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Every summer, the same devastating story repeats across America: lakes that families have cherished for generations suddenly turn toxic green. Half a million people in Toledo lose their drinking water when Lake Erie blooms with poison algae. Or, Florida’s red tide costs the state billions in lost tourism. But some of the most damaged bodies of water in America are getting a cleanup. Meet Dr. Mark Heilman, Vice President of Environmental Restoration and Advocacy at SePRO, whose two decades of water restoration work have brought 1.4 million acres of polluted lakes and wetlands across North America back to life. Mark’s team achieved a 42% reduction in harmful phosphorus levels and protected $300 million in annual tourism revenue at Moses Lake, Washington.

When phosphorus from fertilizers and runoff enters our waters, it acts like Miracle-Gro for algae, creating massive blooms that choke aquatic life and produce toxins that cause liver damage, neurological problems, and even death. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assessments show the number of overly productive lakes with poor water quality is increasing. Harmful algal blooms are becoming more frequent and intense. Perhaps most striking is Heilman’s noting that even benign-seeming weekend lawn care directly contributes to this crisis: a bushel of grass clippings that reach a waterway contains about a tenth of a pound of phosphorus, the same amount found in a box of Miracle-Grow fertilizer. When dumped into a waterway, those clippings can grow up to 50 pounds of algae. Heilman explains that treating a lake is like “performing surgery on an entire ecosystem,” a process that involves a comprehensive assessment of water quality, community engagement, and multi-year management programs. The climate crisis is intensifying these challenges as warming water temperatures favor cyanobacteria growth, while invasive species like hydrilla—what Heilman calls “disturbance specialists”—exploit changing environmental conditions to establish footholds and outcompete native species. Yet he remains optimistic about prevention: “It’s easier to prevent, takes less resources and investment to prevent them than to actually try to resolve them once these problems are in the environment.” You can learn more about SePRO’s restoration work at sepro.com.

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Editor’s Note: This episode originally aired on September 15, 2025.

The post Best of Sustainability In Your Ear: SePRO’s Mark Heilman On Phosphorus, Waterways, And Invasive Species appeared first on Earth911.

https://earth911.com/podcast/sustainability-in-your-ear-sepros-mark-heilman-on-phosphorus-waterways-and-invasive-species/

It’s seed-ordering season. As you browse this year’s catalog, plan to help butterflies, bees, and birds keep our food system running. Plan your garden to give a lift to pollinators, which are responsible for the reproduction of more than 87% of the world’s flowering plant species and contribute to roughly 35% of global crop production volume. But these essential workers are in serious trouble.

A 2025 assessment of North American pollinators, the most comprehensive study of its kind to date, found that at least one in five native North American pollinators face elevated extinction risk. Among native bee species, 34.7% are at risk, with climate change, habitat loss, and pesticide use identified as the primary threats. Globally, approximately 40% of invertebrate pollinators, including bees and butterflies, face extinction risk. The eastern monarch butterfly population has declined by roughly 80% over recent decades, while some bumble bee species have seen hive occupancy declines of 57% or more since 1998.

You can make a real difference in defense of pollinators. Research published in the Journal of Ecology found that residential gardens account for 85% of nectar sugar produced in urban areas, because gardens are both nectar-rich and cover roughly a quarter to a third of urban land. A 2024 follow-up study from the same research team found that gardens provide between 50% and 95% of total available nectar during months when farmland sources nearly disappear. Home gardens are a critical safety net for pollinators.

Here’s how to plant a pollinator garden based on where you live in the U.S.

This article contains affiliate links. If you purchase an item through one of these links, we receive a small commission that helps fund our work.

Start With Native Plants

Before choosing specific products, understand the single most important principle of pollinator gardening: plant native species.

Native plants have co-evolved with local pollinators over thousands of years. They provide not just nectar and pollen, but also larval host plants — the specific species that butterflies and moths need to lay their eggs and complete their life cycles. Non-native ornamentals may offer nectar, but they rarely support the full web of pollinator relationships.

The National Wildlife Federation’s Native Plant Finder lets you enter your ZIP Code to discover the best native plants for your specific area, based on research by Dr. Doug Tallamy of the University of Delaware. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation also publishes region-specific pollinator plant lists and habitat guides. These free tools will give you more targeted recommendations than any single seed pack can deliver.

Know Your Hardiness Zone

Select plants most likely to thrive in your climate by checking the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. The USDA released a significantly updated map in November 2023 — the first revision since 2012 — incorporating data from 13,412 weather stations and reflecting 30-year temperature averages through 2020.

Strikingly, about half the nation saw plant hardiness shifted by approximately half a zone warmer, meaning plants that wouldn’t have survived your winters a decade ago may now be viable choices. Enter your ZIP Code on the USDA site to confirm your current zone before shopping for plants.

Once you have selected the native plants to help pollinators in your region, follow these tips to turn your yard into a pollinator paradise.

• Plant flowers with a range of sizes, shapes, and colors.
• Avoid planting modern hybrids as they cannot produce nectar.
• Plant in drifts, which imitate natural areas by creating colonies of a single plant variety. This increases the visibility of the plants to the pollinators.
• Avoid landscape mulch and fabric.
• Leave dead wood for nesting.

Pollinators for Most of the U.S.

You can plant a summer pollinator garden in most of the U.S. — mainly in the Midwest, Northeast, and Northwest. The key is selecting native perennials suited to your hardiness zone.

Plants: The Summer Pollinator Pocket Garden from Nature Hills Nursery is a 12-pack of native perennials that work well in zones 3–7: Sweet Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia subtomentosa), Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum), and Smooth Blue Aster (Aster laevis). You get three of each species, a smart selection because it provides spring-through-fall bloom succession and a mix of flower shapes that serve different pollinators.

Natural fertilizers: Use organic fertilizers like the Down to Earth Organic Rose & Flower Fertilizer Mix, a natural, OMRI-listed fertilizer suited for flowering plants. Avoid synthetic fertilizers and pesticides entirely — they can harm the very pollinators you’re trying to attract.

Once you have your native plants, follow these tips to turn your yard into a pollinator paradise:

Plant flowers with a range of sizes, shapes, and colors to serve different pollinator species.

Prioritize species-type and heirloom varieties over heavily hybridized cultivars, as some modern hybrids produce reduced nectar. Plant in groups of the same species to mimic natural areas and increase pollinator visibility. Avoid heavy landscape mulch and fabric, which prevent ground-nesting bees from accessing the soil (roughly 70% of native bee species nest underground). Leave dead wood and hollow stems for cavity-nesting bees and other beneficial insects.

Deep South Wildflower Garden

If you live in warmer regions like the Southwest, Texas, or Southeast, plant a different collection of wildflowers suited to drier climates. Getting the timing right is one of the most important factors for starting a wildflower garden in hot climates. In areas with intense summer heat, sow your wildflower seeds in early spring so plants can establish before peak temperatures arrive.

Plants: Look for native wildflower blends formulated for your specific state or region. Bluebell, Foxglove, Comfrey, Clover, Greater Knapweed, and Hellebore are proven bee-attractors, though not all are native to the southern U.S. Prioritize blends that emphasize regional natives — species like Blanket Flower(Gaillardia), Texas Bluebonnet (Lupinus texensis), Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), and native Salvias will perform well in southern heat and serve local pollinator communities. Use the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s plant database to find species native to your specific state.

Natural fertilizer: Numerous organic and natural fertilizers are available to help your wildflower garden thrive. Down to Earth Organic Bat Guano Fertilizer is available in both 2-pound and larger sizes — the smaller box works well for container and window gardens.

To set your garden up for success, choose a site with full sun and prepare the soil for seeding. Scatter seeds following the coverage rate on the packaging. Compress seeds into the soil using a seed roller or by walking on a board placed over the seeded area. Water gently and keep the soil moist — not soaking wet — until plants establish.

If you enjoy birdsong in your yard, consider planting a bird garden alongside your pollinator plantings. Bird-friendly gardens provide natural, year-round food sources that are healthier than feeders and less vulnerable to squirrel raids.

Pacific Coast Bee Garden

Bees are essential to Pacific Coast ecosystems. Native bees pollinate native plants that introduced honeybees often can’t serve as effectively. A bee-friendly garden can support local bee populations, and the West Coast’s long growing season makes year-round bloom achievable.

This region faces a particularly urgent bee population decline. Research found that the western bumble bee (Bombus occidentalis), once common across western North America, has experienced a 57% declinein hive occupancy from 1998 to 2020, driven by rising temperatures, drought, and neonicotinoid pesticide exposure. A 2024 study in PLOS ONE found declining bee and butterfly species richness across western and southern North America, linked to climate change and land use.

Plants: Select native flowers that bloom across multiple seasons — not just spring or summer. California poppies (Eschscholzia californica), native Lupines, Seaside Daisy (Erigeron glaucus), California Fuchsia (Epilobium canum), and Coyote Mint (Monardella villosa) are excellent choices. Browse the Xerces Society’s Pacific Coast pollinator plant lists for comprehensive regional recommendations.

Natural fertilizers: You can easily ditch chemical-based fertilizers. Use Down to Earth Organic Bat Guano Fertilizer to supplement the garden bed when preparing soil for your flower seeds. For a window garden or container planting, the 2-pound box is sufficient.

Avoid Neonicotinoids: Know the Rules in Your State

Do not purchase plants treated with neonicotinoid pesticides (neonics). While they may accelerate plant growth, neonicotinoids are systemically absorbed into plant tissues, including pollen and nectar, and are highly toxic to bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. In 2022, the EPA concluded that neonicotinoids likely adversely affect the majority of federally listed endangered species.

The policy landscape has also shifted significantly since 2021. As of January 2025, California banned retail sales of neonicotinoid pesticides in nurseries and garden centers. Twelve states have now enacted various restrictions on neonicotinoid use: Nevada, New Jersey, and Maine have banned all outdoor non-agricultural uses; Colorado has prohibited homeowner use; New York banned neonic-treated seeds for corn, soybean, and wheat; and Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington have imposed additional residential restrictions. The EU has maintained a comprehensive outdoor ban since 2018.

When shopping for plants, ask your nursery whether their stock has been treated with neonicotinoids. Look for labels indicating neonic-free plants, and buy from nurseries that have committed to eliminating these pesticides. Go for natural pest management alternatives that create a safe, inviting environment for pollinators.

Five More Ways To Help Pollinators Thrive

Plan for year-round bloom. Pollinators need food from early spring through late fall. Most gardens produce abundant nectar in midsummer but leave pollinators hungry in March, April, October, and November. Plant early-blooming species like Crocus, native Willows, and Columbine alongside late-season bloomers like Asters, Goldenrod, and native Sedums to close the gaps.

Provide water. Pollinators need water just like any other animal. A shallow dish or saucer filled with pebbles and fresh water gives bees and butterflies a safe place to drink without drowning. Change the water regularly to prevent mosquito breeding.

Support ground-nesting bees. Roughly 70% of native bee species nest in the ground, not in hives. Leave patches of bare, undisturbed soil in sunny areas of your garden. Reduce tilling and avoid covering every inch with heavy mulch or landscape fabric.

Reduce mowing. Letting parts of your lawn grow longer allows clover, dandelions, and other flowering plants to bloom. These “weeds” are some of the most important early-season food sources for pollinators. Even mowing less frequently, such as every two to three weeks instead of weekly, can significantly increase the nectar available in your yard.

Think beyond your garden. Pollinator habitat works best as a connected network. Talk to neighbors about planting native species, advocate for pollinator-friendly practices in public parks and road verges and support local native plant societies. The National Wildlife Federation’s Certified Wildlife Habitat program can help you formalize your garden’s contribution.

Enjoy Your Garden, It Helps Nature Rebound

The continuing decline of pollinator populations is a major environmental threat with serious consequences for food security. But the scale of the crisis also means that individual action genuinely matters, and research have shown that the collective impact of millions of home gardens can sustain pollinator populations across entire landscapes.

By planting native species, avoiding pesticides, and providing the habitat features pollinators need, you’re doing more than beautifying your yard. You’re building a node in a living network that butterflies, bees, birds, and other pollinators depend on for survival.

Asters, Goldenrod, and native Sedums to close the gaps.

Provide water. Pollinators need water just like any other animal. A shallow dish or saucer filled with pebbles and fresh water gives bees and butterflies a safe place to drink without drowning. Change the water regularly to prevent mosquito breeding.

Support ground-nesting bees. Roughly 70% of native bee species nest in the ground, not in hives. Leave patches of bare, undisturbed soil in sunny areas of your garden. Reduce tilling and avoid covering every inch with heavy mulch or landscape fabric.

Reduce mowing. Letting parts of your lawn grow longer allows clover, dandelions, and other flowering plants to bloom. These “weeds” are some of the most important early-season food sources for pollinators. Even mowing less frequently — every two to three weeks instead of weekly — can significantly increase the nectar available in your yard.

Think beyond your garden. Pollinator habitat works best as a connected network. Talk to neighbors about planting native species, advocate for pollinator-friendly practices in public parks and road verges, and support local native plant societies. The National Wildlife Federation’s Certified Wildlife Habitat program can help you formalize your garden’s contribution.

Enjoy Your Garden

The continuing decline of pollinator populations is a major environmental threat with serious consequences for food security. Pollinators contribute more than $15 billion annually to North American agriculture alone. But the scale of the crisis also means that individual action genuinely matters — researchers have shown that the collective impact of millions of home gardens can sustain pollinator populations across entire landscapes.

By planting native species, avoiding pesticides, and providing the habitat features pollinators need, you’re doing more than beautifying your yard. You’re building a node in a living network that butterflies, bees, birds, and other pollinators depend on for survival.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on April 5, 2021, and was substantially updated in February 2026.

The post Plant a Pollinator Garden To Support Butterflies, Bees, & Birds appeared first on Earth911.

https://earth911.com/home-garden/plant-a-pollinator-garden/

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Interview Transcript

Mitch Ratcliffe  0:00

Hello, good morning, good afternoon or good evening, wherever you are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability In Your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating the transition to a sustainable, carbon-neutral society, and I’m your host, Mitch Ratcliffe. Thank you for joining the conversation.

Today, we’re going to take another dive into the circular economy, this time about how we manage our waste collection and processing systems. The U.S. waste management industry moves more than 290 million tons of municipal solid waste a year. It’s a potential trillion-dollar market, yet much of it still runs on paper, tickets, clipboards, and spreadsheets. Roughly 10,000 independent haulers handle a significant share of American collection and materials transfer, and they work in a business where a single truck costs $300,000 and profitability depends on route efficiency. Yet most of these haulers lack access to the digital infrastructure that other logistics-centric industries adopted a decade ago.

Now that society recognizes the immense value in waste—that it’s not just something to dispose of as quickly and quietly as possible, to manage for profitable reuse in a growing circular economy—the waste management industry is in the midst of a vast upgrade.

And our guest today is Mike Marmo, the CEO and founder of CurbWaste, an end-to-end operating system built for independent waste haulers. Mike is a fourth-generation waste industry professional. His great-grandfather started in the business, and Mike started his career working at a family transfer station in New York. Then he built his own collection and disposal hauling company called Curbside, and when COVID shutdowns wiped out three months of construction-dependent revenue, he pivoted to focus on the software platform his hauling company had built. He sold that hauling business in 2021 and has spent the years since building CurbWaste into a platform that now serves more than 150 haulers across 40 states, from five-truck family operations to 200-vehicle regional fleets.

CurbWaste brings order management, real-time dispatch, route optimization, automated invoicing, driver apps, and e-commerce into a single cloud-based platform. Its CurbPOS point-of-sale system for transfer stations tracks inbound and outbound materials with scale integration, and uses weighted averages by material type to generate automated LEED diversion reports and Recycling Certification Institute certified documentation. In other words, it helps a hauler qualify for environmental incentives that gives contractors and developers defensible, third-party verifiable proof that their construction waste was actually diverted from a landfill. And that, too, creates another economic opportunity.

The per-load, per-material chain-of-custody data is what the emerging extended producer responsibility programs that we’ve discussed many times need, as seven states now require producers to fund and document the collection, sorting, and recycling of their packaging. So if you put this operating system under the circular economy, you start to track the value flow, and that means more value can be recognized and rewarded.

In October, CurbWaste closed a $28 million Series B round led by Socium Ventures—that’s the venture capital arm of Cox Enterprises—bringing its total funding to $50 million. The investment is fueling AI-powered business intelligence tools designed to give independent haulers the kind of data-driven decision making that larger competitors like Waste Management and Republic Services have built in their own proprietary systems.

We’ll talk with Mike about what it takes to digitize an industry that’s resisted technology adoption for decades, how CurbPOS’s materials tracking could extend from LEED compliance into EPR reporting and regional materials flow planning, and whether a network of independent haulers on a shared platform can become a connective tissue for an emerging circular economy supply chain. And finally, what is AI actually delivering for waste operations today compared to the hype we’re hearing?

You can learn more about CurbWaste at curbwaste.com—CurbWaste is all one word, no space, no dash.

So, can a software platform that modernizes independent hauling also help build the data infrastructure for the circular economy? Let’s find out right after this quick commercial break.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Welcome to the show, Mike. How you doing today?

Mike Marmo  4:42

I’m doing well. How are you doing?

Mitch Ratcliffe  4:44

Doing well. It’s a beautiful day here in Southern Oregon, and I know in New York City you’re getting through the snow.

Mike Marmo  4:51

Yes, it’s really cold.

Mitch Ratcliffe  4:53

I want to start off with this question, and it goes back to the fact that your great-grandfather started this business, or started in this business. Walk us through the paper and digital processes that recycling operations have been using, and how CurbPOS changes their day-to-day work.

Mike Marmo  5:07

Yeah. So my family had grown up in this, you know, been in this business. I had grown up in this business. Actually, my first job, I was a scale operator starting at a transfer station. And when I was working there, everything was pen to paper. You know, we used a traditional scale ticket. We would put it through this, you know, the EXP printer.

And, you know, within that first year of really working there, I started to realize how difficult it was and how much manual work was happening. You know, a lot of the requests that we were getting at that facility—it was a C&D facility—a lot of the requests we were getting were for LEED, or for something that was related to a regulatory compliance effort, and to get all that information was fairly difficult. So we, you know, at that point, I really understood kind of where the waste industry was relative to the technology around me and my regular day-to-day life, and when I started a waste company, and then ultimately ended up starting a software company, I really saw it at scale, working with a lot of companies around the country that are starting pen to paper or operating off kind of archaic systems.

And so when we originally built CurbWaste and then the CurbPOS product, which is for the transfer stations and recycling centers, we really hyper-focused on automating tasks and making sure that everything was as digital as possible for aggregation of data. So I think we’re starting to see adoption along the way, and I think the waste industry is progressing, but ultimately, I think a digital experience is necessary. And I think it’s for the future of the industry and for the future of the way that we operate in our waste streams. I think it’s critical.

Mitch Ratcliffe  6:45

When you pivoted from moving trash to selling software, how did that change your view of the system that you’d been working in?

Mike Marmo  6:52

Yeah, so New York, obviously, is fairly unique. We were operating the five boroughs, and there are many limitations, regulatory compliance. It’s very difficult to navigate logistically—you know, so many people, and limited parking, limited space, very tight. So you know, when you’re operating in that bubble, you don’t have a lot of options on how you have to operate. You have to be really, really good and really, really pointed.

But then once we moved into the software space, and we started to see, you know, around the country, how people operate, the term I like to use always is “local,” because it really is. You know, we’re all fundamentally doing the same thing. We’re all picking up garbage. We’re all bringing it to facilities. They’re processing materials. But the way they do it, or the nuances around that workflow, are very different, depending on where you are.

And the example I’ll use is like, you know, you have New York City—again, that’s like a very tight space, limited space, lot of people. And then you’ll operate with a company down in Alabama or Mississippi that has a big urban sprawl, and they have different types of issues, different types of problems. And so everybody’s trying to do the best they can from a service perspective. But ultimately, it really is dependent on where you are regionally. And I think that’s where dynamic software and the ability to be dynamic really provides a lot of value overall.

Mitch Ratcliffe  8:04

The old approach to this business was you had a landfill and you had a certain number of years to fill it, and so you were managing filling a hole rather than extracting value from the waste stream. How have you seen that transition change the focus of the business that you’re trying to support with software?

Mike Marmo  8:21

So I think, I mean, maybe I can take a step back into the history a little bit. To your point, I think waste used to be volume-based. It was very much like, I charge a price per yard, I dump for price per yard. And there was a simplicity in that. But I think it also led to—kind of, the way that pricing was done was, again, very volume, and it was very simple.

When the industry moved into weight and it started to weigh materials—and obviously within that, the kind of correlation of commodities being pulled out and the value in the global supply chain—there was a shift in the industry where some of the waste haulers still were pricing or stuck in a volume-based framework, but the facilities were pricing off of tonnage.

And there was an evolution that happened over time. So what you end up seeing is like, if you order a dumpster, for example, and a dumpster has a certain amount of price and allowable tonnage, and then you’re pricing off a matrix format for additional tonnage—the industry shifted. There was a shift in the way that the industry actually started to work.

So now what ends up happening in that framework is, some landfills, you know, big facilities, certain markets have a lot of land and a lot of sprawl, and they have big holes with long lifespans. Whereas other markets don’t have any landfills, or have many landfills closing because they’re running out of space, and they’re moving to intermodal, or they’re moving to, again, like MRFs. There’s been more focus on bringing materials back into the supply chain. So I think we’re still seeing that shift happen. It’s still moving in that direction.

And I think, again, like I always say, waste is a utility that’s not measurable, and I think that’s the main problem. And in order to do this well, you need to have a unit of measurement, a single point of truth. And so that’s why I think software comes into play. It’s able to aggregate a bunch of data—operational data, but also data that’s related to the material and waste streams—and be able to measure what’s going on, and then be able to make better business decisions and better regulatory decisions on the long term.

Mitch Ratcliffe  10:23

CurbPOS tracks inbound and outbound materials at these transfer stations. When a truck dumps a load, what’s the data capture process, and how granular does it get in terms of the materials that you can classify and identify? And then what does that enable in terms of value extraction?

Mike Marmo  10:38

It all depends. It really depends on the market. Some, it hits the floor and then it just gets, you know, taken out to the next place. Other markets will obviously run it across a belt, pull out commodities. So there’s something measurable that’s happening.

I think, you know, the age of technology now, you can do things like material recognition—AI being able to do material recognition and get components of that. Obviously, the certification bodies like RCI and LEED that are helping to kind of audit and make sure that there’s an evaluation period of whatever they’re saying they did, or whatever they’re pulling out of the stream.

But the inbound-outbound correlation is really what matters. Because when you’re coming onto the scale and you’re getting weighed and you’re putting it on the floor, once it hits the belt, we can then take the outbounds and create that mapping of, okay, this material, amount of material came in that day, this load hit the floor, and then this is what was distributed out. And then we can show you what a recycling rate was. I still think there’s more to be done there. I do think that cameras and AI can measure that when it hits the ground, but I think the industry is moving in the right direction overall.

Mitch Ratcliffe  11:52

Let’s step back a little bit from the industry to, let’s say, a five-truck family operation that’s never used anything except maybe QuickBooks to do some invoicing. What is the actual on-ramp to CurbPOS look like for them? How does it change their business?

Mike Marmo  12:09

Yeah, so I think if you’re a hauler, you’re going to be on the CurbWaste product. If you’re transitioning to be on the CurbPOS product—but really, around implementation, I think that’s actually a natural point where people start thinking about software as a hauler. You know, you really want to be cost-efficient in the early days, and so sometimes software might be out of the price range. But I think as you start to grow, and you’re seeing that incremental growth, what most haulers are looking for at that point is efficiency and visibility.

So what software is able to do—operationally, it’s allowing you the ability to be efficient and to be able to see what’s working and what isn’t, and then it’s also giving you insights into what’s measurable, so that you can keep investing in the things that are working. That’s hard in the waste business overall, but it’s a good way to start.

When you go through change management, change is hard all the time. Like, if you have a process that’s working, and it’s, you know, the kind of old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” You hit a certain point where you have to make a decision about what you want—what is the motivating factor of the business? So are you trying to grow, or are you just trying to maintain where you are? Most people that are entering business and entrepreneurship are trying to grow. So then it becomes about scale. It becomes about, I need to maximize and focus on the most important thing, and I can’t do everything. And eliminating manual tasks allows you to scale more efficiently.

So you go through the buying process and you find the right fit for the software that you need in the moment of which you need it. But you also need to consider what you can scale into as you grow. And then you go through a process of entering orders, getting training, training the drivers, training the staff, making sure everybody understands how the system works. But then there’s a transition period. We stick with them, we make sure that everything is going the way that we hoped it would go, what the project plan said, and you’re supporting them along the way. But at a certain point, the system is running for you, and then they’re off to the races and they continue to scale.

Mitch Ratcliffe  13:53

One of the major changes in the industry that’s driving this transition is the introduction of extended producer responsibility laws, which require, for instance, you’re measuring material type, the weight, its recyclability, and whether it’s recycled, and getting verification of that diversion from landfill. Was that in your head when you started thinking about developing CurbWaste, or is this an opportunity that’s just sort of emerged conveniently at the same time?

Mike Marmo  14:20

100%. When we got into this, the grander vision was the interconnectivity of the supply chain from a data perspective. So the way I kind of like to normalize it is, you have a generator, you have a collector—a hauler—you have a disposal site, and then ultimately end use, right? But it’s end of life. So does it go back into the supply chain through the circular economy? Does it end up in the hole? Whatever that is. There’s usually that period of time where the life cycle has ended.

So the way we thought about it was, well, where can we focus energy from a software perspective? I view the haulers and the transfer stations and the disposal centers as the core of the data set. So we really want to be hyper-focused on aggregating data and providing value in those areas. But ultimately, the idea was to interconnect the generation piece to the rest of it. So when we started, we really stayed focused on that part—the collector and the disposal. But now we’re starting to migrate into the generator piece, to really connect the data sets. And to your point, show where material is being generated, how it’s being generated, where it’s going, and ultimately where it ends up. That’s the measurement of the utility. That’s the waste meter. And that’s what we’re trying to achieve.

Mitch Ratcliffe  15:31

We’ve had a number of sorting and hauling folks on the show, as well as a lot of other thinkers on this topic of the circular economy. So building on this reality in which you’ve got verification that materials have been moved to a particular place and at a particular pace, do you imagine it’s possible to actually plan regional material flows, to really turn the circular economy on in its full flower?

Mike Marmo  15:55

Yes, I do. It’s a lofty goal. A lot has to happen. But I do believe that that’s possible. And the analogy I like to use is something like Amazon. Amazon was able to understand from a retail component, like, what buyer behavior was. They were able to leverage data around buyer behavior, and then they were able to integrate themselves into the supply chain—the freight forwarding, the warehousing, the ultimately last-mile delivery.

And they do it so well. The reason why you’re able to get something in the same day is because they were able to connect all those pieces and understand the output. I believe that the waste industry can achieve that. And so that was a core part of what we are trying to do. You have to walk before you run. You can’t do everything all at once. And again, this is a business, right? Like, if I sign up a hauler and I can’t run their business, then the workflows—you have to build a foundation before you build the house. But I think the long-term vision is the ability to do exactly what you just said.

Mitch Ratcliffe  17:03

Millions of people come to Earth911’s database to find out what to do with specific materials, and one of the things they’re interested in is getting the right material to the right place, so that it is actually recycled. And what you just described in the context of Amazon, for instance—should we not be thinking about putting everything in a single bin? But could we, in an economically viable way, actually have specialized collection that would produce a cleaner load?

Mike Marmo  17:33

Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I saw as a waste hauler that I struggled with was, we’re making decisions—whether regulatory or whether it’s, you know, just in general—like, if you’re trying to be a good actor and try to do the right things, but it’s not rooted in much data. And so what I tried to say was, well, if we can’t measure it, then how do you action it?

And I think the first step, the first thing that everybody should be paying attention to is, how do we measure this? Like, what are we actually looking at? What is the scope of the effort? I don’t think anybody could tell you that, but I think there are ways to do it. And I think, as you have—we like to refer to ourselves as a system of action. You have to have a single point of truth. And when you have a single point of truth, you can then make action against it. So data is the most important thing right now. Data aggregation is the most important thing.

To your point, you did say something that’s really important that I think gets missed as well, which is, it has to be economically viable. There has to be ROI associated. And so a lot of times, what ends up happening is you get a compliance or regulatory effort that doesn’t really take into account the business criteria, and then people are resistant to it, because the business still has to run—it’s a for-profit entity. We want to take the opposite approach. We want to provide value and find ROI in the haulers’ work. Work alongside them, work alongside the transfer stations, work alongside the landfills. Understand how they’re thinking about their business, and really get down into the KPIs of their ROI, and then funnel that back up to the generators and say, here’s how they make money, here’s what’s valuable to them. How can we work together to make that make sense?

I think there’s a way to do that, and it’s just about visibility. It’s transparency, it’s visibility, it’s getting people on the same page. And working together is really what we need to do.

Mitch Ratcliffe  19:05

So here’s a hypothetical. Let’s say you look to the one organization in the world right now that has the greatest visibility into what’s flowing into homes, and that’s Amazon, like we were just talking about. Could you partner with Amazon to say, we know you’re delivering this much cardboard, this much plastic waste, and so forth into this region, and then plan a hauling solution in response to that?

Mike Marmo  19:29

That’s right. That’s the end goal. That’s probably the last step, the last piece of the puzzle. But that’s exactly what you want to do. You know, waste is being created when it’s being manufactured, right? Like, ultimately, when it starts, at that point is when we know what the waste stream is going to look like. But again, if you have nowhere for it to funnel in, and you have nowhere to measure it, it’s disjointed. You have to have an integratable solution to be able to even do that. So yes, that is the goal. But ultimately, we have to start at the foundational level.

Mitch Ratcliffe  19:58

Yeah. We’re moving to a more planful economy, and there’s a lot to unpack in that idea. Let’s take a quick commercial break. We’re gonna come back to this fascinating conversation. Folks, stay tuned.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. Let’s return to my discussion with CurbWaste CEO Mike Marmo. He’s a fourth-generation waste industry veteran whose AI-augmented CurbPOS system automates recycling operations. So, Mike, until recently, the waste management industry has been resistant to digitization. Let’s just put it that way. And there’s a massive change ahead. What do you see in terms of a new generation of leadership and the way they think emerging as this industry grows?

Mike Marmo  20:43

Yeah, I think tech adoption in general runs through cycles, right? You have your early adopters, people that see the value. Usually, that’s someone that understands that they have to differentiate. That’s helping at the market. I was at that at one point—when you’re competing with 200 haulers in New York, you have to figure out a way, right? So tech, for me, was the way that I differentiated myself.

So you start with those, and what you’re really doing is you’re proving the ROI, you’re proving the case. You’re building case studies around, okay, this is providing value in this particular area, but you’re also identifying the meaningful pain points of what they’re experiencing. I think a lot of times, if you talk to a waste hauler, maybe generally they’ll say, like, things are working. But if you really get down into it, pull back the layers, there’s always a pain point. There’s always something they’re trying to solve for.

But when you see margin shrinking, you have to either try to drive net new revenue, or you have to be able to save in a certain area. So then what ends up happening naturally is that people start paying attention and they say, okay, this person is growing. They’re growing 30% year over year. What’s driving that growth? And eventually you get adoption. In that way, you get that mass adoption. But some people don’t want to take the risk. They want the other people to take it first and have that proof point. But then it kind of accelerates, and that’s when you start to get into that hyper-growth, hyper-adoption phase.

I think we are very, very close to that. I think what’s happening is people are paying attention to what’s going on. From a tech perspective, it is moving at hyper speed at this point, and so the world is evolving at such an incredibly fast rate that anybody that doesn’t adopt will ultimately fall behind at some point. So I think the waste industry historically has been a little behind, but I don’t anticipate that being the case for the long term.

Mitch Ratcliffe  22:23

When you raised your Series B, you said that you wanted patient capital that understands that this industry won’t transform overnight. And in the context of what you just said about everything changing at hyper speed, why patient? And how does that transformation happen in practice? And what do you see as the timeline?

Mike Marmo  22:41

It’s pretty simple. I think I alluded to this earlier. You have to build the foundation before you build the house. You can’t build the roof first, right? You have to build the foundation. And a lot of waste haulers—you have a varying degree of waste haulers around the country that are like two-to-three-truck operations all the way up to 30,000-truck fleets, right? So you have to meet them where they are. If you cannot run the business for them in a meaningful and impactful way, then you’ve already failed. There’s nothing that you can do that will really help them unless you pick a niche part of their business. And we have a lofty goal of being an operational management system. We want to be able to run the entire business on the platform.

So you have to start there. And when I say patient capital, there’s a lot of effort that goes into building those workflows, not just surface level, but adding depth, adding nuance and depth, to make sure the system is dynamic but rigid. You don’t want data to be wrong, and you don’t want it to get convoluted, but you want it to be dynamic enough to meet the need in the market. So that takes time. You have to learn. You have to listen. You have to pay attention to what’s going on. You have to be a really, really good partner to the waste hauler. They have to trust you and believe in you.

So that part of it is like the first step into the rest. But in conjunction with that, you have to be forward looking. You have to be looking at the things that they’re not paying attention to, the things that they don’t know, because they’re in the weeds dealing with the day-to-day. They’re dealing with servicing their customers, they’re dealing with the community, they’re dealing with building the business that they’re focused on. So it’s our job as a tech partner to be able to say, this is where the industry is moving, here’s what this is going to lead to, here’s the vision, and hopefully get people to sign up to that and believe in that.

So when we brought in a partner, we articulated that. I think a lot of times, when you bring on venture capital or any funding, they’re expecting this major hyper growth. But if you want to achieve what we’ve been speaking about thus far, you need to get things right, and you need to make sure that you’re building the foundation correctly.

Mitch Ratcliffe  24:40

You’re leaning into AI. Does that mean that you’re training models to become an expert in managing waste or hauler processes? Where’s the focus of your training?

Mike Marmo  24:51

It’s really in a couple different areas. I think what we really preach out there in the market is, AI for the sake of AI means nothing. Like, AI is cool. It’s great. It can provide you really meaningful value in certain areas of your life. And I think it’s going to be transformative, without a doubt. But in our industry, waste haulers don’t really care about necessarily putting something in because it’s flashy and nice and cool. They want it to provide value.

And so when we think about AI, we think about manual tasks. We think about repeatable tasks. We think about infinite-scale areas of their business that we’re solving an immediate pain point, or that they can scale with for the remainder of time, because that thing is going to happen all the time. So an example of that would be, how are we ingesting orders from multiple channels to create efficiencies? How are we setting up call centers? How are we transcribing phone calls for customer support and customer success?

And then I think what you’re referring to on the learning side is the gluing of traditional machine learning and algorithmic types of optimizations—for example, like route optimization—gluing it to historical behavior and being able to say, here’s the nuances, here’s when the person never puts their garbage out on time, here’s where this street is closed, but it doesn’t show you that in the map. Just certain things that dispatchers know, that tribal knowledge, that they understand their market, that an algorithm is not going to understand. And that’s where AI can layer in and learn behavior and then make better recommendations.

So it’s not an overnight thing. You have to have the data. It’s only as good as the data. So we’re really focused on the infrastructure architecture, making sure that we’re aggregating that data appropriately, and then learning on that data in order to make sure that we’re giving them the best option for success, or the best decision-making process, or the most optimal insight that we can provide.

Mitch Ratcliffe  26:42

So what’s an example of an AI-driven recommendation that one of your haulers has used to make a decision that they wouldn’t have otherwise?

Mike Marmo  26:50

Yeah, I think, like, operationally, or just anything that we can do that’s kind of AI-powered—

Mitch Ratcliffe  26:56

One that was a material difference for the hauler. What do you point to as an example when you’re talking to other haulers?

Mike Marmo  27:04

Yeah, let’s—I’ll probably say two. I think first, let’s just talk about—we’ve talked about change management. I think right now, internally, we’re really hyper-focused on making sure that we can create a really nice change management experience of adopting software. So we do a ton around AI data migrations, so that when we’re taking data out of a system, we’re able to map it in a quick and easy way that they can understand it, but also do structured cleanups of that data to make sure that they’re getting what they want into the new system. It seems like a small thing, but it’s a very challenging thing when you’re going through a long change management process. So that’s an immediate impact to the hauler, that they feel more comfortable in that change.

The second thing is, anything agentic that we build is going to provide value to the pain point that they’re trying to solve for. So whether that’s migrating data from one place into another—being able to take data out of a CRM or being able to put it into an ERP—meaningful value. You’ve just eliminated a manual task that they would have to do over and over and over again. That’s repetitive, that’s manual, and it applies. So it’s a really good method in providing ROI, because you can just say, that work is never going to be done again. That agent will work in that and do that for you with conviction.

But I think longer term, things like we talked about—service verification, material recognition, route optimization—those are efforts that we have to make meaningful investments in, that’ll be coming down the pike.

Mitch Ratcliffe  28:29

You know, as I listen to your description of this, and I think about the U.S. recycling system, which is, as you’ve pointed out, filled with small, private recyclers and haulers looking for ways to plug into, for instance, the growing extended producer responsibility infrastructure that’s emerging around us—I’m reminded of eBay. Is CurbWaste aiming to become a marketplace layer where those independent operators can begin to identify and plug into broader materials flows?

Mike Marmo  29:00

It’s on our radar. Like I said, I think a marketplace, to me, again, is really indicative of the behavior and the learning and understanding what’s going on. So right now, core focus is just visibility. I think we have to create the transparency layer first before anything else.

But yes, I would say, a marketplace, the ability to understand who’s best—like, RCI is a great example. I mean, RCI, when you’re partnering with LEED and you’re trying to find RCI facilities to establish those LEED points, that’s an area where we can help and say, this facility is in this area. Partner. We’re driving revenue for our customer base. We’re saying this RCI facility is on our platform. We can measure it. We can automate that process. We can get that LEED report to the right person in the right moment and give that level of visibility through dashboards or anything that we’re building at a customer-facing level.

Again, that’s work that doesn’t have to be done manually. That’s something that can happen in automation. That’s probably the first natural step. And we are doing some meaningful work with RCI and LEED. But long term, I think, yes, to your point, we want to get to a visibility layer, a waste meter layer, for anybody that wants it.

Mitch Ratcliffe  30:10

That transparency that you’re describing is going to be particularly important to producer responsibility organizations, the entities that are standing up to fulfill EPR requirements. Are you talking with them about how you can facilitate the management of their specific materials?

Mike Marmo  30:28

Yes, we are very much in discovery and in conversation with people that are obviously interested and incentivized to want to work with us and try to achieve this vision. So we do talk to people, and we do try to understand, what visibility do they want? What would they love to see? What is a utopian point of view? I mean, product is always something that we’re always forward looking on, right? What’s being built today is actionable. It’s already been validated. Now it’s about, what are we going to build in the future? We’re probably talking a few years down the road. I think we still have a lot to do on the workflow side. But yes, we are always keeping these teams informed and making sure that they’re aligned with where we’re going.

Mitch Ratcliffe  31:06

You’ve raised $50 million to date. Do you see a substantial amount of capital sitting out there waiting for this efflorescence of data visibility to take hold, so that they can begin to mine the material value in the economy?

Mike Marmo  31:21

Yes. I mean, our Series B was led by the venture arm of Cox Enterprises, and it was a very big part of their thesis. They saw the vision. They aligned with it. We were able to move quickly. But it really was rooted in the fact that they’ve been seeking this type of solution internally. They’ve been trying to figure out how to get more visibility into their own efforts as it relates to sustainability. So yes, I think we will continue to build. We have to fund the business in order to build the products and achieve the dream that we want to. We do believe that this can be a very big business, but ultimately, we are still aligning on that mission statement and that vision of giving the true visibility and measurement of the waste industry.

Mitch Ratcliffe  32:00

We’ve been looking kind of over the horizon without a clear timeframe. But let me ask you this: in 10 years, will we have an AI-enabled circular economy running, or will it still be in the process of being constructed?

Mike Marmo  32:12

I think it will be there. Yeah, in 10 years, I think it will be there. I think, you know what I know internally of where we are—we are not that far off. We have spent the last four years on the workflows. We are starting to see the data benefit of that. I think in the next 10 years we will 100% have it.

Mitch Ratcliffe  32:33

So how does that change the economy of the United States?

Mike Marmo  32:37

You know, that’s the part that I’m not 100% sure. I’ve been operating under the mission statement of this dream and this vision. I do think that it’s going to ultimately make us rethink how we think about waste.

You know, you have electricity, right? You can measure it. You can go onto your portal and see how much you’re consuming. You can measure water. You can measure all the things that you’re using on a day-to-day basis. The waste industry is a part, a core part, of our infrastructure. It’s a core part of our society. You can even look historically and say, when waste stops getting picked up, it can crumble a society. It can crumble a city. I mean, New York City went through that in the strike, and recently in Boston they went through it.

So there’s meaningful implications to the societal impact that waste has. And sometimes I think that gets taken for granted. And I think what we really want to focus on is showing that—getting all the waste haulers in our community, which I really think we’re building, is a really great community of waste haulers that are forward thinking, that want to be a part of that mission, and try to show people how critical this industry is, and also all the things and all the information and insights that can come out of it.

So yeah, it’s very mission-driven. It’s a very personal journey. It’s a very mission-driven journey. But ultimately, I think we have to break it down into its parts, phase out what the goals are, and then get to a point where we can show people how important it actually is.

Mitch Ratcliffe  34:05

This is a huge vision. How can our listeners keep track of your part of the story?

Mike Marmo  34:10

Well, I mean, obviously we post whatever we have to post on our website, so that’s a good place—at curbwaste.com—but also, anybody can reach out to us. I mean, we are very much trying to be an advocate of the industry, and we’re very much trying to be people that can be thought leaders and really speak about what we’re trying to achieve here. We’re very transparent, we’re very honest, we’re very true to who we are. So we love interacting with people in the space. We have people come to our office often. We have people talk to our team often. So for me, it’s reach out. Reach out on LinkedIn, reach out on the website. You can reach out by any means necessary.

Mitch Ratcliffe  34:48

Mike, thanks very much. It’s been a really interesting conversation.

Mike Marmo  34:52

Thank you. I really appreciate you having me.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Mitch Ratcliffe  35:08

Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. You’ve been listening to my conversation with Mike Marmo. He’s CEO and founder of CurbWaste, and a fourth-generation waste industry professional who’s building the CurbPOS system, an end-to-end operating system for independent waste haulers. You can learn more about the company and its work at curbwaste.com—CurbWaste is all one word, no space, no dash.

Mike said something during the conversation that I encourage you to sit with: waste is being created when it is being manufactured. Now, that’s a deceptively simple observation, and it reframes everything with regard to how we think about the leftovers of the take-make-waste economy. The moment a product rolls off the line, its waste stream is determined—its packaging, what you need to do with it, the end-of-use disposition of the product itself, and the materials that will need to be collected, sorted, and either returned to the supply chain or, unfortunately, sometimes buried in a hole. If you can accept that premise, then the waste management industry isn’t simply a downstream result of the current economy. It’s a mirror that we need to look into to see the potential value to be recovered next week, next month, next year, or decades from now, when materials can no longer serve their current purpose.

Mike also pointed to what happens when waste stops moving. In 1968, New York’s sanitation workers walked off the job for nine days—just nine days—and 100,000 tons of garbage piled up chest-high on sidewalks. Rats swarmed into the city’s best neighborhoods, and New York declared its first public health emergency since the 1931 polio epidemic. And just last summer, when Teamsters struck against Republic Services in the greater Boston area, trash went uncollected for more than two months across 14 communities. Dumpsters overflowed behind restaurants. The rodent population exploded, and schools faced the start of their school year buried by rotting waste. As Mike put it, when waste stops getting picked up, a society can crumble.

And that fragility reveals something profound about society’s relationship with the materials from which it is constructed. We’ve built a civilization on the assumption that waste must disappear—that it’s someone else’s problem, and that it is best put out of sight and kept out of mind. We’ve treated waste as dirty, shameful, and beneath notice. That cultural contempt has real economic consequences, because it means we’ve systematically underinvested in the infrastructure that manages the material afterlife of everything that we produce and consume.

Now just imagine what happens when waste is no longer something to dispose of, but something that it’s important to recover. When the 290 million tons of municipal solid waste moving through U.S. systems each year is finally understood not as a cost center, but as part of the supply chain—a feedstock stream worth tracking, optimizing, and monetizing with the same sophistication we bring to any other logistics challenge. That’s when the world CurbWaste wants to enable and its staggering economics will come into being.

Accenture research projected that the circular economy could generate $4.5 trillion in additional economic output by 2030 and as much as $25 trillion by 2050. The United Nations Development Program has endorsed that same $4.5 trillion figure, noting that the transition would simultaneously cut emissions, create stable jobs, and open new green markets all over the world. Market analysts are converging on figures that describe an enormous circular economy. King’s Research projects it will reach nearly $2.9 trillion by 2031, while a more conservative estimate from Next Move Strategy Consulting pinpoints $1.3 trillion in projected value by 2030—so that even the lowest projections represent a doubling or tripling of the current waste market’s value in just five years.

The point is that we’re dramatically underinvesting relative to the opportunity. CurbWaste’s CurbPOS is just getting started on the path to connecting waste generators to local haulers, closing the loop that Mike described, from the point a product is manufactured to the end of its life and, ideally, back into the supply chain.

Mike’s Amazon analogy is the right way to frame this. Amazon took the time to understand buyer behavior first, when they were just selling books, and then they connected warehousing, freight forwarding, and last-mile logistics based on the knowledge of the consumer’s needs. The waste industry can follow the same logic: identify what’s being generated, where it flows, and where it ends up, ready for collection. Then the challenge is plugging the myriad gaps in our collection infrastructure by connecting independent operators—new startups—to materials that they can monetize, using a shared digital infrastructure. Right there you can see the necessary transparency layer, the marketplace layer, that turns a fragmented collection system into the connective tissue for a circular supply chain.

And that’s the signal that can transform waste into value, and that will drive new revenue for state and local collection and processing companies under extended producer responsibility programs, and ultimately lead to planned regional materials flows that citizens don’t pay for, that companies exploit because it’s profitable.

So when waste stops being considered the dirty result of our consumption and starts being recognized as valuable—when society looks at what it throws away with the same interest it brings to what it buys—we will have a fundamentally different relationship with the material world. One that recognizes that the people who move and manage our waste are operating a utility as essential as electricity or water. And that’s the story that will help unfold and explore here on Sustainability In Your Ear.

So stay tuned. And folks, would you take a moment to check out our archive of more than 540 episodes of Sustainability In Your Ear? We’re in our sixth season, and I guarantee you there’s an interview that you’ll want to share with one of your friends. Writing a review on your favorite podcast platform will help your neighbors find us. Folks, you’re the amplifiers that can spread more ideas to create less waste. So please tell your friends, your family, and co-workers. They can find Sustainability In Your Ear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, or whatever purveyor of podcast goodness they prefer.

Thank you for your support. I’m Mitch Ratcliffe. This is Sustainability In Your Ear, and we will be back with another innovator interview soon. In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself, take care of one another, and let’s all take care of this beautiful planet of ours. Have a green day.

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