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Winson Wong, Cofounder and CEO of Afterlife Ag, on Transforming Organic Waste Into Mushroom Substrate for Local Consumption and Environmental Benefit

1:46:00

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84 sec

Winson Wong, Cofounder and CEO of Afterlife Ag, discusses transforming organic waste into substrate to grow mushrooms, which benefits local consumption and the environment.

Afterlife Ag, a micro hauler and circular mushroom farm based in Queens, repurposes organic waste into a growing medium for mushrooms.
Their produced mushrooms are supplied to local entities, including restaurants and grocery stores, and the spent substrate is donated to city parks and gardens.
The company's mission is to reduce organic waste in landfills and is expanding to process thousands of pounds of waste weekly.
Wong advocates for amended local law 146 to support organic waste separation and calls for more backing for startups to utilize organic waste beneficially, aiding in climate justice.

Winson Wong

1:46:00

Hi.

1:46:00

My name is Vincent Wong.

1:46:01

I'm the cofounder and CEO of a company called afterlife ag.

1:46:04

We are in micro hauler, but also a circle in mushroom farm based out of Queens in New York.

1:46:09

We essentially upcycle organic waste and turning into substrate to grow mushrooms.

1:46:13

We provide back to restaurants, schools, food distributors, grocery stores locally within New York City.

1:46:19

And then after harvesting, our spent mushroom substrate is actually donated to parks and gardens across New York City as well.

1:46:26

So our mission is to divert more organic waste from going to landfills.

1:46:30

We're expanding and grow own 1000 of pounds each week starting March later this year.

1:46:35

So we're you know, our customers are really excited to see that we're providing them something that they can reuse as part of their their establishments, that's local, fresh, and healthy to eat.

1:46:46

And we understand that waste management is really costly, which is why there's a massive opportunity to invest in innovations like ours that is new and provide more value with organic waste.

1:46:58

We work companies like, you know, cogent waste solutions to essentially take their organic waste and develop more value out of them.

1:47:06

So I'm excited to see that there's plans to revise local law at 146, and I would love to see more businesses source separate their organic waste in the city.

1:47:15

And also more support for startups like ours to be able to create more value with organic ways so that we can do more with climate justice.

1:47:22

That's all.

1:47:23

Thank you.

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