with the conversations that we’re having and literally the food on our plates. Have you ever tried one of those countertop composting machine things?

Alexa Pavan (41:19.182)
I’m very against them. Yeah, so I think that it’s never going to be sustainable to create a device and an electronic device that required a lot of resources to create to then create compost when this is a natural process that is.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (41:20.632)
Okay, I’m saying more.

Alexa Pavan (41:40.91)
It’s to me, it’s just like creating one problem to solve another problem and you’re not really solving it because what the problem is with those countertop composers is that they’re not actually composting, they’re just dehydrating the food waste and that’s not compost. So you actually have to do a further step after that and then combine it with soil to actually help it break down fully. Because like I said, you’re just removing the water and that’s not enough. It’s not breaking down completely and you could still absolutely get.

odors, pests, whatever. And that’s another reason why I actually recommend as somebody who grew up home composting, I actually recommend people use a service instead of home composting. Because if you’re not doing it, if you’re not a homesteader and you don’t have access to a lot of carbon, like via yard waste and whatever, I live in a metropolitan area. I live in South Florida. So most people do not have access to that kind of yard waste. So what happens is that they start their compost pile. They’re really optimistic. They start putting in their food waste, their carbon source.

And then what happens is odors come, pests come, neighbors complain, things happen, life gets hard and hectic, and then you forget to turn your pile and all these things. So basically it really just turned into a nothing burger. And I think to me, why go through all that trouble when you could just, unfortunately, that’s the place we’re at, like outsourcing the compost situation. And I think ultimately it’s like better.

like you are doing, you’re outsourcing it to the government who is either contracting with somebody or doing it themselves, but handling it in a large scale way. And that’s I’m exactly saying that we need to do it in a large scale manner for it to be done effectively. We are all not gonna individually compost well ourselves. not to say that everyone’s gonna run into this issue, but I just see it happen time and time again. And I talked to so many people about composting and as somebody who did.

do it growing up in my backyard, I just wouldn’t advise it. I would say start with a service and then you still get the finished compost as well with the service. It’s like there’s no downside other than the paying aspect. But like I said, if you want to not pay for it, then what I always tell people is to contact your commissioners, contact your elected officials and tell them, hey, I want this service. It’s available through a private business. Why aren’t you guys?

Alexa Pavan (43:50.894)
partnering with them. So that’s something I always encourage. I give compost talks in my community all the time. I just gave one on Saturday. I’m going to give two more this weekend on Saturday and Sunday. So this this spiel I always give them is that like, yeah, you could do it yourself, but you are most likely not going to succeed. And then it’s just going to frustrate you. And then you’re going to think, oh, composting is not that effective. I don’t have to do it. But in reality, it’s one the most effective things we could do. So why not just do it correctly and try

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (44:19.15)
Or start small. You don’t have to start with a huge open compost area. You can start with a small little tumbler guy in your backyard that you just do in the summer if you want. If you want to learn how to do it. I have a bin that has a lid that I have to screw shut and also put a huge cinder block on top of because I live in Toronto and we are the raccoon capital of the world.

but I’ve also done a ton of research to learn how to compost. And it’s because I want to, because I’m a gardener, but I’m very strict about what goes in it so that I don’t get the vermin and that sort of thing. So I’m not putting citrus in it. So I’m not putting any animal products in it other than eggshells, like all of these different things, right? But that took time and trial and error. And even we left the garage door open the other night and then Raccoon got into our garage and tore up the green bin. So.

It’s just part of it and it just it just has to be something that you’re willing to learn and spend the time on and if you don’t want to that’s also okay. You can use your municipal program or you can contract a service but there are so many different ways to compost. You just have to find the one that works for you, but please compost.

Alexa Pavan (45:30.69)
I just want to say I’m a major hater of the tumblers. I just want to say that. I’m sorry. can’t, I can’t let the compost things slide.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (45:40.398)
This might be a thing where like I have winter and you don’t. So I think it’s just a different season. All of that, it’s also going to depend on your area, right? And like who your trash pandas are.

Alexa Pavan (45:51.832)
Yeah, I would say that if you, yeah, you have more of winter, so you have that, but I would just not even recommend it for anybody to be quite honest. Like it’s, it’s not an effective system. It’s never going to heat up to the, to the level you need it to heat up to, to actually break down. And the biggest thing separately that I don’t, another reason why I don’t advise people to do it is because, because the piles are not heating up and especially in the tumblers, they’re not heating up to the levels they need to be. You’re actually introducing pathogens to your, to your.

fruits and vegetables or your garden when you actually apply that compost to the plant.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (46:25.07)
I’ve never used a Tumblr, so I just was like, yeah, I just see them at.

Alexa Pavan (46:29.422)
No, And also, know, I know, you know, it’s, it’s not something that I’m like, Oh, don’t do that. It’s just like, if you want to be better informed and more aware of like the best methods, I would say the tumbler is like, it’s just like one of those things that you’re going to buy it. It’s going to become, I can, I consider it to be a greenwashing thing just because like, can say,

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (46:49.646)
I went straight to the giant bin system. So, and again, I only use that like April through October. And I just freeze this for the whole winter. just, it just is what it is, but I’m really diligent about it. And if I freeze it.

Alexa Pavan (47:02.604)
Yeah, even though you have the curbside composting, still do your own composting.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (47:08.302)
I do it in the summer months, yes, because I can and I know how to get it hot enough and I know my ratios of greens to browns and all of that. And again, it’s because I’ve put in the time and the effort and all of that, but there are certain things like I don’t put any grains in it. I don’t put any animal, anything like I don’t put cheese or anything like I’ll put eggshells in it. And I don’t put any citrus in it.

Things like that. So I’m just really careful about what can go in it for how hot I know my pile gets but I’m out there measuring the temperature of my pile too and I don’t think that other people do that. I have the compost aerator. and it’s something that I want to do but it’s not something that I expect everyone to do and then I’m using my finished compost and and yada yada yada and I don’t expect everybody to do that but it is something that’s been

Alexa Pavan (47:43.822)
You’re right.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (47:55.086)
a learning curve for me and I had to figure out, oh, my compost pile is too wet. So what do I do? And now I’m asking my family to save other toilet paper rolls for me and this kind of thing. And that’s fine if that’s what you want to do, but there are lots of other options. So I mean the municipal bin. So I use both. I use the municipal bin more in the winter. I also do my worms.

But I just like the worms. It’s not really given me anything. I just like getting the worm tea out of it. Just like to zhuzh up a couple of my house plants every once in a while, but it would never be my main system. It’s just, I bought a worm bank, so was like, I’m going to do worms now. But now like I’m responsible for these worms. Exactly. I have to take care of them. And you know, and there’s a lady here locally that’s like the worm lady.

Alexa Pavan (48:36.619)
Yeah.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (48:45.102)
I don’t want to disappoint Cathy, like all these different things, right? So it’s just, but these are things that I’m willing to put time and effort into. I would never. Yeah, exactly. So worms are my hobby. just, mean, I just want to.

Alexa Pavan (48:57.922)
And one more thing about the composting. so just because this is a huge topic for me, but another reason why I also think the service is better for most people is that most people for now are eating an animal product diet. And when you do home composting, you will not be able to put most of that food into the compost.

Whereas with a service like the one I use, I can put meat, dairy bones, I could literally put raw chicken if I wanted to in there. I could put anything in there. I’m also a diver, so I go lobstering throughout the summertime when it’s actually lobster season from August to March.

And when I have like lobster shells, put them in there. Like, you just the breadth of what you can put into the compost is so much wider and vast than it is with what you can do at home. Like there’s so many limitations with vermicomposting. There’s so many limitations with home composting. So I think that if we really want to divert our waste instead of sending it to the landfill, we really need to employ services and municipality services with composting.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (50:04.102)
So I think that’s such a good example of how this doesn’t stay at the household level, because something like composting, can start in your own kitchen. And then suddenly, like you said, you’re seeing it at the scale of a music festival or on your community level. And I think that’s the piece that’s hard to picture, I think, is how those individual actions can actually extend outward. like, God, what do I do with all my food waste? And now you’re turning up at the town council meeting to say, we can actually pay this company to scale and jobs and.

all these different things. So the things that you are doing in your own kitchen really do matter out to your community. So where, yeah, I guess that’s where something like civic engagement fits in for everyday people. And I think that’s the important part of it too, is figuring out what feels good so that you keep doing it. So yeah, just, it all feels so heavy sometimes, or like another thing you have to do on your list. And it’s really hard to sustain that over time. So what?

Keeps you going.

Alexa Pavan (51:04.878)
Honestly, it just brings me so much joy to do these things. Like first of all, a lot of these habits have been with me since I was a kid, so I don’t even see it any other way. But then with that, I’ve also introduced more habits into my life that I just find simple and easy to include. Like for instance, I make breakfast potatoes, like prep them every five days or so, and I batch it. So like I boil the potatoes.

And instead of dumping that water down the drain, I let it cool and water my plants. Like that’s something my mom always did. And I always do now. And then like, these are just like simple habits that you think that are small, but we are having a white water crisis in Florida. And even if we weren’t like, this is still an important, precious resource that is finite that we need to start thinking about. it’s plus there’s a nutrient. just infused it with nutrients. Why would I dump that down the sink? Like it’s really just being mindful of the resources. So I don’t know. I get really

excited about those kinds of things, about like not wasting things. It brings me a lot of joy. And then when I see other people online really interested in what I’m doing and then asking me questions about it, that kind of fuels me to do more and more and more because then it’s like, okay, I’ll try this so you don’t have to try it. And then if it works out for me, then you can do it too. And that’s always the approach I come from is that this is just what I’m doing. I’m not saying you have to do it.

And a lot of the time people are like, oh, I want to do that too. And that’s great. And that enthusiasm is what keeps me going because I go to these community events and people are just sat for like a whole hour listening to me talk about composting. And I just think that’s incredible. And I think that, you know, there are probably some naysayers out there that are like, oh, no one cares about that. But it’s like, people do care about it. So yeah. And like we mentioned before, I think most people do. just think that they’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. So it just really excites me when people

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (52:44.622)
I think most people do, yeah.

Alexa Pavan (52:53.838)
I think going out to the events is one of the most important things you can do. And really just looking for the community aspect of it all, because that’s what’s going to keep you going, especially because we don’t live alone. We live in a community. Your neighbors and your, even if you don’t have kids, the public school and what’s going on there matters and how those kids are being treated or educated, like all of that matters. So I just think that to me,

I’m very, I’m really excited to see like small changes or to go to my community garden and see everyone coming out for an Earth Day event or even just for a normal volunteering planting day. So it’s just like, those are the things that bring me joy. And I’m so excited to wake up every day and like talk to people about environment and, and to talk about like not only the environmental aspect with the people aspect. think that’s like kind of getting lost a little bit. Like I do very much care about the environment, but I also very much care about people. Like I understand that it’s people, if humans

For some reason we’re extinct tomorrow, the earth would actually do just fine without us. But I really care about preserving humankind and I really care about us having a good quality of life. So I think that’s what keeps me going is that like I do believe in that optimism and that great future. And I know we can do it because we’re all really smart and really driven and really passionate about these things. It’s just that there’s a lot of other factors at play. And I think that as long as we stay engaged as

citizens, can become, we can see these changes on a larger scale. And I think that’s my biggest thing is that that’s why I do what I do. Because although I say I’m a climate communicator and all these things, I really don’t, if you don’t go on my page, it’s not going to say climate communication. It’s really going to be like imperfect sustainability. Cause I really want to show people that it’s not this like big mountainous thing that you have to like read a literature book or you have to read, I don’t know, read a textbook about it. Like it’s really so simple. It’s like these everyday things that are

impacting us every moment of our day. And instead of treating it like this giant ideal, it’s really just the simple habits. And then the simple habits show us that the big things are really in our control. It’s just that we have been separated. We have been desensitized to being involved in our society, being involved in our politics, being involved with our local governments. So I think what it shows you is like, I started.

Alexa Pavan (55:15.276)
I start watering my plants with my water. And now I’m thinking about where is the water coming from? Where do I get my fresh drinking water? Do you know where you get your fresh drinking water from? Because I do. And I think that if you start asking those questions, then you’re like, OK, why is there not is there a fertilizer ban on the water situation? Because there’s algae blooms in the water right now. Like, there’s all these questions you start asking yourself. And then you get to the top and you’re like, so my elected officials have the power.

But really it’s the people that have the power and we’re just not communicating enough. We’re not out there enough. we’re not like, I can agree that I was not as somebody who cares so much and so informed and I could have been contacting my elected officials more. And I, in recent years, I emailed them and call them, but everyone needs to know that calling your elected officials is so important, at least in the United States. It’s like.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (56:06.946)
I call mine every week. mean, so.

Alexa Pavan (56:09.294)
Yeah, I love it, me too. And I feel like it’s such an easy task. That’s another thing to do that. If you’re not gonna compose, how about you take five minutes of your day to call your elected officials? It literally won’t take you more than five minutes. So I just think that that’s a small habit that makes an even bigger difference than most of the things we do in our lives, right? Because they need to hear from us. We are the people they’re serving. And I think we constantly forget that and we’re like, those politicians. And it’s like, okay, but when are we going to take responsibility that we put those politicians there?

When are we going to take back the agency and say, all right, we don’t like what’s happening. Let’s change this, like tell them. But instead we just want to complain. And I just think that we need to break that cycle. That cycle sucks.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (56:47.63)
And that is part of talking to people as human beings is like they’re part of our community too. it, again, it just comes down to like talking to each other because everything is connected and everything is doable. So as we wrap up, I’m going to ask you the question that I ask every guest on the show, Sir, lightning round. Just what’s one small shift that listeners can make to go green with Alexa after hearing this episode.

Alexa Pavan (57:14.122)
One small shift is just to start becoming aware of your surroundings. Like literally start picking up the things next to you like, my notebook. What is my notebook made out of? Why am I getting my honey in this jar? Why is this being packaged in plastic when it could be packaged in paper? Or the other option I saw today on threads was people complaining about the flower being put in a paper bag instead of plastic, which was…

Very interesting to me. So things like that, as long as you’re being aware of things, like I think that’s the beginning of everything, right? Because we cannot change anything unless we are first aware of what’s going on.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (57:54.772)
I love that. No one’s ever said that before. Just ask what? Yes. No, I love that before. Just why do we do things the way we do? I love that. That’s fantastic. Alexa, thank you so much for this conversation. And I really appreciate the way that you think about all of this and how you make it feel a little more clear and possible to move through. So for folks who want to connect with you, where can we find you?

Alexa Pavan (58:19.65)
You can find me primarily on Instagram, but I’m also on YouTube and I do have website as well as a blog. And I’m just trying to, you know, elaborate further because I clearly have a lot to say about a lot of these topics. So you can find a lot of information on the blog and that’s on my website with a gogreenwithalexa.com.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (58:36.494)
Yeah. And I noticed that you also post a lot of South Florida events, eco events. So if you’re in the area, check those out and go talk to Alexa about compost. Thanks. Thanks again so much. And I will see you out there on the internet. Absolutely. Thank you.

Alexa Pavan (58:53.294)
Thank you so much, Sarah.

Sarah Robertson-Barnes (58:57.442)
Thank you again so much to Alexa for coming on today. And if you’d like to connect with her, you can find her at Go Green with Alexa on all the things. And I will link to her Instagram and her website and everything for you in the show notes. As always, you can find all the show notes, resources, links, everything we talked about today over at sustainable in the suburbs.com.

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Thanks for tuning in to Sustainable in the Suburbs. Every small step adds up and I’m so glad we’re doing this together. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to follow the show, share it with a friend and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. You can find me at sustainableinthesuburbs.com or at Sarah Robertson Barnes on all the things. Until next time, start where you are, use what you have and live a little greener. This podcast is produced, mixed and edited by Cardinal Studio.

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