Sustainability in Your Ear Transcript: Star's Tech Hando Choi On Inventing A Low-Carbon, Low-Chloride De-Icer Made From Star Fish

Mitch Ratcliffe 0:00

Hello, good morning, good afternoon or good evening, wherever you are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability in Your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating the transition to a sustainable, carbon neutral society, and I'm your host, Mitch Ratcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation.

Today, we're going to talk de-icing and starfish. When most people see starfish washed up on a beach, they think of, you know, vacation snapshots, but in Korea, government officials see a $400 million annual problem. And when our guest today, Hando Choi, looked at starfish, he saw the key ingredient for a carbon negative de-icing solution that could transform winter road maintenance.

Hando, who is president of Stars Tech, and his team of researchers from the Seoul National University, developed ECO-ST, the world's first deicer made using starfish skeletal extract. The product is available now in the United States, and it's an unlikely convergence of invasive species management, marine waste upcycling and infrastructure protection, all wrapped up in a tiny bead that melts ice while claiming to absorb the chloride ions that cause billions of dollars in roadway damages and vehicle damages every year.

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration estimates that road salt corrosion costs $8.3 billion annually in bridge damage alone, not counting accelerated pavement wear, vehicle damage, or the fact that over 80% of urban streams now show elevated chloride concentrations from winter runoff of deicers. And we spread roughly 24 million tons of salt on American roads every winter.

Meanwhile, in Korean waters, the Northern Pacific sea star has become such a menace to shellfish aquaculture that the government purchases 3,000 to 4,000 tons annually of these starfish, just to control the populations. These voracious predators devastate oyster farms and scallop operations, and cost the fishing industry hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

Stars Tech processes about 10% of that collected material, those dead starfish, extracting the porous bone structures that give starfish their shape and, according to Hando, their remarkable ability to store and release chemicals in response to melting conditions. ECO-ST is a chloride-based deicer, just like rock salt. It melts ice using the same basic chemistry as rock salt.

Stars Tech claims their product actually reduces net chloride pollution by absorbing ions into the starfish's natural skeletal structure, releasing corrosion inhibitors to achieve a corrosion rate of just 0.8%—lower than drinking water, that is, according to them, and 29 times better than conventional alternatives. ECO-ST is also claimed to be 166% better at melting performance than sodium chloride, and results in 90% less concrete damage, as well as 70% less vegetation harm.

The company has patents in Korea, Japan and Russia, with applications pending in North America and Europe, and they've achieved certifications from Korean testing institutions and are now rolling out pilot programs in the United States. However, their price is pretty high. The premium product runs between $465 and $650 per ton, compared to $100 to $150 for commodity rock salt. So there's some economic challenges here, but also an opportunity to reduce environmental harm.

We're going to talk with Hando about how he sources an invasive species sustainably, using chloride to fight chloride pollution, and whether commercial property managers and municipalities can be convinced to pay a premium for environmental benefits when over-application of cheap salt remains an annual winter practice. You can learn more about Stars Tech at starstech.co. Stars Tech is all one word, no space, no dash—starstech.co. Can marine waste solve a winter infrastructure crisis? Let's find out right after this brief commercial break.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Mitch Ratcliffe 4:16

Welcome to the show, Hando. How you doing today?

Hando Choi 4:18

Good, good. Thanks for having me.

Mitch Ratcliffe 4:21

Well, thank you for doing this at the unusual time. In Korea, it's early in the morning. Here, I know it's later in the day there. It's an interesting product, starfish-based deicer. How does it work? Can you explain that in the simplest possible terms?

Hando Choi 4:35

Sure. So we call it ECO Solution. ECO-ST is the next, next generation deicer that you use just like any other products like rock salt or calcium chloride. But here is what makes it different.

Deicers are usually over-applied. That is because we want to melt snow, not just that is underground, but more snows to come. So we always over-apply. However, the excess chloride ions, after it melts the snow, the excess chloride ions, they sit on the road waiting for more snows to come. And while it waits, over time, these extra chloride ions start to seep into the ground and flow into the soil and corrode everything that they touch.

So ECO-ST uses this pore structure that is derived from starfish skeletons. Think of it as like sponges filled with tiny vaults. What it does is these nanoscale cavities hold on to this excess chloride ions and corrosion inhibitors, instead of letting them run wild in the ecosystem until they are actually needed. That is when the next wave of snow comes, or when the road needs more protection. That is how it optimizes, you know, like this melting and anti-corrosion performances. This may be a little hard to fathom right away, but I promise to explain more as we go on.

Mitch Ratcliffe 5:53

So like a deicer, it uses the chloride to break the bond in the ice and melt it, right? But when it is stored in those vaults, as you describe it, what prevents it from reaching the environment?

Hando Choi 6:06

Right. So basically, these pore structures are chemically treated. So it creates a chemical bonding, and it actually will be holding on to these chloride ions and corrosion inhibitors. When winter brings more snows and it basically meets the snow, it actually—the pulling, the pulling power from this fresh snow is going to be greater, so it actually breaks the chemical equilibrium, and it starts releasing these chloride ions to do its job.

Mitch Ratcliffe 6:36

Corrosion is a huge problem in the United States, particularly in the North during the winter—roadways, bridges and the underside of cars. I've had cars start to lose metal because of this kind of stuff. How does the corrosion rate compare to road salt that we pour all over the place?

Hando Choi 6:53

Basically, our solution is a chloride-based deicer, just like, you know, typical rock salt or treated salt or untreated salt that you use for daily uses. But it actually has additives that change the chemical, you know, like performances of these deicers.

So we use standard known corrosion inhibitors on top of the salt, and then we use our proprietary additive on top of it. So basically what sets our product apart is how we manage—how our additives manage these corrosion inhibitors. Typically, when the ice is over-applied on the roads, these inhibitors, corrosion inhibitors, what happens is they clump up together and lose effectiveness. We call it forming a micelle.

This starfish-derived additive solves this very issue. This starfish-derived additive is made up—we call it porous calcium carbonate structure—that chemically bonds with this excess corrosion inhibitors and holds them in the reserves. And that way they do not clump up. And when they are needed, basically they get released only when they're needed. For example, when the original protective layer on the metal surface breaks down or needs a patchwork, these corrosion reserve inhibitors will release to the patchwork on the barriers.

Mitch Ratcliffe 8:21

Okay. So you also say that this is a net negative chloride product. What is the net chloride impact when you use this on a roadway?

Hando Choi 8:32

So let me be a little bit clearer. It's not really a net negative chloride. It's not really net negative. So it actually uses—it is still a chloride-based product, sure—but the difference is how much chloride ions we use and how much it stays in the system. So there are two breakthroughs here.

First is, because our formulation is more efficient, we can use less chloride ions to melt the same amount of snow. And second is, even if the same amount of chloride ion is applied to the snow, the pore surface structure helps to hold on to this excess chloride ions. So instead of leaching out to the environment, they stay locked in the porous vault, and they are only released—because they are only released when they are necessary, that drastically reduces the runoff into soil or fresh water. So our net chloride impact is significantly lower than typical salt, even though we still use the chloride ions and chloride as a base active ingredient in our solution.

Mitch Ratcliffe 9:45

Okay, thank you for the clarification. Why starfish? What spawned the idea that, oh, look, there's a starfish—we're collecting a bunch of these just to remove them from the environment as an invasive species. Let's make deicer. How did that come up?

Hando Choi 9:58

So actually, believe it or not, it actually started as a high school science project. Our founder and chief scientist, Shin Chan, while he was in high school, he was experimenting with various pore structures that are found in nature, and he was just trying to see if this pore structure could help absorb and control ion release. He found starfish skeletons to stand out in the bunch for their unique nano-pore geometry.

Later, he moved on to Seoul National University. While he was studying there, he began researching the negative side effects of conventional deicers. That's when he made, you know, made a connection. So what if the natural pore structure that is found in starfish could regulate chloride ions more intelligently? So he actually looked into this, and this early curiosity led into the foundation of our proprietary technology and ultimately the launch of our product.

Mitch Ratcliffe 10:57

Talk a little about the process. What part of the starfish are you using? And how does it go from starfish material to ECO-ST?

Hando Choi 11:04

First of all, I wanted to kind of stress that, you know, starfish may—even though it may look harmless in many parts of the world—they are considered a serious marine pest. So in Korea, for example, the Northern Pacific sea star devastates shellfish farms by preying on clams, oysters or mussels, which are not just valuable seafood sources, but they are also important for ocean health and purification.

In case of Australia, crown of thorns starfish consume corals, leading to massive reef loss. These are key factors in what scientists call desertification of the ocean floor. So a lot of governments often fund large-scale culling programs, which are costly and carbon-intensive as well.

So for example, in case of Korea, what Korean government does is they pay fishermen to collect starfish bycatch. Basically they will collect them and they would burn them, incinerate them, every year—thousands and thousands of tons every year. What we do is we take the starfish carcass and we upcycle instead. It means fewer emissions, reduced landfill, reduced incineration cost, and it also can create additional income opportunities for fishing communities. So it's a circular solution that turns waste into value.

One thing is that we also do a 100% upcycle, meaning that we take the skeletons of starfish and make this additive that turns conventional deicer super eco-friendly. We also take the skins of the starfish and make collagen for skincare uses, and everything that is byproduct, leftover, becomes liquid fertilizers.

Mitch Ratcliffe 12:43

That's really interesting. So you really have taken this material and turned it into every possible output that you could. Are there other applications for this besides de-icing?

Hando Choi 12:55

Like I said, you know, like we actually use the skins of the starfish, because when you cut one arm off of a starfish, it'll regrow. So we know that there's a lot of collagen inside. So we take the collagen from the skins of starfish and make for skincare usage.

In case of the additives, the skeletons we make into additive that make the conventional deicers eco-friendly, right? So it actually has a lot of anti-corrosion properties. So we actually use it for other anti-corrosion, you know, like in the pipes, or any sort of pipes and hoses. We actually make that into more efficient anti-corrosion additives as well.

Mitch Ratcliffe 13:32

So is that something that would be a coating on the inside of a pipe, or is that something you would use to clean a pipe as an application?

Hando Choi 13:38

Both. So we would actually do that for anti-corrosion protection. And we also use some of the—some of these elements—and make them into something called scale resistance material, so that it does not—basically, inside the pipes, over time, it does not actually scale up or build up any sort of clogging. So we actually make into different type of agents.

Mitch Ratcliffe 14:03

So, it’s really interesting that you can develop a circular economy and something that we were treating as a complete waste product before. This is a great place to take a commercial break. We're going to be right back to continue the conversation. Stay tuned, folks.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Mitch Ratcliffe 14:15

Welcome back to Sustainability in Your Ear. Let's get back to the conversation with Hando Choi. He is president of Stars Tech, a Korean company that's developed a deicer for roads and sidewalks from starfish that are less harmful to the environment and less corrosive to metal and concrete. So Hando, are there other sea creatures that are invasive that we could be harvesting to do more with? And can you give an example if you have one?

Hando Choi 14:45

Sure. So, for example, we can, instead of starfish, we can also upcycle or use sea urchin shells, discarded sea urchin shells, as our primary alternatives. Like starfish, their exoskeletons are made—the porous calcium carbonates—which makes them ideal for ion release volume regulation. So we can actually upcycle sea urchin shells as well.

We are also experimenting with nomura jellyfish, which are, you know, greatly disrupting marine ecosystems across many, many parts of the world. They may not be ideal for de-icing usage, but we can extract high-value collagen out of them for agriculture and cosmetics uses as well.

Finally, we are developing a process to convert discarded oyster shells and turn them into low-carbon calcium chloride that gives us a fully marine source, circular material platform for de-icing uses as well.

Mitch Ratcliffe 15:41

How sustainable is your starfish supply chain itself? Does, for instance, the collection of the starfish disturb the seafloor? Are there other impacts that we're not looking at here?

Hando Choi 15:51

We are not really worried about the supply or any sort of, you know, like side effects. For example, starfish are extremely reproductive, and they really have no natural predators. Currently, we are using less than 10% of collected starfish bycatch in Korea alone. So that means, if our demand scales 10x, we can still source everything locally.

If we ever exhaust domestic supply of starfish, we can always turn to other regions. For example, Australia, for instance, they have even more severe starfish overpopulation issues. Also, in an unlikely scenario that we run out of all the starfish, you know, around the world, we also have the options to use discarded sea urchin shells instead, which have similar porous properties as with starfish.

Mitch Ratcliffe 16:43

For instance, sea urchins in Northern California are a major issue. They're damaging the kelp beds. Are there opportunities to have local fishing communities plug into your supply chain, to become suppliers and to earn some income from their efforts to clean up those invasive species? That represents an interesting economic way of incenting sustainable behavior.

Hando Choi 17:06

Absolutely. We would be more than happy to work with local fisheries in the U.S., in Canada, or wherever there's overpopulation of starfish or sea urchins that is disrupting the local ecosystems. We're actually already in talks with a few partners in those regions to explore the logistics.

The vision is eventually to create decentralized processing hubs where local fishing communities can collect these invasive species, do initial processing—maybe dry them or even extract the skeletons—and then ship the raw materials to us. That way we minimize transportation carbon footprint, and we also strengthen the circular economy at a regional level. It's a win-win for the ecosystem, for the local economy, and for carbon reduction.

Mitch Ratcliffe 17:49

That would be a very cool thing to see built out. In fact, it would create opportunity in a lot of coastal communities that have been hit really hard economically. Are you seeing conversations with municipalities or with fishing fleets in those areas? Or is it just in the preliminary exploration phase at this point?

Hando Choi 18:08

It is still a preliminary exploration phase, but we have been in talks. For example, in Northern California, there are research groups and NGOs that are basically trying to restore the kelp forests. And they are willing to partner up with us in order to control that purple sea urchin populations.

In Canada, there are some fishing communities that are interested as well. It does take time because we need to establish the infrastructure, the supply chain, the drying facilities and so on. But yeah, we're working on it.

Mitch Ratcliffe 18:44

It sounds to me like your collagen opportunity, in the long run, ends up being larger. That's a huge market in healthcare products and beauty products and so forth. Are you working with companies in those industries to become a supplier?

Hando Choi 18:58

So we actually have our own skincare brand that we launched recently. So one thing that I also wanted to spend a little bit more time explaining is that our collagen that is derived from starfish is very high-functioning collagen. While collagen usually cannot penetrate or be absorbed into your dermis because of the bigger molecular size, the starfish-derived collagen can. So it has about 2,300 times more absorbency to your dermal layer. So it has very good anti-aging properties. We actually have plans to expand our sales to the U.S. next year.

Mitch Ratcliffe 19:34

Where is it available today, and what kind of traction are you seeing in the market?

Hando Choi 19:38

Right now, it is only available in Korea. And we are actually also expanding in China right now. The repurchase rate is very high. We are more a climate tech company, so we're small in scale, so we haven't been able to spend a lot of money on marketing in order to create the awareness or, you know, the brand awareness. But the customers who actually have tried our product—a high number of them, percentage of them—have been repurchasing because they have been very happy with our products, especially because of its anti-aging properties.

Mitch Ratcliffe 20:16

Are investors interested in this? When you go to them and say, we've got a climate tech company that makes deicer from starfish, and we can also make collagen from those materials for the skincare community. Do they get that? Do they recognize that this is a new feedstock for several different industries?

Hando Choi 20:33

So one of the reasons why we have been a little bit slow on our cosmetic side is because we are a B2B company to begin with. So basically, we have been focusing more on sales of our base materials. Now we're actually getting into more on the consumer side.

The investors actually get it in a way that, because this actually helps us to upcycle the waste 100%—because we actually get this collagen from the process of separating the skeletons and the flesh. A lot of the production cost is already covered by our de-icing operations, right? So it poses great opportunity, not just for us financially, but also for the environment, as we are able to upcycle the waste 100%. And also, this is also a new, high-functioning green material for the industry as well. So it poses a lot of different opportunities for us.

Mitch Ratcliffe 21:28

There are some other alternatives to rock salt that are being used in de-icing—calcium magnesium acetate, beet juice blends. They're already in the U.S. market. How are you breaking through? How do you begin the conversation, for instance, with a county roads program about their use of rock salt and how this could be a better option?

Hando Choi 21:49

That's a great question. So let's break it down. The CMA, calcium magnesium acetate, or potassium acetate—all acetate-based deicers—are considered very safe for the environment. That is why it is used in sensitive or protected areas like airports. But it is also much, much more expensive than rock salt, and it is also less effective in terms of melting performance, especially at extreme low temperatures.

For another instance, beet juice is often used as an alternative, but it is more of an enhancer. It is mixed with salt to improve adhesion and reduce scattering of salt, you know, like to the side of the roads. However, it smells unpleasant, it is harder to store, and it still contains chloride from the base salt.

So what ECO-ST offers is the best of each element. It basically has the melting power of traditional salts, corrosion protection similar to CMA or potassium acetate, optimization or enhancement properties like beet juice, and crucially, it is the only carbon-negative de-icing in the market, basically credited with carbon credit for every time you use it.

Mitch Ratcliffe 22:59

On the other hand, your product also costs significantly more than rock salt. You mentioned the comparison with beet juice and CMA. How do you compare to those two alternatives? And how do you, again, going back to that county road commissioner who has a limited budget, convince them to spend more for this premium product when they've got all these other concerns and they have a solution that, from their perspective, works?

Hando Choi 23:23

Yes, so ECO-ST is more expensive than untreated salt. That is because we are adding additional elements on top of a conventional deicer base. But still, it is cheaper than acetate-based deicers like CMA or potassium acetate or even beet juice.

If you look at how it makes sense economically, salt only accounts for less than 5% of most winter budgets. The real cost lies in operations and repairing the damage that comes—that entails—from salt use, like rusted bridges, cracked pavements or contaminated soils and so on.

Our simulation, based on U.S. municipal data, shows that using ECO-ST can deliver up to 5,000% ROI over time. So that includes lower infrastructure maintenance cost, fewer reapplications of salt, and compliance with ESG targets. So when governments look at the total cost of ownership, not just the procurement price, the economics become very compelling.

Mitch Ratcliffe 24:27

Does it store well? I live in the mountains, and so we have piles of salt mixed with gravel all over the place, just waiting for the winter storms to come in. Does ECO-ST—or ecosystem, I've been saying it wrong—can it store in that form, or does that start to leach into the environment?

Hando Choi 24:47

So what makes ECO-ST different from, you know, piles of salt is that additive, which takes only about 2% of the total volume. So that additive can sit on the shelf for a very, very long period of time. It does not leach into the ground. It's just basically chemically created calcium carbonate that does not harm the environment.

Mitch Ratcliffe 25:09

So actually, if it were rained on, would that cause it to activate?

Hando Choi 25:12

No, it would not. It may actually melt the salt or harden the salt, but the additive itself doesn't have any impact—would not be harmed.

Mitch Ratcliffe 25:24

Now, the de-icing industry is pretty big, pretty conservative, and as we've talked about, price-sensitive. What's your timeline for meaningful U.S. market penetration, you know, so that we can hope to reduce the damage that is caused by rock salt? How long is it going to take?

Hando Choi 25:38

We are not trying to replace rock salt overnight, for sure. We understand this takes time, resources, increasing general public awareness and buy-ins. It'll take years for sure.

Instead, we are aiming to be a high-performance supplement to the salt, especially in areas where environmental impact is a concern. We expect adoption to grow gradually, starting with environmentally sensitive zones like bridges or forest preserves. We are in the process of locking in a few pilot programs with municipalities in the Midwest and the Northeast in the U.S. for this coming winter season. This includes these aforementioned sensitive areas. We're going to be studying there and then gradually grow our presence.

Mitch Ratcliffe 26:23

Do you see the potential for this circular economy in a variety of bycatch as a new industrial sector? Are there competitors emerging or complementary companies that you see identifying this source of material that they're building businesses around?

Hando Choi 26:41

I'm sure that there are a lot of different, you know, like businesses or tech companies, climate tech companies, that are actually upcycling these different wastes for different uses. But when it comes to de-icing uses, we actually have—using pore structures that's coming from the natural waste—we have tried so many different types of different, you know, like pore structures that we can find in nature as a waste. And we actually have concluded that starfish ones is the most effective one through this process.

This is the way that we actually also found sea urchin shells to be a great alternative in the case that, you know, we are not able to source starfish skeletons as waste. So we're continuing to try a lot of different things and securing IPs on these.

So, I mean, if other companies are able to find other sources, we welcome—I mean, we are all about leveraging what is being wasted from nature and then turning them into, you know, like zero to hero. So we welcome any sort of technologies or competitors entering this segment.

Mitch Ratcliffe 27:44

So some of our listeners are also looking at their front lawn and front walk and thinking about the winter and probably wondering whether they can buy ECO-ST. Can you use this in your front yard?

Hando Choi 27:55

Absolutely. We recommend using it. It'll protect your driveway for sure. It'll also be a lot less damaging to your lawn, for sure. A lot of studies show that it'll actually damage your lawn 70% less than salt, so basically prevent yellowing of the lawn. And also the soil—actually increasing in salinity level—which means it actually, your vegetation will lose its biomass.

So we actually do recommend for usage at your homes. Right now, ECO-ST and StarCrush, which is, you know, like a subsequent brand that is more accessible in terms of pricing but just as good, are currently available on Amazon in the U.S. and Canada. We are, for this winter, we are launching a retail pilot with a few hardware stores. We cannot mention their names just yet.

So for homeowners who want to try something better than salt and better for the environment, ECO-ST and StarCrush are already an option and will become more widely available in the coming years.

Mitch Ratcliffe 28:56

Hando, this is a really interesting story. I'm glad that we took the time to learn about it and get you on the air. How can folks follow what Stars Tech is doing?

Hando Choi 29:06

In order to follow Stars Tech, we actually have our website, starstech.co.kr. Please follow us there and then see what we are doing. We are coming with different products and different solutions for different environmental issues. Our product is available on Amazon. Hope you guys use it and see how it works, and then please leave us any feedbacks.

And as we are trying to grow our presence in the U.S. and Canada, what we will be doing is we'll be working with a lot of different publications to raise awareness of all the environmental side effects of deicers and how our products can actually help the environment. So we'll be doing more effort, making more of these efforts to raise the general public awareness going forward.

Mitch Ratcliffe 29:55

Well, Hando, thanks very much for taking the time to talk with us today. It was a really interesting conversation.

Hando Choi 29:59

Yeah. Thank you, Mitch. Thank you for taking the time, Mitch. Appreciate it.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Mitch Ratcliffe 30:06

Welcome back to Sustainability in Your Ear. You've been listening to my conversation with Hando Choi. He is president of Stars Tech, a Korean climate tech company that's turning invasive starfish into low-carbon road deicer that also reduces salt-related damage to roads, bridges and vehicles.

Another byproduct of their process, as you heard, is collagen, which supports a new line of Stars Tech skincare products. And you can learn more about Stars Tech at starstech.co. Stars Tech is one word, no space, no dash—starstech.co. And check out ECO-ST, its de-icing product, which is available on Amazon.

So here's a company that recognized a natural source of a valuable material—not one material, but several—and it helps reduce the damage caused to local shellfish populations by invasive starfish. They found every use that was possible for the byproducts of their manufacturing process. And as we heard, Stars Tech blossomed from a high school science project that shows that coming generations can imagine and commercialize solutions that will reduce the severity and ultimately begin to reverse the climate crisis.

In fact, it's the pragmatic qualities of ECO-ST that are most striking to me. The product may be more expensive than road salt, which is estimated by the Isaac Walton League of America to cause infrastructure damage of between $30 and $300 per ton of salt used on our roads. ECO-ST's high price is a fraction of the fully loaded cost of the traditional approach—that is, using rock salt on the roads. So if you factor in those pesky externalities that the take-make-waste economy has long ignored, ECO-ST is a bargain.

Another pragmatic move here is Stars Tech's discovery of other applications for starfish skeletons, such as using it to prevent corrosion in pipes. And the benefits didn't stop there. They use every part of the starfish, leaving nothing to waste, and they help increase the incomes for fishing fleets that have treated starfish as bycatch that had to be thrown back into the ocean instead of keeping them from harming fisheries.

So this kind of thinking, this systemic thinking, can unlock a more sustainable economy by combining environmental restoration with waste-free manufacturing. Pretty cool, if you ask me. And if your driveway freezes in the winter, maybe ECO-ST is a product to consider.

We'll share more companies like Stars Tech on future episodes. And hey, would you take a moment to look at one of the more than 500 shows that we've recorded for Sustainability in Your Ear and share them with a friend? Writing a review on your favorite podcast platform will help your neighbors find us. Folks, you're the amplifiers that can spread more ideas to create less waste. So please tell your friends, family, co-workers, the people you meet on the street, that they can find Sustainability in Your Ear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, or whatever purveyor of podcast goodness they prefer.

Thank you for your support. I'm Mitch Ratcliffe. This is Sustainability in Your Ear, and we will be back with another innovator interview soon. In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself, take care of one another, and let's all take care of this beautiful planet of ours. Have a green day.

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The cold has set in at Elk Creek, so let's go back to August and enjoy the sound of water flowing over the basalt pillows along Elk Creek. These volcanic formations, which are common in the Upper Rogue Valley were likely created by undersea eruptions during the late Eocene to late Miocene period , between 40 million and 7 million years ago. As the continent formed, these features were raised to their current location, about 1,600 feet above sea level.