In the podcast “Your Trash – Your Future” hosts Debra Wold and Stuart Turley, discusses renewable energy jobs, apprenticeship programs, unions, educating children, and recycling. Debra and Stuart talk about the benefits of apprenticeship programs for jobs in renewable energy and how unions can help train people for these jobs. They also discuss the importance of educating children and correcting misinformation about recycling.
Highlights of the Podcast
01:11 – Topic Introduction
02:10 – Job Creation
03:31 – Union Jobs and Apprenticeships
04:41 – Renewable Space and Training
05:30 – Changing Perspectives
06:00 – University System Critique
06:23 – Made in America
07:33 – Mike Rowe’s Advocacy
08:45 – Union Communication
09:40 – America First
10:27 – Apprenticeship Programs
12:32 – Teaching Skills
13:21 – Veterans in Apprenticeships
14:45 – Educating Children
16:28 – Virtue Signaling
18:46 – Green Lily Energy
19:20 – Closing Remarks
Debra Wold – Host [00:00:08] Hi. Welcome to my show. My name is Debra Wold, and I’m the CEO. And I’m also the podcast host of Trash to Treasure. Trash can come in a lot of different forms. So today we’re going to be talking about what renewable and the renewable is going to be leading into high paying jobs and also jobs, high quality jobs that are trained and educated in the right way. Stay tuned. We’re going to talk more in detail about what are those high paying jobs? How do you get Ahold of those high paying jobs and how do they incorporate into the renewable space? They do. Stay tuned. Stuart, thank you so much for joining us again. We absolutely love having you on, Stuart. Turley is our co-host today. Stuart, would you like to say hi?
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:00:51] Oh, absolutely. Thank you again, Debra. I just enjoy our conversations and have had so much fun, especially on the first episode. You did great.
Debra Wold – Host [00:00:59] thank you Stewart, I really appreciate that. You you’re a fun host to be with, and it’s so, enlightening the information that you bring to the table.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:01:08] Well, I’ll tell you later.
Debra Wold – Host [00:01:11] Okay. I’ll hold on to that one. So today we’re going to be talking about the renewable space, but we’re also going to incorporate high paying jobs and training jobs. Okay. What I want to talk about little more in detail is how do we marry those two together and where do they come from? A lot of times people think that you got to go to university to get a typical career. Well, cheer for a doctor or a lawyer or something specialist like that. Yeah, but not everybody can go to university. So what we are looking at today is those high paying jobs. Where do they come from? It’s no secret. Where do you think they come from Stuart.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:01:52] High paying jobs. Where do they come from? Yeah. If you take a look at the jobs numbers that Biden has created, they’ve been either illegals coming in or they have been, government jobs. So very, none have been created in the renewable space.
Debra Wold – Host [00:02:11] Exactly. And there’s a little secret, but everybody knows but doesn’t want to really dive deep into it. It fills apprenticeship jobs. It’s where they sit down with a mentor, and they have someone who’s been out there on the field. Sits down with these young people, and they start training them and educating them on the job training. That training is so valuable because they can take that experience and go out there and apply it, and they can make that kind of good money that a doctor or a lawyer would be making with the benefits and all those things like that. What’s it under the umbrella? It’s the union. I’m a union daughter, and I don’t have a problem admitting it because the benefit of being a union daughter, it put food on the table for my family. It gave me a proper education for my family. My dad was an ironworker. When he would have come home black because he was welding this and welding that. He still was doing a professional job because when he was working, there was a nuclear power plant and everybody benefited from his work. So, Stuart, where do you see right now in the renewable space where union jobs would be a benefit or the apprenticeship programs in that umbrella would be a benefit?
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:03:32] There is such a huge missing hole for quality training, in electricity. I mean, right now to Debra today, when we’re filming this today, Texas has had a million people without power because of the storm. How is it going to happen? You’re going to have to have the the big, power lines come back online. You’re going to have to have the welders. You’re going to have to have the cable men and women. You’re going to have to have the, any of those kind of jobs. They’re not training them out there anymore. The renewable jobs that are out there. Debra, I see you’re changing. I see that, companies like yours leading the edge, bringing trash to treasure or renewable waste to energy and electricity. Renewable natural gas. I see it’s huge getting rid of methane from farms in the pipelines. I see all this is huge in the future.
Debra Wold – Host [00:04:43] Exactly. And that’s the benefit too. We’re taking care of little elements of the trash and turning it into something. But what we’re forgetting about is the younger people who can’t go to college. God forbid we won’t go to the college thing right now. Next episode or two, we’ll get to that one. That’s what a lot of trash is going on. But there are young people who would love to be under an apprenticeship program that they can learn and they can grow, and the benefit is they will come out knowing something that others don’t know and apply it. And the benefit to what I have found with talking to different people in the apprenticeship programs and also within the union, is that they’re out in the open. Their minds are open. They’re not trapped in a cylinder kind of job situation.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:05:28] Right?
Debra Wold – Host [00:05:30] So those who like to be out in the open. It’s a great opportunity for those who want to be mentored. It’s a great opportunity. And sure, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to get parents to look at that avenue as an option to university.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:05:45] Right.
Debra Wold – Host [00:05:46] So in regard to this year, what’s your thoughts on that?
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:05:50] I’ll tell you anything other than university. Sounds great to me right now. I, I’m pretty disgusted, with the university system.
Debra Wold – Host [00:06:00] Exactly the one thing, too, about that university system. It’s taking kids and their minds where they should be learning, and it’s turning it into a we’re going back to. I hate to use the word not to use them, but let us say, why are we going against our fellow Americans? What’s wrong with us?
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:06:21] I don’t know.
Debra Wold – Host [00:06:23] The union has the, you know, the fist. It’s like made in America. Let’s say I prefer that Rosie the Riveter. Right?
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:06:29] Right.
Debra Wold – Host [00:06:30] Why don’t we go back to that? Why don’t we incorporate them? Maybe not go back, but incorporate that into the renewable space, you know?
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:06:38] You know, I want to give a shout out to Mike Rowe because Mike Rowe is absolutely. And we need to get him on your podcast.
Debra Wold – Host [00:06:44] Oh I love that.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:06:45] Yeah. And and so he Mike Rowe is the epitome of jobs. I mean he is out there saying work with the unions work with folks for skills in the apprenticeships. I’m all in. Did you see I need to get it clip and have that and and see that there was a young lady that was crying. She was on aunt just in tears saying, I’ve got a master’s degree and my husband has a high school degree, but he’s a welder and he’s making 16 times more than I am, and he’s working half. Yeah, I’m like, what a great testimony. And she should be happy that she married a tradesman.
Debra Wold – Host [00:07:34] Exactly. And treatments are good people. They’re hardworking people. My next co-host that’s coming up, he’s brilliant. He’s a business manager for the union for a long time. Hard worker, disciplined, focused, organized. I mean, you can’t get any better. He’s got from a great, you know, crop in regards to that space. My dad was two. We’ve got to get back to using our hands again and using our mind incorporating together to kind of solve the world’s problems, whether it’s in the natural gas or the oil or the renewable. Let’s get them in there.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:08:09] In the apprentice programs being and I know this is your show, but when you invite you got to be careful that when you invite another podcast host because we just get excited about things. But as when you were growing up in a union home and the trade skills and the job safety things that were going on there are important. And your dad learned skills, life lessons. He learned skills. Yeah. What is Tommy? What are some of the things you’ve learned from Tommy and in that area?
Debra Wold – Host [00:08:47] Oh, tell me my my next co-host. He’s absolutely fabulous. He’s teaching me how to communicate with the unions. A lot of people don’t know how to communicate with them. If you wear a suit and you walk in there like I used to dress up really, really nice when I go talk to the union bosses, right? And they’re like, not so much. But what I would tell them is that I’m not above you and I’m not below you. People with you. I’m a union daughter, you know, so I like to dress up and look a little snazzy. That doesn’t change my moral character and my purpose and reason for inviting you. I chased you down to be in my company to build these projects for us. So we will give you jobs, right? Other thing too, is the perception of the union. I think sometimes it needs to be softened a little bit. They’re not the hard part. First. I mean, we’re not, you know, aggressive.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:09:40] But I’ll tell you what, Debra. Whether we like it or not, the union representative in New York City is getting a wonderful press from them going out. And I have to give a shout out to the union members supporting Trump. Whether you like Trump, whether you hate Trump, I love what they’re doing. And they’re saying, we don’t care if you’re Democrat. We don’t care if you’re a Republican. We want America first. That, to me, is I don’t care if you’re a Republican. I don’t care if you’re Democrat. I don’t care who you are. We’re America first. Yeah. And I mean, the the union people are in walks out there for America first.
Debra Wold – Host [00:10:27] Absolutely. And that’s what we need to be. We need to get back to our basics. I think that was done. Built in the United States was built by Union. And why? Here’s what I don’t like. When I see corporations go ahead and get scab workers, the people that are not union workers. Do they have the qualifications to make sure that what they’re doing, the specs are there. Is anybody overseeing them to make sure it’s done right? God forbid. We have no disrespect towards them, right. But there are untrained people working on a nuclear power plant. What? The reactors. Are you kidding me? No. Thank you. I would rather take that subsidy that everybody’s getting on this renewable and apply it towards apprenticeship programs and how to train more people to work in that renewable space so that everything that’s being built and done right.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:11:20] Absolutely. And, you know, for, being, you know, when you sit back, learning how to do welding in high school, I, I’m coming full circle around my great, great granddad’s blacksmith equipment. My dad and I are putting in finishing putting in a welder into the shop. So I’m going back to my roots of welding and, getting other things going and then farming, and then, I’ve put in solar panels, put in a pair of generators for, backup generators and two wind turbines. So I’m doing all of this myself. I’m learning how to do all this kind of stuff. Right. That I can teach my grandson.
Debra Wold – Host [00:12:13] Exactly.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:12:15] Where do we go to the next level on this stuff so that we get it done here safely? You don’t want me teaching any of this. I’m too much of a klutz. We need somebody with it. Really knows how to do the job.
Debra Wold – Host [00:12:32] It’s. It’s kind of like the parable or the symbol of. We have veterans, right, who have gone to war. They fought in the wars, and then we kind of, like, dismissed them. Well, yeah. You been there? You retired. Go on. No no no, no. I believe in bringing veterans back to work. They’re qualified. Right? They should be sitting on top of these young kids that are messing around in these schools and different places like that. Say, yeah, you want to play a game. You want to know what it’s like to be out in the real world? Honey, here I am. I may be old, but I am polished. And I know what it means to fight in wars. You have no clue. And same thing with the apprenticeship programs. You’ve got veterans out there like Tommy. You know who’s able to train and teach. He’s motivated me more. He actually outpaces me. And I’m like a jackrabbit when I work.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:13:22] And I loved my conversations with him. He is cool, cat. So, I’ll tell you, this is this is going to be, a lot of fun. On these. You’re opening our first podcast. We did. You’ve got a wide open invitation, and I, we’ve already got, like, six other guests lined up that you’re going to be visiting and all these kind of things. So, what do you see coming around the corner?
Debra Wold – Host [00:13:50] My next thoughts really is to target the children. I really, really want to because I’m seeing the children being going through these depressions and things like that because of what they’re being taught in the schools. I’m a homeschool junkie, not a junkie per se, but an advocate. My husband is an advocate. We make that a priority. That’s just as important to me as apprenticeship programs and renewables and the waste to energy. Why? It’s the foundation of where our children are going to begin. They are the seed. If we do not take care of the seed, we will not have a tree. We will not have leaves and grow. They are being trained. Know that if you have something plastic. Oh my gosh. If you put it in the wrong container, you’re going to hell. That’s the kind of mentality, right? I was never bred. And this young mom, she’s like, she took a plastic thing and she gave it to her daughter. She said, okay, honey, which bin this is going in. The child was like, shaking. Can’t read what, five years old. Can’t read, right? It put it in the wrong one. Oh, darling. No no no, no, it doesn’t go in that one. That’s a trash. Honey, this is recyclable. Now, learn plastics are bad. They must go in the recyclable bin because they’re going to go off to some magical little facility where it’s going to turn into something beautiful. I said to the lady, I said, junior, you just damage your child. She said. How soon? I said, because you’re disciplining her on something you don’t even know. I said, honey, that plastic item is not going to go into a recycle bin. It’s a 5 or 6. And the color weight. It’s not going to go. It’s going to go into a landfill. She goes, oh. I said, you didn’t even know that information, did you? So I said, you need to call your daughter and tell her that mommy has no clue what she’s talking about. And mommy need to get educated on what really is trash and what really is recyclable.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:15:53] Oh how fun.
Debra Wold – Host [00:15:55] And my daughter’s looking at me going, what did happen? I said, it’s a teaching moment and every thing in life is a teaching moment. So that’s what I really want to focus in on.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:16:03] I’m surprised you didn’t get your head put into your, BMW. I mean, had your head slammed into theirs? I think it was great. I wanted to be there filming this episode.
Debra Wold – Host [00:16:15] That would have been fun, because you know why? I look at people this way. They don’t know. What that means is they don’t K and o w, right? It’s not that they know.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:16:28] Right?
Debra Wold – Host [00:16:28] They’re young. They have no clue. But to discipline a child over that. No. Good.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:16:33] Good people don’t understand that the recyclable color scale that you just described is serious. Not much. I believe it’s less than 2% of the plastics that are put into recyclable bins are actually recycled. Is that a fair number if I have to go to fact check myself on that. But it’s an extremely low number.
Debra Wold – Host [00:17:02] It is. There are some environmental groups out there that are getting plastic bottles and they’re having to sort them, but they’re having to take a little because they’re the wrong color. So if you have a different color on the the clear bottle right wants to. I know I have all the detail, but I do have it in my notes. But I can bring that out. So actually we can put that in the footnotes if we need to, but they have to take a little. Are you kidding me? Who said their lips on those bottles? And what kind of diseases are in those bottles that you have to physically have to remove the lid? Right. We take the whole entire thing. Pop it in the facility and get something out of it that’s beneficial.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:17:37] So that’s huge. That in itself is monetary reason to not to have to have an extra cost and another profit. In order to get it actually done. It’s huge.
Debra Wold – Host [00:17:54] It is huge. And that’s the narrative that we’re trying to share with people. Everything is about education, but educating on fact, not fiction. You know, it goes back to children are children. Let them play. Let them have fun. Let them learn. Don’t discipline them because they make a mistake, for heaven’s sakes. If you know, do something like blow a building up or something, okay? Yeah, look at that. I mean, that’s extreme, but a plastic going in the wrong container. Seriously? I guarantee you Panera Bread couldn’t care less what goes where. I’ve seen them. They don’t have like one container for the plastics and one here. They just happen to be either.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:18:33] They just put it in the dumpster.
Debra Wold – Host [00:18:35] It’s all virtue signaling. And that’s the problem when you virtue signal too much. We don’t even know what truth is. We don’t even know what things are.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:18:44] Know.
Debra Wold – Host [00:18:45] So.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:18:46] Wow. I’ll tell you again, that seems, fantastic. How do people find, green Lily?
Debra Wold – Host [00:18:52] Well, you can go to our website. Green Lily energy and water. And also to you. Right. So it’s a fantastic website. We’re going to be having our links on there of our shows that you can check that out. You can go to Energy News Beat. We have a lot of our podcasts that are going to be placed on there. When you’re Stuart Turley, our producer. And yeah, just keep watching and we’ll be having lots more.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:19:15] For episode number two. This was a lot of fun.
Debra Wold – Host [00:19:18] Yeah, I’m going to.
Stuart Turley – Co-Host [00:19:20] All right. We’ll see you guys next time.