Unsolicited in-kind donations is a major issues in many sudden onset crisis. Whether due to a genuine outpouring of solidarity or to get a tax write-off the volume and nature of stuff that are donated defies any logic. Ice-skates for a flooding in Bangladesh, sextoys donated after a storm in Vanuatu. A container full of old croissants for Kosovo or a 40ft container full of only left boots.
The donations are not just ridiculous they are also an environmental problem and Travis Opocensky has found a solution. He has founded RightBoot, a humanitarian startup that applies the principles of circular economy to humanitarian action. RightBoot recycles unwanted donations and other waste to minimise the environmental footprint of humanitarian action.
You can read more about RightBoot on their website www.rightboot.org and as you can hear in the episode Travis would love to hear your worst, funniest and weirdest experiences with in-kind donations. You can send your stories to solutions@rightboot.org.
The report mentioned in the episode on packaging waste from humanitarian operations can be found here: https://eecentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Final-Version_Publication.pdf
Transcript
In a couple of days COP26 kicks off in Glasgow, and the whole world is talking about climate change. In the humans own sector, we have discussed a lot how do we get ready for the new and bigger crisis that we will see in the future. And if you're interested in that issue, you should listen to episode 23, where Paul Knox Clarke presents the thinking behind Prepare a new initiative on climate change and humanitarian action. But there is another less discussed issue that the humanitarian industry needs to deal with when it comes to climate change and that is the environmental footprint that we as an industry have. And that's what we discussed this week. Right Boot is a humanitarian startup. It aims to reduce the amount of waste produced by humanitarian action, both from more or less ridiculous, unwanted in-kind donations and, from, for example, packaging from supplies. It's a really good and simple idea and the best thing about it is that it's likely that it can be turned into a sustainable business and not be dependent on grants. Travis Opocensky is the founder of Right Boot and as you will hear in this conversation, he needs some help. So if you like the idea and want to help him out getting this idea off the ground, email him on solutions@rightboot.org. I know that I will be getting involved. I hope you enjoy this conversation.
Travis Opocensky, welcome to Trumanitarian.
Travis Opocensky:Thank you so much for having me.
Lars Peter Nissen:You're here because one of your big fans recommended you. He said, This guy has a great idea, you need to get him on the pod and listen to what he has to say. And your idea is called Right Boot. So why don't we begin with that. What is Right Boot?
Unknown Speaker:So Right Boot, essentially, it is an organisation that is aimed specifically at removing the burden and recovering value from the waste generated by humanitarian response. Kind of the the genesis of it, an=d the genesis of the name is I was sitting at a pub during during grad school talking with one of my colleagues. One of my colleagues has just been... just returned from a deployment with RedR Australia, and come back from Vanuatu and they, you know, they're telling me all about their experiences and they said, you know, they were talking with some of the WFP folks there and they, you know, they got... the conversation got to, kind of, some of the ridiculous in-kind donations they had received that they were still dealing with (and this was in 2O17. this was several years after Pam). So they were saying, We have all these, you know, bundles of fur coats, and we have these pallets of sex toys, and we have this entire container of left boots. Now for clarity sake, it is important to note that I later learned that the container of left boots went to somewhere else, I think either the Philippines or Haiti, but the... you know, it stuck in my brain as something that was like a large disconnect from the mission... the general mission of humanitarian operations and the actual affect. And so that stuck with me as I continued to study and as I moved back to the United States and I kind of just kept looking and researching and talking to these same, self same friends. And I decided to do something about it. And so that's the genesis of Right Boot is in that it's to be the partner of those left boots and where we can make, you know, make the value, the true value, of those donations and the efforts to be felt by the clients.
Lars Peter Nissen:What I really like about your idea is that anybody who has worked in a sudden onset crisis, have the stories that on one side are hilarious, and on the other side deeply depressing of just how the heck could somebody think that this would be useful here. And when you add up the many thousands, quite frankly, idiots who sent stuff like this to the field, it becomes a massive operational problem. So I think you have a very elegant solution here. Can you tell me a bit about the business model that underpins right proof? Do you buy this stuff? Do they give it to you how does it work?
Travis Opocensky:Generally, and kind of unseen by a by kind of the layperson, right, in some... in lots of countries they'll be... you know, we will sort of recycling or we will deliver our recycling to this socially acceptable receptacle and then we don't really see it anymore after that, but what does happen is oftentimes, especially in bulk, those people who have built an industry around taking these post consumer materials, whether it be plastics, cardboard, textiles, will take those and we'll purchase them and process them and then sell them on as kind of very virgin material not in quality, but just in the beginning of a manufacturing process again, so it goes back into the value stream. So that is what inspired me to say, hey, maybe we can do this with those same things. So what we do is essentially, we take those, say, textiles that have arrived, in situ, in country, and we locate in the area, in kind of a graduating radius of convenience and of actual ability, depending on the logistics, those material recovery facilities who processed those materials. So, for example, if we're talking about, you know, hurricanes that have impacted the United States, East Coast, and especially Florida, often, you know, we would say, oh, there are material recovery facilities in Florida, there are material recovery facilities that are kind of all the way up the coast and so whichever ones who are closest who will take those materials, we contact them, they would purchase the materials as scrap, that's their should, that's their business model, anyway, but we then we can take that cash. And that cash goes back to those organisations who are on the ground, those community organisations, who then use that, as you know, the most green intervention and the most flexible intervention to recover and to respond in their communities.
Lars Peter Nissen:Does that mean that you take the donations of the big players, so the World Visions the Oxfam Save the Children, the WFPs, whatever, and you take it off their hands for free? They give it to you for free?
Travis Opocensky:Well, no. So my... I mean, if in a perfect world, with my magic wand, I would love to be able to do this where I get... we take 100% of the impact and turn it around. But so we... when we as we move it through, when we when we receive the money for that we take a 10% service fee, as of right now. As we as we grow and scale, being able to create something self-sustaining, kind of like turnkey micro enterprise in that locality, that's kind my vision, but I'm well aware of trying to avoid founder syndrome and what I think of what this could be. And it's... I don't want to get it confused as well... the UBDs, the unsolicited bilateral donations, that sparked Right Boot's genesis is not the only thing. The donations themselves are one part of a larger kind of programme, or larger system of the waste generated, they're at one's factor of the waste generated generally by, you know, humanitarian responses for, you know, talking about world... WFP, they, in 2O18, they had... they shipped 40,000 tonnes of packaging, 40% of which was plastic. So I like that amount of impact in on certain large scale, then we can take that from... Usually that doesn't really take that is there, that's where they are, that's the all the plastic arrives in country, and then that goes to like a landfill or some sort of recovered material facility, it where it lands in the area. So that... the impact of the materials brought by those larger organisations who are shipping large amounts of things in lands on the community that is trying to recover, invariably weather, you know... intent, you know, be damned, it happens. So the impact needs to be removed, not just from the operational ability of the larger organisations, but from the communities who are themselves trying to, you know, trying to move them through their programmes and recover.
Lars Peter Nissen:Where would you say this is applicable? Can you do this in Afghanistan?
Travis Opocensky:There's actually a really interesting study that I just read by some pretty interesting people, which I can send to you later and you can drop a link in the in the comments, but they're talking about, you know, this kind of immediate onset crisis versus larger, longer sustained crises. They compared waste management, solid waste management, in Afghanistan and Yemen. And in longer term... there's a difference in operation in longer term crises and immediate onset crises. Right Boot in its genesis kind of started from the idea of operating in those long... in those shorter term immediate onset crises, where the rapid onset of those those donated goods that are that are disruptive and not useful, and the packaging waste. It is definitely possible to do it long term. Long term kind of goes out of the scope of my... into a larger, more developmental context of, How are we, you know, using localization as a as a guiding star? How are we creating an infrastructure of circularity in these countries? How are we helping them do that? How are we contributing to their development of, you know, what is kind of a universal idea, but not a universal practice?
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, I asked because you mentioned Florida as a as an example. And obviously as humanitarians, Florida is not the first one you think. So I was just wondering, are we talking, that is an idea that primarily can be implemented in, say, middle income countries in Asia that are prone to sudden onset disasters? Or is it also South Sudan? Or some of the more difficult countries? How applicable is this? I guess is my question.
Travis Opocensky:Well, I mean, the answer to that question is, it can be applicable anywhere, it's just kind of how hard you work. Right? That those those countries you brought up, South Sudan and Afghanistan, where they have very limited, not only logistical infrastructure, which is always constantly in flux, but generally, in terms of solid waste management, that's where the, not only like finding humanitarian logistical partners, using the the growth of green logistics and reverse logistics, catching rides on the back of planes and trucks and boats going back to where they came to move materials out, getting those concentric circles out into places that do have those material recovery facilities and then directing that back. So it's... it can it can work it is. This idea is very simple. It's that you take the thing and you recycle it. It's just kind of how, you know, how good we are at connecting those dots, which is kind of what what we aim to get better at and what... kind of where we're going.
Lars Peter Nissen:Your own background, what is... you're a humanitarian who sort of thought, hey, we are too messy? Or are you like a circular economy guy who thought these humanitarians are very messy.
Travis Opocensky:My background is, you know, in terms of career wise, I was a musician and a music educator for a long time, but that brought me all over the world. That brought me through Shanghai and that brought me in contact with some really good friends who were doing circular and sustainability consulting for corporations in China. And so learning about all the corporate sustainability efforts on the top and then learning about, you know, the systems of informal recyclers and economies that operate off the books of traditional material recovery and sanitation and waste management systems. So and, you know, learning about all the innovation that comes in, material management, and it comes in value recovery from materials, and then moved on to Australia to study peace and conflict studies. So really, this... what sparked... Kind of what raised the alarm bells in my head was not just kind of like the... that it was speaking to a failing of the humanitarian system in any way, it was more of a kind of a systemic issue, a positive peace issue, of where we have this system, who, on its face and in its mandate says, We are founded and exists to help people, but through the achievement of that mandate, we are causing a lot of damage, and we are doing the opposite. We are, you know, hurting instead of helping. And so that, in terms of kind of systemic justice, and positive peace and kind of systemic change, that's where... that's what drew me into that. And so, I was able to, luckily, you know, kind of bounce this idea off of a lot of colleagues who did have experience in the humanitarian field and then link up with some people, yourself included, who have a lot of more in depth knowledge,
Lars Peter Nissen:You're the you're the founder, right? And take us through that process. You get the idea in a bar or beer, which is, for me, my favourite place to get new ideas also, and then you start... What you do next? You write up a concept? You have another beer? What you do?
Travis Opocensky:To sing the praises of good ideas over beers, you know, it was it was the slow boil. You know it was, you know, hearing of the idea and a lot of thinking and a lot of rejection letters from other jobs, that kind of fuel saying, you know, not only do, you know, for my personal life want to pursue this track, but there is a... you know, finding that huge service gap. So it was a kind of a slow, bit by bit process of, Can I do this, should I do this? Who would like me to do this, what's the, you know, where's the need, where the real complications and how I would do this? And, you know, just kind of picking up people who are extremely knowledgeable. You know, surprisingly enough, there's like this small cohort of people who are very passionate about UBDs and unsolicited by lateral donations in particular, and so being able to find those people throughout the world, and they're already connected in their own way, and be able to join them and kind of hear what they have to say that's... that was... actually that was kind of more a catalyst to being able to finally say, I'm going to ask my friends and family for money to incorporate into, you know, kind of make this an official institution.
Lars Peter Nissen:Just for listeners, UBD?
Travis Opocensky:Sorry, the humanitarian system does love their acronyms. So UBDs are unsolicited bilateral donations. And those donations aren't necessarily bilateral, specifically in nature, it is just that those donations that arrive in a disaster zone that are unasked for, inappropriate, or just generally disruptive to operations on the ground: prom dresses, diet weight loss drinks in Rwanda, pork labelled as beef in Afghanistan, chandeliers, you name it, everyone's got a good story. In fact, actually, if you could send in your stories of the most ridiculous items you've seen in a humanitarian operation, that would be lovely.
Lars Peter Nissen:And they should send that into Right Boot... info at right Boot dot com? Dot org?
Travis Opocensky:Ah solutions. solutions@rightboot.com. Not just info
Lars Peter Nissen:Of course, it's solutions@rightboot.org. What else would it be? I'll send in a couple of my own also. Okay, so you have this slow boil, this process where you drink a lot of beers, talk it over with friends, you find out, okay, I'm going to do this. Then what? You ask your mom and dad for money? You say...
Travis Opocensky:You know there's like the domestic legal aspect of it and then there's the international aspect of it, which is still working on, you know, the international efficacy and kind of legitimacy aspect is a lot of more of relationship building, you know, who can I talk to at the Red Cross? Or Who can I talk to at WFP or World Vision who will recognise my efforts as legitimate and partner and that's still a work in progress, because that requires a lot of those hand shaky phone calls, which had been more difficult in COVID. But in terms of in the United States for a legal nonprofit entity, I, you know, just did a quick friends and family round, and then I worked at the company in the United States that does work, that file... it has a bunch of lawyers that files those paperwork incorporation paperwork for you. And it was, you know, the bigger hurdle was... before that was, you know, should I... am I the right person to do this? Should I do this? Is this really that important? And I think that's a really valid and important question to ask yourself, especially me as a white man from America, who is trying to intervene or create a... add to the institutional miasma of humanitarian assistance.
Lars Peter Nissen:But since we're having this conversation, I guess that you have put those concerns aside?
Travis Opocensky:No, I think that's a... I think that is a often misconstrued... like I, I think, especially if we are genuinely concerned about decolonization, I think that it's not a, you know, you can use it the concept of being "woke" as this is so often talked about here in the United States. It's not a static being, it's not a point, it's not a metal you get, it's not a badge you sew on your shirt. It's a constant cycle. It's a system. It's a... you know, so I hope to never have a full answer to that question, I hope to constantly be learning.
Lars Peter Nissen:I'm getting really worried about you know, Travis. With that attitude, you're never going to develop any decent sort of a founder syndrome.
Travis Opocensky:Well, that's fine. I think it'll be okay.
Lars Peter Nissen:So you've gone in, you've done the initial paperwork, you have begun building your contacts. Have you gotten any funding? You want this... Are you on your own? Do you have some part-time people? Who are you apart from you?
Travis Opocensky:I am me. I have a really awesome board who have been, you know, pretty much kind of like a working advisory board and sounding sounding board for me of those people who were already passionate about UBDs and or, you know, friends of mine in the humanitarian sector. It's just me. It's just me working, you know, trying to find... trying to make those connections, trying to, you know, work up enough capacity to be, you know, kind of worthy of funding or get some funding to build that capacity, but it's just been a lot of me and late nights by myself.
Lars Peter Nissen:So it's a one man band, still. And you are... You sent me a slide deck. I've seen some of your initial ideas. But you've begun pitching for money for different investors? Where do you go? Do you go to the back donors do you go to... what?
Travis Opocensky:So one... kind of one of the reasons one of the answers to myself and to kind of the world that I got was... when I was mulling over could I do this, should I do this as that is, you know, kind of something that is exciting in the long term is that we sit in the intersection of this... of this funding stream of innovation (innovation in big finger quotes) and humanitarian aid, and then innovation, and efforts in circular economy and sustainability. So I've been going back and forth applying to circular economy incubators and accelerators, unsuccessfully, unfortunately, you know, environmental like innovation in sustainability, and, you know, things like that, and other, like innovation and humanitarian field incubators and accelerators and fellowships and things like that. So going back and forth between that, but not... haven't really found that what I'm doing right now is kind of in the in the realm of asking for those big dollar donations. You know, and that's the another kind of founders dilemma, I guess is, you know, is that is... how can I make that decision?
Lars Peter Nissen:How much are you looking for?
Travis Opocensky:I think, right now, we could get by for more than a year with, I think my math, with like three employees and all of the other stuff for probably $250,000 US.
Lars Peter Nissen:So to all of Trumanitarian's donor listeners, you heard it here. 250 grand and you can help a great project get off the ground. That's a bargain. So you're looking for 250 grand and that would enable you, over a one year period, to get what? The first couple of operations running on the ground? Proof of concept? What... how far would that bring you?
Travis Opocensky:That would bring me to past proof of concept to kind of increasing operational capacity. So that just being able to get to places and be able to get to... I mean, the the majority of that funding is really getting a few quality qualified people who have operate in logistics field who operate in kind of a material recovery fields and help, so not just me, so I can do it. One, I can do it full time and then other people, we can bring in some team members to share that workload. And then that that funding will bring us through the proof of concept in, kind of in a humanitarian situation, we've kind of done some proof of concept stuff in a in a peacetime thing, working with local churches or organisations kind of doing the recycling as fundraising thing... But that's, it's an easy... it's low hanging fruit, but it's not, you know, kind of what I want to do so that funding will bring us through proof of concept to get... being able to get operational status over a larger swath of the world. You know, so half half of the battle is building contacts and in both in grassroots organisations, and in larger organisations, and building a database of, which is the kind of Right Boots bread and butter, is go building the larger database of organisations, material recycling facilities, recyclers, post-consumer materials, providers, corporations who use post-consumer material in their products that will be willing to accept these materials... building that database, the receiver database, so you know, so when I am asking... when I'm asked, you know, who's going to pay for... who will pay for this, who's going to where I'm gonna get this money to... for these donations or these items, and I could have a really long and extensive Black Book of answers.
Lars Peter Nissen:250 to get you off the ground and begin building and creating this operation... And when do you then think that you're generating enough money to be self-sustaining?
Travis Opocensky:That's a great question. I don't really know. I think that the... with capacity comes... So with capacity comes an increased ability for frequency of transactions, how many shipments of textiles and donations can I move to these materials cycles and receive money for? Because it's never going to be just one at one time that flow is consistent over time of donations and materials? [inaudible] be like, you know, you do one in Haiti, and you're done. So how can I... how quickly can I have... how many transactions can I have in a given period? How robust is that donation network so that I do less kind of analogue typing and searching on the computer to you know, like grunt work, to find that? So the those... that scalability ideal... that funding to scale the capability in terms of the database and in terms of all that is... would really get me to a position where I could have many transactions at once in a given disaster season, but I don't know, you know, kind of a date, What that would look like.
Lars Peter Nissen:No, that's fair enough. That's fair enough. But to give us an idea of the money, do you have like an average figure you get out of a metric tonne of waste?
Travis Opocensky:The... so textiles is really easy. Textiles is really easy because it's, you know, people donate clothes, often. Sometimes those clothes are not appropriate you know in terms of like, you know, don't... you know, designer high-heeled shoes, handbags, prom dresses, for winter coats, you know, in Honduras, skis in Fiji, things like that. So but and they're kind of, they're very salient to the layperson and the humanitarian. So, in terms of the general, you know, average I've gotten is, for one kind of 40 foot container of textiles, which is the large, you know, large shipping container (which I can't remember is the tonnage of that)... that one container of tech full of textiles to a Material Recovery Facility is about 19,000 US dollars. So that's just one of those transactions. And those are... I use that, because that's kind of a very typical unit of measure in the transportation of international aid, you know, we're putting stuff on ships, we're putting stuff on trucks, or we're putting stuff on planes, things like that.
Lars Peter Nissen:So, I mean, we're not talking peanuts here, it's a substantial amount of money.
Travis Opocensky:Right. And, you know, not only is the... not only is the... that's over one transaction, thinking 10 plus transactions in kind of a given recovery and response phase. But when, you know, for example, going back to Vanuatu, when Tropical Cyclone Pam hit, and those donations, those shipping containers, sat in port and accrued demurrage fees, that cost the government 2.5 million US over, you know, the course of like, I think, what 10-18 months, something like that. So the net swing, not only that my ability to kind of make money off of each transaction, but the net swing of opportunity, cost of money lost money gained is massive.
Lars Peter Nissen:Why do you think it's difficult for you to sell this to the people you've been approaching, because the idea is so intuitive to me. And the amount you just mentioned, 19,000 US dollars for one 40 foot container, if you think about how much, quite frankly, ship comes into a large-scale disaster, it's significant. And I think there is an opportunity to... for you to build Right Boot into a sustainable business. So why do you think it's difficult to get somebody to bite?
Travis Opocensky:Just because, specifically, or particularly, that humanitarian aid, among many other kinds of like peace and development institutions is a value explicit profession. You work in humanitarian aid because you have very specific set of values that, you know, at varying levels of development, that people deserve dignity, and if people are in trouble, they... you should help. Right. And so all of the actions people take not only have like, a physical kind of components, logistical kind of pragmatic component, but they also, at every stage, carry some sort of emotional component, whether it's, you're talking about the donations where, you know, if, you know... oftentimes you would see, you know, Oh, you know, Red Cross is not using our donations, or they are having to throw donations away, and so they have to make... they have to kind of work against that public image, whereas they're, you know, receiving a bunch of garbage, but the donating public says, I want to help even though it's misguided and uninformed, I'm gonna send... you know, whatever I send helps, that's gonna go. So that donation not only has a wasted, in this case, physical value, but and a wasted emotional value, where we're missing the connection of getting that kind... you know that genuous... maybe it's the optimist in me, but getting that... the innate kindness in that to to the recipient and then, on the humanitarian side, it's, you know, you are working in this value-explicit field and so, yeah, it's a very delicate subject to broach with people, you know, not saying Hey... I want to not just saying, Hey, you're doing this wrong, or like, Hey, I have a solution for you, that's something that you don't really want to admit is wrong or that causes much more problems for you to admit is wrong, or that you don't have a kind of a set fixture within your organisation to deal with you know... there's the logistics people who are dealing with part of it, there are the kind of like grander scale environmental consultants, environmental impact consultants, and people who are doing academic research and they're doing one thing but, you know, dealing with this concerted effort to to mitigate waste is kind of like a... it's a gap often that's kind of filled by a bunch of different people. So it's a logistical thing about the capacity of the organisation, and it's an emotional thing, you know, dealing with this kind of at some point says, to some people, I can imagine saying, you know, You're not doing good at your job... but that's not entirely, you know, what I'm trying to say as Right Boot?
Lars Peter Nissen:No, for me, that's very clearly not what you're saying. And we've all seen operations more or less paralysed by stuff like this: airports blocking up and... and so on and so forth. I also think in recent years that there is an increasing understanding of our environmental impact of humanitarian aid, and I think a real desire and understanding to change that aspect of our business, beginning with how many of us should be flying around the world heating the planet, to how do we deal with waste in the field. So I really hope that you, moving forward, will find more receptive, he is within the business, because I think it is a very good idea and I think that mind shift change is coming. So I actually think it is quite likely that you can get this off the ground.
Travis Opocensky:I hope so.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, let's hope so. And what... if you had a wish list, apart from the 250k, what do you want?
Travis Opocensky:Oh, man. That's the question, isn't it? I think in terms of, just broadly, I love talking about this very, very particular, isolated moot point in of waste in the humanitarian sector. I think that because that little Nexus is a nexus of so many different disciplines of, you know, the humanitarian logistics of the circular economy, a person who's passionate about the circular economy, people who are passionate about, you know, doing all these other things, there's a great confluence of opinions and abilities and people's likes and dislikes that're right there in that and so building... so I want to talk to you, essentially, I want to talk to anybody. If you're interested in this, and you think this is a good idea, let's make it happen. Come with me. So more people who are interested in kind of doing something about this, if you think this is a good idea, we can do that. In terms of, you know... I'm interested in, you know, people's journeys through digitization of their of their process, I think that the you know, the more digital Right Boot gets in it programme... I think there's an always an analogue point, because at some point, you know, the conversation of environment, the conversation of efficacy and humanitarian aid needs a human... needs empathy and it needs nuance and of human interaction, but the more we can digitise the process, the more efficient and more green we can be, so really interested in people's efforts through software solutions to things like that. Do you want to help me programme a survey in Kobo toolbox? Also, lets go. You know, things like that I am... you know, it takes a village, and I'm not... definitely is not able to, or not wanting to, do this alone.
Lars Peter Nissen:So to be clear, you're you're asking for people to volunteer and come help you with various tasks, be that social media, be that development of concepts, or just drumming up some more attention around this?
Travis Opocensky:Yeah, yeah, let's talk. I want to, I want to talk to as many people as want to talk about this issue as possible. You know, that's kind of the... and then once we can... once we kind of all talk about it, then we can figure out how best to do it or how to continue.
Lars Peter Nissen:As a humanitarian, I've always thought about, this as a life saving activity. Actually, whether it's sustainable or not is not the primary concern here. You're not doing development. We're trying to save people's lives and dignity. And that calls for sort of a very brutal operational, "just get out there and help people". I know that's very basic, but that, I think, is really part of our mental makeup. I guess that also somehow has to change. How... This is not just about waste, I think it's about the way we think about the whole humanitarian endeavour.
Travis Opocensky:I agree. I agree. I think with all this talk of, especially, you know, breaking down silos, I think that has to include thinking really outside the box on what... you know, you can't choose what silos to break down and what inputs and opinions to bring into creating a better and more equitable humanitarian system, because then it will be counter purpose. Like you can't say, Oh, I wanted to include this. I think that bringing in an idea of, you know, circularity into into the... into that where I don't think I've ever so... really, to... and to, to speak to that point, I don't think that the immediacy of and urgency of life saving operations and circular ideals are mutually exclusive. And I think that is... I think that's often a hard sell. That's the argument I have with people is, you know, I say, Hey, where's that plastic waste going during your... you know, as you're shipping and all these thousands of water bottles. That say, Oh, you don't know what you're talking about you're talking about. This is response, you're talking about recovery. I'm like, Well, no, you're bringing in the garbage you're... it's right there, you posted it on your your Instagram or your LinkedIn and you're not... what you're doing is not wrong. Plastic packaging is inherent. It has to be, it has to be. You know, you're bringing in medicine, you have to protect that, you're bringing in shelter, you have to protect that, you have to... these things in which you're doing your life-saving operations are important. But they... we can do it in a way, and we must do it in a way, that does not create an extra burden, you know, for the the customer, the client.
Lars Peter Nissen:We know that disasters will get bigger and more severe and more frequent in the future and it's very likely that we will also see simply different kinds of disasters. When you think about Right Boot in 10 years or 20 years, what does it look like? Do you have any idea?
Travis Opocensky:My idealist self said I'd love to be out of a job by that time. But the pragmatic self says that Right Boot has to and will and is, you know, kind of it's... the idea at its core evolves, you know, with the... how good we are at applying circular theories and circular strategies to humanitarian aid. You know, I want, and I have started Right Boot to participate in, a zero waste future for humanitarian aid, but right boot doesn't exist in a vacuum. And it's not... and it cannot be the only, you know, the only person moving forward, you know, the only the only piece of that puzzle.
Lars Peter Nissen:No, it can't be the only strategy we apply to solve this problem, there must be a broader effort to move us towards zero emissions goal as you said, forth. But you see, Right Boot as a permanent feature of the humanitarian sector moving forward, I guess?
Travis Opocensky:Yeah, I guess I think there there are... So there's, there's that vast vertical kind of structure where, as there's the local community on the ground, experiencing disaster and recovering from disaster, all the way up to large scale policymakers in, you know, in a, you know, a global humanitarian cluster within multiple organisations, or in the UN or something. So between those... and between those that are multiple, multiple levels of actors, right? And what we don't often see, or what maybe perhaps turns into points of contention is the interdependence between those levels. Like we need the activism, we need the people who are like Right Boot, who are trying to bend that curve and instead of carrying a linear waste model, where it goes into... straight into the landfill, trying to bend that curve and recover that value back into a global system, who is mindful of all that... of all the waste and recovery? And then, just as important, we... those people depend on the policymakers who are trying to say, we need to... we use, what kind of packaging we're using, what kind of... what are our waste management guidelines? What are our, you know, what are our transportation and logistics looking like? How are we... what's our footprint there? So they're all existing, and they can't exist isolated from one another and they... we must be more on the on the on the same team. You know, it is a system, it is a team effort, up and down that structural... that structure. And I don't often think that people kind of think that. I think that there are... you know, there are the policymakers and there are the people who are... (I say policymakers with some like very vague meaning but, you know, the the people who are making the decisions about growth and grand policy on packaging and on the sustainability of their organisations). "Oh, this is... you know, we're making systemic change, we're making the real change". It's like, well, no. Just like in the United States, where we've have prized, for so long, innovation in recycling, but not infrastructure in recycling, so you can have all the great ideas you want, but if there's nobody on the ground to do it, and no, like, value and real dignity and life in a sector of waste management and value recovery, then it's not gonna happen. Ever. And we all need each other up and down the scale. And there's... and we have to work together.
Lars Peter Nissen:Well, Travis, welcome to you and to Right Boot to the humanitarian team. I think you bring something really valuable to the sector and I look forward to seeing this idea evolve in the coming years and I'm confident that you will be successful and that this will make a real difference. So thank you. Thank you for that and thank you for coming on Trumanitarian.
Travis Opocensky:Thank you so much. It's really been an honour and pleasure to be here.