0:04

Welcome to the Daily Dive Weekend edition.

0:07

I'm Oscar Ramirez, and every week I explore

0:09

the top stories making waves in the news and

0:12

some that are just playing interesting. I'll

0:14

connect you with the journalists and the people who know the

0:16

story and bring you news without the noise

0:18

so you can make an informed decision. You

0:20

can catch a new episode of The Daily Dive every Monday

0:23

through Friday, and it's ready where you wake up.

0:26

On the weekend edition, I'll be bringing you some of the best

0:28

stories from the week. Throughout

0:32

the pandemic, Americans went on a fast

0:34

furniture buying spree, and very soon

0:36

it can all be going in the trash. Fast

0:39

furniture is mass produced and relatively

0:41

inexpensive. Think of something you might find it at Kia

0:43

or Wayfair. Each year we threw out more

0:45

than twelve million tons of furniture, and

0:48

some of the materials and fast furniture don't break down

0:50

or biodegrade. These items are only

0:52

meant to last about five years or so,

0:54

so the next spot for them is the landfill.

0:57

For more on what to know about fast furniture, will speak

0:59

to Deborah came In, contributor to The New

1:01

York Times, a lot of people think of fast furniture

1:04

as only coming from stores like Ikea

1:07

or Wayfair Amazon. You think it the

1:09

stuff that comes in the flat pack and you've got to put it together,

1:11

you know, with the instructions. I don't have any words. And

1:14

that is all true. But according to some environmentalists,

1:17

even the nicer stuff that some of us consider pretty

1:19

expensive, like Create and Barrel or

1:21

Seaton two or west Down even are considered

1:23

fast furniture because of the environmental

1:26

impact of the way it's manufactured. It's made in a

1:28

factory, mass produced, so a lot of carbon

1:30

emissions, a lot of waste. They also call that

1:32

fast furniture. As I mentioned that five

1:35

year thing. You know, some of this stuff they say, you

1:37

know, it's not gonna last that long, and we're looking for

1:39

sturdier pieces. Maybe they can last a decade

1:42

or longer. That's the more sustainable stuff.

1:44

It's just gonna not gonna be thrown

1:46

away as easily. So what's the

1:48

worry now? Obviously it's going to clog up landfills,

1:51

and you, as you mentioned, the process behind making

1:53

them obviously is wasteful too, right, So

1:56

we're buying a ton more furniture and the furniture we're

1:58

buying is not made as well. It's made from material of it

2:00

don't break down and in essence, because

2:02

we're putting it together in our homes, it doesn't last as

2:04

long. So as it falls apart, what

2:06

do you do with it? You throw it away. You're not going to take

2:09

a lack table from Ikea and sell

2:11

it on Craigslist for twenty bucks. It's not worth

2:13

your time. I mean, you walk on the streets of New York City at the

2:15

end of the month, you see furniture on the curb everywhere.

2:18

That stuff ends up in landfills, and it's

2:20

further than fifty percent more than

2:22

it has been a couple of decades ago. We are throwing away

2:25

so much furniture. A lot of Americans

2:27

don't realize that the way that we furnish

2:29

our homes now is having a huge impact on the environment.

2:32

Each year, Americans are throwing out more than twelve

2:34

million tons of furniture,

2:37

and the e commerce furniture market is worth

2:39

twenty seven billion dollars. This is from you

2:42

know, a lot of people don't obviously look into how

2:44

the stuff's made, and you know the after effects. But people

2:47

love this the fast fashion stuff, you know, is

2:49

a comparable thing that a lot of people point to.

2:51

But the fast furniture stuff, I mean, it lets

2:53

a lot of people really design their homes, furnished

2:56

their homes at a really good price point,

2:58

and obviously that's what a lot of people are looking into.

3:01

Yeah, I mean, that's actually a key issue here, and I really wanted

3:03

to emphasize this in the story that I wrote. This is

3:05

not anybody's fault, and you shouldn't feel bad

3:07

if you have fast furniture in your home. I have

3:09

a wayfair desk that I said at that I wrote this article

3:11

at. The problem is that furniture the

3:13

way it's manufactured now, it's so expensive

3:16

to buy the good stuff that most people just can't And

3:18

we also move so frequently in our lives that

3:20

it doesn't make sense to buy a ten

3:22

thousand dollar couch for most of us if we're going to

3:25

have to move on from our apartment in six months. So

3:27

we're all kind of trapped in this cycle where

3:29

we have no choice except to buy stuff that is

3:31

really not good for the environment. And you mentioned

3:33

buying that big couch, right, So even

3:35

throughout the pandemic, a lot of people who were

3:38

making some of those purchases know the

3:40

pains of trying to get furniture

3:42

right. Some of this stuff was you know, say, hey,

3:45

I want to buy a couch, Well it's going to be seven eight months

3:47

maybe, And so the fast furniture

3:49

category really filled that whole. You

3:51

know, you maybe take you a couple of weeks still or a few

3:53

weeks to get something, but at least you can get

3:55

something that you needed immediately. And

3:58

even with people that landlord words and

4:00

stuff, people with the short term rentals all that stuff

4:03

really look to this category to fill their stuff.

4:05

Yeah, there are other options on the market. Increasingly,

4:08

a lot of new companies are being founded that are trying

4:10

to solve this problem and also fill the gap.

4:13

So there's lots of new options to purchase furniture

4:15

second hand or to refurbish it. And I would

4:17

really encourage people if they are concerned about fast

4:19

furniture but don't want to drop ten k on a couch,

4:22

to look into those options in these new companies where

4:24

you can buy things that maybe are gently used but

4:26

are still in really good condition. And the best thing

4:28

about them is they're in stock. They don't have to be manufactured

4:30

when you buy them. Yeah, let's focus a little

4:33

bit more on though so too that you mentioned in

4:35

the article. One is Kyo and there are

4:37

market Polace for pre owned furniture. They said

4:39

they kept more than three point five million pounds

4:41

of furniture out of refills. And another one is Furniture.

4:43

So this is a rental subscription service.

4:46

Yeah, it's actually it's more like a rent to buy. So you can

4:48

rent furniture, but at any point you think, wow, I really

4:50

love this. Instead of paying you ten dollars

4:53

or twelve dollars a month for the lamp or the chair,

4:55

you can just pay out the rest at the end. But if

4:57

you're locked in a six month lease, then you don't know

5:00

if you're going to renew. It's a good option to buy

5:02

furniture that maybe is slightly higher quality

5:04

without having to pay the full price because they're not going to be

5:06

able to use it for an extended period of time.

5:09

What have some of these companies said for their

5:11

part, at least what they're trying to change, how

5:13

they're trying and maybe not to contribute

5:15

to a lot of waste. I know you spoke to a

5:17

Wayfair and IKEA and got some type of

5:19

statements from them. Yeah, so wayfair an

5:21

Ikea. Both they are aware of the environmental

5:24

impact of the work that they do and they are making efforts

5:26

to become more sustainable, and I want to say those

5:28

efforts really are admirable. As Kea has a huge

5:30

sustainability pledge. They're trying to

5:33

make sure that they become clebon neutral by twenty

5:35

thirty. Wafer also has a lot of sustainability

5:37

initiatives on their website. They're trying to

5:40

use better materials and cut carbon

5:42

emissions. The bigger problem is the

5:44

fact that we are all refurnishing our homes every

5:46

time we move. So even if you are using

5:48

more sustainable practices, there's still a lot

5:50

of waste every time you throw up furniture because

5:53

there's furnitures on a product that is very

5:55

easy to resell. And that's why these

5:57

other companies like Kyo and Furnish are

6:00

stepping into that middle ground. So if you have a

6:02

piece of furniture that you don't want to use anymore, there's

6:04

an option for putting it into

6:06

the circulation for someone else that doesn't involve

6:09

just leaving it on the curb. You spoke

6:11

to a few people that either out of necessity,

6:13

had to go with a fast furniture

6:15

stuff or there was also a homeowner

6:18

that you spoke to that change his mind about

6:20

it and actually learned how to make

6:22

furniture so that he can furnish his old

6:24

classic house. How did those conversations

6:26

go. Yeah, this was a fun piece to report because

6:29

I talked to a lot of different people about all these

6:31

different ways that they're living and how furniture

6:33

kind of emphasizes their choices. But this one

6:35

guy, Doug Green, he bought a two

6:37

hud year old house and he renovated day and

6:39

then he just decided, I spent so much

6:42

time making the walls on the floors of these rooms

6:44

beautiful, I don't want to buy cheap furniture

6:46

to put inside of it. So he actually taught himself

6:49

how to make his own furniture. So he built

6:51

his own dead and he built his own table, and

6:53

he and his girlfriend made this into a project.

6:56

This is obviously an extreme example, but I thought

6:58

it was a very interesting take on someone

7:00

saying I don't want to have materials

7:03

in my home that don't match the quality of the home itself.

7:05

Totally. Yeah, I mean, but You're right, there's a lot

7:07

of time that goes into it, and a lot of people and

7:09

a lot of privilege just can't do that. Yeah, exactly.

7:12

So then you know, as we mentioned right, some of this

7:14

fast furnitures of the materials just don't buy a degrade.

7:16

They don't break down the right way. If we're

7:19

in that category and we're looking at good price points,

7:21

is there something that consumers should be looking at

7:23

to at least help with this, Yeah, I

7:25

mean you can. When you're looking to purchase furniture.

7:27

First of all, one thing you can do is you can check online reviews,

7:30

especially if you're buying something that's mass produced, so

7:32

you can find out on those reviews how long

7:34

these products tend to last and be durable. And

7:37

if a lot of reviews are saying this piece broke after

7:39

a year, or this really didn't this bunk

7:41

that I didn't hold up to my kids jumping on it

7:43

or whatever, it's probably not a goal idea to buy

7:45

that product because chances are it's also not gonna

7:48

last for you and you're gonna end up throwing it out. The

7:50

other thing is you can try to find products that are

7:52

made from solid materials as opposed to manufacturing

7:55

materials. The price point might be a little bit higher,

7:57

but at least you know that you're purchasing something

7:59

that one it's being manufactured, the

8:01

production is slightly more sustainable

8:03

than it would be if it were something like plywood or

8:06

manufactured would And the best

8:08

thing you can always do is try to shop secondhand,

8:10

try to shop by nothing, try to you

8:13

know, purchase items that are already

8:15

in circulation and don't have to be created. Do And

8:17

that's that's a sustainability rule for everything,

8:20

for the clothes that we wear. We should all be trying

8:22

to buy less and reuse more

8:24

because climate change is real. Deborah

8:28

came in contributor to The New York Times. Thank

8:30

you very much for joining us, Thank

8:32

you for having me. It was fun. Finally

8:38

for this week, what does a road trip look like

8:40

in an all electric vehicle? For one

8:42

reporter, it was kind of a nightmare. The

8:44

trip did cost less money for fuel, but

8:46

more time was spent charging than sleeping. To

8:49

be clear, this trip used public charging infrastructure

8:51

on a trip from New Orleans to Chicago and back.

8:54

Not all charges were fast chargers, and

8:56

not all of them are created equal charging

8:58

speeds. Varied every time. For

9:00

more on her four day EV road trip, will

9:02

speak to Rachel Wolf, consumer trans

9:04

reporter at the Law Street Journal. Yeah, it was,

9:07

you know, to put it mildly, a road

9:09

trip from hell u we

9:12

The headline of the story is we spent more time

9:14

charging than we spent sleeping.

9:16

I went with my friend Mac

9:19

and you know, wouldn't wouldn't

9:21

do it again anytime soon. I think a lot

9:23

of it was traveling through the South, where

9:26

public charging infrastructure is particularly

9:29

lacking, and you know, it's really exciting

9:32

all the planned investments and

9:34

there's promise of things getting

9:37

a lot better, but for now

9:39

we were stuck with um really

9:42

slow with chargers and not a

9:44

whole lot of options, especially

9:46

between New Orleans and or

9:48

first stop with in Nashville. We

9:50

also drove back from Chicago because we had to return

9:52

the rental car, and between Memphis

9:55

and New Orleans was also pretty dicey.

9:57

You know, if one charger

10:00

was out of warror, which thankfully they weren't,

10:02

we really would have been even even more

10:04

screwed. Are eighteen hours was,

10:07

you know, having things go about as well as they

10:09

could have, aside from this

10:12

true weather we experience, but Um,

10:15

you know, it's I think, and

10:17

the weather and all that stuff. I mean, those are all things that are going

10:19

to experience on a road trip. But

10:21

the particulars are

10:24

having to deal with not stopping

10:26

at already readily available gas station

10:28

and filling up and going in a matter of minutes,

10:31

right, having to stay there in charge on

10:33

these chargers that sometimes aren't fast chargers.

10:36

So let's talk a little bit about the parameters

10:39

of everything. As I mentioned, you guys were in a Kia

10:41

e V six. It was a two thousand mile road

10:43

trip. You use the plug share app,

10:45

which has kind of a map of public chargers.

10:48

Tell us how that worked out. Still,

10:50

the plug for app helped you every

10:53

place that you could possibly charge,

10:56

uh, you know, in the whole country. Um,

10:59

and we sorted by fast

11:02

chargers are actually they're a different color on

11:04

the map. And so you know, we

11:07

understand, as somebody who reports

11:09

on electric cars, although I don't own one,

11:11

the difference between a fast charger which

11:14

offers charge and speeds up

11:16

to three and fifty kill a

11:19

lots, which is super fast. Most most

11:21

cars cann except that much power.

11:23

But there's a big range of bigger range that I knew

11:25

going into the trip and all of my reporting. You

11:27

know, I just knew that there were these three levels of chargers,

11:30

um, and I never really thought more about it because I had

11:32

never charged a car myself, and I think that that would

11:34

be a pretty you know, it's

11:37

pretty typical thing to expect the fast charger

11:39

is fast. Um. We

11:41

learned that that is not necessarily the case. There

11:44

is this huge range and fast chargers

11:46

start at about twenty four kill lots,

11:48

which the difference between twenty four and

11:50

three fifty uh is huge.

11:53

The difference of spending three

11:55

hours walking downtown

11:57

to Meridy in Mississippi because we

12:00

don't want to stay at the Keya dealership

12:02

where our car is plugged in. You know, that

12:04

charger had trouble even cracking

12:06

twenty kill lots, super

12:09

super slow. Um. We're

12:11

also we ended up meeting to

12:13

use a level too charger at one point because

12:15

we just didn't make it to our

12:17

next fast charger. And where the fast, where

12:20

the true fast chargers are, they're

12:22

great. Um. We had some really positive

12:25

charging the experiences as well, which

12:27

I read about in the piece. You know where

12:29

it works, It really does work, and we didn't

12:32

mind the half hour stops. You know, we would

12:34

have lunch struct our legs. That wasn't the

12:36

issue. You know, stopping for half an hour

12:39

really it isn't going to be what changes

12:42

your whole stay. So if you're planning

12:44

a trip that's seven hours and it takes eight

12:46

whatever who planning trip that takes

12:48

that's supposed to be seven hours and it takes fifteen,

12:51

uh, which we

12:54

experience, so you know, that's a little bit.

12:56

So some of these fast charging stations, they'll

12:58

say, you know, you can get sent charge in about

13:00

twenty thirty minutes. As you mentioned, a

13:02

lot of these along the way sometimes are

13:05

these lower level two charges, so

13:07

that's like an eight hour charge, eight hours

13:09

for a full charge. And you made mention in the article,

13:11

right, so that's easy if you're staying somewhere

13:13

overnight, that's a overnight charge, and

13:15

you're totally cool. But you know, as you

13:18

keep going along the road, yeah, you're gonna have to

13:20

make these pit stops for some of them, and

13:23

you know, if it's not going to be that thirty

13:25

minute charge, it's gonna take three hours.

13:27

And you mentioned in the article some of them took that

13:29

long. That's when you start really pushing

13:31

back the overall trip exactly.

13:34

UM. And that's when you start really wondering

13:38

what you're gonna do for three

13:40

hours in a place that you

13:43

did not expect to be second, um

13:45

and so and your car list and so

13:48

you know, we end up getting a really nice new

13:50

in Murty in Mississippi. UM,

13:52

but we hadn't planned for it and had to walk

13:55

the thirty minutes downtown because our car was

13:57

charging. So you know, the charging stop

13:59

might up where you want to hang

14:01

out. You ran into a lot of people

14:03

obviously along the way who were also charging.

14:06

How did some of those conversations go because a lot of

14:08

them overall still had pretty positive

14:11

experiences, especially when you're seeing gas prices

14:13

tick up. You know, they appreciated some of

14:15

those things, but you know, maybe they weren't on a

14:18

two thousand mile road trip like you were. But

14:20

at least phillis in on some of the conversations you were

14:22

having with other electric vehicle owners.

14:26

One HED owner who has

14:28

a Ford Mustang Mackie and

14:30

he travels a lot for work

14:32

and he drives his Boster car

14:35

all the time. UM, and it's had a super

14:38

positive experience and you know, so that

14:40

he feels a little bit smug with the gas

14:42

prices up so much. But

14:44

the Midwest, the charging infrastructure is

14:47

a lot better than it is in the South. Um,

14:49

and he wants that he has more oftens. He still

14:51

has to plan it's route really carefully. He was

14:53

telling me that, uh, maybe he wouldn't

14:56

want his wife growing on a long road trip

14:58

with the car because you know, he'd be worried

15:00

about her having the plan uh

15:02

and you know, not making it and um,

15:05

but he used a strategy and it really

15:07

works for him. You know, he has to put a little bit more thought

15:09

into it. But he saved He says that, you know,

15:11

he saved thout rods of dollars on gas. So

15:13

it's awesome. So it's another woman who

15:15

also really loves her electric car. But she

15:18

was driving from her home

15:21

uh in St. Louis to Colorado

15:24

for her daughter's wedding and had to

15:26

be towed because she ran out

15:28

of juice on the highway

15:31

twice. She had to be to two different times.

15:34

And you know that was that was a fewer ours during

15:36

the too was having to be towed. There was

15:38

one moment where we thought we might

15:41

have to be outside of Sikes. Students are

15:43

very thankfully we made it

15:45

the gas station on zero person art to the charging

15:48

station on zero person of the charging station was actually

15:50

out of gas station. But um,

15:52

you know, I don't want to be the person who's

15:54

stranded because he can't just you

15:57

know, you could bring back a fuel tank, but

15:59

you can't you a whole a

16:01

generator to your car. What was

16:04

the worst part of this whole experience? It

16:06

could have been hitting that gas station,

16:08

that charging station at zero percent, but was

16:10

that the worst thing that happened on this journey

16:12

with regards to the charging and all that. You know, what

16:15

was the worst part? I think that was the most nerve

16:17

racking was being at zero

16:19

percent. Um. You know, the conditions

16:22

were so bad and we were kind of in the middle

16:24

of nowhere um, and we really

16:26

didn't want to have to call a tow truck.

16:29

Um. And that was we had been on this trip

16:31

forever at that point, you know, felt

16:33

like we were never going to get home. So that was that was

16:35

a real low point at the trick. I think

16:37

that another low was just realizing,

16:40

uh, in Meridian

16:43

that we might not make it to

16:45

Chicago. Um, you

16:47

know, we kind of felt just seated by that.

16:49

Three were charging time where we were like, I guess

16:52

we're not you know, exploring Nashville.

16:54

Um, you know, I just felt I felt guilty.

16:56

I felt like I had really uh over

16:59

promised my friend. I was like, it'll

17:01

be so fun and all these

17:03

cities we did not hanging

17:05

out in the city. You mentioned

17:08

in the story she had to get back for a shift at

17:10

her job and that, you know, it's getting very

17:12

iffy if you'd even make it back for that

17:14

part of it. It was. It was

17:16

really tight. I love this story

17:18

for a lot of different reasons, but it's kind

17:20

of a story of a typical person. Let's

17:23

say, hey, I wanted to rent an electric vehicle. Let's

17:25

try this road trip out any per

17:27

normal person who's going to pull out an app just like

17:29

you did and say, let's map this trip

17:31

along our charging stations and uh,

17:34

you know. So in that sense, it's it's a very typical

17:36

type of story. I know you received a lot

17:38

of feedback for this story. A lot of people may be saying,

17:40

why didn't you rent a Tesla, why didn't you use the Tesla

17:43

network. That's all well and good, but that's

17:45

not really the point, right. I love

17:47

the point of that. This is our public infrastructure,

17:50

of these public charging stations that we have right

17:52

now, and that's such an important thing when we're

17:54

talking about putting money into

17:57

this and yeah,

17:59

exactly, So how do you respond to that? Yeah,

18:01

I mean we intentionally did not

18:04

rent a Tesla because

18:06

Testlas. Testlas can charge

18:09

with public charging infrastructure,

18:12

but only Testlas can

18:14

charge using Tesla charges, And

18:16

so the Kia is

18:18

more affordable for multi sumers

18:21

UM. And you know, it's

18:24

one brand versus you

18:26

know, potentially like any

18:29

any and every brand of electric

18:31

car. So all Tesla's makeup

18:33

a percentage of the electric car market right

18:36

now when we're thinking about

18:38

the future of electrification. You know, it's

18:40

not just one company. So I

18:43

didn't I can retriten to Tesla. I

18:45

don't have any experience, like nothing against Tesla

18:48

UM. But uh,

18:51

it was intentional that we didn't. We been used

18:53

to Tesla for this trip um

18:56

and you know, probably I believe

18:59

the owners would say would have been would have been easier

19:01

with one. But that was the point, you know, so

19:04

that we would have a bad time. It was to

19:06

see, you know, can you do it? You know, car

19:09

these class are getting so much more popular so it's

19:11

writing. But you know what would

19:13

happen if you try to drive to Chicago. Nothing

19:15

good. Rachel Wolf, consumer trends

19:17

reporter at The Wall Street Journal. Thank you very much for

19:20

joining us. Thanks so much for having

19:22

me. That's

19:24

it for this weekend. Be sure to check

19:26

out The Daily Dive every Monday through Friday.

19:29

Join us on social media at Daily

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Dive and I Heard Radio or subscribe wherever

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you get your podcast. This episode

19:45

of The Daily Dive has been engineered by Tony Sargentina.

19:48

I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and

19:50

this was your Daily Dive weekend.

19:52

A vision