12-09-25 - Emailers For And Against John's New Littering Campaign To Expose And Reform Recycling And Trip Might Be Onboard

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Holmberg's Morning Sickness (98KUPD)

Episode: 12-09-25 – Emailers For and Against John's New Littering Campaign To Expose And Reform Recycling And Trip Might Be Onboard
Date: December 9, 2025
Host(s): John Holmberg, Brady Bogen, Bret Vesely, Dick Toledo
Guest/Contributor: Trip Reeb, Matthew (City of Phoenix Solid Waste), Luke (Icon Equipment)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, John Holmberg and the Morning Sickness crew dive headfirst into John's "littering campaign"—a tongue-in-cheek movement sparked by skepticism about the effectiveness of recycling. They read feedback from listeners (especially Matthew from the Phoenix Solid Waste Department), debate the realities and ironies of recycling, and recount workplace anecdotes reflecting on changing societal attitudes toward trash. The episode’s tone is irreverent and comedic but touches on genuine frustrations and generational differences regarding environmentalism and recycling.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Concert Promo and Listener Interaction

• Before diving into the main content, John briefly highlights the Offspring as the week’s featured artist for the KUPD concert pass contest (01:19-03:13).
• They note the vast array of concert tickets included, emphasizing the prize's value.

2. John’s “Littering Campaign” & Skepticism about Recycling

• Origin of the Campaign: Inspired by documentaries on global pollution and recycling inefficacy, John cheekily calls for more “littering” to expose flaws in the system (03:22-05:13).
  • “My campaign for littering, which is I think going incredibly well…" – John Holmberg (03:22)
  • He references the “Boston Tea Partying” of environmental practices, suggesting the current approach isn't working.
• Listener Feedback: Phil from Sedona writes in about mountain biking and leaving a popped bike tube in a tree:
  • “Merry Christmas, hippies. That's right. He littered…” (03:26)

3. Email from Matthew (City of Phoenix Solid Waste)

• Matthew provides background about Phoenix’s recycling operations and attempts to educate residents (05:13-07:07).
  • “I'm also a very long time listener… I can assure you that recycling is a massive operation for the city of Phoenix…” – Matthew (Email read by John, 05:13)
• John mocks the title “Solid Waste” and jokes about having someone from the city inspect his trash:
  • “If you ever knock on my door to educate me about what's in my trash, I'm putting one through you.” – John (05:54)

4. Trip Reeb's Entrance – The Office Drops the Pretense

• Trip walks in and casually admits the station hasn't recycled in years, leading to a group realization:
  • “We canceled our recycling years ago. Susie, cut that out. No kidding. Three years ago.” – Trip Reeb (07:11)
• Staff anecdote about cleaning staff tossing all bins into the same dumpster—emphasizing recycling at the station is performative (07:54-08:23).

5. Reflections on Generational Littering Norms

• John, Trip, and others fondly (and comically) recall childhood days when littering was common and acceptable:
  • “I can remember as a child driving on the Garden State Freeway... my mom throwing stuff out the window. Come on.” – Trip (08:23)
  • “We loved littering. My dad – nothing out the window.” – John (08:31)
• Allude to the famous “crying Indian” PSA and note society was “better off” before the current wave of recycling policies (09:20).

6. Further Ribbing of the “Solid Waste” Job Title

• The crew riffs on the awkwardness of the term “Solid Waste Supervisor." John questions if he referees household “dumps” at home (12:09-13:07).
  • “Worst card I've ever seen in my life, by the way, Matthew. I won't give his last name. Says Solid Waste Supervisor on his signature. Like, that's gross.”

7. Station Holiday Party & Continuing Litter Jokes

• John and Brady joke about Trip dumping trash off the balcony onto the lower floors for the holidays (13:50-14:02).

8. Anecdote: The Stuck Scissor Lift (“Snorkel’) in John’s Yard

• John recounts a problematic DIY project—burying a heavy scissor lift in his backyard and needing professional help to retrieve it (14:02-17:35).
• Trip shows up to spectate, and ultimately the project is completed through makeshift solutions (“a bunch of garden stakes” and decorative rocks).
  • “Now you get a bunch of garden stakes and you drive as many as you need into the ground in front of that pole until it no longer leans. Mission accomplished.” (17:35)

9. Culminating Litter Rebellion & Sign-Off

• The irreverence peaks as Trip throws trash on the ground, citing his mother's habits:
  • “And Tripp came by and he goes, huh. I'm a little bit impressed. Except for that one looks like it's doing a Heil Hitler. And then he threw his trash in the ground and he left. Pretty impressive.” (17:35-18:07)
  • “Now it's for you, mom.” (18:20)
  • “That's why he's got that convertible. Just throws it straight up in the air. Gone.” (18:31)
• John closes by reasserting his (joking) crusade against recycling:
  • “Litter immediately. No matter what that guy from solid waste says. And he seems like a nice, well thought out man, but I've made up my mind on this. It's crap.” (18:45)

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• “I'm Boston Tea Partying this entire environmental nonsense that they forced down our throats. Do it differently.”
  – John Holmberg (04:16)

• Matthew’s Email:
  – “I can assure you that recycling is a massive operation for the city of Phoenix...personnel/sorters who stand by the conveyor belts and pick out and sort. I don't believe you.”
  – (05:29, read by John)

• Trip drops the big reveal
  – “We canceled our recycling years ago...Three years ago!”
  – Trip Reeb (07:11)

• On workplace recycling norms:
  – “I've been here when the cleaning crew's here. And they just dump everything in the same can...No, we don't recycle because we don't care.”
  – John/Trip (08:23)

• Littering nostalgia:
  – “I can remember as a child...my mom throwing stuff...out the window.”
  – Trip (08:38)
  – “We loved littering. My dad – nothing out the window.”
  – John (08:41)

• The “crying Indian” reference:
  – "There's a reason a crying Indian showed up..."
  – John (11:09)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 03:22 — John launches into the “littering campaign” and critiques recycling
• 05:13 — Reading and reacting to Matthew’s Solid Waste email
• 07:07 — Trip Reeb admits the station canceled recycling
• 08:23 — Staff stories about actually not recycling at the office
• 09:20 — Nostalgic humor about pre-recycling era and famous anti-littering campaigns
• 13:50 — Jokes about littering and dumping trash for the station's holiday party
• 14:02-17:35 — DIY disaster story with the scissor lift and Trip spectating
• 18:45 — John reiterates anti-recycling campaign in his trademark over-the-top tone

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Summary Tone

The episode is irreverent, sarcastic, and full of playful banter. The crew uses hyperbole and nostalgia to mock modern recycling efforts, mixing in real listener responses and tongue-in-cheek calls for rebellion. Underneath, there’s a sense of genuine skepticism, but most of the content is exaggerated for comedic effect.

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For listeners and non-listeners alike, this episode is a comedic ride through workplace and personal reflections on why recycling policy and practice might not always be what they seem—and why sometimes, it just feels good to throw things out the window, just like Mom used to do.

Transcript

[A]

You're listening to the HMS Podcast, brought to you by MMP Guns.com, your most trusted online marketplace for firearms, ammunition, and accessories. Hey, it's Brett Vesely, and I'm here with Byron from MMP Guns. Look, Byron, I have a friend wanting to sell some guns he inherited. What's the best way for him to do that? Brett, the last thing you want to do is sell the gun to someone who can't legally own one. Tell him not to put himself at risk and come into M and P Guns, where he'll get a fair offer and he can rest easy knowing it's not getting into the wrong hands. Okay, but what if he lives out of state? Easy. Legalgunbuyer.com and he can do it online. It really that simple? There you have it. MMP Guns or legalgunbuyer.com the safe and legal way to sell your firearms. Hey, what's up? It's Mo and my friends at the University of Advancing Technology has been ranked the number one best college for computer science for not one, but two years in a row. Which makes total sense because UAT are always on the lookout for those who don't just embrace technology, they live it. From advancing computer science and robotics to cybersecurity, gaming, and artificial intelligence, UAT is where innovation thrives. So if you're ready to lead the next tech revolution, visit uat.edu.mo. and don't just study tech. Live it. Holmberg's morning sickness. The old method of treatment for a person in this condition was to throw him in jail.

The Offspring is the artist of the week this week. And, man, we just announced another concert yesterday for this deal. So what? The deal is if you tap the artist of the week, in this case, Offspring, last week, I think was Linkin park or one of the last two weeks. I've got my weeks all confused. And you do that while you're listening on the app. You are then qualified to be the winner of the KUPD concert. Pass. You'll get all the tickets to every show that we offer next year, all of 2026. You just tap the track on the KUPD app or web stream every time you hear this week's artist, which again, Offspring just heard it, got a shot at that, and you're entered in there for that. This week is the second to last. No. Okay. With two more weeks after this ends the 21st of December, and you keep going. And then, of course, if you're thinking about, like, what will I get? Nine Inch Nails tickets are with this.

Bad Flower, Black Label Society's coming to town. Motley Crue. Motley Crue, Tesla, and Extreme. Two thirds of that's going to be awesome. And then Extreme is going to go on stage Three Days Grace. Electric Call Boy is going to be here in April. And then the one Larry announced yesterday, Avenge Sevenfolds coming here on August 27th. You get tickets to all of them if you've got the KUPD annual concert pass. That's how that works. So we just played Offspring. Knock it down, make it a thing. Simple stuff. So make that a deal and get on that and maybe you can win yourself a huge prize. That is a massive. I don't even know what the monetary value of that would be, but you can sell a lot of those tickets.

P's coming. And this is just what we have now. Evanescence with Spirit Box and Nova Twins. And we haven't even announced all the summer shows that'll probably be rolling through. I mean, the one yesterday's first announcement for summer. Summer. I mean, Evanescence is in July. I guess we got a couple of them. Avenged Sevenfold Cruise in September.

You're gonna start seeing them start rolling out for next year. And if it's on our concert calendar and you win this pass, you get tickets to all of it.

My littering campaign going great.

Phil said, I'm listening to you up here in Sedona mountain biking. And I just hung my pinch flat intestine from my tire in a pine pine tree. Merry Christmas, hippies. That's right. He littered the the by the way. Go tubeless. Get up to action Ride shop and go tubeless. No more pinch flats, no more silliness. Nothing more frustrating than your tubes going out and you got to take all that out that like he's doing just litter it. Well, Brady's calling out McGriddle rats rolling down the street. Brady actually tried to conv that he could see trash on the road from where he's sitting. Looks a little bit like a McGriddle rapper. Like, anybody in the room be like, yeah, he's probably right. Like, you can ID trash from here. Turns out it was a McGriddle rapper. The guy's guy's not only got a nose for it, but he can cite used to be McGriddle in that he's the crying Indian because he's just mad he didn't get any of that McGriddle. And my. My campaign for littering, which is I think going incredibly well because people are hopefully littering a lot this morning, as my fight against this recycling nonsense continues, after the videos I saw in India and reminder Again, we're 3.9% of the world's population. Even if the entire country was doing it right, we wouldn't make a dent in this thing. So we got to change how we do stuff. So I'm making a point. I'm Boston Tea Partying this entire environmental nonsense that they forced down our throats. Do it differently. And then I got an email, in fairness from a guy named Matthew. He works for City Recycling and Sorting. He says, I'm with Solid Waste Department for the city of Phoenix. You know what I'm glad at in my life? That I don't have to tell people that I'm with solid waste, because that's an offensive thing to say about your wife. I'm John with Solid Waste. This is Megan.

See what I did there? Better than loose waste. Yeah, well, it solidifies in the wrong station. Loose waste day. I wonder if there's a department just for the loose stuff. Like if your toilet can put that in the loose side. Anyway, he's with Solid Waste Department. He said, I'm also a very long time listener. My first show of listening to you was 9 11. Well, that's really. That was when we grabbed so many hearts and minds. I'm so good. That bit went really well. Pure comedy. That bit went great. People are like, man, ever since your 911 bit, I've been locked in. He says I work for the side of the department that has the inspectors that go out and address complaints and educates residents. Oh, my God. If you ever knock on my door to educate me about what's in my trash, I'm putting one through you. Recycling being one of the subjects that we educate on. Being that I'm a regular listener and I heard your discussion today. I can assure you that recycling is a massive operation for the city of Phoenix. And our two transfer stations not only have a large and expensive equipment, but put in there to deal with the different recyclable materials. But we also have the personnel slash sorters who stand by the conveyor belts and pick out and sort. I don't believe you. I know you're a busy guy, but if you're curious, below is a video showing the entire operation. It's AI, you're going to. I'm one of those people now. I'm one of those here's. Throw that outside. Throw it out trips and chuck that thing out of here. Don't you bring in that trash. You throw that Outside where it belongs. Mr. Reeb. Hold on. I'm reading a letter from the city. You'll probably get one too. Says. Well, checking recycling containers is something that we do. It's because the program is active. An unacceptable material that comes into play that plays havoc for the equipment and the sorters we have. We used to have a team of people that would go around and check recycle containers, but that has since been disabled since the beatings. Don't go through my trash. Are you with me on that one? Trip is not happy. What's going on? I'll let you speak. I'm walking in front of the building trying to clean up the trash.

Well, on the sidewalk. Where are you going to put it?

In the. In a recycle. Well, at least. Yeah, just put it in any trash recycle here. We don't. No. Since. What were all the blue cans for? Those were from years ago. Ah, this is the Trip Rev I love. We canceled our recycling years ago. Susie, Susie, cut that out. No kidding. Three years ago. Oh, this is great. Can I paint all the trash cans black and like put a skull and crossbones on the ones in here? We've got them all over the building. Oh, yeah. Well, what are we gonna do? Throw those out? Yeah, they're good cans. Well, we gotta paint them and get rid of that. Little weird because the girls downstairs get mad at me when I throw things away in the wrong ones. There's no wrong one. No one knows this. A couple of girls took a swing at everybody. You need to put out a memo.

I tell you what. Put it out there. Just say, dear St. I want that memo out this afternoon. Knock off all the libtard crap you open. I didn't know that. Where the outside where those. The trash. The big dump. The trash dumpsters are. Yeah, there's not a recycling one regular. I've been here when the trash. The cleaning crew's here. And they just dump everything in the same can. Yeah, because they had all ghost. I thought they were just in on it with me. No.

We don't recycle because we don't care. We don't have hover print because we know it doesn't. Oh, this is what I love to hear. Thank you, Trip. Reaps on my side. Litter immediately. That's why I said that's exactly what you're saying. Litter something immediately. Tripp says there's no point in this nonsense. Chuck it. Like back in your day. Just chucked it out the window. Nobody cared. Did you literally here's the thing. Yeah. Oh, I can remember as a child driving on the garden. The Garden State Freeway. Oh, it's a beautiful garden. And my mom throwing stuff. Throwing lunch stuff out the window. Come on. Yeah. Oh, I remember being a kid and it was. Littering was a thing for us too. That was just what you did. We loved littering. My dad. Nothing out the window. Yeah, yeah. Same morning sickness. Disgusting. They say things that are horrible.

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Well, that's perfect. You heard it from our. Our bosses. So don't even write him a letter if you're mad at me because he's just going to and he's Going to throw it out the window.

Anyway, Matthew, I guess I was right in the wheelhouse of, you know, woodsy and all that. So was I. I'm younger than you. I know. I'm surprised. Look, you may know, you may not camp a lot, too. You also. We did, too. We cleaned up campsites. But for the most part, driving down the freeway and you had something in your car, you chucked it out and I guarantee you your rose colored glasses are covering up. My dad never did that. Plenty of times your mom would chuck. Bunny Chuck some cigarette, cigarettes, coffee cups. But also, it was a lot of that stuff. Chardonnay wasn't disposable back then, so you had it like a mug or something. You couldn't just chuck it out. Then they started giving you all the things you can. I don't want this in my car. Right out the window. Oh, I remember my mom chucking stuff out the window, too. Indiana. You were from Ohio. You're not that high up. There are Midwestern Hill Jacks there, too. Trust me. Your parents chuck things out windows just like the rest of us did back in the day. There's a reason a crying Indian showed up and he. What's the first thing in the commercial? He's standing by freeway while people just chuck. That hit home with me. Yeah, because you were. That was your mom chucking out your lunch. That was a full bag of food. That's why I'd hit home. Anyway. Matthew. You heard my boss talking. I know Matthew from Solid Waste. Worst card I've ever seen in my life, by the way, Matthew. I won't give his last name. Says Solid Waste Supervisor on his signature. Like, that's gross. Does that mean at home when somebody's like, I gotta take a dump? He's like, let me. I'll go in there and referee that. No, no, I don't. I super. I supervise solid waste. My job.

I'm good at it. God damn it.

How do you get fired from that? We've been eyeballing. You gotta try how you supervise the solid waste. And we think you're making a lot of mistakes. A lot of loose stuff's getting through. A lot of loose things getting through in the solid waste. Saw a couple rogue tampis go into the loose. Some of the loose go into the salt. What are you doing, Matthew? You got trouble at home? We want to take care of you here at Solid Waste.

If they call it the Solid Waste Golf Tournament, I think less people would go, the Solid Waste Christmas Party. I just don't think That's a good phrase. If we don't call them janitors anymore, we can't have solid waste supervisors. You got to come up with a better phrase than that.

How about refuse damn. Refuse supervisor. That's even worse. Yeah, that's. That's bad too. It just makes sound like you're just rolling around the garbage anyway. I'm just so happy that Trip canceled all of our recycling because. Why, Brady? Because you heard him. It just doesn't work. There's no point. Just throw it out the window. You heard him.

In fact, our holiday party, we're just going to. There's trip out there on the patio right now. There's trash just pouring it down on the Lesser's done. This first floor.

Pick it up, Marcus.

I love that. What a day. I also. I need to take this. Whoops. Need to take this time to say thank you to Luke from Icon Equipment, who, if you were paying attention to the show. Two weeks ago, we buried a scissor lift in my backyard on the soft, soft grass. Not on purpose. Of course. Not on purpose. It would do that. Clarify that. Why would I do that on purpose? That goes without saying. I decided I called up a guy from an equipment place and I said, hey, can we stall this in my yard? Sure. I'll be over at 10. So he came over two weeks ago and we. Because I was gonna raise the lights on my basketball court another three feet, but I have to get up there to do it, put the last posts in because I thought what I built was tall enough and it's a little low. The extra three feet is great. So we buried this thing in my backyard. And speaking of Tripp Reeb, when I told the story of how ridiculous it was that two guys. I used my Jeep winch and we drugged this thing across. The only parts I have left in my backyard that are grass is where this had to go. And we drug this 4000 pound beast across my yard before we realized that it was getting deeper and not digging in. It was digging in and it was stuck. Those things are heavy. And it started to pull my jeep across the 12,000 pound winch. And it started to pull my jeep across the basketball court. And I'm like, I don't think this is a good idea. We even turned the wheels like to lock it in, and still the Jeep's like. And that thing wasn't moving. So we abandoned ship that day, parked it in the backyard, got the jeep out of the yard. And then last Saturday he came by again. And guess who showed up to watch Trip reap. They have his box of popcorn and everything else watching. I want to watch fall out of that thing at the very least. And I don't think you guys are going to get it through. Well, he showed up after we were already on the second light pole because Luke and I figured it out. Sure, it took two days and about 12 hours of manpower to do 20 minutes of work, but so what?

So, Luke, thank you very much.

You1 in a big way. I don't. I learned some new words that It's a. You got charged extra days on the rental Maybe. I don't know. It was a snorkel. It's called the snorkel. I don't know what that is, but it's a snorkel. That's the word. I. I don't know if I'm even saying that right. But it's something having to do with a snorkel. Are you going to Google snorkel? Scissor lifts. He grabbed your phone. Like that was of interest for you. Don't worry about it. How much snorkel? I don't know. Well, you know what, what do we say? 60 grand for me? Oh, it's more than that. I can't remember, but it was. Desert lifts were expensive. No, the booms were like. This was just like one. It was like 189. That was the boom. But we got it done and Luke and I got that project finished. So it was pretty great. And I want to thank Luke for coming out there. And we just got some plywood and we rolled it right over, winched it right up, put the lights in. Now, I will say that trip was privy to the first light that we put on because all of my projects are terrible. As I was pounding in the top three feet, the new post on top. Because it's just a series of posts you can add. Yeah. And they're steel and it was nice. And so I'm putting them in there. And somehow another. As I was pounding it in there, I was making the pole. We probably. Whoops. Or we probably went three feet. Tugged it towards us. Three feet. So when we got down, it's bent. Yeah. It was like a. Like a 60 degree angle. Whack it back into shape. So I took some. I did what I do now. Sure, I could dig a hole and prop it back up and pour some quick creed in there and let it set. Now you get a bunch of garden stakes and you drive as many as you need into the ground in front of that pole until it no longer leans.

Mission accomplished. Then you get some decorative rock, and you pour it over the garden stakes. No one. No one's any the wiser. It would take a tornado to knock that thing down. It is so rigged into the ground, it's ridiculous. Learned our lesson. Second pole didn't budge. We used a bunch of lube to slide the big black stick into the little black hole. Is this a Rico Blaze video you guys are filming? Right in there. And Tripp came by and he goes, huh. I'm a little bit impressed. Except for that one looks like it's doing a Heil Hitler. And then he threw his trash in the ground and he left. Pretty impressive.

I'm a little, little bug. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where do you put your trash, John? Oh, just throw it in the can over there. No, that's where you put it. Watch. And he just threw it on the ground.

Now it's for you, mom. And he pointed to the sky.

That's for you, old lady. Yeah, still doing it the way she taught me.

That's why he's got that convertible. Just throws it straight up in the air. Gone.

Two hands. It's like a gender reveal party in here. There's just. Just stuff flying around.

Anyway, so litter immediately. No matter what that guy from solid waste says. And he seems like a nice, well thought out man, but I've made up my mind on this. It's crap. That's crap. We've got the hot releases coming up in just a little bit. Get ready for those. It's 98. It's not weird. It's pretty cool, actually. No membership fee. I have heard enough of this.