Audrey Asks… An environmentalist

Audrey is a curious eleven-year-old who wants to learn more about everything. She is searching for kids in the Rochester area who are doing big things.

Today she interviews fourteen-year-old Noah Moretter. He has started his own recycling business. He is in the eighth grade at Johanna Perrin Middle School in Fairport, and he has a younger brother named Aiden who is in sixth grade. He likes Italian food like spaghetti and watching Outer Banks on Netflix.

I heard that you really care about recycling. What got you interested in it? I have been interested in recycling ever since I was three. I remember a garbage man coming to my house and I thought it was so cool. After that I waited for the garbage truck every day and I’ve continued to be passionate about the whole refuse industry ever since.

When did you decide to start your own recycling business? I started it in 2020, right about when COVID started. I noticed that people around that time stopped recycling, and I was fascinated by that. I thought I could make a big difference. My aunt is a graphic designer and she helped me design a logo.

Tell me more about your business. I collect bottles and cans, and I recycle them at the Palmyra Recycling Center and Can Kings. I use some of  the money on my business costs like my website, logo, and business cards. And I save some of it for college. But every year I donate a big portion of the money I earned to a local charity.

How can someone become a customer? They can visit noahsrecycling.weebly.com or contact me at [email protected] and sign up to be a customer. Then we set a time and day for your collection, and it’s free. How much time do you spend on your business? I usually spend 3–4 days a week on collecting, recycling, and keeping up with emails from customers. I also attend committee meetings like the sustainability committee in Fairport. I service around ten customers a week including some businesses that weren’t recycling previously.

Do you have any hobbies or secret talents? I have a YouTube channel with over four thousand subscribers where I talk about waste and recycling.

Where do you see yourself in five or ten years? I want to go to college for environmental science, and my dream has always been to be a CEO of a waste management company.

Favorite book? Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City by anthropologist Robin Nagle.