S9 Ep68: Trash Talks— Everyday Waste Hacks for Real Change with Laura Rosenshine
“I urge everyone to take a fraction of a second more to think before you throw something out— that's the moment that it matters whether we'll never see it again or whether it will go on to have a second life. It just takes that fraction of a second to try and do the right thing.” —Laura Rosenshine
The way we handle waste isn’t just about bins and bags—it’s about habits, community, and the stories we tell ourselves. Sometimes, the real power to change things starts with a single, simple choice.
Laura Rosenshine is the co-founder of WATS, a software platform that helps manage waste more sustainably and efficiently. Laura’s path started with a curiosity about composting and grew into a mission to help businesses rethink waste. From hands-on consulting in New York to launching Watts, she’s learned that real progress comes from connecting people, data, and practical solutions.
Hit play to get honest advice, smart strategies, and a fresh perspective on waste. In this episode, Justine and Laura discuss composting, business sustainability, waste data, the circular economy, and how anyone—individual or company—can start making a difference today.
Connect with Laura:
Laura founded Common Ground Compost LLC (CGC) after a few years working in the commercial waste sector, including working with a Norwegian-based technology company piloting in-vessel organics processing in NYC. In 2017, Laura co-founded Foodprint Group which was focused on bringing standardization and industry best practices to the waste management programs of multi-location hospitality and food businesses. In 2021, Laura returned to CGC to focus on building a WATS. Laura is a TRUE Zero Waste Advisor, and her rescue dog is terrified of garbage trucks.
Episode Highlights:
00:35 What is WATS?
06:06 Becoming a Trusted Waste Expert
13:07 Unexpected Start Up Journey
18:30 Connecting Businesses to Reduce Waste
22:27 Circular Economy–Not Just for Businesses
25:12 Think Before You Toss
Tweets:
Real progress happens when we connect the dots between what we throw away and what we can save. Dive into this episode for smart ways to cut waste and boost sustainability as @justine.reichman sits with WATS co-founder, Laura Rosenshine. #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #CircularEconomy #ReduceReuseRecycle #EcoSmart #GreenTips #TrashvsWaste #Sustainability #WasteReform #EcoAction #GreenLiving
Inspirational Quotes:
01:38 “We refer to composting as our gateway drug into the waste management space.” —Laura Rosenshine
02:19 “We learned that the evolution of waste and better waste management is a marathon, not a sprint, and it requires tools, and so we started building them about four years ago.” —Laura Rosenshine
05:43 “I usually say when I start talking to people, if we continue this conversation, you're going to look at garbage trucks entirely differently for the rest of your life.” —Laura Rosenshine
07:43 “It comes down to talking trash and helping people understand that you understand their pain and that you're there to help.” —Laura Rosenshine
09:21 “Waste is a non-metered utility… where you have one usage bill a month coming from one vendor that is very likely tied to an electronic meter in which you get your daily, sometimes even hourly, usage data that's tied to a price. Waste is not measured that way… and so capturing this information is really challenging.” —Laura Rosenshine
11:13 “TRASH is something that you know has no value and will end up in an incinerator or a landfill. But WASTE is something that you may no longer need, but hopefully still has value.” —Laura Rosenshine
12:21 “What we're seeing happen now is that more and more businesses have visibility into their energy use, into their water use, and they're making improvements there, and they're starting to turn their attention also to waste to look for those opportunities as well. So some of the earliest signs of opportunity we're seeing is when businesses look at their data and they say, This doesn't seem right.” —Laura Rosenshine
15:15 “Waste is not rocket science, but it does require tools to optimize and find new opportunities and bring efficiencies.” —Laura Rosenshine
17:33 “Recycling something is inherently cheaper than throwing something away. We don't have an infinite amount of these materials. It might seem that way, but for a lot of our materials, we have passed that peak amount that our Earth has produced, and it will become more and more important as time passes that we retain the value of these materials.” —Laura Rosenshine
18:20 “The more we can do, hopefully, the better off the planet will be.” —Justine Reichman
19:23 “Together, we do connect so we can mitigate.” —Justine Reichman
20:07 “You need to go out and talk to as many people as possible that, that's the place to start— it starts with listening about what businesses are trying to do and where they see value.” —Laura Rosenshine
21:43 “We say, away from input and back to impact… We all have hands. Our hands are what determines if something goes into the right bin or not. And we all need that behavior change. And we all need to understand why we're being asked to do these things.” —Laura Rosenshine
23:23 “The way waste is going to be managed is going to have more consequences. And so whatever your internal motivation is, there are opportunities all over the place. So hopefully, it starts with wanting to reduce waste. Luckily, that ties to reducing cost.” —Laura Rosenshine
24:20 “Trash is something that, unfortunately, we all have in common. Waste is a part of life, but it doesn't have to be negative…In most cases, there's cost associated with waste. In most cases, there's an opportunity as well.” —Laura Rosenshine
25:14 “I urge everyone to just take a fraction of a second more to think before you throw something out— that's the moment that it matters whether we'll never see it again or whether it will go on to have a second life… It just takes that fraction of a second to try and do the right thing.” —Laura Rosenshine
Transcription:
Justine Reichman: Good morning, and welcome to Essential Ingredients. Laura, I'm so glad to have you here today. I want to welcome our guests, our listeners and our viewers that come in each week. For you, we have this platform as a way to connect, make more informed choices, and learn a little something new.
So Laura, welcome.
Laura Rosenshine: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Justine Reichman: My pleasure. So Laura is from WATS. And for those not familiar with WATS, Laura, maybe you can give us sort of a high level so we can expand during the conversation.
Laura Rosenshine: Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Laura. Hello, everyone. WATS stands for Waste Administration and Tracking Software. What WATS does is his software built for businesses to help them manage their waste more sustainably and more independently. It is a software platform designed to manage waste data, all types of waste data, and to let businesses have better visibility and more transparency into what's happening across their operations, so that they can better manage waste as a utility.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. So what inspired you to get into this?
Laura Rosenshine: Okay, so my co-founder, Meredith, and I both fell in love with compost about 15 to 20 years ago, both on our own paths. But at the same time, we refer to composting as kind of our gateway drug into the waste management space. And what we did was we actually started helping small businesses in New York City set up compost programs. Compost programs spiraled into helping them with their recycling programs, and recycling programs spiraled into helping them with all different types of waste streams, like E waste and textiles. And as consultants, we really loved doing that work, but we kind of always felt like we weren't giving our clients the tools that they needed to really accelerate their waste journey. We were really just solving one problem at a time. And we learned that the evolution of waste and better waste management is a marathon, not a sprint, and it requires tools. And so we started building them about four years ago.
Justine Reichman: Wow. You're going back 10 or 15 years to being in New York. And when I go back 10 or 15 years, and I lived in New York at that time, compost was not a conversation the way it was in Switzerland or in California. On a personal level, my building was still recovering from Irene, and we didn't even have a basement where we could recycle or compost. So I find it really forward thinking, given my memory of where we were back there in specifically New York City, so I'd love to hear what was that like for you at that time? Clearly, you had a very different experience than I did.
Laura Rosenshine: Unfortunately, I don't think the experiences were that different. I would say that in New York City, the composting community, which truly is a full community, was really founded in community gardens. New York City is not necessarily known for community gardens, but there are hundreds of them across the city. It was really local communities and local neighbors that would set up small composting programs in their community gardens. And this was my introduction to composting after I learned about it in New Zealand. I am a born and raised New Yorker, and I did not know what composting was until I was in my mid 20s. But when I learned about what it was, there was a very welcoming community in New York City for it. So that was the beginning of my composting journey. But then it occurred to me that it's great to compost what you generate at home, the food scraps you generate at home. But we're in New York City, I am surrounded by restaurants. What happens to all of the food waste coming out of restaurants? My curiosity was just really, really high around this, and that was my transition from kind of the residential waste space into the commercial waste space, and so that was still very much so at the beginning, at that time.
Justine Reichman: But it seems almost natural too, because here you are. You're living in New York City. I don't know about you, but the gateway to delivery is just your front door where the menus used to come underneath the front doors. I don't know that they do that anymore. And I may be aging myself by saying that, but you used to see all the Chinese venues and all that. There must be dozens of restaurants within a block radius. So I'm curious, when I think about this, you said you'd gone off to New Zealand, that's where you learned about composting. You came back to New York. Was that in your journey in your career?
Laura Rosenshine: That's a good question. So I was in a career transition when I did go off to New Zealand. Really interested in sustainability, but not really knowing where in that space I was going to fit. I didn't have anything on my resume that really supported it. I didn't have any college credentials or educational credentials that supported it, but I learned what it was. And I thought, okay, this is interesting. And I just started exploring it naturally. I went back to New York, and I was like, how do you do this in New York City? How do you compost anything in New York City? And it led to opening up a whole world that I had never looked at before. I usually say when I start talking to people, if we continue this conversation, you're gonna look at garbage trucks entirely differently for the rest of your life. Are you ready for that? And most people say, yes. Most people then will text me frequently from that point forward anytime they think of garbage, really, in any sort of interesting capacity.
Justine Reichman: So tell me, how do people respond like they're excited about this. You're coming into this from a new place. It wasn't your experience. So a lot of people are looking to you as an expert or a resource. So how did you make that transition for them and communicate that effectively so that people could be on board, and really see what the impact they can have as an individual or as a corporation?
Laura Rosenshine: That's a really interesting question. So what Meredith and I are really good at, and pardon the pun here, is talking trash. When we start talking about our industry, and when we start talking about our experiences, anyone that shares some or a lot of it, it's just a very flowing conversation. And so oftentimes, we're turned to as experts. Our clients turned us into experts, and they started asking questions about what to do about this, or how to think about that, and just having some foundational knowledge, and some past experiences allows people to start to put their faith and their trust in you. And so when we transition from consulting to this software waste journey, that reality still holds true. When I'm talking to prospective customers, I'm talking to customers that are either at the beginning of their waste journey at their company, and are just looking for, where do I start? All the way to people who have felt the pain of how challenging it is to deal with operational waste data who just truly want to improve their company's situation for having a more positive impact. So it really just comes down to talking trash, and helping people understand that you understand their pain, and that you're there to help.
Justine Reichman: So as they see the impact that they're having, how does that affect what they do going forward? And how does that relate to other people, friends, colleagues? Do you find this is sort of contagious? I don't mean that in a bad way, but you know what I mean? Is it infectious? Infectious was the word I was looking for because I feel like, if I'm getting a great result, and maybe you could share a couple examples of what those results might be, I feel like if I knew what they were and I could share that story, it would be infectious.
Laura Rosenshine: Yeah. I hear what you're saying, and I do feel that way, this contagious. I want to be transparent here and say that a lot of the companies that we work with today are generally on their waste journey. They probably are a business that has multiple sites. At those sites, they probably have multiple waste streams. And across those waste streams, they probably have multiple vendors. The foundation for them in working with us is helping to have a better data management plan. Because through data management, they can have better stakeholder engagement, and they can set better plans and strategies in order to make improvements on their waste generation. I should say waste diversion, lowering their waste generation. I'll just take one step backwards and help people understand a little bit why waste is a challenging data point. Waste is a non metered utility. It's different from energy and water in which a site where you might operate, you have one usage bill a month coming from one vendor that is very likely tied to an electronic meter in which you get your daily, sometimes even hourly usage data that's tied to a price. Waste is not measured that way. Waste is usually measured based on estimates. It is not in real time. You have to wait a certain amount of time to get data. And often, if you do have multiple waste streams, which is becoming more and more the case, you potentially have multiple vendors. Those vendors are not required to report data or even invoice you in the same fashion. And so capturing this information is really challenging. And a lot of our customers are saying, I really want to make better decisions, but I'm stuck manually managing this data. It slows me down from making operational changes. That is the first way in which we work with our customers. Does that make sense?
Justine Reichman: It totally makes sense. So I guess maybe it would be an appropriate question to say, okay, so now that people are on this journey and they're discovering data, and they're able to make more informed choices, is there anything that you could share where they notice a change? Do they notice a buying habit? They notice what they're providing, something at some point that they've been able to just notice so that they too could make a more informed choice going further forward, so that they can have potentially less trash or waste. I just use the word trash. You've used it before. I like the trash bag.
Laura Rosenshine: That's okay. I generally say trash is something that has no value, and will end up in an incinerator or a landfill. But waste is okay. Waste is kind of something that you may no longer need, but hopefully still has value. So that's kind of how I use those terms. But to answer your question, one of the things that we're seeing when we have this better site by site or corporate visibility is, where are the opportunities? So if you had two buildings that were roughly the same size and maybe had roughly the same occupancy, but for some reason, one of those buildings was generating a lot less cardboard, you could then direct your efforts to say, why is there less cardboard here? Are they accidentally throwing it in the trash bin instead of putting it in the cardboard baler so that it gets collected by the recycling truck, instead of the trash truck? Trash is that part of the city and life that operates at night when no one else is watching, and so you often don't have the visibility in the moment to identify the problem, because there's so many other things that businesses are doing. Waste tends to be an afterthought. And what we're seeing happen now is that more and more businesses have visibility into their energy use, into their water use, and they're making improvements there, and they're starting to turn their attention also to waste to look for those opportunities as well. So some of the earliest signs of opportunity we're seeing is when businesses look at their data and they say, this doesn't seem right. These two buildings are the same. Why is one underperforming, and why are my costs so much higher? These are things that, unfortunately, are very hard to dive into without having some software support. When you're talking about scale, when you're talking about 20 buildings, 30 buildings, 40 buildings, this is what's challenging.
Justine Reichman: Yeah. I would imagine. It seems overwhelming, almost, because there's so much for you. You came at this from a very personal level, when you first got into this, are you where you thought you'd want it, where you thought you'd be? Or is this a completely different journey than you ever imagined?
Laura Rosenshine: This was an unimaginable journey. We are WATS as a startup. We're still a small team, and I know I never thought that I would be helping build software or lead a small software company that hopes to be large and impactful. The truth of the matter is on the good days, no one gets blamed. I'm incredibly happy with where I am. And on the harder days, which is just the case when you're running a startup, I blame my sister. I blame my sister because she developed the first version of WATS. She taught herself a low code platform. Having some background in computer science and structured databases, she was sick of hearing me complain about Google Sheets and Google Docs, and not being able to have better tools for the work that Meredith and I were doing day in and day out, and so passionate about. And so she basically told me to shut it and started building something that she thought would be better.
Justine Reichman: Well, you gotta love having a sister. I never had a sister, but I wish I had one to blame, or to build something for me, either way. So when you did this, you actually had resources, in the sense that you had your sister who could build this for you and other people that maybe startups. Startups don't always have those resources, so do you feel like that made it easier for you to jump in?
Laura Rosenshine: It certainly did. It also made it unavoidable, if I pivot your question a little bit. When Meredith and I saw what the best structured database could look like for waste management, we just kind of knew that that's what we had to do. Because we also felt like we weren't giving our clients, like I said before, enough to get on their waste journey, and stay on their waste journey. Waste is not rocket science, but it does require tools to optimize, find new opportunities and bring efficiencies. And so, I guess, to go back to your question, it was a combination of, yes, having my sister. But also having felt the pain and being industry experts so that we had confidence in what we were building.
Justine Reichman: I can completely imagine that. I like the fact that it was unavoidable because she's there, and she's building it for you. How could you not do something that really connects? And she's saying, here it would be like, you'd be throwing it out, creating more trash, right? More garbage because it does have value. So it's not trash, it's garbage. I'm curious because we do have a lot of founders here, and we also have a lot of businesses and individuals that want to make more informed change, but they also want to learn how to build businesses. And so when we first spoke, you said that you know that you had been on sabbatical, or you were just off not working at that time, went off to New Zealand. So what is it in your previous experience that you brought with you that you think has been really universally instrumental in what you're building today?
Laura Rosenshine: I think a driving force for me and Meredith has been the community that we got involved in, in the community composting space, and the sheer belief that this was the right thing that our world and society has to adopt. It is absolutely insane that we throw food in the garbage to be buried or burned. That foundational piece of information sticks with me and Meredith every day, and what drives us to keep doing what we're doing. It's not that we wanted to be startup or software founders, it's that we are constantly driven to positively contribute to society in a way that reduces something that is harmful, and that there's a solution for. The concept of the circular economy is becoming more and more well known, and it has a business case behind it. If keeping our materials out of the landfill and keeping them in circulation didn't have a business case behind it, I think we would have a much harder time. But recycling something is inherently cheaper than throwing something away and going to dredge it out of the earth, and start from scratch again. And we don't have an infinite amount of these materials. It might seem that way. But for a lot of our materials, we have passed that peak amount that our Earth has produced, and it will become more and more important as time passes that we retain the value of these materials.
Justine Reichman: It gave us some information on it, but it also brought up a question for me around the planet, around the impact on the planet and by addressing this, what we can see going forward? I think about today, and I think about travel and how it's been impacted in the world, right? So the more we can do, hopefully, the better off the planet will be. So I wonder, when you think about what you're doing, and you think about the planet, what are some of the things that you really hope you can help mitigate?
Laura Rosenshine: I think mitigation is an interesting word. I think I might pivot that to say, what can we connect? For Meredith and I, we feel like the roadmap of WATS is about connecting materials that one business no longer needs a business that does need them. So we're trying to go back to your word to mitigate the wastefulness, the loss of resources that we can never really get back once we bury them or burn them, and instead to connect them to that next part of the value chain. That for us is where we really want to see our work lead to is redirecting these materials, which to us starts with quantifying them.
Justine Reichman: I couldn't agree more. I think I use the word mitigate. You use the word connect. But I think together, you do connect, so you can mitigate. And I think you connected those things so that we mitigate further issues or further damage. So I like the way you did that, because it puts a positive spin on it, regardless. And I always like to put things in the positive, because I want people to feel optimistic about it too while being pragmatic, if that's possible. So far, you've been around for about four years. You said within that time, you now have started to take on new clients to offer them new things. What would you say to those founders tuning in today if they were to say, I want to break into a new field that I'm really passionate about. I have limited information about it. Where do I start?
Laura Rosenshine: You need to go out and talk to as many people as possible. That's the place to start. People that have the context, that have the experience, that have felt the pain. When Meredith and I started building WATS, we built our MVP, our Minimum Viable Product. We were like, what features do we need to make this thing even remotely attractive? And since then, what we've been doing is listening to our customers. Tell us, oh, I need to see the data this way. Or it would be really helpful if you could track this information related to this vendor. This isn't giving me the view that I need in order to make the case to my colleague that we should invest more in this. So we built the foundation. But this is a new space. We don't feel like we're building something that exists before we feel like we're building something that is just starting to unwind and unravel the more conversations that we have. So we feel like we're in a constant state of listening and learning, and wanting to build what's in demand, and it's going to take a while to get, ultimately, where we want to get to. Which is keeping those materials into the circular economy, connecting the businesses directly with the next business that wants to buy it. But it starts with those conversations, and it starts with listening about what businesses are trying to do, and where they see value.
Justine Reichman: And for you as you're building this, how are you measuring your success that keeps motivating you? What are those wins that you look forward to?
Laura Rosenshine: We say, away from input and back to impact. Stop inputting data and start doing. Use your body on site to talk to people and make change. Get off of the computer when it makes sense, and get in front of people, because we all have hands. Our hands are what determines if something goes into the right bin or not. And we all need that behavior change. And we all need to understand why we're being asked to do these things to really complete the circle of understanding of that. That material might be at the beginning of its journey. If you can explain it to people that way, they're going to take more care when they go to dispose of something.
Justine Reichman: That runs across so many different niches. You could talk about that from whether it's something tangible in your house as an individual, clothing, furniture. It could be as simple as that, even within the circular economy. Because then, you can continue to do that, and then people need to buy less new things, and then we need to create less things. So I think whether we're talking to individuals here that are curious about this, for themselves or for business, I think that we can include this way of thinking, this narrative, in our health to reshape what we're doing, and the impact we have. So I appreciate you sharing all that totally. And as we sort of bring this conversation to a close, for those listeners that are tuning in, that are inspired by what you're saying and maybe want to incorporate this into their business, what would be things that they should look for to know if they're in the right place, at the right time, when to incorporate, and how?
Laura Rosenshine: The way waste is going to be managed is going to get, I don't want to say more complicated, but it's going to have more consequences. And so whatever your internal motivation is, our goals are, there's opportunities all over the place. So hopefully, it starts with wanting to reduce waste. Luckily, that ties to reducing cost. But generally, it's just unique for the business. What is it that you guys are trying to do? Where is your attention focused? And you can start anywhere.
Justine Reichman: And do you work just with local clients? Or do you work globally?
Laura Rosenshine: Great question. Our software right now, I would say, is more national than global. We hope to be global one day. The foundational pieces that will allow us to get there will be able to process data in different languages. But today, we're a national company. We work with businesses and sites all across the country. We work across different verticals. Trash is something that, unfortunately, we all have in common. Waste is a part of life, but it doesn't have to be negative. So whether you're an airport, or a commercial business, or a food business, or even a multi family housing property, in most cases, there's costs associated with waste. In most cases, there's been opportunity as well.
Justine Reichman: Laura, thank you so much for everything, for all that information. It was quite a download of information. And I think that for me, I take that away on a personal level, all the things that I could do, the things that I could think about, and I make it personal to me. So even though a lot of what you said is about a business, I could see how people could be inspired as they rethink their life and their lifestyle, and how to mitigate further, or even connect the dots so that they can pull resources, and maybe have a little less waste.
Laura Rosenshine: 100%. I urge everyone to just take that fraction of a second more to think before you throw something out. The bin matters. That's the moment that it matters whether we'll never see it again, or whether it will go on to have a second life. So thanks everyone for your time today, and just take that fraction of a second to try and do the right thing.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thank you, Laura, for joining us for this conversation. I want to thank our listeners and our viewers that tune in each week. If you're not watching us on a video cast, we do have a YouTube channel at Essential Ingredients. And if you haven't tuned into our Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast, don't forget that we're at Essential Ingredients on all platforms, so we look forward to hearing from you. We want to hear from you. If you have any questions about this episode, or if there's anything we've left out that you want to touch on, shoot us a note, and DM us. Like us, subscribe to us, and leave that message there so we can connect. Thanks again.
