Turning Waste Into Wealth: The Plastic Bank Revolution With David Katz

The Plastic Bank is more than an organization; it's a global movement, and at its helm is David Katz. This episode dives into David’s inspiring journey to combat both poverty and plastic pollution by revealing the value in waste. We explore how Plastic Bank empowers underserved communities to exchange plastic for income and benefits, fostering a circular economy that uplifts both people and the planet. David’s innovative vision has led to partnerships with over 500 brands and enabled over 50,000 families to collect and exchange over 145 million kilograms of plastic waste.

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Turning Waste Into Wealth: The Plastic Bank Revolution With David Katz

It is my honor to introduce you to my guest, David Katz. David is the CEO and founder of Plastic Bank. His journey began with a simple yet profound inspiration, reveal value in waste to prevent human suffering and environmental degradation. The spark led to the creation of Plastic Bank, now a global movement that redefines prosperity by transforming waste into wealth. His vision tackles two of the most pressing challenges facing people and the planet. Poverty and plastic pollution.

His innovative vision empowers underserved communities to exchange plastic for income and benefits, fostering a circular economy that uplifts both people and the planet. Under David's leadership, Plastic Bank has partnered with 500 plus brands and enabled over 50,000 families across the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, Egypt, Thailand, and Cameroon to collect and exchange more than 145 million kilograms of plastic waste, preventing it from polluting the oceans and the environment. Amazing. He's also a new father to a baby girl, Paloma. It's truly an honor to welcome you to the show, David.

Thank you, Tony. Thank you for the kind words.

Of course. I'm so thrilled to have you here. I've been watching your journey over the years as you've built this organization senior at a Ted talk, got some great things you've been doing in the world. I'm just thrilled to be able to share the journey that got you to doing this amazing impact. Are you ready to do that?

I'm all in.

As we do on the show, we share people's stories through what's called flashpoints. These are the points in your journey that have ignited your gifts into the world. When I turn over to you, share what you're called to share, start wherever you'd like, and we'll pause along the way and see what themes are showing up. Sound good?

Sounds great.

Let's take it away.

Finding Beauty In Pain And The Entrepreneurial Drive

There's a lot in that loaded question because I don't think that anyone, as much as I'm asked and as other people are asked and they wants to answer and say, “This was the turning point.” There are moments of greater transformation, but we are the summation and accumulation of all of our experiences and all of our decisions. Whether they appeared that way or not, it led us into a path somehow where that then transformative experience occurred.

We are the summation and accumulation of all our experience and decisions. Whether they appeared that way or not, it led us into a path where transformative experiences occur.

All of it, my life, if I were to tie it into a bow, though, would be about looking at the enormity of our lives and having gratitude for all of it and seeing the gift that occurred in any moment that may have appeared tragic, unjust, unfair, or insurmountable. To look back and say, “Thank you for that amazing human experience. Thank you.” To look and see and receive it all. All of the gifts that lie in it become available.

I just want to stop for a moment and just take this as you just have a new baby, and the appreciation that comes from that is just wonderful. It gets you thinking differently, but it's also the sense of we don't have to be the ones who do the suffering. It's about looking at others and saying, “I know that through seeing the world and seeing other people and knowing that we're somehow connected to all this.” This is not just I'm not disconnected from the things that are happening around me and realizing that, in many ways, I am a part of their suffering. I'm a part of the beauty to the good things that are happening out there. That is what creates the gratitude to that you mentioned. Would you agree?

I would go beyond a part of humanity suffering to be, we are human. You're not a part of it, you are it. It's not like it's a possibility we're connected or inner. We are interconnected. We are of it. We are all connected energetically, period. It irrefutable. The way you choose the world to be is as the world becomes. Most people don't realize that they're choosing. They think what some point with the way that their lives have unfolded, they think that life is occurring to them.

They made a choice at some point. Consciously or unconsciously, at some point, they didn't realize that they chose that the world then dictates how they be, or they didn't know that it was a choice. They heard or saw or read somehow that you are the victim. We are the victims of the world. There's no justice. It's a very big conversation, juicy, delicious conversation.

We all have an opportunity in the enormity of the moment to powerfully look. It calls us to look. I've had a new baby, which has been beautiful, but I've also lost a child. Seven years ago, I lost my seventeen-year-old. What a beautiful human experience. Remarkable human experience. You see, there as well, many people would want to wish and say, “I wish I could change it.” It doesn't matter how much wishing.

We all have an opportunity in the enormity of the moment. If you can't change it, the only thing left is to look for the beauty in it.

The fact of the matter is that the event has occurred. Yet so many people will find themselves wishing it didn't. They wish for an impossibility in opposition to receiving the enormity of the gift of it. If you cannot change it, the only thing left is to look for the beauty in it. It doesn't negate the agony, the change, the pain. It's a real present in the morning for sure. It's not joyous. Simultaneously, it's profoundly beautiful.

You live in paradoxes. I can see that. You live in paradoxes, and I think that is we all do. I think your mindset is wired that way. I think about it from the work you do too, which we'll get into. I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with, this idea that something can be both beautiful and ugly at the same time. Something can be painful and pleasant. I think I believe that very truly they do live side by side and almost at the same time.

Tony, everything is just a choice. There's a paradox. The paradox is and when we look at it, some people will choose it to be this way, and some people will choose it to be that way. I don't choose it to be ugly and beautiful. I just choose beautiful.

You see that there's a choice, as you said earlier.

There’s a choice. That's it.

I love that. Take me back into the journey you've been on. Where did you get your start in terms of the world of, in the world? What were you doing in terms of your career early on?

I've always been an entrepreneur. I've been seeking a sense of freedom established in my childhood from what I perceived to be an enslavement, immigrant parents, entrepreneurs, small business. Work, hobby farm, work. No income, work. Family business, old enough, work. Never occurring to me that I had the choice to be a child, to be able to play, to be free. I found entrepreneurship as that path. Don't tell me what to do. I'll decide. Good, bad. I decide.

Interesting that you mentioned about this because there are a lot of people who fall into that, especially from immigrant backgrounds and immigrant parents. I had the same experience as a child where work was the thing that we did. Just fell into the pattern of this is how you build character, and it's required of you to just there and start doing stuff.

Turns out it does. Turns out all that enslavement worked out. The beauty in it, looking back, you're right, it does. It builds character. It's the fortitude, perseverance, overcoming. It's being able to witness the outcome and the gift of doing something that you didn't want to do but did anyhow, to get the continuous positive reinforcement of the outcome.

You have a choice to decide to do it for yourself, which is, as you said, becoming the entrepreneur allowed you to say, “I want my labor to be a value for me personally and by choice.” What were some of the early jobs that you did? That is, early things that you created?

Early Ventures And Lessons: Bootlegs To GPS Tracking

I was twelve. The first of my first little entrepreneurial endeavors in 1984, I was 14 in high school. My brother had traveled to London, went to a U2 concert, and brought back this bootleg recording of the concert. I had a tape-to-tape recording deck. I was like, “This has never ever before heard U2. This was like early U2, it was the beginning of their PUA.” I'm like, “Oh.” I printed like covers and stuff. I went and I bought two 10 packs of tapes and recorded them.

I had all this inventory and started posturing the school because I was going to sell these things. The principal said, “No.” The principal was like, “It's nice, but you're illegally distributing bootlegged recordings in the school. We're not going to stand for that.” This is where I learned my first lesson, which was about just-in-time inventory. I should have advertised in advance before I created all the tapes and made the investment.

There was a lesson along the entirety of the way. Of course, landscaping or lawn care. My parents had a Toro self-propelled lawnmower. I could start it and push it. It would propel itself down the sidewalk from house to house, as dangerous as that was cutting lawns. I lived in a place where people had big lawns. I did that. Back in the day, I certainly had a newspaper route. You had to do the collections at the time as well. You also had to go door to door to collect them for the newspapers.

If I was sweet enough on get tips, which was really sweet. Certainly, food service. That was a big part of my life as well. Being a waiter, certainly being self-employed, the more you sell, the more you make. The better you take care of the customer, the more they come back, want your section, be with you, and tip you. The more you can sell them, the greater the check, and the more of the tip, because you're ultimately working for self.

It's a great perspective. You never quite thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right. It is. It's being an entrepreneur.

The best and it's sales. It's an additional opportunity for unlimited income. The harder you work, the more you can make the smarter work, and the more you can make. No question. Learn how to be with people. They take your recommendations, learn those things, increase guest check, do that. You've only got so many tables you can take in a day. The more they spend, the more you make. Sometimes you just had to serve them anyhow and buying a cup of coffee or whatever it is. It always had the view of how do I kill this? What's the success here? I didn't show up doing anything half ass.

Let's fast forward a bit. What did you do in college? Did you go to college?

I did. My parents ran slum hotels and bars for the downtrodden, and they were good businesses. As humiliated as I was about having my parents own the most notorious bar in the city, but because it opened at 9:00 AM, you can imagine the clientele. Although I was embarrassed of all of those things because, at the time, I wanted the attention or affirmation of friends, and it was difficult enough as it was to then also have the most notorious business in town that had the disdain of the community.

It had like people were like, “That place should be shut down.” It's like, “My parents own that.” I remember one of my dad's lessons was like, “David, it doesn't matter what it's looked like. It's what we got in the bank. We're taking care of the family.” “Got that, Dad.” It didn't require advertisement. It didn't require anything. It was a draft beer by the glass that had a jukebox. Even the entertainment people paid us for it. All those things. There was an 80-room hotel. My dad was back in 1972. My dad immigrated to Canada. He discovered strippers.

This was just a brand new thing, 1972. I was like, “What?” He saw the normity of business that was occurring, and he went to the West coast of Canada and found a bar for sale that was the closest to the pulp and paper mill and brought strippers to the mill. You could imagine. That was one more thing that I was embarrassed of. At four, I remember someone saying, “I'm not allowed to play with you because your dad has strippers.”

I remember all those encumbrances wanting to be maybe removed because not all money is equal, in my opinion. Those were early all those early things. The business I had previous to this was GPS tracking. We helped develop and sold GPS tracking for mobile fleets. All that over ten years, the department of national defense became a customer, ultimately became a military contractor, and then I was acquired. That's ultimately what gave the few small dollars for me to start Plastic Bank, but it was the entrepreneurship in it.

At the same time, in building a business that had recurring revenue that was profitable, I was able to attain the goals that I'd set out for, that I'd wrote out every day for years and years about all the things that I wanted to achieve. I was able to witness the achieving of those goals, but more importantly, I was able to witness the emptiness of achieving them. Having a handmade Armani suit and having a Porsche were meaningless and empty. I recognize the overwhelming despair that occurred without having a purpose. It as well came as a lesson in this journey to plastic bank.

The Emptiness Of Success And The Birth Of Plastic Bank

I’m sorry to cut you off, but that's exactly what I was going to lean into is this, is something about that. Sometimes, you create something, and you learn something powerful from the emptiness of what you create. That is the powerful flash point is that why did I do this? What does this now want me to do? Enter Plastic Bank.

How lucky to have had the experience when I learned that chasing my ego was fruitless. Lucky I had to experience emptiness and despair so I could go on to find a greater gift for me and for the world. You see, as I look back at all of it, Tony, that's my message here is that we were formed in every single moment and every experience of our lives. When we choose to look at it powerfully, beautifully and receive it and go, “What was beautiful here? What I rise. What arose for me? How did this create me for me? What gift was given to me so I can move it forward?”

We were formed in every single moment and experience of our lives.

That's the message that is so powerful that you're delivering here for others, too, that they need to hear is a sense of like, what is the beautiful gift that they can receive through this process?

They have received yet do not yet recognize. It's the same communication with the plastic and the work we're doing in the world, turning plastic into money, where others just see despair and degradation. They want to ban plastic. They look at it as being evil, not recognizing that they chose it to be that way. I have just been able to develop some crazy discipline to look for the gift in everything. When others see degradation and despair, I see opportunity.

What lies there? I mean, that's a part of the work, and the TED talk as well is the recognition and realization and what I led in the world in a movement is this ocean bound. This conversation that it's futile to clean the ocean really to go out there, the boat stuff, such a smut that less than a drop's drop of plastic is being collected by the ship in the ocean that people are spending tens of millions of dollars to support. Futile if we don't stop the flow of plastic from entering the ocean to begin with.

No matter how much they collect, plastic production and use is rising almost exponentially. What I brought to life in the world is stopping the flow of plastic from entering the ocean and leading the world's view to those places. This is where we see plastic interceptors, we see river damming. I helped shift the view of society a little bit. Now, and inside of that, I can look and say, “Plastic in the ocean, great.

Why? 80% is coming from areas of poverty. Why? There are no opportunities. They're impoverished. They don't have money to feed the community or medicine. Why?” It’s because they're in such degradation and despair that most of the population doesn't have the ability to contribute to a tax base. The government is bankrupt. What lies there? What can we create?

Upstream Thinking And Speaking A Vision Into Reality

What you reminded me of is one of my favorite books, Dan Heath's Upstream. You're familiar with the concepts in the book is this idea just, we cannot just try to solve the problem where it exists? We have to go upstream, asking those, why is this is really what's important is getting to the cause. People might say, “Getting to the cause might be like all it's banned plastics.”

That's not it.

That's not multiple, but the other way of doing it is what you're looking at it is there's another way.

There are other ways. What else? It's like in Dan's book, you can go and rescue the children that are floating down the river and go discover who's throwing the kids in the river to begin with. That's the whole, that's it. Why? Go solve for that. Prohibit the problem from ever occurring. It's working on production capability.

I have to ask around you talked about some of the numbers in the intro, but tell me, how did you mobilize this? This sounds like, to me, also a very near-impossible thing to take to build. Tell me some of the challenges that you faced in getting this off the ground.

I'll address the challenges. Second, how did it come to life? No idea. Let's be honest. I'll be a hundred percent clear. I have no freaking idea how it happened. I just started telling people. This is the spiritual philosophical truth and that you speak the world into creation as depending on your faith, but all Judeo-Christian philosophies and Islam as well share Genesis and over the vast complete darkness of the universe, God spoke the world into creation and the rest is commentary. I just began speaking it. This is the world I live in. It became real for other people, and they began to tell others and execute and do things. Here we are.

I just want to react to that for a moment because there's something about that which has the Martin Luther King Jr., and the idea is that he spoke about his dream and not to make you a just some profit, but I think the idea that there is something about that, which is exactly what we need to do. Tell an empowering story and get people to want to believe in that. That enrolls people into a movement that can change mountains, that can move mountains. I think that is something that's amazing. It has us wanting to lean into new possibilities.

If we want to be upstream about it all, that's why I mentioned this, because it is all of that. The upstream of it all is speaking into existence and calling it good. That's the world. That is our existence. I love that I have no idea how it all occurred.

Me too. It's going to get people completely out of their minds and frustrate people because they were like, “What?”

Everyone wants some like, “No, give me the practical step-by-step path that I need to take.” There is no practical. Just start telling everyone, call it good and speak it and speak it from the place of its existence. Don't speak of it from what might be. Speak of it from where you live in the universe, in your reality. Be there and speak from there. Call from there and speak a new world into possibility.

Distraction, Imagination, And Plastic Bank's Impact

The thing about that that is so interesting is that we have a lack of imagination in the world. A lot of people just don't slow down enough to imagine.

I don't think we have a lack of imagination. I think we lack the opportunities for the imagination to flourish, and we continue to overwhelm ourselves and children with the dopamine hit of electronics and the overstimulation based on a capitalist form structure for attention. Even in those words, still looking for those words, but I try to allude to that we continue to be distracted. It is a business of distractions. They continue to get sharper and smarter and how to distract us. We do not lack imagination. We're all inherently born with it. We've just been distracted to such an element that we've forgotten how to access it.

We lack opportunities for imagination to flourish.

Well said, my friend. I couldn't agree more. That's exactly it. It's not, not an inherent lack of imagination. It's more of a, we cannot tap into it.

I'm watching someone else's imagination now. It's like, “The dopamine hit.” I'm here in Cancun, and we came for a wedding. We were at this all-inclusive, and I was shocked by how many children had their own iPads with headphones. Even in Mexico, at this resort with all this stuff going on, the families at the table and the two kids are just looking at their iPads. We came across one, the child could not have been more than nine months old. What have we done?

It's almost like we're surgically attaching them right out of the womb.

What a tragedy. What's that child going to be like in 30 years? What have you done?

Let's not stress ourselves out too much, David. Let's go back into where we are and how we can help. Let's talk about Plastic Bank again and talk about what the impact is that you're making. I really think it's amazing that you have been able to help a lot of people, and maybe where you're seeing it going from here.

We had about 57,000 registered members. It's so it's families. Let's say a quarter million people have benefited from additionality and income, and they've benefited from cleaner streets and cleaner communities. It's brought dollars into communities that didn't have the opportunity before. We work with the supply chain to increase their production capability as well as their production quality to such an element that the material we collect is exportable. When it's exportable, they receive US dollars, lifting the entirety of the community.

It's remarkable on so many friends because it's just a sense of this is not just good for the environment. It's good for the communities. It's good for their economy.

It's good for humanity. Every piece of plastic we keep out of the ocean is good for humanity. I don't care if you live in St. Petersburg or Pittsburgh. It's good for humanity, and it's not done for the good of humanity. This is where we communicate. It's a prosperity mindset, the prosperity effect. It's this thing where every transaction occurs and creates goodness for all of humanity that is available. That is really what I'm bringing more forward than ever.

I use the example of one of our customers called Currency. They're a UK-based credit card company that provides credit cards for people who predominantly travel where it lowers the exchange rate. It costs you less to travel. That's not at the outset. Doesn't appear to be world-changing, but they're putting on hundreds of thousands of credit card holders because people want to lower their fees, which is great. You get one of their cards.

Whenever you travel with it and you spend with it, it's a benefit for the cardholder for sure. The company itself currency, they benefit too, but the beautiful part there, too, is that every time a transaction occurs, an equivalent of plastic bottles is extracted from the environment on behalf of that customer. Every time they spend, the world gets a little bit better.

Here you are, you're just someone out of, I don't know, Liverpool, and you traveled to Tenerife on your holiday and you bought dinner. Great. It didn't cost you as much. Beautiful. The restaurant benefited. You were there. The credit card issuer benefited because you transacted with them. The plastic bank benefited, but the world benefited. Plastic bottles were extracted from the environment.

The Prosperity Effect And The Essence Of Helping

That was prohibited. The people who collected the material they benefited. The plastic benefited. It became new again. Everybody won. There was no downside. That's a prosperity idea. What businesses can we create that benefit from creating prosperity for others as opposed to the degradation occurred when I'm trying to take profit for self?

What I love about this, and this is a full circle moment here, is instead of pointing fingers and saying like someone's the bad person, instead it's coming back to this idea that we are, there's no bad person. We all are the same. We all are part of the same thing, and we are part of the universe. We're all connected as interconnected. The idea is that we are helping ourselves by helping others. This element of bringing thinking in a way of how am I helping myself by helping others and not pointing fingers and saying, “Plastics are bad people who pedal plastics are bad people, or this model of trying to make money with plastics is bad.” Instead, it's about how are we helping each other and how am I helping myself by doing that?

Part of that conversation is that it is really just to help others. If you haven't felt the benefit yet, you haven't helped enough people yet. Help more people.

I love that.

Help others. Build prosperity, not for the sake of helping self. Remove that part because then it becomes only then in that egoic attachment are only doing it for self, not for others. Just help others.

That's a great way to think about it. I do like to just keep it simple, too.

Let's help others. It's beautiful and remarkable, and life is full and amazing and delicious and something to experience. What we're ultimately trying to chase is a sense of joy, a sense of love and connection with the universe. We think that money will give us that. When I have money, then I'll have that. That is not the case.

Something I've been attaching to a lot is this idea of instead of trying to be a value, be of love and to overindex a little more on the being of love. I think that's where this sense of helping others is being of love.

Delicious. You have a sense of joy, like a joy of, there's nothing that I need. I'm in such a beautiful place of life where like I'm not striving for thing.

I wish we had hours to dive into this because there are so many things that you've uncovered that have me thinking and feeling different, but we do have to come to a close. I have one last question, and I cannot wait to hear your response. What are 1 or 2 books that have been an impact on you and why?

Influential Books And Reframing Sales As A Tool

I think the most impactful book that I've ever encountered is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen Covey. It is an absolute study on the effectiveness and success of life, the joy of life, and the verb of love. It's all of the beauty of life surmised in a book. Nothing that Dr. Covey invented. He just studied thousands of years of text and scripture of the effectiveness and joys of those that preceded us and discovered or uncovered the seven commonalities amongst that and these The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If you know the book, you will see that plastic bank lives in it and be proactive. Begin with the end in mind and all the seven.

It's amazing. I would just say that it's almost like the name of it shouldn't be The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. There should be seven habits to live by. I agree. I couldn't agree more with the way you're approaching it, but how the effect of people makes it sound like it's a structure for being a better leader.

It makes it sound like it's like follow this system for it's not their principles. That's the beauty of the book. They're principles. They're not like habits. It's not like Atomic Habits or do these things or the 75 hard club or something. No, these are the principles to live by. Of course, begin with the end in mind. Of course, think of where you're going to go. Of course, begin with that. Of course.

Is there another book that you want to mention?

I've been through so many, I resonate in the knowing that the master profession is using our word to elicit a new world. I think that that profession is called Sales. In those books, in those places, lies the creation of the world. That transfer of enthusiasm, when it becomes as real to someone else as it does as a new, the world changes. We'd call that a sale takes place. I believe that if we truly, powerfully or the reader powerfully want to change humanity, become a master of the profession, but master of the profession and you'll change the world.

Just use like completely blew my mind right there because there's something about that, which is really amazing. It's like the obstacle is the way. Oftentimes, people think like sales, “I hate sales. I'm not good at sales.” There's a sense of resistance to it, but the reality is it's the gateway. If you resist it, it's going to be the thing that holds you back, but we have to lean into it because selling isn't sleazy. It's the thing that allows us to get people to receive the things that we have to give. To receive the love that we want to give to the world. All of them.

To change the world the way we want it to be what it can be. That's the way. We can sit back and complain, or you can go and create. You mentioned Ryan Holiday's book there, too. The Obstacle Is The Way, which is also beautiful. The obstacle in the path is the path you don't want to do is there for you. It's not for you not to do, it's for you to lean into. Why don't I want to do it? What's a girl? What? The obstacle and the path is the path.

Yes. This was a wonderful conversation. I'm so honored and grateful for you taking the time to share this. Thank you for coming on.

My pleasure. Thanks. Lots of beauty and all of that. Of course, I just want to be of value.

Wonderful. Not be of value, be of love. Before I let you go, I just wanted to ask where can people find out more about your work.

If you're reading this, you absolutely have to go to PlasticBank.com. If you do nothing else other than go to PlasticBank.com and follow because we're building a movement, and the more people are a part of the movement, the more value we have in the world for sure. At minimum, do that. You have an opportunity. We invite you to participate in making change with us as well.

If you want to be a part of the solution, you can be a part of the extraction of material and of the suffering and poverty around the world. A thousand bottles will be extracted out of that. $10 of expected a thousand bottles. Go do that. Just spend $10, be a cause of change, and do something. In that, in just saying yes to that for your own psyche, you now became a part of change. You see, that's that easy as well. It becomes prevalent in your life when you say yes to making a change and standing for something.

Amazing. You cannot change. Be the change in the world that you want to see.

Being The Change And Connecting With Plastic Bank

Good. I've only got one minute left, but I just want to highlight that quote. “Go from God. Be the change you wish to see in the world.” It's not about act the change. It's not about the ways of doing, it's stand in the being of change. It's be the change. It's be it live from it, speak from it, create from it. As I highlighted earlier as well with Plastic Bank, how did it come to life? I don't know. I just want to be the change. I speak from the being, and I invite people from the being because I live in a world that has no waste, no word of waste. It's just all resources. I be and from the being invite people. That's a journey on its own.

That's the best way to close out. If this hasn't made you think I want to do, I want to be different then I don't know what will.

It's so easy.

Thank you so much, David.

Thank you so much.

Important Links

• David Katz on LinkedIn
• David Katz on Instagram
• Plastic Bank
• Upstream
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Atomic Habits
• The Obstacle Is The way

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