055: Being the change and making an impact at any age with Sam Demma and Dillon Mendes of PickWaste
A Sustainable Mind - environment & sustainability podcast
Marjorie Alexander
4.6 • 588 Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2018
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sam Demma and Dillon Mendes started holding weekly trash pick-up events in their hometown of Pickering, Ontario. Now, a year later, they have a budding organization called PickWaste, where they are inspiring people of all ages to pick up one single piece of litter each day. They have both been named Top 25 Environmentalists in Canada and are dedicated to taking their message global.
Show Notes: asustainablemind.com/055
Our Guest: PickWaste.ca
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is A Sustainable Mind, episode 55. And today we have two awesome and inspiring guests that founded an environmental organization before they even graduated from high school. But before we get into that, I would like to thank our lovely supporters. |
| 0:17.6 | Annalisa from Detroit, Michigan, Kaylee from San Francisco, Claudia from Hawaii, Caitlin from San Jose, Lawson from Burlington, Ontario, Melanie from Los Angeles, Sean from Pleasant Grove, Utah, Susan and Rachel from Seattle, Washington, Sydney Thomas from Calgary, Alberta, and Elizabeth from Oak Park, Illinois. |
| 0:42.3 | Thank you all so much for supporting this show. I really appreciate it. |
| 0:46.3 | Welcome to A Sustainable Mind, where we delve into the minds behind today's most impactful environmental campaigns, |
| 0:56.2 | organizations, and startups, inspiring the environmental change makers of tomorrow. I'm your host, |
| 1:03.2 | Marjorie Alexander. Sam, Dema, and Dylan Mendez are the co-founders of Pickwaste, an organization based in Pickering, |
| 1:14.4 | which is just outside of Toronto, Ontario, and it's taking the town by storm one community cleanup at a time. |
| 1:21.1 | Sam, Dylan, welcome to the show. |
| 1:23.3 | It's a pleasure to be here. We're honored to share our story and to just come and chat with you about our initiative and everything that we have going on. |
| 1:31.3 | Yeah, thank you so much. |
| 1:33.3 | So, Sam, I want you to take the lead and tell us a little bit about how you grew up and if sustainability and the environment played a role in your childhood. |
| 1:43.3 | And of course, tell us your age, because that's kind of important. |
| 1:46.0 | Okay, yeah. |
| 1:46.8 | So I'm 18 years old. |
| 1:48.5 | I'm from Canada, just outside of Toronto, which is the major city. |
| 1:52.8 | And essentially, my entire upbringing, I was always not so much surrounded by, like, nature |
| 1:58.1 | in general, but a lot of, like, gardening. |
| 2:00.7 | My parents, my parents' parents, but, but a lot of like gardening. My parents, |
| 2:01.6 | my parents, my parents, so my grandparents were immigrants to the country. And when they came over, |
| 2:06.1 | they brought over all these little habits that I would say are like very in favor of the |
| 2:11.9 | environment and keeping the environment healthy. So I was always on farms and gardening. And to be honest with you, my entire upbringing |
| 2:20.1 | was a lot of athletics, not so much environmental in nature until I was in grade 12 and I had a |
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