As we celebrate Earth Day, we are introducing you to Utahn who is doing everything he can to keep our planet clean through his company Recyclops.
He says his company is diverting close to a million pounds from landfills each month.
Smith's concept is unique. He hires drivers to pick up things that can be recycled, but aren't being recycled.
So he's bringing sustainability initiatives to places that don't have them. His drivers pick up everything from batteries to light bulbs to food waste and even diapers.
Smith says the average diaper has as much plastic as two water bottles. So, he partners with a company that makes them recyclable.
Recyclops is even into clothes. Smith's says they provide clothing to Tabitha's Way food pantry.
Speaking of food, Recyclops deals in that too. They pick up "ugly fruit" that grocery stores don't see, but that are perfectly good to eat.
Recyclops even has a partnership with Megaplex Theatres which have Pizza Huts inside.
"But whenever you need something hot and ready, it means that sometimes you're not going to perfectly plan and generally you're going over-plan because you don't want a customer to come, want a pizza, you don't have it. So they have extra pizzas, and historically, those pizzas are just getting thrown away because what do you, what do you do with them after they've sat out for a little bit, you know, they're no, no longer good?"
Now those pizzas are put in the freezer, picked up by a Recyclops driver and donated to food banks.
Same idea for the popcorn — that goes to feed animals at local farms.
In 2022 Recyclops started collecting food scraps and grass clippings too.
"It's going to the Anaerobic Digester in Salt Lake and, where it is broken down and the gasses that come from that are used to feed the pipelines where we actually are using, getting natural gas out of that and able to heat homes and do that. And it's a pretty cool system that they have there and then the food itself is broken, broken down into digested or like a fertilizer similar to a compost," Smith says.
His passion for recycling started back in college when Smith couldn't find a place to recycle his soda bottle.
"I felt yucky throwing it away and I think that comes from his exposure to a world that isn't as abundant as the world we live in," he says.
Smith has that different view of the world because he was born in Ecuador and was partially raised in Chile.
Smith says, "It changes you and how you see all the bounty that we have here, the blessings and just all the resources and then you see us throwing it away like literally throwing things away."
For all the work Smith and his Recyclops company are doing to change that, they are the Zero Waste Hero from Smith's and Fox 13.
Smith says, "You know it's interesting because all of our individual efforts mean very little, but our collective efforts mean a lot."
