The PBS documentary series A Brief History of the Future was an idea whose germination accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Right around the time that the pandemic was hitting us, I realized that most of the narratives and stories about the future were based in doom and gloom, right?” said Ari Wallach, co-executive producer and host. “I call it big dystopia.”
Ari Wallach talks with Karen Washington, a farmer in Chester, New York. BetterTomorrows
Wallach is a futurist who has been investigating our planet for years, trying to determine “what does a flourishing society look like on a thriving ecologically-sound planet Earth.” One way to explore this idea was to travel with a film crew and document positive impacts around the globe. Wallach and his team visit a kelp farmer in New Haven, a solar farm in Morocco, a mycelium entrepreneur in New York state and a floating village in Amsterdam, among many other locations. The footage was molded into a six-part, six-hour documentary. The series, which covers not only climate innovators but historians, scientists and thinkers, premieres on PBS on April 3, and Wallach was part of a team that included executive producer Catherine Murdoch (married to James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s son), the UNTOLD studio, and Drake’s DreamCrew production team. The following are excerpts of a conversation with Wallach from his home in Hastings-on-Hudson.
You’re sort of looking at this show as a kind of corrective to the doomsday-based climate narratives out there?
It is a corrective intervention on how we think about the future, which is – yes, there are potentially a lot of bad things that can happen. But guess what? There’s also a lot of potentially great things that can happen. What I say early on in this show is, we often think about what could go wrong, but we don’t often think about what does it look like if it goes right. And there’s multiple rights.
Were there places from your travels that stuck out for you?
It was my first time in Iceland and the folks that I met were very forward thinking. They’re like, here’s what we have. And here’s how we’re going to make it better. We’re going to tap into geothermal. We’re going to grow food in the middle of winter. We don’t have a lot of light. So, we’re going to store light. Parallel to that, when we were in India, we were in this very small village that had decided to go almost completely solar. This was much more of like, here’s how we lean into better futures environmentally, sustainably and for our own health. And that mindset was very different from the one that I’ve been kind of enmeshed in for the past decade plus, especially in the kind of clean green energy space.
When you see these micro examples of people doing things at the very local level, how did that change how you think about things, or did it at all?
A lot of what I did as a kind of host and a guide was pull myself out of the usual rooms that I’m in. I’m in a lot of conference rooms and a lot of organizations… Seeing folks who were acknowledging where they were and where we are as a species on this planet right now, but then saying, okay, let’s acknowledge, but let’s move forward, and move forward in a way that is not pollyannish rainbows and unicorns, but move forward in a way where it’s like, every little bit counts.
You know, I go back to this quote that I always attribute to Al Gore, but I don’t know if it’s really from him. There’s no silver bullet. It’s a silver buckshot. A lot of what we did in our travels was finding the people who are doing the silver buckshot.
When you visited Ecovative (a company producing food, leathers, and materials from mycelium, a fungi) how scalable do you think something like that is and how optimistic does that make you feel about where we can go with food production?
Let’s go back a hundred-ish years to the first couple of oil derricks in Tulsa or the Permian Basin. And now look at the global footprint of oil and big oil. No one back then thought it would scale to being basically how you run a planet. Whether it’s mycelium for food production or for energy or for building materials, people say, well, how can that scale? Look around. A gas station on every corner, a car in front of every home more or less, we scaled it, it worked. And that wasn’t even driven by an emergency. That was just driven by economics. So, imagine if you have economics and a little bit of an emergency situation — that stuff can scale.
You introduce this concept of the intertidal moment – the moment between things in the ocean. But what does this mean for our species?
As a society we’re at an intertidal between what was and what will be. What the show really does is it brings to light different folks and projects and ideas that are for the intertidal moment. They are emblematic of an intertidal mindset of, we got to take a little bit about what we did before, mix it in with this kind of the chaos of the current moment and point us towards what we want. But none of them claim to be the perfect example of the next paradigm. What we show in the series are folks who are doing that with an open, innovative mindset, whether it’s in technology or food or housing or how we think about democracy or even human psychology.
Your team also visits with Boyan Slat (founder of The Ocean Cleanup). What was that like?
The takeaway from Boyan Slat isn’t just what they’re doing, because what they’re doing is very fascinating. They’re cleaning up rivers and taking microplastics or plastic that became microplastics out of the ocean and therefore out of the fish. He basically said, everyone kept saying this is impossible. You can’t do anything. And he just kept saying, what if we just go and clean it up? He said, not everything has to be pie in the sky, Manhattan-project level. Sometimes you just have to do it.
What would you say to people who are becoming overly cynical about climate breakdown?
It’s hard not to be cynical about the fate of our species on planet Earth. We have to recognize, though, that those aren’t all the stories of what’s happening. There are two things you can do. One, curate what comes into your mind… think about the stories that are perpetuated algorithmically to us. These algorithms are receptive to what it is that we’re clicking on. So be careful and think about what you want more of coming on to your information plate. Two, there are things that you need to do in your daily life. We had a lawn, and we’re letting it go to a meadow. What does Ari’s little piece of land have to do with, you know, creating a pollinator pathway? But that helps avoid the cynicism knowing that you’re doing something. There are bigger things. You can donate to candidates. You can march. You can rally. The key thing, though, is to recognize that you have agency, both for your own actions and those around you.
A Brief History of the Future premieres April 3 on PBS. Watch the trailer below.
The post New PBS Documentary Focuses on a More Hopeful Future appeared first on EcoWatch.
https://www.ecowatch.com/brief-history-of-the-future-pbs-wallach-interview-ecowatch.html
When most of us think of landfills, we think of rotting disposable diapers, apple cores, and old clothing. Our thoughts don’t usually turn to discarded construction materials. However, the U.S. generated 600 million tons of construction and demolition waste in 2018, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That’s more than double the amount of municipal solid waste generated annually.
A lot of wood, concrete, bricks, glass, asphalt, and plastic are going to landfills instead of being recycled or reused. This creates a massive opportunity for improvement. Repurposing materials is a great way to reduce the ecological impact of a project. Demolition waste can be artfully repurposed in home remodeling, construction, and landscaping projects, adding beauty and charm. Reclaiming waste also helps you save money, as many people go into debt when constructing and remodeling homes.
Here are some easy strategies to help you get started.
Plan Ahead
Reclaiming materials typically takes more time than just buying new items. And it requires more planning.
It is challenging to take a cookie-cutter approach to salvaged materials. When constructing or remodeling your home, you may need to customize it to the available materials. One method is to analyze what materials are available and then plan your project design accordingly. The opposite approach is to design your project and then collect the needed reclaimed materials. When taking the latter approach, it is helpful to rely on salvaged materials that are more commonly available.
Regardless, planning ahead and having plenty of storage space is helpful.
Check Whether Your City Requires Deconstruction
A growing number of cities now require that old houses be taken apart by hand rather than knocked down, which puts far more salvaged material into circulation. Portland, Oregon, passed the first such ordinance in 2016. Today it requires deconstruction of any house or duplex built in 1940 or earlier, and the work must be done by a certified deconstruction contractor who documents every salvaged board.
San Antonio has gone furthest. Under the third phase of its ordinance, which took effect January 1, 2025, mechanical demolition is off the table for any single-family home, multi-unit building, or accessory structure built in or before 1945 anywhere in the city, and in or before 1960 in protected areas. City officials report that contractors recover about 70% of a building’s weight, with more than half of that going to reuse rather than recycling.
More than half a dozen cities from Pittsburgh to Boulder have adopted their own versions, and the ReBuilding Center and other reuse nonprofits are pushing for mandatory salvage minimums to make the rules bite. For anyone hunting materials, the practical upshot is simple: if your city has an ordinance, more old-growth lumber, doors, trim, and fixtures are moving through local salvage yards than used to.
Find Good Sources of Salvaged Materials
One of the easiest ways to find free materials and to prevent them from going to landfills is to visit demolition sites. This can be a great source of windows, doors, woodwork, fixtures, and even appliances. Construction sites can be excellent sources of surplus or slightly damaged materials and supplies. Construction dumpsters are often packed with useful materials.
It is essential to speak with the foreman to get permission before taking any materials. If you are seeking something specific, ask the contractors working on-site if they have found that window or door you want. They might be willing to set materials aside for you. But again, ask for permission first.
Antique malls, architectural salvage stores, and home improvement donation centers are good sources of anything from windows and doors to hardware, tile, and plumbing fixtures.
The Habitat for Humanity ReStore network is another valuable source of new and used building materials, and the proceeds benefit a good cause. Build Reuse, the national nonprofit for building material reuse, maintains a membership directory that will point you to salvage stores and deconstruction contractors in your region. ReuseWood.org, a directory built by the American Wood Council and Canadian Wood Council with Build Reuse, lets you search by ZIP code for barn wood, timbers, millwork, flooring, and reclaimed doors and windows.
Peer-to-peer platforms have become the fastest way to find one-off pieces. Craigslist, Freecycle, Facebook Marketplace, Nextdoor, OfferUp, and local Buy Nothing Project groups all turn up leftover tile, cabinets, pavers, and lumber from neighbors’ finished projects. Setting up saved searches and alerts beats checking in occasionally, since good material moves within hours.
Some people even purchase properties with reclaiming the materials in mind. For example, old barns are filled with gorgeous weathered lumber that can be deconstructed and repurposed.
Utilize Repurposed Materials
Beautify your home with reclaimed and repurposed wood beams and ceramic tiles.
Use cleaned-up bricks recovered from construction debris to create patios, pizza ovens, and pathways, and other attractive features for your new home.
Repurpose shipping containers to make storage sheds. Or stack them to make multi-tiered structures, like a guest room.
Use crushed concrete as aggregate for walkways and driveways.
Sinks, vanities, bathtubs, cabinets, shower stalls, light fixtures, and even toilets can be repurposed.
Find Supplies with Recycled Materials
There are also some construction materials available on the market made from recycled materials.
Plastic bottles are recycled to make composite lumber or bricks, and recycled glass is made into tile and countertops. Old newspapers or blue jeans are made into insulation products, and cork bottle stoppers can make flooring and panels. Purchasing these materials might not be as economical but it does conserve resources.
Using salvaged materials in construction and renovation projects adds character and is a great way to reduce waste. And having an eye for reuse helps conserve precious resources and protect the environment.
Editor’s Note: Originally published on October 3, 2019, this article was updated in July 2026.
The post Using Reclaimed Materials in Your Home & Yard appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/home-garden/using-reclaimed-materials-in-your-home-yard/
Smart homes are commonplace today. Now, the intelligent yard is poised to join the mix. Meet Graham Hine, CEO of ePlant, which recently introduced the TreeTag. This solar-powered monitor is attached to a tree to monitor its health and send updates wirelessly to a phone. TreeTags are placed onto the side of trees using a screw and measure minor size fluctuations in trees. For example, the bark’s contraction can indicate stress, such as a lack of water. The TreeTag includes an accelerometer to detect movement patterns that may suggest instability and a humidity sensor to augment local weather data. The TreeTag employs artificial intelligence to process and transmit its data to the cloud. You can talk to your tree using ChatGPT as an interpreter. The experience is like chatting with a friend, but it might be about how much water the tree needs to be healthy or a report on its growth and the carbon it has captured as it grows.
ePlant is among the most intriguing and fun devices we’ve seen this year. Technology can help us see the environment in new ways, bolstering our senses with data that lets us identify biases so that we can respond to climate change, local extreme weather, and drought thoughtfully and efficiently. Solar-powered devices like TreeTag, if manufactured with minimal environmental impact, can expand our sensory engagement with the health of forests, orchards, and suburban yards to reduce overwatering, preserve tree and plant species struggling with local weather changes, and potentially increase the yield of food produced per gallon of water used. You can learn more about ePlant at https://www.eplant.com/
UPDATE: ePlant has since pushed TreeTag well past the smart-yard use case that framed this conversation. In May 2025, TreeTags supplied the live physiological and environmental data behind the Avanade Intelligent Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show; sensors on 12 trees fed an app that let visitors ask the trees how they were doing, and the garden took a gold medal. The company also offers precision irrigation for growers using TreeTag as a LoRaWAN dendrometer that can serve a single vineyard block to thousands of acres.
- Subscribe to Sustainability in Your Ear on iTunes and Apple Podcasts.
- Follow Sustainability in Your Ear on Spreaker, iHeartRadio, or YouTube.
Editor’s Note: This episode was first published on October 23, 2023.
The post Best of Earth911 Podcast: ePlant CEO Graham Hine Listens to the Trees appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/podcast/earth911-podcast-eplant-ceo-graham-hine-listens-to-the-trees/
Satellite dishes outlast the subscriptions that put them there. Drive through almost any American neighborhood and you will see them still bolted to fascia boards and chimney straps, aimed at satellites their owners stopped paying for years ago.
The subscriber base that installed those dishes is collapsing. Pew Research Center found in July 2025 that 36% of U.S. adults still subscribe to cable or satellite TV, while 83% watch streaming services. DIRECTV and DISH told investors in 2024 that they had collectively lost 63% of their satellite subscribers since 2016.
Every one of those canceled accounts left hardware behind, and removal and recycling still fall to the subscriber, who gets little support from the provider. For lack of clear information, a lot of that hardware ends up in a landfill.
Can You Recycle Your Satellite TV Dish?
Depending on who you ask, the proper method of disposal for a satellite TV dish can be as clear as, well, a fuzzy TV signal. So let’s tune in to what a dish system is made of, because the answer determines where each piece goes.
A residential satellite system is not one product. It is four material streams bolted together:
- The reflector. The curved part everyone pictures. On modern 18- to 20-inch DIRECTV and DISH installations it is thin, powder-coated steel. Older and larger dishes are often aluminum. Either way, it is scrap metal and easily recyclable in most communities.
- The LNB. The low-noise block downconverter on the end of the arm. It holds a circuit board and is the piece that makes the system electronic waste.
- The mount and hardware. Usually galvanized steel, and usually the heaviest recyclable component in the assembly.
- Coaxial cable. Copper conductor inside plastic jacketing, which scrap yards buy separately as insulated wire.
The Institute for Environmental Research and Education recommends separating those parts of the dish before you haul anything anywhere: detach the LNB, coil the coax, and sort aluminum from steel. That takes about 20 minutes with a screwdriver and a wrench, and it is the difference between a recycler accepting your load and turning it away.
The receiver, DVR, and remotes are a separate question, and an important one. Those are usually leased. If you cancel service and keep them, you will be billed for them.
Once It’s Installed, It’s Yours
This is the part that surprises people. The dish becomes the property of the homeowner at installation. Neither provider sends a technician to take it down when you cancel, and neither is obligated to. DIRECTV’s own support forums state the position plainly: the receivers go back, the dish stays, and what happens to it next is up to you.
Renters have a related wrinkle. The FCC’s Over-the-Air Reception Devices rule protects your right to install a dish under one meter in areas under your exclusive control, such as a balcony or patio, and it limits what landlords and HOAs can prohibit. It does not cover shared roofs or exterior walls, and it does not remove your responsibility to take the dish down and repair the mounting holes when you move out.
Read your lease before you install anything.
The Rules Changed in Some States, But Not Federally
U.S. federal guidelines still do not regulate circuit boards as hazardous waste, and there is no national electronics recycling law. What exists instead is a patchwork of state and local policy.
Twenty-five states plus the District of Columbia have passed electronics recycling legislation, most of it built on producer responsibility principles, and roughly two dozen states ban electronics from landfills outright. Whether your dish system is legally landfill-bound depends entirely on your ZIP code.
One change is worth flagging because it is new and relevant. Oregon’s modernized E-Cycles program took effect January 1, 2026, and the expanded list of covered devices now includes cable and satellite receivers, routers, modems, and game consoles. Oregon residents can drop those off free. The reflector itself is not a covered device, so it still goes to scrap metal, but the electronic half of the system finally has a no-cost home in one more state.
The stakes behind these rules keep climbing. The UN’s Global E-waste Monitor 2024 found the world generated a record 62 million metric tons of electronic waste in 2022 and formally collected and recycled just 22.3% of it. Generation is on track to hit 82 million metric tons by 2030, growing about five times faster than documented recycling.
Don’t Count on the Scrap Value
Earlier versions of this article suggested that local scrap vendors might be willing to pull the system down for the value of the materials. That is worth a reality check in 2026.
Scrap yards pay by weight and by grade. A modern 18-inch dish is a few pounds of thin, coated steel, which grades low and weighs almost nothing. The coax and the mount are worth more than the reflector, and the whole assembly is still unlikely to buy you lunch. Older six- to 12-foot aluminum C-band dishes are a genuinely different story and can be worth hauling. For the small dishes on most roofs, treat scrap as a disposal route rather than a payday, and do not expect a yard to send a crew for it.
Tips To Get You Started
Here at Earth911, we want your satellite TV dish handled properly at the end of its life. That is not the case. Here is the sequence that actually works:
- Check your provider’s recycling page first and know what it covers. DIRECTV’s recycling page issues a prepaid shipping label and routes equipment to R2-certified recyclers. DISH points customers to Best Buy and a UPS mail-in program that offers free recycling if you pay the shipping costs. Both programs are built around receivers, remotes, and small equipment. Neither is designed to take the dish off your roof.
- Return leased equipment on time. Providers typically give you about three weeks from the disconnect date before non-return fees land on your final bill. Get a receipt at the drop-off point and keep it.
- Search for a satellite dish removal service, a handyman, or a local roofing company. Roofers are the right call if the mount is through the shingles, because someone has to seal the penetrations afterward. Removal is a roof job, not a recycling job, and the two rarely come bundled.
- Find a certified recycler for the electronics. Look for R2 or e-Stewards certification, which tells you the downstream processing is audited. Use the Earth911 recycling search to find electronics and scrap metal locations near you.
- Take the reflector and mount to a scrap metal yard. Separate steel from aluminum before you go.
- Consider reuse before recycling. A working dish and LNB have a second life in free-to-air reception, RV and off-grid setups, and amateur satellite work. Offer it to others locally before you scrap it. There are also plenty of repurposing projects if you would rather keep it out of the waste stream entirely.
- Watch out for lead-generation sites. Several “satellite dish removal” domains are referral networks that sell your contact information to whichever contractor is paying, not recyclers. Ask any service directly where the material goes and whether they are certified.
Earth911 Does Not Remove or Recycle Dishes
We regularly receive inquiries about whether Earth911 offers removal services. We do not. Earth911 does not offer satellite TV dish removal or recycling. If a satellite TV provider or one of its representatives tells you otherwise, that is not accurate information.
What Comes Next for Satellite TV
The retirement wave is not finished. DIRECTV shed roughly 288,000 subscribers in the third quarter of 2025 alone, according to reporting by TheStreet. EchoStar reported 6.63 million pay-TV subscribers at the end of the first quarter of 2026 after a net loss of 366,000 in three months, and its Dish DBS unit filed a prepackaged Chapter 11 restructuring on June 30, 2026. The company says Dish Network and Sling TV service continues without interruption.
For subscribers, the practical takeaway is unchanged: corporate restructuring does not come with a dish removal crew. If you are canceling, plan for the disposing of the hardware. Return what is leased, get the dish down safely, split the metal from the electronics, and route each stream to somewhere that will process it. That is a Saturday afternoon’s work that can keep your dish out of a landfill.
Related Reading
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on June 10, 2015. It was most recently updated in July 2026. Feature image courtesy of Alexis Lê-Quôc.
The post Need to Recycle Your Satellite TV Dish? Read This First appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/eco-tech/looking-to-recycle-your-satellite-tv-dish-read-this-first/
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