Oh, hi. It's the French Fry under your seat. You won't find for another four months,

Allie Ward. And here we are the trashiest episode of Ologies ever made. This is another one of

those years in the making interviews. You're going to talk about it forever. So I came across

this person's name in relation to garbage and I thought,

I must meet this garbage person. They seem great. They are a clinical professor in New York

University's Liberal Studies Department. They teach on the topic of garbage. They have worked

intimately with garbage. They did a TED talk about garbage. They have three anthropology

degrees from Columbia University

and an undergrad in anthropology from New York University and even authored the book picking up

on the streets and behind the trucks with the sanitation workers of New York City.

The perfect fit. Rubbish research is their life's work. So on a crisp fall day in Manhattan,

I navigated the cobblestones to a conference room on the NYU City campus. And as a side note,

this episode was recorded in 2022, but I'm sharing it with you again for Earth Day Month because

it's a favorite among the entire ology staff.

And listeners say that it has impacted them for years.

They think about it all the time.

I love it.

So yes, it was an autumn afternoon in 2022.

And I routinely test for COVID for shoots and stuff.

I had tested negative the day before.

But I had been in an indoor gallery event that week,

so I wanted to keep my mask on for our interview, just in case, because COVID is awful,

...