Growing up in Elm Grove, Wisconsin in the 1980s, Marissa Jablonski’s imagination was boundless.
“I always wanted to be on SNL, I wanted to be on the TV show. I looked up to Rick Steves' travel TV show, Carol Burnett. And then I would tell people I wanted to clean rivers and be a garbageman,” Jablonski says.
Now, she’s taking that TV show dream and trying to turn it into reality, with an environmental twist.
Jablonski’s day job is at UW-Milwaukee, where she directs the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin. But she’s always been interested in waste and how we can reduce it.
That’s where the TV dream comes in. She’s working with filmmaker Myles Messinetti on a TV pilot for a series Jablonski calls "Greenwashed & Confused." Greenwashing is when a company claims its product is “eco” when it’s not. Confused refers to how complicated recycling can seem.
“The umbrella is to answer two big questions I get asked all the time: What actually happens to recyclables I put in my bin? Question number two: What can I do to help [reduce waste]?” she says.
Jablonski’s vision is to visit cities around the world to look behind the scenes at waste systems and highlight the ones that do what they claim.
She started in November of last year in a cold warehouse in Chicago. I met Jablonski there. She is mic'd and two videographers are rolling.
“So we’re here at (The) Urban Canopy in Chicago. It’s a compost pickup service. You are Alex, founder and CEO," Jablonski says.
She's talking with Alex Poltorak, a computer engineer, about what inspired him to launch a compost pick-up business 14 years ago.
"When we started we had nothing," Poltorak says. "It was a just me. We had one of our juice bars composting. At this point we have over 3,000 homes that compost with us and about 400 business. And then there are multiple competitors that have come into the market too. So between all the composters that exist now, it’s the equivalent of taking millions of cars off the road, because food waste in a landfill especially is really damaging."
Filmmaker Messinetti stops the action to give a few directions. He’d flown in from his home base in Los Angeles.
A friend of a friend told Messinetti about Jablonski. He took a look at a GoFundMe video she produced and signed on. So did two people based in Minneapolis — a producer and a videographer.
They still need a national distributor for the show.
Jablonski hopes a deep dive into Chicago’s food composting world will do the trick to make a compelling pilot.
The Greenwashed & Confused crew also made a stop at Eric Solorio Academy High School.
Ten years ago, science teacher Greta Kringle spearheaded composting food from the cafeteria. “I think it’s been cool how it’s become part of the culture of the school,” Kringle says.
One hundred students are members of the Zero Waste Club and every day during their lunch breaks, they make sure food items end up in the right bin.
Marissa Jablonski looks on in admiration as students fish out misplaced apple cores and bread crusts.
“I’m also curious because composting is gross, right? It grosses people out. What makes you want to do it and teach so many students in your school to do it?” Jablonski asks.
“I’m almost blown away in that regard because I don’t really do anything with it. They’re the ones down there doing all the work,” Kringle says.
Jablonski’s advocacy around food waste inspired someone in Chicago. Caroline Lubbers agreed to attempt a waste-free party. She’s no stranger to cooking — she has blogged about food for over a decade.
“I think food and eating together is the best way for people to connect,” Lubbers says.
But she hadn’t thought much about the waste she left behind. Lubbers was about to serve up what she had learned to a dozen people coming for dinner.
"So thanks to you, I started questioning from my shopping trip all the through the food that I was going to create and the way we were going to serve it today and I learned more than I thought I would,” Lubbers says to Jablonski.
For example, Lubbers cajoled the butcher to not wrap the chicken she needed for her chili in plastic, “and then I just popped in this glass container before it seeped through the paper,” Lubbers says.
It had been a long day and the party guests were about to arrive.
Filmmaker Myles Messinetti would head back to his motel room that night and review the hours of footage the crew had shot.
I ask Messinetti what stands out so far.
“What stands out for the whole trip is how willing people are to just be part of the project without being paid, or without necessarily any promotion — or this could not go anywhere and it’s just a pilot,” Messinetti says.
His camera put him closer to a heap of compost than he might have liked.
“It’s pretty gnarly, but then you like actually see what’s getting thrown out, and you’re like, OK that makes sense," he says. "I didn’t even know you could compost half of that stuff and so that was super interesting to me too."
Marissa Jablonski is hoping that a national distributor thinks the same thing about her Greenwashed & Confused TV show dream.
_
