A Princeton-educated architect walks into a water treatment plant and violently shakes microplastics into a bathtub.

What sounds like a joke written by an intoxicated AI is reality for Nathaniel Banks.

In this episode, we explore how thinking through problems from start to finish can help with the daunting task of solving the microplastic problem.

Nathaniel is CEO & Co-Founder of PolyGone. Nature inspired their filter technology, which can remove microplastics from different kinds of waterways.

We discuss how they came up with the idea, how they got it to work, and where the technology needs to go to have significant impact.

Get a glimpse into a mind that microplastics obviously haven't had any impact on yet.

Key Topics:

• The scale and health impacts of microplastic pollution
• How aquatic plants inspired a revolutionary filtration technology
• The journey from architecture to environmental innovation
• Real-world deployment and results from water treatment facilities
• The regulatory challenges and private sector opportunities
• What happens to collected microplastics and recycling innovations

Timeline:

• 00:00 - Introduction and Nathaniel's architecture background
• 27:00 - Deep dive into the microplastic solution technology
• 40:00 - Deployment results and real-world applications
• 55:00 - Future scaling plans and regulatory challenges

From Village Tractors to Ocean Tech: Building the Planet's Nervous System

What happens when a Google X engineer who grew up driving tractors in a small village becomes obsessed with saving coral reefs? Meet Sergei Nozdrenkov, founder of Wildflow, who's building something that sounds like science fiction: a "nervous system for the planet."

Sergei's journey from reading Arthur C. Clarke's The Deep Range to diving in Iceland's tectonic plates to working with sharks in Mexico is wild enough. But his current mission? Creating AI that can process massive streams of ocean data—3D coral imagery, bioacoustic recordings, eDNA samples—and turn them into actionable conservation decisions in real-time.

We dive deep into how nature's own algorithms could revolutionize ecosystem management, why 84% of coral restoration projects are never monitored, and Sergei's audacious vision of modeling the entire biosphere. Plus: coral that eat fish, why wolves brought rivers back to Yellowstone, and his prediction for when we'll meaningfully communicate with whales.

If you've ever wondered how technology could actually save nature (instead of destroying it), this conversation will blow your mind.

Books Mentioned

• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Deep Range by Arthur C. Clarke
• How to Speak Whale by Tom Mustill