Food + Feelings

Recycling robotics founder Rebecca Hu joins me to talk about her career arc and founding story, finding herself in the waste management industry to automate materials sorting, and why so many items fall out of the recycling stream. Find the full show notes at foodandfeelingspodcast.com for a rough outline of topics and time stamps along with sources and references from the show. Other topics include the "single most eye-opening experience I've ever had," how exactly recycling fights climate change, the economics of recycling plastics and why recycling glass isn't always profitable, the Tetra Pak paradox, PFAS chemicals and contaminated compostables, the sustainability of aluminum vs. glass, Rebecca's "red pill" moment, the most surprising thing she's learned about waste management, industry mafia rumors, and the one takeaway she wants everyone to know about recycling. And, of course, we also get into some feelings: what drives her decision making, the emotional rollercoaster of founding a company and how she self-regulates, emotional intelligence vs. emotional maturity, and what gives her hope around climate change.

This is a long one! But it lays some good groundwork for where this podcast might go. Ex-designer turned farmer Nicole Yeo joins me to talk about urban agriculture, working in tech, capitalism and White Supremacy, Asian American complexes and the Model Minority Myth, community vs rugged individualism, the film The Matrix and its many meanings, agroecology, talking to plants, some key book recommendations, the Korean seed mafia, and the healing journey of connecting with your ancestors. You can find the full show notes at foodandfeelingspodcast.com for broad topics and rough time stamps.