(upbeat rock music) (dramatic whooshing) - Next on "You Oughta Know..." (dramatic whooshing) Experience a different side of Philly as we head to Fairmount Park for a night of stargazing... (dramatic whooshing) Plus, a New Jersey farmer shares how his poultry business came to life... (dramatic whooshing) And this popcorn company is creating career opportunities.

(upbeat rock music) (dramatic whooshing) Welcome to "You Oughta Know," I'm Shirley Min.

We begin with a regional charity that's partnering with the Philadelphia Eagles to hire people with autism.

(uplifting orchestral music) - It took months of unemployment and searching until I actually reached this threshold.

- I was out of work for six months and this is a life-saver, woo!

- Yeah, we work together as a team to make sure we get stronger together.

- They have great pride in their jobs, and they're happy to be here.

(upbeat electronic music) - We are an equal-opportunity employer.

(Sam laughing) It's been about 10 years, Sam.

2014, and... Tell them about the job you had.

- Supermarkets.

I was mainly doing bagging groceries.

I was so disorganized.

I kept shoving it in, the customers were like, "Excuse me, what is with you?

Do you want me to just, like, report to your boss and just get your sack?"

- And Sam's mom, and my wife, Dr. Barbie Zimmerman-Bier, her whole life's taking care of people with developmental disabilities, and she said, "Steven, you're not worth much to me, but I know you can come up with a business, go figure out a business."

Life is very funny sometimes, the very first thing was a popcorn store for sale, and we said, "Well, popcorn, it's year-round, it's not seasonal, it cuts through all socioeconomic barriers, it's not a fad, it's always gonna be around, and not dangerous to make, no knives," so we did it.

The brick-and-mortar store was hard, and we tried all sorts of crazy things.

So we made a decision, just stick to popcorn, but trying a little expansion, and the East Brunswick government was fantastic, the mayor held, and they got us a realtor, and he was kind to us to give us free space, and we set up a little processing center on Harts Lane in East Brunswick, but we were really outgrowing it, so we got a 4,000-square-foot processing center at Piscataway, and it just got bigger and bigger, and then, we got a real lucky break.

(upbeat piano music) Jeff Lurie, owner of the Eagles, brother is autistic, and he gave his staff two jobs to do every year, one, win the Super Bowl, and two, do the same for the autism community.

Now, we're in with the Eagles in Lincoln Field, and then, they have a charity, a wonderful organization, Eagles Autism Foundation, and they were able to, with Wawa, raise money, get a space, make this beautiful, incredible facility, and they even got Nouryon involved, so we had a lot of big players who opened up their pocketbooks quite generously to make this possible.

(upbeat piano music) - We work with all different levels of the autism spectrum.

- I really take this position seriously, because I really care about this job that got me to be a better person.

- Well, I love making popcorn, and everyone cooperates, and makes some yummy stuff for folks to eat, and it's great to have money in my pocket.

(laughs) (Liam exclaiming in excitement) (upbeat piano music) - Everybody has a specific responsibility when it comes to making our popcorn, and I feel we all should have a sense of pride in the fact that we are all part through that process.

- The value of this job to our staff here is immeasurable.

(upbeat piano music) (dramatic whooshing) - Single-use plastic is convenient, yes, but the amount of plastic waste we generate can't be ignored.

Good thing we can recycle it, or can we?

Grant Hill joins me now, he is a reporter for "The Pulse," WHYY's weekly health and science podcast, Grant, welcome to "You Oughta Know."

- Thanks for having me.

- Let's talk about what prompted you to cover this story for "The Pulse."

- Yeah, so it was Earth Day of last year, and spate of recent investigations into just how much we're recycling in the US, or how little we're recycling, kinda was coming out one after another from different news sources, and it was a little bit depressing, and it started to make me wonder whether it was really worth all the effort that, you know, we always go into, as consumers, of trying to recycle all of the plastic...

Packages are the goods that we buy.

And yeah, so I was just curious as to whether I should just stop doing it altogether.

- So how much plastic is actually being recycled?

- In the US, nationally, it's only about 5%.

Globally, it's a little bit higher, around 9%, but, you know, locally, it depends on your county's recycling program.

- It seems like a drop in the bucket, 5%, so I completely understand, yeah, "Is it worth it?"

Well, a recent report co-authored by Davis Allen did not help.

Tell us who Davis Allen is, and then, what did this report reveal?

- Davis Allen is an investigative researcher for the Center for Climate Integrity, and so, what Davis did is kind of...

He went to look at the historical record, kind of previously unseen documents from trade associations and lobbying groups, mostly, you know, groups that were formed by the plastics, resins... Or companies that created plastic resins, and basically, what he, you know, discovered was that there was a decades-long campaign to essentially prop up recycling as this kind of end-all, be-all solution... Or be-all, end-all solution for, you know, all the explosion in plastic waste that we had started to see ever since the 1950s.

- So we're using a lot more plastic, and the report is saying this was a campaign to make us feel better about using it, and creating all this plastic waste.

- Exactly, like, we could do something about it and clean it all up if we really wanted to.

(Shirley laughing) - Okay, well, let's hear what Davis said about this broad campaign to recycle plastic.

- [Davis] It's been very effective in that people have really taken it to heart that that was a way that they could make a difference.

What's clear is that, going back a long, long time, there was a pretty good sense among people who were aware of the situation that recycling just wasn't a viable solution.

- So what does Davis mean about...?

What does he mean when he says there's no viable solution?

- I think what he's saying is that the problem that the plastics industry, or that we all wanted to solve, was kind of mitigating the impact of this explosion in plastic waste, right?

Trying to make it so that we could stop either producing as much waste as as we were, and... Or that we could keep producing plastic, but we could put it somewhere where it wasn't harming anyone, or kind of do something with it that, you know, wasn't impacting the environment as much as it was.

And recycling was kind of what the industry landed on as this idea that, you know, people might respond to positively.

- Well, and we did, because recycling is sort of something that's been indoctrinated in many of us.

Did you speak with folks from the plastic industry?

I mean, what was their commentary or feedback from this report?

- I mean, the plastics industry's reaction to this report, and previous reporting about just how low the recycling rate is, and kind of the coordinated effort by many in the industry to prop up recycling, is essentially that, "Hey, this was the best solution that we had, we need to use plastic, it's an important part of our economy, and how we package goods, and move them around in..." "In cheap ways," and that essentially... Development in new technology, something called "advanced recycling," is just over the horizon, it's about to arrive, and when it does, it's going to completely revolutionize how much we can recycle, and kind of the way that we recycle.

- As part of your reporting, you went to your local recycling facility in Burlington County, New Jersey.

Did going there help you feel like, "Okay, recycling isn't in vain?"

- It actually did, I mean, I couldn't...

Still couldn't get the numbers out of my head that this was only, you know, 5% of the amount of waste that was probably in the county, if not, maybe a little bit less, maybe a little bit more, but around that number, but just seeing how much effort went into recycling one day's worth of plastic material in one county, in the...

In one country in the world, it was inspiring to see the effort that went into it, and made me feel a little less foolish for making the effort to put the bottle in the right container at the end of the day.

- So you're still recycling?

- I am still...

I'm probably recycling more than I was, despite knowing kind of the reality of the situation.

- All right, Grant, thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Obviously, you can check out more on whyy.org, searching under "The Pulse," you can get "Pulse" podcast anywhere you get your podcasts.

(dramatic whooshing) A program in Philadelphia is helping to recycle electronics while helping people released from prison find meaningful work.

(loud thudding) (machinery whirring) - We are at PAR Recycle Works, PAR stands for "People Advancing Reintegration."

Since our inception in February 2016, we've recycled over 3 million pounds of electronics... (indistinct) Out of the landfill.

Our mission is to reduce recidivism through electronics recycling.

(gentle electronic music) What we do is employment training for about four months, four stages of employment programming.

First stage is the deconstruction room, the second stage is in the warehouse, where we are now, in inventory, the third stage is sorting, and then, the fourth stage is customer service.

(traffic roaring) - I have them labeled also, and they still have their pickup printouts with them.

My name is Hakeem Riley, and I am currently the acting warehouse foreman, and that pretty much consists of managing day-to-day operations.

(upbeat percussive music) The first stage is the deconstruction room, to deconstruct computer towers, networking systems, audio-visual equipment... (upbeat percussive music) Pretty much just means removing the focus materials from what's inside, power supply, the motherboards, the RAM, CPUs, all those things, placing them in their appropriate bins, and then, they'll be stored, and then, processed, of course, and then, sent to our downstream vendor.

(upbeat percussive music) - This is where individuals get the forklift training, they learn how to weigh the materials, and then, enter the materials into our inventory management system, and that's what's happening all the time down here.

- Inventory management system, which is the IMS system, is being processed thoroughly, all the merchandise that's coming in... (electronic beeping) (faintly speaking) And that's going out is being weighed and being processed.

- After it's sorted, it comes up here, it gets a barcode, and it goes into our inventory management system, which is required from our R2, which is the Responsible Recycling certification, it's to follow each material as it's coming into the warehouse, watching it as it's going through the process, and then, going back out the front door.

(upbeat percussive music) And then, the fourth stage is customer service, that's where the driver and the helper will go out to the customer, our customer base, and be the face of PAR for the customer to see and collect the materials.

- We also have events on the weekend, where they get a better understanding of how to sort.

- We do community collection events in and around the Philadelphia area, up into Bucks County, Montgomery County and Delaware County, and we partner with some anchor institutions.

(upbeat piano music) We have employer partners that we've partnered with, longstanding construction and demolition site, we work with a scrapyard, the large waste-to-energy facility that have career pathways for the men and women that we're serving.

(computer parts clattering) These are green jobs.

We don't want people to go into a dead-end job, or just a job, we want them to have a career pathway.

It's a win-win, it's...

They're getting the training, they're getting paid, we're saving the environment, so that's a win-win-win.

(upbeat electronic music) - The Fairmount Park Conservancy in Philadelphia holds educational events all year long.

We recently checked out the Park After Dark moonwalk and stargazing party at Lemon Hill, complete with an astronomy lesson.

(upbeat string music) - At Fairmount Park Conservancy, we really strive to connect folks with the park.

We work very closely with our partners at the City of Philadelphia and Parks & Rec to really bring our parks to life.

(upbeat string music) We have Lemon Hill Mansion, which is one of many historic houses in Fairmount Park.

(upbeat string music) Right down the hill, we have Fairmount Waterworks, Lloyd Hall, Boathouse Row, and we're also right along Kelly Drive and the Schuylkill River.

For our moonwalk-and-stargazing program, we do this a few times a year.

So we're gonna start off with a hike on the Lemon Hill Rim Trail.

(upbeat funk music) (upbeat funk music continues) It offers some great views of the city, participants also have the chance to hear about the history of the area, and some of the nature as well.

We'll stop at a few points and talk about some different things.

When Henry Pratt built his house here, he wouldn't have had the city-skyline view.

(upbeat funk music) The most iconic thing about Boathouse Row, of course, is the lights.

The lights were installed in 1979.

It's really important to uncover hidden places in nature within the city, 'cause I think we often assume that because we're in a more urban setting, that there isn't a lot of wildlife and nature around, and that's very far from the truth.

(upbeat funk music) On the Lemon Hill Rim Trail, there's lots of different types of flora and fauna, and a lot of nocturnal animals call the Philadelphia area home, as well.

Here in Pennsylvania, we have eight different species of owls.

The most common are the great horned owl and the screech owl.

Feel free to touch it if you'd like.

(upbeat funk music) We do this as the sun is setting, so you have the sunset in the background, it's a really pretty view.

(upbeat funk music) When we hike this trail at night, we usually do it when there's a full moon, or close to a full moon.

I never get tired of seeing the moon, there's so much detail on the moon that you can see looking through a telescope that you can't see with your naked eye, or even a set of binoculars.

- We are going to be primarily looking at the moon tonight, which you guys can see really nice and brilliantly up there in the sky.

(upbeat electronic music) (upbeat electronic music continues) Astronomy is one of those fields of science that is one of the oldest.

We're looking up at the exact same things, for the most part, that they were looking up at a thousand years ago, 2,000 years ago.

It's so cool to think that you're looking at the same stuff.

Fortunately, with technology, we can see it way better, still, it's, for the most part, those same points of light.

(upbeat electronic music) - [Amanda] A really nice way to end the stargazing program is with a campfire.

(upbeat electronic music) Folks can sit back, relax, roast some s'mores by the campfire, and yeah, just a nice summer activity.

(upbeat electronic music) One of the greatest parts about this program is that you can come out once, and then, come out again, and it's a totally different experience, because we're seeing different things each time of the year.

(upbeat electronic music) - [Buddy] Those moments where I get to show someone who's looking through a telescope for the very first time, and that amazement in their eyes when they look through and realize what they're looking at, that's... To me, that is everything.

Just create that moment that they will remember for, hopefully, the rest of their life.

(upbeat electronic music) - There are a lot of activities to choose from in Fairmount Park, so lace up those sneakers and join me on Boxers' Trail.

(upbeat orchestral music) Welcome to Boxers' Trail, located here in East Fairmount Park in Philadelphia.

(upbeat orchestral music) The trail became a favorite spot for boxers to train, like Philly's own Joe Frazier, the heavyweight boxing champ from 1970 to 1973.

(upbeat orchestral music) (upbeat guitar music) The wooded trail sits above the Schuylkill River and Kelly Drive.

Boxers' Trail connects the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood to East Fairmount Park.

(upbeat guitar music) Along the trail, you can see some of Fairmount Park's historical mansions.

(upbeat guitar music) Come on, let's take a walk and check out Boxers' Trail.

(upbeat guitar music) I'm here at Laurel Hill Mansion, built around 1767.

Rebecca Rawle inherited the land from her late husband, Francis Rawle.

(upbeat guitar music) She later married Samuel Shoemaker, and built a two-story Georgian house on the land, and the view of the Schuylkill is remarkable.

(upbeat guitar music) (relaxed guitar music) We're entering the unpaved portion of the trail.

(relaxed guitar music) Oh, look, there's a pretty garden up ahead.

(relaxed guitar music) The trail has brought us to the Ormiston House.

This two-and-a-half-story Georgian mansion was built in 1798 by Edward Bird.

(relaxed guitar music) Since 2019, the garden at Ormiston has held educational events and afterschool programs for the community, and adult volunteers, they plant and care for the garden.

(relaxed guitar music) (upbeat guitar music) The Rockland Mansion is a Federal-style house bought by George Thomson in 1810.

Thomson used it as his summer home.

(upbeat guitar music) In 1870, the home was sold to the City of Philadelphia, and it is currently now the home of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia.

(relaxed country music) Mount Pleasant is one of the grandest homes ever built along the Schuylkill River.

It was built by John MacPherson, a pirate.

It was also home to Benedict Arnold and his wife, Peggy Shippen, however, they never moved in and had to sell it.

The estate was a working plantation from 1762 to 1765, and at least four people of African descent were enslaved.

(upbeat country music) All right, well, that is it from me from Boxers' Trail, there is so much here that we couldn't cover, so I'm encouraging you to come on out, see it for yourself, exercise that body and your mind.

(upbeat electronic music) Some of the food we enjoy at our favorite restaurants come from local farms.

Producer Gianna Kelliher introduces us to farmer Kyle Smith, who shares the path he took to becoming a farmer.

(upbeat guitar music) - Kyle Smith, I was born right outside Atlantic City, a little town called Egg Harbor Township.

I was raised by my grandparents a lot, my mom was in the military, so the weekends that she had drill, I was over there with them.

They lived in New York City most of their life, but before that, they were all down in the South, they were part of that, like... That migration phase, where people from the black community came from the South and moved up north.

But their lineage and what they brought from down south was really what cultured me into who I am today.

So this is the...

This property here is a Carmichael family farm.

I work with them, pretty much how I got started, and what I've been able to do is because of what I've been able to see ahead of me, like, this building here made me inspired... Get inspired to actually have my own building, see what I'm doing at my property.

(upbeat guitar music) Mr. Carmichael, he actually passed away last year, but he was a big mentor, and one who really taught me more... A lot about life, history, you know, he was born on a plantation down south, but his father's a sharecropper, so this stuff that he was brought up with that he kinda moved away from as we came up north, but also came back to help, you know, with his family, and give his family good food.

He believed in that... You know, good food is health, you know?

(upbeat guitar music) He had 15 sows, so we've seen 15 sows, they get...

They all have between 10 and 13 babies... Litters twice a year, so it, you know...

Most of 'em pigs stay here, and we grow them out, and a lot of 'em go out and get sold as babies for other farms.

(upbeat guitar music) So this is spent Brewer's grain from two locals downtown.

We also get this corn, this is a green corn, tamale corn.

(plastic bag rustling) It's a green tamale corn that Jen at Juana Tamale is using to make tortillas.

The guy at the farm where they grow this didn't really like it that much, so the extra she had, she gave to me.

(upbeat guitar music) So this is our pig field here.

This is about a three-to-four-acre field that we have here that will be used to... Used it for the pigs to pasteurize in.

This field right here is very special to me because this field is actually...

I leased this field from another farmer whose father was a very long-time pig farmer in the area, so this farm right here has been... (indistinct) Probably had... Oh, man, probably 800 to a thousand pigs go through it a year at some time, you know?

So for this area here, this feels very important because a lot of families in this area, on this street... Or, they had Christmas that got to eat that year because of this field, and the guy here being able to raise pigs, and I feel very special to be able to continue that, and try to do the next step to this area, to this field, and to progression of, like, you know, us as black pig farmers in this area.

Yep, and without this right here, without them doing what they did back then, I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing now, you know?

And that's how much, especially with a farm that's really big, is it takes so much between inputs and debt to get to, like, say, where I...

I remember everybody's like... (indistinct) Nah, this is...

I'm just the person on the forefront right now, on top of the backs of a lot of older farmers that have put in a lot of work that wasn't recognized, so if it wasn't for this, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now.

(upbeat guitar music) So we probably have just about short of 800 right now, we probably go up to... We probably do around 3,000 birds a year, just give and take between egg birds and meat birds for the actual meat, like, the boilers, and then, with the turkeys included, so probably about 3,000 birds that pass through here.

I had plenty of different coop models over my career.

So this one here has worked out the best, with the tractor-trailer bodies.

What I learned with farming, especially with pigs, if you spend time with pigs, is you want to put as less amount of money into the animals, like, structural-wise as you can, 'cause you can grow broke in farming, you know, people...

Plenty of people have done it, so with these...

The trailers are usually between $1,500 to a thousand dollars, and that's a structure already ready to go.

Old tractor trailers are being pretty much recycled, you know?

They're past their time period of being on a road, road-worthy, this is a great option for them to recycle and get a second use, second life.

(upbeat guitar music) This is the first chicken coop that I started with, had this one back in my mom's house in Egg Harbor Township.

Yeah, so I started farming when I had got fired from my job, and I was in a position where I was like, you know, "What do I need?

Food and water," you know?

So I figured, I could control my food, I could have more control of... You know, instead of letting somebody tell me when I can or cannot work, or can and cannot make money, so I ordered 25 chickens in the mail back in, like, 2007, I guess, and we just started from there.

(upbeat guitar music) Yeah, so kinda like how we're standing here, I think it's real important to grow the nutrient-dense crops and get those to the people that need them.

It might be in food-insecure areas in Philadelphia.

I also think it's very important to not just grow crops, but to grow relationships and community.

Part of that is, like, what I'm doing here, helping out with them, and them helping me, and working together as community, as farmers, and also, working with the restaurants in Philadelphia, so we work with a handful of restaurants in Philadelphia, Juana Tamale, Ember & Ash, Amina, Friday Saturday Sunday, Honeysuckle, Middle Child, Liberty Kitchen, I'm probably forgetting a bunch of them.

We also work with not just those restaurants in Philadelphia that... You know, Friday Saturday Sunday, you know, high-end restaurant, the stuff that's going there and the eggs that are going there are also going to the local school districts, so those kids are getting the same nutrient-dense, high-quality foods in the school.

Not just for us as farmers, but, you know, for us as consumers and as Americans, for national security, you know, it's important for us to cultivate, and take care of, and water our small farms like this and our big farms so that we have that national security that, you know, if something happened again, we could actually get food from around the corner, you know?

So... 'Cause it takes a lot just to do all this, to make sure we have a product at the end of the day.

Before this, we were, you know, pulling calves in the snow.

They were outside, there was no inside stuff, so this...

I mean, it's a blessing to be inside, but, you know, this helps us be sustainable and be able to farm into the future.

(upbeat rock music) - Thanks so much for watching, and we hope to see you back here next week.

Good night, everyone.

(upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music continues) (upbeat rock music continues) (upbeat rock music continues)