hi welcome to we the people rise
this is Kristin Hiemstra and you are in luck
because i have the most interesting person to talk to
his name is Andrew Otazo and the reason we are talking to him
is because he is doing something that anyone can do
but he's doing it and that's the thing about making change
and making change in the world
and being a person who wants to contribute
is you you kind of have to actually do something
you might have great ideas and then just not follow through on them
but andrew has so
welcome andrew
thank you so much thank you for having me
so andrew
why don't you tell us what you are doing
cause i think it's pretty spectacular
sure uh
let's see over the last eight years
i've removed thirty eight thousand
four hundred and eighty five pounds of trash from mostly uh
south florida's mangrove forest
but also the everglades the hardwood hammocks uh
the back dunes and the ocean floor
what got you inspired to do this
so i grew up here in south florida
and i just fell in love with the mangroves
they're a spectacular just magical environment
and when i was a kid i'd
i'd walk into them
and just feel this overriding sense of peace and beauty
and as i got older and i would go into the mangroves
that feeling uh
was replaced with anger um
and frustration so uh
because there
was just so much trash that had accumulated in these environments
it was
it's not an exaggeration to say that i couldn't take a single step
without stepping on a piece of plastic
it looked like a landfill
um and this is trash going all the way back to the nineteen forties
yeah and eventually
eight years ago i got tired of it
and i noticed that nobody else seemed to be doing much about it
so i just started methodically picking up trash
and i've been at it ever since
so you go into the mangroves
there a place that's magical
it's where you grow up you are watching the environment that you're in
being decimated by humans right
were you angry at the people who were using them
or
what was your feeling about the people who were using the mangroves
as a wasteland
so the thing is
the vast majority of the trash that winds up in the mangroves
doesn't wind up there
because people walk in there and dump their trash there
um yeah
most of it comes from the tides
from the ocean and that's derived from the city
so what happens is that people will litter on the side of the street
and when it rains that trash goes directly into the storm gutters
and then right out into the ocean
there's no filtration system um
and then that one's up in the mangrove
so like i'm not per se
i mean like of course i don't want anybody litter
but it's not that i'm angry at the individual
so much as i'm upset about the system that we have
that allows for all this trash to accumulate
and in areas that you don't see
like you know
whoever you know
drops a water bottle you know
whatever ten miles in land
it doesn't probably ever think that it does uh
so that's that's really more where my frustration was
i love that because it's
and you and i prior to the show
just for context we were talking about the mountains of north carolina
and andrew has made pilgrimages up here every year
you know cause we have a lot of camps
and it's just a beautiful area
but it is for a lot of people
a dumping ground of and it seems to be a big appliances
i don't know for whatever reason
but it's either it takes too much effort to get rid of it
or they don't know what to do with it
and i think that so part of my thought is we need a better system
as you were saying so that stuff doesn't end up there
and you're seeing things washing out into the ocean and then coming
you know back into the mangroves
which i think of mangroves is having like
these huge root systems that go
exactly and so they're
you know they're kind of an interesting microcosm of filtration right
so they're filtering in some ways just hold on to those yeah
for your audience who might not know what mangroves look like
or have never seen them basically they're a coastal ecosystem
they're dominated by a tree called
well usually it's red mangroves
those are the ones that are along the shoreline
and they have these big sweeping roots coming out of the trunk
and um
they look like they're walking on water
and those roots hold the soil in place
so they're the best defense against hurricanes
against large storms um
they make sure that they they
they act like a giant sponge
they absorb all that water and all that energy
so it doesn't hit our infrastructure
and they also act as a nursery for
here in south florida
eighty percent of our reefish have their juvenile stages
within the mangrove roots
where these fish are protected from predators
and also a lot of our coastal birds
whether it's brown pelicans or egrets or herons or whatever
they nest in the canopy so without the mangroves
like we we wouldn't have any viable ecosystem here in south florida
and our roads or houses all of our infrastructure would be imperiled
did you know all this when you got into it
haha no
no no no
um yeah
so it's very important that we let your audience know that
i am not a scientist i
i didn't start my work until thirty
i've learned this i guess
on the job and
and speaking to a lot of experts and reading up about it
and just interacting with a lot of people who have phds and
and know what this is about
and then i pair that up with
i am hard pressed to think of someone
who has spent more time in the mangroves than me
um it's yeah
it's been like i spent a lot
i've been there at every time of the night and the day
but yes
you can't help but learn while you're in there
um it's an incredible
incredible space i feel like there'd it kind of be some like
i don't know
some conversation between you and nature when you're in there
almost talking to it it's interesting that you say that
because the nature of my work means that i have to go inch by inch
like like
literally on my hands and knees sometimes through the mangroves
and going at that very slow rate and at that level of detail
allows me to see so much that i wouldn't otherwise be able to
if i were just walking through
for example like
i have to stop and i'm looking at the same patch of ground or mud
usually and like
i'm noticing all the different insects and arthropods
and fish and birds and i
you just have to slow down and take it in
i love that because it
it reminds me of anytime like
you know i live on the kind of interior and even if you
you dig something up you've got all kinds of
to your point
different things in that little clump of dirt that you dig up
and i imagine that would be more surface in the mangroves
plus it's a richer biodiversity
i would imagine absolutely
cause you're kind of in the brackish
there's salt it's a saltwater ecosystem
so it's just on the coast
so these water these trees at high tide can be
you know inundated four feet in
you know ocean water
so you know that depending on where the low tide
they might be they might be exposed
like the ground might be exposed or not
um so it's yeah
it's a it's a saltwater ecosystem
so what i want to kind of talk about is your inspiration
what clicked between you going in and just picking up trash
and you deciding like hold on a minute
this is gonna be like my thing
like i'm just
this is the thing that cause you
you have to be inspired like
anyone could go for a walk and pick up trash right
and a lot of people do that's just part of their
what they do but you full on committed
like you're like
i'm doing this i'm doing it every day
i'm doing it for hours of a day
i'm going to go into places people don't wanna go into
and we'll get to that but i do wanna ask you
did you find a live person
one time no
not a live person no
oh wait wait
wait wait wait no
i have found many live people in the mangroves
i found a bank robber um
and you know
the thing is about the mangroves
if it's like
you know present company included
if you're a person and you're in the mangroves
you're a weirdo like you
you shouldn't be there so like yeah
if you run into someone in there
there's something off automatically
oh my goodness
okay so talk to me about this commitment that you have
yeah so um
i'm the you know
the most stubborn person you'll ever meet
and so when i fix my mind to do something
i'm gonna do it um
and i won't stop until i decide that's enough
and the thing is this is a problem that will never end
um so like
i'll probably have to dedicate the rest of my life to this
but the thing is
you mentioned how people incorporate this into their daily lives right
um you know
picking up trash on their walks
and that's just that's basically what i'm doing
um like
that's just an extension of what i do
um the difference is that
so i took it upon myself to record every single day
that i spent out in the mangroves
picking up trash
and what that allowed me to do is to educate a larger population
a larger audience about the root causes of this issue
so i didn't just want to make a local difference right
you know within these specific mangrove forests
but i wanted to brought it in out
to educate people about why they should care about this
and what they can do to fix it and
and recording it and posting on social media and doing um
you know
interviews with different media outlets that allowed me to do that
so it's really not just a local pickup effort
but
it's a public relations campaign that i've been doing for eight years
and when you started was that your goal
or did you just did it has it evolved
it was pretty much pretty close to the beginning
um like
i would say yeah
if if
i don't know it was definitely there subconsciously
yeah but it
it became definitely that explicitly pretty quickly
and i work in public relations
i have my own agency so i know something about this
uh so i just
you know use my own professional skill set to try to be more effective
well i love
i don't know it just
it seems to me your inspiration
your passion and your abilities
all kind of really have very nicely collected into this
and i love it when that happens
right because that's kind of the goal
like it would seem to me
that you feel pretty purposeful when you wake up in the morning
and when you're doing the work that you're doing
and then in my opinion
it would feel kind of like you would get some type of reward for that
haha uh yeah
the reward is usually internal
yeah there's also the um
there's also a lot of downside
i injure myself a lot all the time um
and i'm i'm tired
like it is exhausting
how many hours a week are you doing this
i'm doing about once a week
and i can spend anywhere between five to eight hours out there
picking up trash sometimes more
now that it's cooler out here
you know i can spend the whole day out there
yeah no
that's a lot that's a full
and like you said you're
you're going inch by inch
yeah yeah
and i'm taking out you know
three hundred four hundred
five hundred pounds of trash at a time
and that i'm about to hit forty um
and that's uh
my body is not what it used to be uh
so it's definitely having an effect
yeah no
and i wish i could tell you it would get easier when you get older
ha ha ha i lied to you andrew
or yeah
i'm aware i'm aware
have you thought about recruiting other people
yeah so people ask me this question all the time
the thing about the mangroves is they are a very sensitive environment
so i don't want to have thirty
forty people trampling through there
because they're going to cause damage to my
my first my first rule always is do no harm
yep um
so i minimize my impact on this environment by going in there
usually by myself sometimes i'll bring one or maybe two friends in
who know what they're doing um
so that you know
they're not breaking seedlings and saplings and like
breaking roots and branches and stuff like that
also the mangos are a very dangerous environment
so like you will get injured
it's gonna happen so like
if i bring thirty forty people there
someone's gonna get hurt like
i'd rather that person be me
or you know
bring in someone who's more experienced
who's less likely to get hurt
then have i don't know you
you know a sixteen year old
you know twist an ankle or something
what is the most common injury that you see in the mangroves
oh man uh
you know all sorts of laceration
like cuts and stuff like that
that's very common pulling muscles
you know in your
in your abdomen in your back
in your neck your shoulders
all the time um
the most dangerous thing is the sun
is the heat um
it gets in the summer it
i need to be out of there by eleven am or i will die
um yeah heat
heat stroke heat stroke is the biggest danger out there for sure
and i've been very close to it
and the thing is this happens every time i bring in someone new
and i'm like drink water
pace yourself they're like no
i'm fine and inevitably they pass out
like it's happened so many times
wonder you don't want anyone else in there
yeah like
i have enough trouble carrying out
you know hundreds of pounds of trash
i don't need to carry out hundreds of pounds of person too right
do you see i'm always curious about like
the pythons in the mangrove and in the everglades and all that yeah
stuff are you seeing their impact
so the burmese pythons are all over the everglades
so i don't really i
i have worked in the everglades before right um
but i mostly work in mangrove swamps which are along the coastline
so like what they've done is that they've eaten a
most of the small mammals in the everglades
so like the raccoons uh the
the rabbits um
you know that kind that
that scale of of prey animal
i don't see them in the mangroves at all
they can't really survive in there
ok um yeah
and like honestly
there aren't a lot of poisonous stuff in there
um you know
florida has three poisonous spiders and we have five poisonous snakes
and none of them are really in the mangroves
um there are crocodiles
people always ask me about gators
um gators are freshwater animals
so they're not in the they're not in the everglades or
excuse me they're not in the mangroves
we do have we do have crocodiles
and they're fine they're just giant lizards
they're not real you're not on my lizard
that could eat you andrew
so yes yeah
but the thing is they're not interested in eating you
there's like
there's like
one or two recorded instances of someone being killed by a
a crocodile in the state of florida
like unless you are really trying
you're not gonna get hurt by a crocodile unless you're like
running in front of it and jumping in front of it
yeah yeah yeah
that's actually literally what happened
like a guy and his buddy went out to the everglades
shot a crocodile
the guy sat on the crocodile for his buddy to take a picture
and then the crocodile wasn't dead and turned around and killed him
that's what happened that is really just yeah
darwinism that is fine
peak florida
yeah
so we the people rise
just for context is about the people rising to take control
rising to take responsibility
rising up to really uh
bring their power into the country as a whole
and the idea is that you know
leaders can do so much
but we as individuals need to be leaders as well
around things that we feel are important
around things that we would like to see
what are some pieces of advice you would have for somebody
yeah we discussed this at the beginning
which is like
you don't need a phd right
like you don't need to be a lifelong activist to come up with this
like i was not involved in any activism until i was thirty
and there's always something you can do in your local
like your neighborhood
in your city in your town whatever
um and here's
here's the thing we grew up
i feel like with this expectation that uh
in order to make positive change
you know
you have to be like the metaphorical marvel superhero that like
flies in the middle of the city
and beats up the monster or alien or whatever is attacking it
and then like
over the span of an afternoon and fly back out and everyone's happy
and you save the city that's not how change happens
change is so much more boring
it's incremental it happens over years
um so like
you know i picked up almost forty thousand pounds of trash right
over eight years but every single day
eight million pounds of trash fall into the ocean
uh so like
i can't ever personally defeat the issue of global marine trash
um what i can do is that i can fix that issue
in a five by five square foot area
and then i can go to the next one
and the next one and the next one
and then after you know
years of doing this i picked up square miles
and i've i've been able to educate so many more people
that's real change real change is just sticking around
and doing hard things for a long period of time
that's all you need to do
you don't need to be anything special to do that
i love that it changes persistence and resiliency and
you know being
and also let's just be honest
you getting hurt all the time and you're still
oh yeah
yeah but like
you don't you don't
like i'm an extreme example
you don't need to do something at the scale that i'm doing
you can do it in your neighborhood
you can do it around you yeah yeah
no absolutely
and i'm just thinking you know
we have a little food pantry by where i live
and by the time you know
if you every time you walk
and you're walking a couple times a week
if you just bring a can
or a couple cans and just put it in that food pantry
which is always being used by
you know eight years later
you'll have given away who knows how much food exactly
and that makes a real meaningful difference to the people who need it
yeah no
i love that where else have you seen positive changes
and i know your area of expertise is the mangroves
and maybe not even environmental or environmental
but where else have you spotted kind of like minded people
to you doing these things
yeah so it's really weird
so basically right around the time i started
all these other people started
like independently
i don't know what was in the water
yeah um
and so like
i'm just one small part of a much bigger movement
here in south florida ok um yeah yeah
there's so many other people that are doing this same thing
there's um
you know there's all these organizations
all these non profits all these individuals
who will go into these environments and pick up trash
um
so i feel like there's a much bigger groundswell of support for this
and at the same time i feel like more of my
you know neighbors across miami
are more cognizant of the scale and the importance of this problem
um and the really nice thing is
you know especially nowadays where everything is political
this is not political at all
yeah nobody wants more trash in the mangroves
no one's like you know what we need
we should throw more trash in the ocean
nobody's thinking like that
it doesn't matter what side of the political aisle you are
and it's really nice that's a really nice change of pace
well it is and
and i wanna get back to something you said
and i'm gonna tell a story here in a minute
but the best way to stop this is prevention right
absolutely yep
so back i wanna say it was the eighties
uh texas had a huge problem with litter
are you familiar with this story
no i'm not
yeah no
it's fascinating texas had a huge problem with litter
along the highways and it was costing the
their department of transportation
millions and millions of dollars
to pick up the trash that people were just throwing out their window
as they were driving by so they did a profile
and they found out that the person
who is most likely to just chuck their
you know fast food thing out the window
it was like a male between
i'll say eighteen and thirty five or forty or something like that
and so they identified you know
that was kind of their target
because they were really looking at the preventive side
and they worked on messaging
to figure out what was gonna land the most
to prevent they're trying to prevent the trash from coming out
and you know what slogan they ended up going with
what don't mess with texas
ah yeah nice
yeah nice
that is where i love that yeah
that they found that that really tapped into like
oh yeah you don't mess with my state
you don't mess with it like
whatever needed to be tapped into
they did and they saw
and i'm gonna get my numbers
they're not completely right
but it was like a seventy percent change in behavior of littering
it was it was one of the most successful marketing campaigns ever
in terms of changing behavior
so i always find that interesting
and that's i don't know
you can't really do don't mess with florida but
yeah but i got
don't mess with texas i love that
um i
i obviously
i'm a communications you know
professional and that's
that's the thing
i work with a lot of scientists and with a lot of activists um
who really know their stuff
who really know the root causes of these issues
but they're not good at talking to just their
just regular people about the
you know why they should care
um so
you know so much of what i do professionally
is taking what seems like really boring
or really like
complicated or esoteric um
issues and and boiling them down
and making them compelling and interesting and funny
so that people can understand them and want to take action
that's my favorite thing
that's what i love to do more than anything else
well and that's a gift right
that's a gift because it in
what made this campaign so interesting with texas
is that it wasn't the scientists
it wasn't the amount that was being spent by the government
it wasn't saving on taxpayer dollar
none of it was like
landing the same way basically going in through the ego or
you know basically yeah
through that pride piece of
oh yeah
you're not gonna mess with me
kind of yeah
which is which is fascinating
because they tried they tried the messaging
all those other ways
mm hmm so yeah
you do you have a very interesting job there
is there any final thoughts you would
like to share with us
you know i don't want people to walk into the mangroves
or a saltwater marsh or a forest or a desert
or wherever they happen to live
and try to pick up thousands of pounds of trash on their own
that is not what i want them to do
i want them to pick up the proverbial water bottle
in the traffic medium
or the literal one i should say
because you know
it is so much easier to do that in an urban setting
than it is to do it trust me
you know knee deep in the mangroves
and if you have you know
thousands or tens of thousands
or hundreds of thousands of people doing that
picking up one pound of trash a day that blows out of the water
anything that i can do over years yeah
so i'd much rather people do that
well and into your point and
and listeners may not be thinking about this
but every water system feeds into a larger water system
and i know we're taught that in like
you know second or third grade or whatever
but as an adult you really see it
like
the creek behind your house is gonna feed into a different tributary
and they're all gonna end up in the ocean at some time and
you know and if andrew doesn't get to him
that nancy water bottle or whatever that you see right there
that you don't pick up is gonna end up somewhere
the water is going to carry it somewhere
and maybe picking up trash isn't your jam
maybe it's something completely different
and that's what inspires you
what i love about your story andrew
is it's so organic everybody's got their own organic story right
for you it was just
your passion was hanging out in the mangroves and hanging out outside
and then you started to notice the trash
and then you started to pick up the trash
and then it just is kind of escalated into
forty thousand pounds of trash that you've
is that about right yeah yeah
almost forty thousand
forty thousand so do you weigh your trash every time you come back
every single time yes
that's awesome the thing is
i needed to put a number to it so people understood
right and the easiest way to do this just to do the pounds
yeah and that's what i've been doing
yeah no
and i you know
i like that you had a you had a loose plan going forward
it's a simple plan pick up trash
weigh it take pictures
and make that you know
a social media type thing
and that's how i found you
as i was reading about you
you popped up i think
on my facebook feed yeah
it's wild
very cool well
thank you so much with your time and how if
is there any way you want people to follow you
on social media is there
do you have any people can just find me on instagram
ok um
my handle is just andrew otazo o t a z o
so you know one
one word so if they want to follow me they're
they're more than welcome to do that
fantastic alright
and i'll put that up on the link as well
so great
thank you andrew thank you so much
