Hi, I'm Willow Belden, and you're listening to Out There.

This is a podcast about the outdoors, from your window box and garden, to the fields on the edge of town, to the forests, prairies, seashores, and wilderness.

On the show, we try to make sense out of life by exploring our relationship with nature.

We tackle all sorts of big questions, social ones, psychological ones, scientific ones, even moral

ones, all through the lens of the natural world.

We travel around the globe with tales of love and heartbreak, passion and adversity, desperation,

and triumph.

Thanks for joining us.

On this show, we explore the many facets of our relationship with the great outdoors.

As longtime listeners know, I love to hike and bike and ski, and I've had some profound

experiences out there.

But today, we're going to look at some of the yucky stuff that often ends up outside.

I'm talking about trash, garbage.

This is a story about a problem that's facing communities across the country, and about a solution that seems, well, frankly, kind of tree-huggerish.

And yet, it's a solution that certain cities are actually starting to take seriously.

The story comes from a friend and former colleague of mine, Rebecca Martinez.

We were reporters together at Wyoming Public Radio, and she did so many stories on solid waste

that we began calling her senior trash correspondent.

Hi, Becky.

Hi, Willow.

So you've been reporting on solid waste for a long time. Why does it interest you so much? Yeah, that's a good question. I think our garbage says a lot about us. It shows what we valued at one time, and it also shows how much thought we're willing to give to how we get rid of it. You might not know that the world generates almost 3 trillion pounds of trash

per year. But even after it gets thrown away, it usually ends up getting stored somewhere,

...