Skilled Labor Series: Recycling
*This episode is part of our Skilled Labor Series hosted by MCJ partner, Yin Lu. This series is focused on amplifying the voices of folks from the skilled labor workforce, including electricians, farmers, ranchers, HVAC installers, and others who are on the front lines of rewiring our infrastructure.
Today's guest is Dylan Welch, Plant Manager at AMP Robotics.
Dylan grew up in the foothills of California and Arizona, before going to school in Colorado. He’s had quite a non-linear career path. Dlyan started his career building custom motorcycles out of his garage and then became a carpenter and subcontractor, before joining the team at AMP Robotics, where he oversees facility operations. AMP Robotics develops and deploys AI and robotics technology that enables a recycling facility to drive efficiencies across its sorting process, lower the cost of its operations, and produce higher-value commodities. As proud investors of AMP Robotics via our MCJ venture funds, we’ve excited to share yet another perspective from the company and learn about Dylan’s personal journey. In this episode, we learn a lot from Dylan the recycling industry, and how Dylan applied his interest towards a career addressing the waste problem.
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MCJ Podcast / Collective
*You can also reach us via email at info@mcjcollective.com, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded on January 11, 2023.
In this episode, we cover:
Dylan's early interest in machinery and his professional background
His career path as a carpenter, contractor, and running a recycling plant
An overview of AMP Robotics and how Dylan landed his current role
A deep dive into recycling and its shortcomings
Dylan's day-to-day experience running a secondary MRF (materials recovery facility)
How he interacts with folks outside of the plant
Dylan's perspectives on how automation can close the staffing gap in the recycling industry
How Dylan combined his personal interests with his role at AMP Robotics
Advice for people interested in learning how systems work but aren’t sure where to start
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Yin Lu:
Hi, everyone. Yin here. I'm one of the partners at MCJ, and I host the Skilled Labor Workforce series on the pod. Today's guest is Dylan Welch. Dylan grew up in the foothills of California and Arizona, went to school in Colorado, and has had quite a non-linear career path. He started off his career building custom motorcycles out of his garage and then became a carpenter and then a subcontractor, and he is currently the recycling plant manager at AMP Robotics. We learn a lot from Dylan about his career journey as well as the recycling industry. So, with that, Dylan, welcome to the show.
Dylan Welch:
Yin, thank you so much for having me on.
Yin Lu:
So, we were connected through Matanya Horowitz, who is the CEO of AMP Robotics. After I put an announcement out to the MCJ community that on the series we'd love to talk to someone who's worked on the front lines of recycling and waste management, when he immediately emailed back and said, "We have to talk to you," and so here we are excited to learn from you. First things first, tell us more about you and your upbringing.
Dylan Welch:
Absolutely. First off, I'm honored to be here. It makes me incredibly happy that I was his choice for this podcast. I grew up in San Francisco, California. Lived there for a few years. Family ended up moving to Scottsdale, Arizona. Lived there, went through middle school, high school, and then found I really, really loved the snow and I loved the mountains, and the place closest to me that I could start going to school and really enjoy life was Colorado. So, I moved up to Breckenridge, Colorado when I was 17. That's a little of my personal past.
Yin Lu:
One of my favorite places on earth.
Dylan Welch:
Mine as well.
Yin Lu:
Tell us about any interests that you had growing up as a kid.
Dylan Welch:
I guess you could say I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I come from a family of athletes. I've always been an athlete, so I played sports growing up. That didn't interest me as much as machinery or a machine like a motorcycle, bicycle, go-karts, whatever it was. I want to know the ins and outs of how everything worked. So, my interests growing up, sports technology. Again, I'm a millennial so I grew up with one of those flip phones or the Nokia brick phones that you could throw in, would stay charged forever, and then saw the progression in technology until I had an interface that I could talk to in my hand. So, technology has been a huge part of my life growing up as well.
Yin Lu:
I'm so curious. How did your family support your interest in the machinery? Did you put together a bunch of stuff when you were a kid, take it apart?
Dylan Welch:
Yeah. I can start off when I was really little. We used to live in Marina District in San Francisco, so Palace of Fine Arts was very close, and they had this place called the Exploratorium. I remember a couple key instances that really fascinated me. They had a skeleton that was riding a bike and you had to actuate its thigh muscle, its hamstring, its calf muscle with a few different buttons. I was probably five years old at this time. Just fascinated of how I can make its legs move and function by pressing a button, and there are little instances like that that really intrigued me.
Yin Lu:
Let's fast forward to talking about your career path. So, you have this interest in machinery and how things move. How did you put that to use?
Dylan Welch:
Back in high school, I would help out any single one of my friends taking apart their dirt bikes, any type of power sports, modifying it for them. So, it let me know or trained me on the intricacies of a motor and how they worked. I would take anything and everything fully apart because I was really intrigued of the fundamental aspects that go together to make a system and how they truly were. So, I got started in power sports ranging from GoPeds to dirt bikes and then again graduating in the future to some more sophisticated racing motorcycles that really, really helped me build my knowledge and skillset.
Yin Lu:
Let's talk about your career path. So, you have this passion for knowing how things work, complicated systems that depend on each other, many components. And you have been a carpenter, a contractor, and now you run a recycling plant. So, tell us how that interest translated into a career with these roles and [inaudible].
Dylan Welch:
I really wish I could tell you exact A to Z or A to B path, the exact route I got here, but truly I pursued jobs or opportunities that fascinated me and I enjoyed. That started off, again, I'll go back to being a mechanic. It started off there. I guess you could say I'm a jack of all trades, not a master of all, but I'm a master of a few. That has really helped me apply my skillset here. So, yes, I was a carpenter in the past as well. I was a handyman up in Breckenridge. Anytime something needed to be fixed, whether it was a HVAC system or it was an electrical circuit in someone's house or it was their car, I had the abilities and the knowledge to dive in and help a friend or a customer out. So, started off from the self-employed aspect, really a lot of it.
Yin Lu:
I want to zoom into, talk about AMP a little bit and then zoom back out and then we'll eventually zoom back into the company and what you do. So, you have a really fascinating story about how you found your job at AMP. So, maybe tell us in a couple of sentences, what is AMP at the highest level? And then tell us about the really cool story of how you came to work there.
Dylan Welch:
Let's go overall. AMP is an industrial equipment and manufacturer. So, what we do is we build robots to separate recycling.
Yin Lu:
We know that you run the recycling plant there, so how'd you get the job?
Dylan Welch:
This will drive straight back to my non-linear career path. I was subcontractor for AMP. For those of you that don't know what a subcontractor is, let's say a company's building out a new facility. They might not have the internal staff, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, skilled tradesmen, so they'll go out and hire those individuals. That's what a subcontractor is.
Yin Lu:
And you were a subcontractor building out what?
Dylan Welch:
In the beginning I built a couple offices at our old headquarters as we were drastically expanding. They needed more room for individuals in their office and employees. So, I built out a couple main offices. After I built out the main offices in their production facility, I moved over to their second location that was in Broomfield, very close to Louisville where headquarters is right now, to build out a full kitchen and their new production floor. After that contract, or that job was done, we actually moved over into a new facility that AMP was starting up. Built out a lot of the offices here, installed a shower at this facility. A lot of little bits and bobs that you could think of that come with standing up a new plant or standing up a factory.
Yin Lu:
I imagine that someone who's doing subcontracting, I wouldn't think that they'd be an obvious shoe-in for running a plant. So, how did that connection happen?
Dylan Welch:
Neither would I. I'm right there with you on that. So, when I was subcontracting for AMP, this was just a normal everyday job. It wasn't something that I was passionate about. I was good at it and it paid my bills. I was actually building a new engineering office and was looking down at their research and development laboratory. And what I saw were engineers working on items or machines that I did in my garage at home, and this thought right here ticked my mind to say, "I would love to work at this company. Any possible door I could open to get in, I would love to find a way."
Yin Lu:
You saw what the engineers were working on. Did you then go onto the job site and see what roles were available? How did that work?
Dylan Welch:
Yes, I did. I did have a friend from up in the mountains that I used to play hockey. I think he was an operations manager at AMP. So, that's also how I got in the door, how we got the subcontracting jobs to help AMP out in building up their facilities. I opened up the door to him, reached out with a phone call, asked if there were any opportunities available and he listed a couple opportunities. One was a maintenance engineer and a ship supervisor at a new startup facility, the one which I now run. It's kind of ironic.
Yin Lu:
So, you were subcontracting for AMP, building out cabinets, and then you saw what the engineers were doing and you thought, "That's a type of machinery that really gets my juices going. I am excited if I can do more of that work." Contacted your friend, and then got your foot in the door, and what was your initial role at the company?
Dylan Welch:
My initial role was a shift supervisor. So, operating on the production floor, fulfilling daily aspects of operation and running a shift at the facility. That encompasses multiple maintenance tasks. I can go anywhere from A to Z, but overseeing personnel, overseeing fundamental operation and optimal operation of your system.
Yin Lu:
Can you double click into that? What does optimal operation of your system entail for someone with zero baseline?
Dylan Welch:
Should we go back to what this system is or what type of plant?
Yin Lu:
Let's do it.
Dylan Welch:
That I run?
Yin Lu:
Yes.
Dylan Welch:
This was back about two years ago now. AMP was testing out a new prototype facility. This is where I initially put my foot in the door into the company and took a position at this facility. This prototype where we are testing out is something called a secondary sortation facility. Now, let me go into a little bit of detail in regards to what a sortation facility in the recycling industry does.
Yin Lu:
And maybe even to zoom out a little bit more because I think this is a good opportunity to, is to maybe give a bit of a history on the recycling industry and what has led to the need for primary sortation, secondary sortation and all that.
Dylan Welch:
Let's just define recycling. Recycling is defined for me by repurposing or re-manufacturing a material after it has reached the end of its initial use. Now, we can take those materials again, whether that be paper, plastic, cardboard, break those materials back down and repurpose them so we can put them back into the economy or back into the manufacturing world to be re-manufactured.
Yin Lu:
Great. Love that. A hundred thousand foot view. Let's get one click deeper. From a consumer's end, I have my green bin and then my black bin and then my blue bin, and I'd love if you can take us through what happens after the truck picks up the stuff from the blue bin and it gets to a facility.
Dylan Welch:
Recycling started around end of the 1960s, early 1970s, and they had, at that time, what we call multiple stream recycling. This entails the consumer at the base level separating these materials into their separate containers. Now, a hauler, whatever that may be, will come pick those materials up already sorted and then deliver them to a recycling center where they would have to sort that material or use a very intensive process to separate that material more so. By about 1990, the idea of single stream recycling came about, and this is where we are actually combining all these materials.
At your household, everyone has a 95 gallon container that they put on the outside of their street. They're going to take those recyclable materials, put them in the container, and that is going to go to what we call a material recovery facility. Now, they can deal with a multitude of materials ranging from UBC, which are beverage cans, anything with your classic Coke bottle, to beer cans, et cetera. Fibers, different plastic resins one through seven. They can host a multitude of material. Some material recovery facilities can capture more than others, but I think about 2000, this was the primary force or primary methodology that most towns, cities are using to capture recyclable materials.
Yin Lu:
What led to people sorting their recycled goods back in the sixties to just dump everything in one bin in the nineties and still to this day? What prompted that shift? Was it that technology got better at the MRFs, the material recovery facilities?
Dylan Welch:
Technology did get better, but I think we did hit a roadblock right about 2000 or mid 1990s. Separating the material at the consumer level puts a lot of burden on the hauler. It becomes a lot more expensive to haul all these materials in a separated form and then deliver them to a recycling facility. So now, to lessen the burden on a state or any municipality that is paying for this recycling service, combining all those materials together saves cost to each one of those municipalities and lowers the price for time of processing these materials. It resulted into combining everything together.
Yin Lu:
Understood. Okay. Then the thought is, where does that sorting cost then get displaced to downstream? Or maybe it was just, let's bundle it all up and let's send it abroad.
Dylan Welch:
Yes. I think there's two distinctly different questions there. So, let's talk about what happens when a 95 gallon container reaches a material recovery facility, and you'll hear me say MRF from time to time, all this material would be deposited onto a tip floor. After that, it would be sent into a spider web of conveyors. That's the high level term that I could use. There would be a very manually intensive process to sort these materials. Just picture a conveyor belt with 30 to 50 individuals standing on the side and selecting a certain material and putting it into a bunker. This bunker is just where we capture the same types of material. So, that's a base history and ground level of what a MRF is. It's a highly manual labor intensive process. All this material would flow through a vast array or very simple array of conveyors stationed with a lot of personnel on each side of one of the conveyors.
Yin Lu:
Gotcha. Okay. So, a lot of people in these MRFs sorting manually?
Dylan Welch:
Yes, and this is not an easy job. It's very dirty. Conveyors are moving incredibly quickly. So, manual sortation of these materials is when I talked about, I think we reached a roadblock or a stoppage in the improvement of our technology back in the late 90s, early 2000s.
Yin Lu:
I also think that if you look at the amount of volume of recyclable goods that each household produces, my guess is that that has also gone up dramatically. I don't have any data to back that up and if you can share some stats that would be interesting.
Dylan Welch:
I can share some data points, but what I can share is the type of materials. Back in the 80s, 90s, newspapers are what some traditional MRFs were modeled off of. Now, that has reached a fork in the road with the internet. Back in the early 90s, 2000s, really, we don't see that many newspapers anymore, but now we have a massive amount of, let's say, OCC or larger, heavier objects.
Yin Lu:
What is OCC?
Dylan Welch:
Oh, I guess I should have described this. That is old corrugated cardboard. Sounds complicated. It's not at all.
Yin Lu:
So, you have increase in volume of different materials, and then you have old factories that were designed to intake older materials that no longer are coming into the MRFs. And you have highly manual sortation process that has led to what? What is the precipice we're at that then is prompting new technologies to be developed?
Dylan Welch:
I currently think that the amount of waste that is recycled in the United States stays around 25 to 35% and has stayed that rate for about the past 10 years. If we truly want to keep increasing the amount of material that we can repurpose and remanufacture, we are going to have to develop technology that can move faster, identify more material, and separate it more quickly and efficiently than we can with these manual labor derived material recovery facilities.
A lot of MRFs in the past, they relied upon material that retains its original geometric shape, whether that be OCC, a 3D container. And from the household consumer, the path that that material follows from that 95 gallon bit to the tipping floor at a MRF, in between, that material is degraded, deteriorated. You could just imagine what happens inside of a recycling bin when it gets dumped into a recycling truck or it gets squished, smashed up.
So, a lot of the material that flows through a normal MRF, they have different processes like screens or manual sortation. But what these are derived on, especially the mechanical aspects, is all that material needs to retain its a ritual shape. Now, if it becomes malformed or distorted, it may fall through a screen. I can dive into a screen a little bit. Most material cover recovery facilities used, let's say, separate paper and 3D objects. That would be a screen.
It's going to be a set of rotating discs that's going to have an aperture or a hole that material can fall through that is smaller than paper. The wider material is going to write up top and over, and now that smaller 3D material is going to fall through like containers, Pepsi bottles, UBC cans, et cetera. They're going to have a multitude or an array of other equipment as well but it relies on the shape of that material. So once it becomes degraded, the only person that truly is going to be able to sort that material out, if it even gets to them, is a manual sorter. They're going to be able to interpret, classify and identify that material up to around 50 to 60 picks a minute, but that's hard to sustain.
Yin Lu:
We're going to take a quick break so you can hear me talk more about the MCJ membership option. Hey folks, Yin here, a partner at MCJ Collective. Want to take a quick minute to tell you about our MCJ membership community, which was born out of a collective thirst for peer-to-peer learning and doing that goes beyond just listening to the podcast. We started in 2019 and have since then grown to 2000 members globally. Each week we're inspired by people who join with differing backgrounds and perspectives, and while those perspectives are different, what we all share in common is a deep curiosity to learn and bias to action around ways to accelerate solutions to climate change.
Some awesome initiatives have come out of the community. A number of founding teams have met, nonprofits have been established, a bunch of hiring has been done. Many early stage investments have been made, as well as ongoing events and programming like monthly women in climate meetups, idea jam sessions for early stage founders, climate book club, art workshops and more. So whether you've been in climate for a while or just embarking on your journey, having a community to support you is important. If you want to learn more, head over to mcjcollective.com and then click on the members tab at the top. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the show. All right, let's get back to the show.
What is the technology that you all are working on at AMP that is going to help bring more volume of recycled goods back into the economy at a higher rate?
Dylan Welch:
What I truly believe at AMP, what we are doing to mitigate and/or push our technology further into the future, to try and step over some of the roadblocks that I mentioned that I observe in the recycling industry, that I believe we've hit not a standstill, but we need an extra jumper. We need some help from technology. Now, I really related to material that is degraded, material that can't be sorted by a traditional MRF because it doesn't meet the same characteristics that will allow that sortation process to work efficiently. So, where AMP has stepped in, back with our robots in the beginning, all of our robots are based off of our neural networks. So, this is an AI driven platform that identifies and classifies that material and then will in turn send a signal to a robot to pick that material up and place it into a shoot or a different conveyor to be sorted, a bunker, et cetera.
So, our robots were originally created to help supplement some of the need at these material recovery facilities because manual labor in an industry like this is very hard to come by. You see, most MRFs are always hiring. It's very hard to look at a conveyor belt and sort these materials for even a few hours, let alone eight hours. Now, a human can sustain 60 picks a minute, maybe. It's very hard to do. If you look at a conveyor belt for about 10 hours, you tend to get very dizzy.
We saw that there was a huge need to automate this process, and that's where we identified what some of the biggest problems were and found a way that we could continue pushing even some of the older style MRFs forward with our technology to help them get over the hump, to help identify some of these materials from the ground floor, a tip floor, of the classifying these materials and ensure that they're separated at a sufficient quality. So we can, again, repurpose and remanufacture these materials into another product to create a circular economy where we continue to reuse and reuse all these materials that we have or that have reached the end of their life.
Yin Lu:
And it also sounds like there's a workforce angle here too, in that you see just a lot of attrition out of the recycling industry because it is a hard job, and so having new technology being put in place can help MRFs run more efficiently, can help people run more efficiently. And at the end of the day, it's helping drive more of that circularity, like you said.
Dylan Welch:
Absolutely.
Yin Lu:
All right. I have tactical questions on your job now, which is running a plant. What square footage are we talking here? How many people are working in what types of shifts? Give us a picture of what it's like to step into your job any given day.
Dylan Welch:
I run a recycling facility for AMP Robotics. This is a secondary sortation facility. I dove in a little in beginning of what a primary sortation facility is. Now let me explain exactly what we do here. A lot of these materials at these primary MRFs are not being captured by their sortation methodology, so they're falling through the cracks. And each one of these materials is going to be sent off to a landfill, never to be used again, never to be repurposed. So, a few years ago we saw there may be a need for facilities like this in Denver, Colorado, and we have one in Atlanta, Georgia, and Cleveland, Ohio.
Yin Lu:
I'm not sure if we actually dove into the definition of a primary. So, a primary sortation facility is, you have the stuff coming from the blue bins and then you have these belts, or maybe you did.
Dylan Welch:
Yeah. A primary sortation facility is all the recyclable materials that is dropped off at a normal MRF, or we will call it a primary MRF. All that material is separated through a highly manually intensive and labor intensive process to reach the end output, which is separated commodities.
Yin Lu:
Okay, and then what you do at the secondary sorting facilities is take the outputs from the primary and then further sort it?
Dylan Welch:
Exactly. One of the main problems with the recycling industry today that we can use our technology to sort, as I was talking about, degraded materials earlier, that they're incredibly hard to detect and analyze by, I wouldn't say antiquated, but older recycling systems. This is where our technology pushes the boundaries further. When no matter how degraded a piece of paper, a plastic bottle is, a piece of cardboard, an aluminum can, we can train our AI to observe it, classify it, and then separate it.
Yin Lu:
So, when you think about all the collective things that come out of people's blue bins, it sounds like all of that gets dumped at a primary MRF. And then what percentage of the stuff then has to end up at a secondary MRF, like the ones that you guys are setting up versus the ones that get sorted that don't have to get sent to a secondary MRF? What happens to that bulk?
Dylan Welch:
I think we're talking about the recovered materials from a primary MRF compared to a secondary MRF or what are some historical recovery rates of a primary material recovery facility? But they can vary anywhere between 50 to 90%. Out of the materials that can be recovered, I would say it's 75 to 90% that gets put into a recycling bin. Yes, there're going be the golf clubs. There are going to be the containers, there is going be the organic waste, there's going to be the extension cords that could be recycled at a different facility, just not primarily at any type of recovery facility. But out of all that material going into a recycling facility, usually only around 70% is truly recovered. Out of the 85 to 90% plus material that could be repurposed into something else or re-manufactured into something else in the future.
Yin Lu:
Of all the stuff that goes into primary MRFs, what percentage do you guys see at secondary MRFs? The stuff that was hard to sort and now needs to go through further sorting.
Dylan Welch:
So, we'll take 100% of their residue. Now, we're not going to be able to achieve 100% recovery rate on all of their residue. That's something that we strive to do. Now, we have to develop new markets for some of these materials. Some of the recycling industry is somewhat antiquated in regards to where we can repurpose these materials. It is driven by what is available out there. So, I mean, we really are hoping to create our own markets for some of these plastics that have never existed before, whether it's moving to a PET reclaimer or sending our material off to a [inaudible] they're going to turn our recycled plastics in too close. So, that's a hard question to define exactly what we can recover. Because a lot of these material recovery facilities will process material through at a substantial throughput, send that material off. We'll take all of their residue, so it's hard to say exactly what is recoverable in their residue.
Yin Lu:
Interesting. I'm trying to learn what the pipeline looks like. And so you have all the stuff that people recycle and then some of it's super easy to store. You have Pepsi bottles that are very clearly Pepsi bottles. That gets all sorted and then it gets sent back to a can making factory that gets melted and then sent back to the people that are making cans. And then you have my Driscoll raspberry container that's so mutilated that you can't tell what it is. That stuff has to go to a secondary MRF and get sorted in a more robust system. And it sounds like what AMP is doing is taking all of the really hard to sort stuff and then applying your AI to be able to sort all that into very clearly distinguishable buckets. Is that fair?
Dylan Welch:
You hit it on the nose. That's what we use our technology for. We use our technology to identify and sort materials that can't be identified with a normal or typical system at a material recovery facility. That's also why we deplore our AI and robots into traditional material recovery facilities to help offset some of the burden on manual labor as well.
Yin Lu:
Gotcha. Okay. So, your technology can actually go to primary MRFs to help sortation become better, and then the stuff that just really is unidentifiable can get sent to an R&D plant that you work on to help train the AI to be able to recognize faster, better, et cetera?
Dylan Welch:
I want to make the clear distinction, though, we are out the R&D phase with our secondary sortation facilities. So, we're fully operational. Same with our plants in Atlanta, Georgia, and Cleveland, Ohio. We will absorb some R&D capacity as we're located in Denver, very close with our headquarters, and it's a substantial testing grounded to test to any of these degraded materials in how well we can sort them using our AI.
Yin Lu:
In the plant that you run, what does the day-to-day look like? Tell us about your staff. Tell us about what people's roles are and how you keep it running.
Dylan Welch:
On a daily basis at this secondary sortation facility, I oversee a really actually small, tight-knit team. It's not the traditional team of 30 to 50 individuals that are operating MRF during a daily basis or during a daily shift. We operate our facility with four individuals on the floor at a time. Now, I do have an array of maintenance technicians as well. Because as we know, you can encounter anything and everything in residue. We know what goes into recycling bins or accidentally gets put into recycling bin. It could be a baseball bat, so equipment can get damaged, conveyor belts can break. And this is where I get to help all the individuals on the floor keep the system moving, keep the system going. Using my skillset from the past, whether if it's a conveyor belt breaking, an electrical circular controls problem, this is where I think I can tie it back into what I truly enjoy and what I like to learn on a daily basis.
Yin Lu:
I'm curious how you interact with folks that are outside of the plant, folks that are working on software engineering, people that are working on the business side of the house. Is there much of that interaction?
Dylan Welch:
Absolutely. I mean, we are on the ground floor. This started off as a prototype facility and has transitioned into a fully operational facility, so I observe system performance on a daily basis and also provide feedback to our engineering team, our software team, to better our product, better our equipment, and optimize our equipment overall. It's the continued iteration of our technology to keep pushing the recycling industry forward and pushing our AI forward on what we can actually observe and sort.
Yin Lu:
I think that you've mentioned a few times that the recycling system is quite antiquated, and so what you all are doing at AMP is a really interesting step forward in helping us build a more circular economy. I'm curious, outside from what is happening at AMP, are there any other innovation areas that you're excited about?
Dylan Welch:
Not at this point. We are pushing the limits of technology in regards to recycling and waste within this industry.
Yin Lu:
The automation that is coming with the technology that you all are building is hopefully going to make factories, make recycling plants run more efficiently, but also could replace the need for manual labor. I'm wondering what your perspectives are on automation replacing people's roles, or maybe there is a yes/and. We can repurpose manual labor to work on something else in the system that's going to make it run more efficiently. Love to hear your thoughts on that.
Dylan Welch:
I don't believe that we are going to replace job positions or employment opportunities within a community, anything like that. That is not the aim or the goal of our product. What I believe is there is already a gap in regards to staffing facilities around the recycling industry and there's only one thing that's going to continue to happen. As the population of the US grows, as the population of the world grows, we are going to produce more waste.
There is a tremendous amount of value in all that waste and we're trying to define the technology that can capture it all and that's what we do here at our secondary sortation facility in Denver. And again, there's already a substantial gap. I don't think it's going to take away from any type of job opportunity, but repurposing these job opportunities that are not based in a very dirty, very harsh environment will achieve significant employment over time rather than continuing to work at a MRF.
Yin Lu:
What type of roles could people then pursue in recycling management outside of the MRFs if automation comes in and helps alleviate the need?
Dylan Welch:
I can absolutely elaborate on some of these roles that we may need when we start pushing automation into this industry. More and more what we're talking about here, the skilled trades. Every recycling facility needs electricians, needs a maintenance technician. Now, you don't have to go on a traditional linear career path to get there. My management style is, I have to know the fundamentals of every single operating system that I'm working with or working on, whether that is material, people, or equipment. I have to know the ins and outs of each. I can't train an individual to work on an electrical system or work on a robotic system unless I understand the equipment. And the equipment is what makes this facility work and the people are there to back it up. Now, their personnel maintain every single bit of this equipment and that encompasses a significant portion of the skill trades.
Yin Lu:
What a beautiful circle back to what got you excited to pursue this job working in the recycling industry to begin with, which is, how can I make systems work and how can I understand the systems more deeply so the systems can work more efficiently?
Dylan Welch:
I can tell you what I do on a daily basis, what I have always thought my job description was at anything I felt a significant purpose behind. I try and harmonically balance and drive people, equipment, and materials. I try and harmonically balance the three, and that's with any type of management or plant management job. Those are the three things that need to be driven forward in harmony to achieve success. That's the main aspect, main goal of my job on an everyday basis. Now, that may accompany troubleshooting an electrical cabinet, working with an individual for any type of new training orientation or training routine, working with different departments throughout our company to help them out as well.
Provide feedback to engineering, provide feedback for the software team, because myself and my team are on the ground floor. We see this every day. It's still a dirty environment. We take in MRF residue that was going to go to the landfill. And then every day I get to come back home knowing all that material that was going to the landfill is now going to be repurposed, which, it's a beautiful day in Colorado right now. It's snowing. It's the reason I move up to Colorado in the first place and why I love my job so much in defining a role in the climate world.
Yin Lu:
I just imagine in the future, someone's career path, instead of saying, "Okay, well, your job is now to be a sorter and you're going to do this for eight hours a day and you're going to be in a smelly environment and you're going to tread out in a year to. Hey, actually you get to work in a MRF, but you get to focus on maintaining the machinery. You need to focus on keeping the electric system running so that we can take in more volume." That's a beautiful vision.
Dylan Welch:
I don't think there is a roadblock in any person's career path. If you are fascinated by a system, then if you are driven enough, you can learn everything you need to know by asking questions to individuals, whether they be a mentor or an internship, whatever it may be. It doesn't have to be the traditional career path. Ask questions. That's what I did my whole life, so I'm going to continue to do that and going to continue to learn from individuals all around me.
Yin Lu:
What advice do you have for people that are interested in learning how systems work but don't really know what to major in in school or what jobs to pursue?
Dylan Welch:
I'm a perfect example of that. I went Colorado Mountain College, started going to Denver Metro pursuing a degree in marketing. And none of this backed up what I was passionate about growing up. Again, like you said, learning how systems worked, the fundamental ideals of technology, I learned in my own garage. I'm incredibly self-taught. And what makes me happy today and what I want to continue to pass on to other individuals is that they don't necessarily have to take the traditional career path. As long as you keep pursuing what you're passionate about and have the willingness to ask questions to learn every day, you may fall into an industry or a position that you love like I have.
Yin Lu:
Awesome. I think that's a really nice note to end on. Dylan, thank you so much for coming onto the show and talking to us about your journey and what you're so clearly passionate to be doing right now.
Dylan Welch:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
Jason Jacobs:
Thanks again for joining us on the My Climate Journey podcast.
Cody Simms:
At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem solving capacity. To do this, we focus on three main pillars, content like this podcast and our weekly newsletter, capital to fund companies that are working to address climate change, and our member community to bring people together as Yin described earlier.
Jason Jacobs:
If you'd like to learn more about MCJ Collective, visit us at dub dub dub dot mcjcollective.com, and if you have guest suggestions, feel free to let us know on Twitter at MCJ pod.
Cody Simms:
Thanks and see you next episode.
