Success Stories Ep 97 - “The Tee Reincarnator”

How is your sustainability program? Well, we all talk about the three R's: reduce, reuse and recycle. 

One apparel decorator has expanded that mantra to new heights. I'm talking about Alex Eaves with Stay Vocal. His company is a Green America certified reuse apparel brand.

Stay vocal uses apparel, and creates new products for its apparel line. And we'll learn more about what Alex is doing with his company, and how you can maybe rethink ways you can incorporate new sustainable ideas into your business on this episode of Success Stories!

Transcript

Marshall Atkinson 
How is your sustainability program? Well, we all talk about the three R's, reduce, reuse and recycle one apparel decorator has expanded that mantra to new heights. I'm talking about Alex Eaves with Stay Vocal. His company is a green America certified, reuse apparel brand, stay vocal, uses apparel and creates new products for its apparel line, and we'll learn more about what Alex is doing with his company, and how you can maybe rethink ways you can incorporate new, sustainable ideas into your business on this episode of success stories. So Alex, welcome to the Success Stories podcast.

Alex Eaves 
How's it going?

Marshall Atkinson 
It's going great. And let's tell everyone where you are right now and what you're doing, because I think it's kind of unusual.

Alex Eaves 
Well, not surprisingly, I am sitting outside of a coffee shop with a coffee in my hand. Currently, that that happens on a daily basis, at least twice. So I am from southeastern Massachusetts, so I always tell people, look at Boston, look at Cape Cod. I'm smack in the middle. And yeah.

Marshall Atkinson 
Andyou travel quite a bit. You're like, always on the road.

Alex Eaves 
I do so my former life was in the music industry. I used to do merchandise for rock bands around the world. And the the little quip that I always tell people is, you can take the dude out of the tour bus. You can't take the tour bus out of the dude.

Marshall Atkinson 
Well, that's, that's really interesting, and I like that. So a lot of people, especially our listeners, probably don't know who you are and why you're on the show. And I think a way to get that going is just to talk about your origin story, you know, how you got started in doing apparel and stuff, and then, you know, and then kind of where you are now. So what's the catalyst behind what you're doing now and how you got going?

Alex Eaves 
Yeah, so, so the the story is, as I just said, I used to work in the music industry, and that is really where the big light bulb moments happened in my life. So my first foray in the music industry is I ran a street promotions company for bands, and I always tell people now I basically created a lot of trash. So we would hand out free stickers, CDs, tapes, postcards, all these things at concerts all around put up posters all around the city to garner attention for a band's album or a record label or color even whenever. And what ended up happening is, like so many things in the music industry, one job led to another. So one of the bands that I was doing promotions for needed a merchandise guy. They asked me, because they really liked the promotions that I did, I ended up going on tour with them. It's a Scott punk band called pilfers for anybody out there that might know him. And once I did that first tour, I was hooked, and I just loved traveling around the country, meeting new people, talking about things and and also the bands that I was working for were like activists in talking about positive change, and I really liked that they can make a difference with their crowds. And that led me to other bands. I very excitedly got to work for my favorite band of all time, 311 I did their merch for a couple years, and then there was one specific incident, and this was like the game changer to all of my life. Basically, what happened was, in 2004 we had ordered these T shirts for one of the bands. There was supposed to be a design printed on the left and the right. And when the guitarist got the shirt, he's like, Oh, these are both on the left. And as you know, Marshall, and has anybody out there listening? Probably knows, in the screen printing world, when a customer is bummed out, it's a big bum out for everybody. And that just means, you know, loss of money, loss of time, loss of resources. But you know, we got to make people happy, so I Ended up calling our merchandise company. And I said, and these were 144 brand new American Apparel shirts with two full color prints on them. So back in 2004 that was a pretty expensive, you know, investment. So I called the merchandise company. I was new in the t shirt world. I had been printing, you know, like, I had my own printer in my basement. I was dabbling here and there, but I didn't know all the ins and outs, because I did things very punk rock and independent. And I called the guy, and I'm like, all these were printed wrong. I'm like, Can you do anything with him, like, Can the print come out somehow? Can you like, you know, print over him? Or something like, and super casually, like, it happens all the time. He was just like, oh, we shred them and turn them into rags. And that quote changed everything. It was an instant like, oh my god, is this guy serious? We just got these shirts delivered from Northern California to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and now I'm going to ship them back to have them be destroyed. That makes absolutely no sense to me. And I just started thinking about all of the oil, all of the money, all of the time, and I'm like, I gotta figure out something. So kind of goes back to when I was a little kid. I was obsessed. Still am with jigsaw puzzles, and I love seeing a mess in front of me and figuring out the solution and putting all the pieces together. So I ended up talking to my mother, who does some sewing. I ended up talking to the band and I talked to the merchandise company. I ended up buying all of those shirts at a discounted price and having my mom sew patches for my brand, which I had started as a skateboard company. So she sewed patches over the original design, and then the band got the redone shirts that they wanted. So to me, everybody was happy less items in the landfill. And it just opened up a whole new territory for me, because I started thinking, Okay, if this is one band in one city on one day, how often is this happening? All over the country, all over the world, all these screen printers out there, and it just totally changed the trajectory of my brand.

Marshall Atkinson 
And I would like to say that this industry never makes mistakes. Our our pencils don't have any erasers, Alex, but that's not true, right? We, we mess up stuff all the time, whether it's something with our process, or it's misspelled word, or, you know, somebody approved the wrong thing, or the printer, you know, printed the backs instead of the fronts. People do goofy things all the time, and and I really love the fact that you're doing something with these shirts. And I love the story that, you know, this was the the catalyst for change was this one mistake and that forced you to rethink everything, right? Yeah. So how did you go from, you know, this one incident with this band, you know, shirt to kind of where you are now. Connect the dots for us. Well,

Alex Eaves 
there were, there were a couple minor dots before that. So, so the thing is, with my brand, I started it in 2003 and I had had my second skateboard related surgery, and I'm like, I need to do something a little safer for my body. So I want to create a positive change skateboard company. So, you know, I learned a lot from these activist bands that I had worked with, and I wanted to, like, put cool messages, positive change messages on skateboards. And I, fortunately, had known some people in the industry. I got to talk to the right people, and I found out just how expensive it is to make your first run of skateboards, and it is not cheap. And so I'm like, Okay, I'm a merch guy for this punk rock band. I have access to a screen printer. How can I make a bunch of money to pay for these first skateboards? I was like, oh, thrift store sells t sell T shirts for super cheap. So went to a thrift store, bought a whole bunch of T shirts super cheap. Like, back then they were like, 75 cents, 99 cents at the local Salvation Army and goodwill and so. And then I started selling them on tour, and I had this display all about reusing and textile waste and everything. And it was kind of funny, because here I am selling brand new merchandise right next to this reuse stuff, talking about textile waste. And kids were all into it, and I sold out of that stuff really fast, and I got enough money to buy my first skateboards. Unfortunately for my bank account, the light bulb didn't go up. Then I was just so excited to get the first skateboards that I kind of pushed that stuff aside. Started investing in skateboards, starting investing in other merchandise and doing that. But then it was that moment a year or two later that really was the game changer. And I'm like, Oh, this is a different category. This is not shirts that are like, used that are sitting at a thrift store. It's like, these are brand new shirts that are never worn, that are just going to be destroyed because they were printed wrong. So it just opened up a whole thing. And as time went on, I'm the type of person that if I'm going to put a message on that shirt, I want to be living that message. So the more I was putting reuse messages on shirts, I'm like, I should be living this kind of reuse life. And I started looking at all of the waste that I was creating. You know, as I said, I'm a big coffee drinker. I used to go to Dunkin Donuts all the time. It was my favorite coffee shop growing up in Massachusetts. But then I'm like, oh my god, Styrofoam cups. This is awful. And I started bringing my mug everywhere. I started bringing reusable bags. I started making bags for my brand, making reusable mugs for my brand, and just promoting reuse. But I was still doing the skateboard thing, because I, you know, I'm a skateboarder at heart. I'm 46 I still skateboard. I love it. I wanted to do something in that world, but it just wasn't working. And so at the end of 2007 I kind of pulled together this mod, mod of a focus group. Asked everybody, like, with all these different things with my brand, like, you know, human rights, animal rights, skateboarding, reuse. What do you think the most important and that I should focus on? Literally, every single person said reuse. And that's what I knew in my art. And so at the beginning of 2008 made the complete switch from a skateboard and apparel brand to a strictly reuse apparel brand. And that was...

Marshall Atkinson 
So tell everyone what our reuse apparel brand is, because I don't think that's like mainstreamed as a concept?

Alex Eaves 
No, yeah. So, so basically, instead of printing on new garments, I call them rescued garments. So half of the apparel comes from thrift stores, donations, used items, and then the other half are brand new items that were going to be discarded and destroyed. And one of my first Mega purchases, as far as like the new stuff goes, I was visiting my friends that ran a huge merchandise company for bands like Green Day Pixies, Bon Jovi. They were in Northern California, and I went out to their loading dock, and I just saw this mountain of cardboard boxes, and I'm like, What's going on here? And they're like, Oh, those are for the ragger. And my head exploded again. It was like, 13,000 items, brand new, never used, that were just going to get destroyed. And it was fans that went to another merchandise company, designs that didn't sell because of mass, you know, mass production, all these things, and I'm like, I gotta buy some. So I ended up working out a deal. I bought about 3000 pieces, had them shipped. I was my, like, largest shipment ever, like an 18 wheeler from California came to Massachusetts. But this massive amount of garments, and it was hoodies, bags, T shirts, like all this super nice stuff. And it it was daunting, but it also felt great to be rescuing it and bringing something, you know, given this new life, to to all these shirts.

Marshall Atkinson 
And what are you printing on the shirts? So you got this shirt from a band or from a brand or whatever, what are you putting on the shirt to reincorporate and make a new product out of it?

Alex Eaves 
So my, my deal with them was, and kind of like an, you know, a handshake deal with everybody that I work with if they don't want their logo out there. Because, you know, sometimes fans don't want their name out there, a logo goes out of style or whatever, and so I have to cover it up somehow. So to much of the chagrin of our mutual friend Ron Goodwin of Goodwin Graphics have connected us. I've done a couple shirts where it's this big blob of ink covering a design. So one of my first, first things, I did this big surfing event in San Diego, and so I just put this blob of white to create, like a white background in the. And a design on top of that. And that was one of the only times I've ever done that, because I realized how heavy it makes the shirt, and it's not that comfortable and it, you know, I'm just using all this excess ink. So then I started dabbling in inside out T shirts, and I call it the second Canvas. So a lot of these T shirts have a minimal design on the front, and so when you flip it inside out, it's not very irritating on your skin. It doesn't even touch your skin. And like a lot of them, don't have bags, so I literally just print on the second canvas. Again, that's what I call it. And then the fun thing is, is I always leave the hang tags on the shirts, because people will come up to other people wearing these shirts and be like, Hey, your shirts on inside. Oh, no, wait. Why is there a design? And then it gets the whole conversation going about the reusing.
 
Marshall Atkinson 
Oh, that's great. That's great fun thing. So several years ago, I did a big project for someone where they bought, I want to say it was like 1500 shirts at several Goodwills and and they were all different shirts, T shirts and flannel shirts and just a whole bunch of stuff. And they put a design, the same design on all of them, and it was kind of that whole Dada kind of thing where it's just some shirts just didn't really work, but some shirts looked awesome because it was like Hawaiian shirt with this print on it and it and it just added so much of a layer of just really coolness to it, you know. And it was just because it was something unexpected, and it was completely at random because, you know, it was just depending on the shirt, and everything got the same treatment, regardless of color or design or anything. And then they took that and they went out and sold it, right? Do you? Do you do stuff like that?

Alex Eaves   
Yeah, so, so, right, in 2008 I came up with what is now my main slogan, and the name of my first film reuse, because you can't recycle the planet. And so my, my vision with that slogan was, you know, so many people consider recycling to be a godsend, but we're using as a much more effective solution to our waste, like, you know, talking about T shirts. If you're gonna recycle a t shirt and make a new one, you have to use all of these resources to grind the cotton down turn it into a new shirt. Whereas we're using you're literally using it again, printing on it again, sewing a patch on it, whatever. And so it just made so much sense. So I came up with a slogan, and then that fall, I came up with the first design based on that. And it's just this huge print, and it says reuse, and big bold letters, and then, because you can't recycle the planet in like empty letters. And I, I like that style with the empty letters, because to me, recycling is more of an empty solution than the complete reuse solution. And so since that time, I have been finding unique shirts that will look cool under that window, I call it. So I'll find shirts with like, what is that company? Like, Mountain Spring or whatever they have the huge animal print faces right the mountain so, so I'll find shirts like that or, or, you know, board star shirts or whatever. And my logo goes on top of that, and it just adds this, like, really neat texture. Or, like you said, with the Hawaiian shirts I'll find all over prints, you know, with like, tiny little palm trees. Or I found one with tiny little toucans all over it, you know, and it's just the print goes on top of it. And I only do one of a kind of these things. So over the years, I've had multiple 1000s of one of a kind reuse, because you can't recycle the planet T shirts. And it's also a great way to get the conversation about reusing and waste started with people that might not be into it. I always use this awesome Michael Jordan shirt that I made as the example. It was this full color Michael Jordan photo print shirt, and I had Ron put this logo on top of it in the exact right place, and it looked like he was like, dunking out of the design. And it just was really cool. And it was one of the more expensive ones that I sold, and it sold super fast, and people really liked it. And like Michael Jordan fans are not typically your environmentalists, but now they have this cool one of a kind Michael Jordan item. And maybe they'll start thinking about waste. Maybe they'll start reusing more. You never know.
 
Marshall Atkinson 
Yeah, that's great. And for those of you wondering, the open letters is really just kind of the outline of the letter, and that way you can see through it.

Alex Eaves
Yeah, exactly

Marshall Atkinson 
You have a parent company called Escape the waste, and recently, you told me your business was primarily edutainment, right? So what does that mean? And how are you linking this edutainment idea to the apparel end of what you're doing?

Alex Eaves 
Yeah, so so as I was talking to somebody that I work with the other day, Stay Vocal has kind of led me to figuratively and literally escape the waste. So that is my new parent brand. And, you know, I've kind of done things a little backwards. A lot of people create a parent brand and then they do all these branches, but I thought I was creating a parent brand would Stay Vocal, but in essence, I was just creating one of my many branches through the years. So one thing I learned from traveling with bands, if you have a message and you want to get out to the most people hit the road, and ever since 2008 when I you know, I quote, unquote, retired from touring with bands in 2007 so ever since 2008 I've been traveling this country. I've been to all 50 states and numerous countries abroad. And I travel around the country, do events, you know. And it went from me doing pop-up shops with Stay Vocal to speaking engagements at schools, to being asked to, like, be on a panel or sponsor events, and then at some point along the way, somebody's like, you should make a movie or a TV show about reuse. And I'm like, you were crazy. And then I thought about it, and I'm like, Oh, I really should. And so in 2013 I traveled to all 48 contiguous states, filming people that reuse in different ways, and then also sharing what I do with, Stay Vocal and what I do with, you know, my lifestyle. And then as a result of that film, I was traveling around the country in the Pontiac Vibe that I'm sitting in currently, and sometimes sleeping in it. And I'm like, you know, I need something a little bigger. And I want to be able to not sleep on my T shirts that I'm selling. And I want to bring more shirts and, like, show people how I really live the reused lifestyle, and I had connected with a local tiny house builder. His name's Derek Dietrichson. And as soon as I got back from a 35-day trip around the country screening my film, we met for coffee, and I'm like, I'm ready for the next step. We got to do this. So him and I, over the course of the next two years, converted a 17-foot U haul box truck into a 98-square-foot Tiny House made entirely of used materials. And it's not only where I live, but it's also a mobile reuse Education Center. So I'm able to travel around in this tiny house with all of my Stay Vocal shirts, with my whole reused lifestyle and with my movies. And now, now there's a second movie, because we just released the movie about the build of the truck. It's on Amazon for anybody listening,

Marshall Atkinson 
what's the name of the first movie and what's the name of the second movie? That way people can look it up.

Alex Eaves 
Sure the name of the first film is, "Not surprisingly reused, because you can't recycle the planet." It's, you know, I pride myself on coming up with good slogans every now and then, as I was. And then the new film about the tiny house called "The box truck film, building a re useful home.", but if you just look up The box truck film, Amazon, to be roqoo, free V and some other sites as well. Yeah, so, and then the film was kind of the last draw and I'm doing. All of these things, you know, I have all my hands in so many different pockets, and I'm like, what, you know, I have these movies, I have my brand, I have my tiny house. I'm doing collaborations now for my brand, like I need some kind of hub for all the things that I do. And that same guy, Derek Dietrichson, he came up with this awesome logo for me. And I had come up with the name Escape the Waste because a friend of mine from my touring days wrote the theme song for The box truck film, and one of the lines talks about Escape the Waste. And I'm like, that is the name, because I like to tell people, I help people escape the waste. That's like, if you had to narrow down my whole mission in a nutshell, it's I help people escape the waste through my T shirts, through my movies, through tours of my house, all the things.

Marshall Atkinson 
I think it's interesting, Alex, how your business journey has evolved over the years because as you're doing stuff and you're having success, or you're meeting people or whatever, you're adapting and finding more clarity about what you're doing. And excuse, hey lira, take out my sneeze, so you're finding more clarity with what you're doing. And so I think what's interesting here is that as we start a business, it's really hard for us to see the future, but as we stop and look back, all the things that really matter start making sense, because we did this, or we met that person, or we had that opportunity, and we took advantage of it, and then these things propel us forward. So can you talk a little bit about how sometimes you put yourself in a position even though it might not work out there's an opportunity where it could and then that pays off for you, especially with you moving around so much and meeting lots of people. I'm very curious about that.

Alex Eaves 
Yeah, I mean, I mean, the whole the brand in general, was that situation. You know, if I think back to I literally scrawled the idea for Stay Vocal in a pain killer induced state while recovering from my second surgery. And I was like, I always remember that moment. I'm like, skateboard company positive messages. And like, the future that I saw for me was a skateboard brand. And like living in California and all of these, you know, and just running this successful thing, never would I have imagined all of this reuse stuff, but looking back on it all, it just makes complete sense. And like looking back on my child's own, and how I grew up with a dad who, like, did not like to throw anything away. It all. It all makes sense, you know. And you know, again, like, with adaptability, and that's something like we kind of all have to have to deal with. You know, there's, there's preventing things, of course, but we all have to adapt. And like you know, when it comes to T shirts themselves, like you know, the whole 20 years, because I've been doing this for 20 years now, the whole 20 years of the brand. And like all the different solutions that I've tried to come up with, or have successfully come up with for the shirts, like, you know, it's, it's all about adapting and working with what you have and figuring something out. And, you know, going back to coffee, one of my most recent things, and this has been, like, one of my most successful designs in a long time I do a lot of Veg Fest because I'm I'm personally vegan, so I do a lot of vegetarian and vegan events. And I had gotten these mistake shirts from a local coffee shop. They shockingly spelled Massachusetts wrong. And I had my seamstress cover all of these shirts with this unique animal patches. And I had been sitting on those shirts for two years like I couldn't figure out what to do with them. And then I was signed up for this Veg Fest. I'm like, Oh, let me try this out. And they sold like gangbusters. And I have two more events like that coming up soon, and she's making a whole bunch more. And so again, it's just, it's just all about adapting and working what you what you have, and like, especially like, if you're out there and you're running a screen printing company and you have boxes and boxes in your back closet, or whatever of misprints and shirts that you don't want to throw away. You. Like, talk to people that you work with. Talk to customers. You know, there's a lot of people out there who want to do more for the planet, and maybe you can work with them to get a little creative. And actually, So, speaking of the VegFest events, that one upcoming in Worcester, Massachusetts, I'm doing all of the event shirts on reused T shirts. So they really liked what I do. They love making event shirts, but they're like, We got to figure out some kind of eco solution. So I am having Ronnie Goodwin and his team print up all of these shirt event shirts on rescued garments.

Marshall Atkinson 
That's great. That's great. All right, so last question here is, I think one of the most impressive things is you not just reuse shirts, but you reuse packaging to send stuff. So you have an online store. I've seen it as pretty cool, and you can order one of these shirts that that Alex has been talking about, and they'll ship it to you, but you're using something that I don't think anybody's ever considered in the history of of anything for shipping. So talk about how you're shipping your product to your customers with probably the most sustainable reuse way possible.

Alex Eaves 
Yeah. so, so basically, what happened was, and this is before I made the switch to a reuse apparel brand, I had run out of mailers. You know, I was using nice, like sustainably sourced, recycled content mailers for my T shirts and patches and stickers, and I ran out of mailers for the T shirts, and I was like, Oh, I gotta ship a t shirt. And I looked over at the recycling bin, and there lied a cereal box. And I said, you know, cereal box is cardboard. It's durable. That's about the same exact size as a t shirt. So started doing it, and I'm like, Oh, my God, I'm literally saving 25 to 50 cents every time I ship something out. Plus it's like, I get free packing materials whenever I go grocery shopping. You know, it's like a total win. And so over the course of time, I have just, you know, adapted again, like to bringing different, unique packaging. So at some point, I don't know when it was, I love potato chips, but I don't buy a lot of bag chips because of all the waste involved. So I started getting, getting into Pringles, and then I started getting into this new brand called the good Chris. It's like the quote, unquote healthy version of Pringles. And I was like, Oh, these are, like, many poster tubes. I can roll up smaller T shirts and just put them right in that. And it's even more durable and takes less tape than the cereal box. And it's just been, it's been awesome. And what's funny is, when I first started, like, really going at it with the cereal boxes. I was like, Oh my God, I want to create a cereal theme design for my brand. So I had this guy in Germany who's done a lot of designs for me, created this whole cereal spill design where it's like, milk and cereal spilling all over the shirt. And it's like, it's getting, getting it to the point where you're looking at it like, Oh, your shirts messy. But no, it's not. It's new. So I just wanted to, like, hone in on the reuse aspect of it. And so every cereal t shirt was shipped inside a cereal box. But even more importantly, as many of you listening know from growing up, the best part about getting cereal as a kid was the prize inside. So I reached out to all these people I know in the music industry, bands, record labels, you know, companies all these non profits. Every single one of those 311 shirts that I made, there was a prize inside the box, whether it was a you drum stick stickers, CDs. And then there was an autographed ALF trading card. I love the TV show, Alf, and that I autographed that, and that was a grand prize, and the person who got that one won something from all the different organizations.

Marshall Atkinson 
Wow, that is so cool. So I think people are sitting there listening and going, that's fantastic, but I don't need that much cereal. I don't need that many Pringles. So how do you get enough to use on a consistent basis. So like, do you get all your buddies to, like, save stuff for you and give them to you? I mean, what do you what are you doing here? Because, you know, I don't really eat a lot of cereal, and, you know, we're Pringles to do something with my business. So I think that would be a sticky point. For somebody, what are you doing?

Alex Eaves 
Yeah, so, so fortunately for me, I have 13 nieces and nephews, 11 of which are local, so there's a lot of cereal and Chip eating between my four siblings and I and all the the nephews and nieces. But you know, when I lived in Chico, California, I saw the best idea for a store that should be in literally every town across this country. It was a used Packaging Store, so like, mailbox, mailboxes, etc, but used, and if you go, I mean, I'm right now 20 feet from a recycling, recycling bin over here, recycling dumpster, the amount of, like, amazingly good condition, heavy duty cardboard boxes that are in that bit in right now. It's crazy. Why would you go out and spend all this money on new packaging when you can reuse so like, if you're somebody who does a lot of mail order, you know, reach out to your community. Like, put something up on Facebook, reach out to your family and friends, and then, like, as you know, storage, it doesn't have to be a problem, because the good thing with boxes, you can just squish them flat and just stack them up. And cereal boxes mean the amount of cereal boxes I've stored at 98 square feet in my house is uncanny, you know. So there's solutions out there for everything. And you know, like we are all in this industry, you know, all of us are concerned with, you know, the cost of things, the cost of goods. So if we can cut out, like, that major cost right there, why not?

Marshall Atkinson
Right? Well, I know some people listening, including me and my wife, have an Amazon addiction. Like we're ordering stuff from Amazon all the time, and we're constantly getting boxes. And I think having some place to, you know, we just throw them in the recycle bin in our in our house. But if there was a place that did that and reunited packaging for a purpose, I think people would probably donate to that. That makes sense.

Alex Eaves 
Yeah. I mean, even like I, you know, I get that UBS and, you know, FedEx, and all these companies are trying to make money off the new boxes, but like, why not have an area where it's just used packaging? And you know, the amount of times that people come in and they're like, oh, I don't have a box. I have to ship out this base to my mom in Maryland, you know, right? And so, anybody listening out there, if you are into starting a used boxes store, anything like it, please reach out, because I will promote it.

Marshall Atkinson 
I mean, it's, yeah, great. All right, so let's, let's wrap up. Alex, so what's next for you? What, what's going on? And anxious to hear what what you've got cooking.

Alex Eaves 
Yeah. So, so as of two hours from now, I will be on my way to Western Massachusetts to this giant mile-long 650 vendor antique flea market. So Deke and I, Derek Dietrichson his nickname is Deke. We are going to have the tiny house, so we'll be promoting all of the things that I do. And then we will be selling T-shirts. And then, you know, I going back to my shirts like, I find a lot of cool vintage shirts when I'm out thrifting that I don't want to print on. So I sell a lot of those things, just as if, you know, so I'll have, like, a whole rack of vintage, whole rack of Stay Vocal shirts. And then we'll be promoting our movies. He makes all kinds of crazy, hangable scrap art. And then, you know, we have the tiny house open for tours. So we will be there for for three days. So that's like where my brain is right now. And literally, 20 minutes before this phone call, I just posted a new article that I wrote on my website, escape the waste.com and it's all about the title of it. Maybe it's a maybe it's sensitive. For some people out there, recycling is overrated. We were misled. So if you're on, if you happen to have a few minutes and want to check out my website, you can see what that's all about. Because I'm now with my new hub, I'm getting back into something that I love. I'm a journalism major, so I love to write and just share all of these edutaining ideas.

Marshall Atkinson 
What? What is your website? Alex, so everybody, somebody wants to read that they can

Alex Eaves 
escape the waste.com

Marshall Atkinson
Great. Well, hey, thank you so much for sharing your success sort we do that over So Alex, thank you so much for sharing your success story with us today. What's the best way to contact you if someone wants to learn more about what you do or maybe how you can help them, or maybe they've got some shirts that maybe they could donate to your cause.

Alex Eaves 
The best way to contact me is there's a contact form on that website, escape the waste.com you can just, you know, click on General contact. I think it's the tab at the top of there. You can just send me a message and it will get right to my email and to my phone.

Marshall Atkinson
Awesome. Hey, thanks a lot, and good luck with everything, and we'll talk to you later.

Alex Eaves
Thank you so much.