What happens at Red Rocks after the encore ends, the lights come up and thousands of concertgoers head home?

The real show is just getting started.

In this episode of Sustainably Speaking, host Mia Quinn goes behind the scenes at Colorado’s iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre with Katie Zarachowicz, Sustainability Administrator for Denver Arts & Venues, to see how one of the country’s best-known concert venues tackles recycling, composting and waste after every show.

Red Rocks consistently diverts more than half of its waste from landfill through recycling and composting. A big reason why? Instead of relying entirely on concertgoers to put everything in the right bin, Red Rocks takes sorting backstage. After events, crews separate materials overnight—sometimes working until sunrise.

What You’ll Learn

• Mia and Katie explore what it really takes to make recycling work at a busy entertainment venue, including:
• Why back-of-house sorting can make such a difference.
• How smarter concessions and production decisions before an event can prevent waste later.
• Why recycling education still matters—even when someone else does the sorting.
• How recycling policy could affect venues like Red Rocks. Katie discusses Colorado’s emerging extended producer responsibility (EPR) program and the potential to grow markets for materials that are harder to recycle today.
• Why Red Rocks thinks zero waste may eventually be within reach.

And because this is Red Rocks, there are a few things you probably won’t hear in your average recycling conversation—like how to design recycling bins around bears, mountain lions and raccoons, which fans create the most waste, and why Katie’s dream concert might be a little heavier than you’d expect.

Press play for a backstage look at how practical decisions, creative problem-solving and a lot of late-night sorting can help keep valuable materials in circulation long after the music stops.

Step inside the beauty industry's sustainability journey and discover how salons, brands and consumers are working together to keep more materials in use and out of landfills.

What happens to your shampoo bottle after it's empty? Or the foils, applicators and other materials from your trip to the salon?

In this episode of Sustainably Speaking, host Mia Quinn travels to SalonCentric in Chicago to meet with Ben Thompson—a chemical engineer and sustainability leader—to explore how the beauty industry is rethinking packaging, recycling and waste.

The beauty industry generates significant amounts of waste every day, and Ben shares how they’re working to change that. From SalonCentric's partnership with Green Circle to smarter packaging design, brands, salons and recyclers are working together to recover more materials and build a more circular system.

You'll hear how SalonCentric's recycling program helps salons recycle up to 95% of their waste. It’s expanding to stores nationwide and has already diverted more than 550,000 pounds of material from landfill in 2025, during the initiative’s early stages.

Along the way, Ben explains why simpler packaging design can make recycling easier, how refill systems are reducing waste, and why creating a more sustainable future sometimes starts with something as simple as taking a few extra seconds to recycle an empty bottle. It's an inspiring conversation about innovation, collaboration and choices that can make a big difference.

Most of us toss a plastic bottle into the recycling bin without thinking twice. But where does it actually go? Does recycling really work? And what happens after the truck drives away?

On this episode of Sustainably Speaking, Mia Quinn sits down with Laura Stewart, executive director of NAPCOR, to discuss the recycling system most people never see.

From high-tech sorting systems powered by AI to the surprisingly important role of bottle caps and labels, Laura walks through how plastic bottles move through the recycling stream and why designing products to be more easily recycled matters more than ever.

The conversation also tackles some of the biggest misconceptions about recycling, why access to curbside collection still varies across the country, and what it will take to build a more circular system that keeps a lot more valuable materials in use.

In this episode:

• What actually happens after recyclables leave your curbside bin
• Why some communities recycle far more effectively than others
• How AI is helping modernize recycling facilities
• How recycled materials are finding new life in packaging, clothing, automotive applications and more
• What U.S. recycling could look like in the next 10–15 years

Laura shares what it’s really like inside a modern recycling facility, where advanced sorting systems can identify and separate materials in seconds to be recycled into everything from new bottles to carpeting and apparel.

And Laura responds to claims that “recycling doesn’t work,” explaining why seeing the process firsthand tells a very different story.

Plus: Wisconsin travel recommendations, favorite streaming shows and outdoor adventures in a favorite state.