Hey there. You made it to the long weekend. Here’s what we’ve got for you in this week’s newsletter before you log off: The cheap EVs Americans can’t buy -
AI getting booed at college graduation A brand-new season of our climate podcast How one of our hosts played a “real” HR guy on “Jury Duty”
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Dumpster diver Ben Krase sells some of the items he finds in Duke University dumpsters on eBay. (Alice Wilder/Marketplace) | College move-out is dumpster diver heaven |
One man’s dorm move-out trash is another man’s treasure. Marketplace’s Alice WIlder tried to find out if there was a better way, starting with the dumpsters at Duke University. |
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It begins in late April — Duke University students finish their final exams, pitch mini fridges, mirrors and shower caddies in the dumpsters behind their dorms, and head home for the summer. Then, at all hours of the day, Durham residents pick through their trash. This spring, I joined pro dumpster diver Ben Krase on a hunt.
Krase divides his finds into two categories, “good trash” and “trash trash.” The former includes things like closet organizers, bookshelves, and bottles of Lysol. The latter? Well, you can imagine.
He looked back fondly on his past hunts. “We found a lot of clothes that we just donated to Goodwill … shower caddies and plastic crates … the kinds of things people have in their dorm rooms that they can’t be bothered to put in storage,” he said.
But the really good stuff? He sells on his eBay shop.
“I just recently sold a backpack that I found in a dumpster,” Krase said. “It’s not a lot but if I can make $15 off of something that I found for free, it’s not going to a landfill … it just feels good that it’s back in circulation.”
Alex Freid, founder of the Atlas Zero Waste fellowship program, is also an avid dumpster diver. But he’d rather keep usable materials out of the trash.
“ What we wanna do is terms of supporting campuses at an institutional level is helping them build the systems to avoid [dumpsters] in the first place,” he said. | |
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| More on grad season…
And sustainability
Trumponomics 101 | |
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Uber driver Albertino Inácio Neto, who lives in the Northeast city of Recife, spent $30,000 on a BYD Dolphin Plus last year. (Gisele Regatão/Marketplace) |
How Brazil became BYD’s biggest market outside of China |
In four years, the Chinese EV carmaker has sold almost 250,000 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the country, with the goal of being the No. 1 car seller there by 2030. Gisele Regatão reports. |
Uber driver Albertino Inácio Neto, who lives in the Northeast city of Recife, almost gave up his job. “I was losing money with a combustion car,” he said. It was costing him roughly $500 a month to fill his tank, so Inácio decided to spend $30,000 on a BYD Dolphin Plus last year. “The car is excellent. It’s working great,” he said.
“BYD invested a lot in marketing and offers very competitive prices
,” said Murilo Briganti, chief operating officer of Bright Consulting. BYD is one of their clients. “BYD produces the batteries, the software , and the vehicles; that reduces costs,” Briganti said.
Paulo Feldmann, a professor of economics and innovation at the University of São Paulo, said there’s a reason BYD cars are so cheap. “Chinese companies get support from the government,” he said. “Sometimes the support is huge, which is the case here.” Felmann said that the Chinese government is footing the bill. “In my opinion, this is a kind of dumping,” he said, referring to the practice of exporting goods at prices below production costs. | |
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| Here are the stories readers clicked on the most in our Daily Wrap newsletter this week. Sign up to get the latest news and numbers in your inbox every weekday evening. | |
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Courtesy Prime | Ryan Perez isn't an HR guy, but he plays one on TV |
The co-host of Marketplace’s “Million Bazillion” told us how he prepared and why he’s still reminding himself he’s not the boss. | |
“Jury Duty” had a premise so ambitious it’s hard to believe it worked twice.
In the streaming show’s first season, an unwitting juror thought he was taking part in a documentary, but the case was fake and everyone else in the court was an actor. The second season, “Jury Duty: Company Retreat” moves the action to a resort where a fictional firm has gathered with some help from a temp worker, who is made to think everything that unfolds is real.
In the first episode we see the patsy, Anthony, hired on by an HR boss named Kevin, whose voice will sound familiar to Marketplace fans: He’s actually Ryan Perez, longtime comedy writer and co-host of our kids podcast
“Million Bazillion.”
“Jury Duty: Company Retreat” is streaming in full on Amazon and “Million Bazillion” is wrapping up its latest season, so I called up Perez to talk about his experience playing a real-fake boss for a little newsletter exclusive. Here are a few edited highlights:
On “hiring” Anthony to a fake company:
it was really like doing a job interview, and they [the producers] weren't really interested at all in there being jokes. They said, “Just play that as you would, completely straight, completely normal, like the most boring HR person in the world.”
Because in the beginning, Anthony 100% needed to believe that this was a real job and a real company. And if you'll notice in the first episode of the show, very little interesting really happens until, honestly, days into the process of him being hired.
On maintaining the illusion:
We had a word for it, which is we were “building the reality bank” of the situation. You would have to build this bank of real, mundane, normal office behavior, and then you were allowed to sort of do maybe one strange thing. And then after that strange thing you would have to build the reality bank back up — here's some normal stuff, here's another boring day.
On what Marketplace fans will get out of the show:
The show is a very pro-small-business show. And I think it strives to understand the struggles of a small business. Ironically, the retreat portrayed in the show is something more elaborate than most small businesses can afford. But the show at the end of the day is really about the functioning of a small business. | |
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⏰ Last chance!! ⏰ |
Our fundraiser ends tonight! Supporting Marketplace supports understanding for everyone. Will you help keep our work accessible for all? | |
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SONG OF THE WEEK |
“Ride Wit Me” by Nelly |
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Get it? "Must Be The Money!" Click to watch. |
Marketplace’s newest podcast is “Must Be The Money,” where host Lee Hawkins has candid conversations with athletes, entrepreneurs, investors and creators about wealth, business and economic empowerment.
The first three episodes are out now, and we think you’ll particularly enjoy his chat with BlackRock’s Jabari Magnus. Watch or listen to “Must Be The Money” on YouTube or your podcast app of choice. You can also read some highlights here. | |
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