Low Tox Life

If you oscillate between pushing yourself and your community to do more to reduce your plastic consumption while also being frustrated that governments aren't doing more to regulate plastic production and make more plastics recyclable on a big scale, today is the show for you. Meet our guest, Lottie Dalziel.

Lottie Dalziel started Banish in 2018 with a simple idea: give people a place to bring the things their kerbside bin couldn't take - hard-to-recycle items like old pens, bottle caps, soft plastics and coffee pods that would otherwise end up in landfill. In 2023, Banish opened its sustainability hub in Sydney's Haymarket.

That idea grew into one of Australia's most recognised sustainability stores and the home of BRAD, the Banish Recycling and Diversion Program. In 2024 alone, BRAD diverted over one million pieces of plastic waste from landfill.

Lottie is on a mission: No time for doom and guilt. Just practical information and specific things people can actually do.

She has been recognised as NSW Young Australian of the Year, named in Forbes' 30 Under 30, and has spoken at TEDx, corporates, schools and community events across Australia. Her book, 365 Ways to Save The Planet & Your Money At The Same Time, continues that same approach.

I hope you enjoy the show.

Alexx Stuart, your host.

Fancy a few more podcasts we’ve done over the years, related to this one?
Show #139: Plastic Free South East Asia with Sarah Rhodes
Show #93: Plastic pollution and the Plastic Free July story with founder Rebecca Prince Ruiz
Show #489. Kal Glanznig: Plastic burdens biology – ours and our planets’: It’s time to lock in POLICY to lift the burden.
Show #94: A conversation on WASTE and powerful, gentle activism with Rob Greenfield

Want to learn more about this week’s guest?
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Lottiedl https://www.instagram.com/banish.au

Thank you to this month’s show partners for joining us to help you make your low tox swaps!

@waterscofilters removes all contaminants from modern tap water + keeps all the minerals. 7-15 filtration stages, depending on which filter you choose. Lock in their auto-subscription, cancel-anytime, 10% off + refill subscription price ongoing. No code required. waterscoaustralia.com.au

@ausclimate continues to give you 10% off their range in 2026, with Winix Air Purifiers, the best Dehumidifiers I’ve ever used, energy-efficient heating and air-circulating range. code LOWTOXLIFE (often works on top of their sales - pro tip!) https://bit.ly/ShopAusclimate

Be sure to join me on Instagram @lowtoxlife and tag me with your shares and AHAs if something resonated! I love to see your thoughts, genuinely!

Want to support the Low Tox Life podcast?
Free option: Leave a 5 star review wherever you listen to Low Tox Life - thanks SO much!
Paid + Member PERKS: Join the Low Tox Club - monthly practitioner live masterclasses, a suite of low tox store discounts from around the world and the most supportive and lovely chat group on all low tox topics on the internet: Check it out and join here for just the price of a coffee per month!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As we scroll on socials, we are bombarded with all kinds of reasons that screen time is having negative impacts on our lives - from polarisation to self consciousness and comparison as well as eye sight. In today's show with Dr. Meenal Agarwal, an eye doctor, we talk about so much more, when it comes to the effect of spending so much of our time on screens, aka “near focus” or “near work”.

She talks us through the different areas of the brain and what's happening. She shares a deeply personal story of what happened to her, as well as the things she's seen in clinic that led her to deep dive into the research so that she could clearly explain just how far-reaching the effects of near focus predominance are.

Dr. Meenal Agarwal is a board-certified optometrist, spatial awareness expert, and leading authority on the eye-brain connection. She coined the term Spatial Awareness Processing Disorder (SAPD) to describe how screen-heavy, modern lifestyles can disrupt the brain’s ability to judge distance, track motion, and navigate real-world space, bringing attention to the effects of digital overload on focus, safety, and presence while offering practical, prevention-focused solutions.

Join us for the motivation you’ll need, to mix up your focus throughout your days and ditch those screens a little more often!

Alexx Stuart
Your Host, Low Tox Life

Fancy a few more podcasts we’ve done over the years, related to this one?
Show #466. How to use your outdoor time for the better for immediate health benefits, with Dr John La Puma.
Show #323 – How The Light Spectrum Affects Us For Better Or Worse, With Daniel Ebbett
Show #383 Kids and Tech: How to cultivate a healthy, safe blend of tech and reality in the digital world with psychologist, and cyberpsychology researcher Dr Jocelyn Brewer

Want to learn more about this week’s guest?
Substack: https://drmeenal.substack.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.meenalagarwal

Thank you to this month’s show partners for joining us to help you make your low tox swaps!

@waterscofilters removes all contaminants from modern tap water + keeps all the minerals. 7-15 filtration stages, depending on which filter you choose. Lock in their auto-subscription, cancel-anytime, 10% off + refill subscription price ongoing. No code required. waterscoaustralia.com.au

@ausclimate continues to give you 10% off their range in 2026, with Winix Air Purifiers, the best Dehumidifiers I’ve ever used, energy-efficient heating and air-circulating range. code LOWTOXLIFE (often works on top of their sales - pro tip!) https://bit.ly/ShopAusclimate

Be sure to join me on Instagram @lowtoxlife and tag me with your shares and AHAs if something resonated! I love to see your thoughts, genuinely!

Want to support the Low Tox Life podcast?
Free option: Leave a 5 star review wherever you listen to Low Tox Life - thanks SO much!
Paid + Member PERKS: Join the Low Tox Club - monthly practitioner live masterclasses, a suite of low tox store discounts from around the world and the most supportive and lovely chat group on all low tox topics on the internet: Check it out and join here for just the price of a coffee per month!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Many people experience fatigue in their lives. Many people experience issues with their iron levels. It's one of those Goldilocks nutrients. We don't want it too high or too low, and we definitely want it effectively absorbed to the level we need to make the most of it in our bodies for our energy and a whole bunch of other processes.

We had two podcasts on iron last year. One of those was with Rebecca Edwards, naturopath and practitioner lecturer. It was the kind of podcast that leaves you wanting more.

I reached out to Rebecca, and we held a masterclass in our Low Tox Club complete with Q&As, live blood panel assessments that members sent in for analysis, and Rebecca guiding us with questions to ask your practitioner. We looked also at key players that affect iron levels are not about the relationship of how much iron you're getting in your diet, but about how hormones, the gut microbiome, the gut lining and various changes in someone’s life can all be factors for issues with iron levels.

I made this master class into a podcast so that you could benefit from growing your literacy on iron in your own health, given how many people do.

Enjoy the show. Definitely listen to the first show that we did with Rebecca last year. It's not completely a prerequisite, but it will definitely be helpful to listen to both.

If you have issues around fatigue or iron right now in your own life, you are in for a very supportive treat.

Alexx Stuart
Your Host.

Fancy a few more podcasts we’ve done over the years, related to this one?
Show #452 IRON Deep dive: Too high, too low, tried ‘everything’ and still feel awful?
Show #433 Fatigue? Low resilience? Anxiety? Thyroid issues? Fix iron first, says Dr Libby

Thank you to this month’s show partners for joining us to help you make your low tox swaps!

@waterscofilters removes all contaminants from modern tap water + keeps all the minerals. 7-15 filtration stages, depending on which filter you choose. Lock in their auto-subscription, cancel-anytime, 10% off + refill subscription price ongoing. No code required. waterscoaustralia.com.au

@ausclimate continues to give you 10% off their range in 2026, with Winix Air Purifiers, the best Dehumidifiers I’ve ever used, energy-efficient heating and air-circulating range. code LOWTOXLIFE (often works on top of their sales - pro tip!) https://bit.ly/ShopAusclimate

Be sure to join me on Instagram @lowtoxlife and tag me with your shares and AHAs if something resonated! I love to see your thoughts, genuinely!

Want to support the Low Tox Life podcast?
Free option: Leave a 5 star review wherever you listen to Low Tox Life - thanks SO much!
Paid + Member PERKS: Join the Low Tox Club - monthly practitioner live masterclasses, a suite of low tox store discounts from around the world and the most supportive and lovely chat group on all low tox topics on the internet: Check it out and join here for just the price of a coffee per month!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm going to suggest that the best 50 minutes you can spend this week is listening to this week's show with Jeremy Pollack @pollackpeacebuilding who believes we are wired for peace.

Jeremy Pollack, Ph.D. is a social-organisational psychologist, leader in the field of workplace conflict resolution and peacebuilding and author of WIRED FOR PEACE. He is the Founder of Pollack Peacebuilding Systems, an international conflict resolution consulting firm. He is also a co-founder and chairman of the Peaceful Leadership Institute, a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit dedicated to promoting the model and theory of Peaceful Leadership.

Because he has a PhD in neuroscience, he has a shed ton of evidence to back that up, in his book “Wired for Peace”. He has years of experience helping all kinds of communities and business structures be more peacemaking and peaceful, even within hierarchies which aren’t inherently ‘bad’.

These are the sorts of conversations that can help us reflect on what's going on inside of us; figure out what's happening in our own little corners; and make peacebuilding and peacemaking possible, so we can all start to benefit from the ripple effects of that local work.

LOVE these sorts of explorations, and I hope you love this one,

Alexx Stuart
Your Host

Fancy a few more podcasts we’ve done over the years, related to this one?
Show #479. Feeling Fearful? Drained? Katie Hendricks Ph.D. is here to help with her 50+years of expertise.
Show #487. Can we feel unbreakable in a shaky world? Therapist Joe DeNicholas believes that we MUST and shows us how.
Show #455 Marianne Williamson – Are you ready to be a spiritual athlete for our times?

Want to learn more about this week’s guest?
Website: https://pollackpeacebuilding.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pollackpeacebuilding/
Bitly book link: https://bit.ly/4uQbaIY

Thank you to this month’s show partners for joining us to help you make your low tox swaps!

@waterscofilters removes all contaminants from modern tap water + keeps all the minerals. 7-15 filtration stages, depending on which filter you choose. Lock in their auto-subscription, cancel-anytime, 10% off + refill subscription price ongoing. No code required. waterscoaustralia.com.au

@ausclimate continues to give you 10% off their range in 2026, with Winix Air Purifiers, the best Dehumidifiers I’ve ever used, energy-efficient heating and air-circulating range. code LOWTOXLIFE (often works on top of their sales - pro tip!) https://bit.ly/ShopAusclimate

Be sure to join me on Instagram @lowtoxlife and tag me with your shares and AHAs if something resonated! I love to see your thoughts, genuinely!

Want to support the Low Tox Life podcast?
Free option: Leave a 5 star review wherever you listen to Low Tox Life - thanks SO much!
Paid + Member PERKS: Join the Low Tox Club - monthly practitioner live masterclasses, a suite of low tox store discounts from around the world and the most supportive and lovely chat group on all low tox topics on the internet: Check it out and join here for just the price of a coffee per month!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'd like to think that plastic is an apolitical subject.

None of us want to see our environment or our bodies polluted with this stuff, and so it brings me great pleasure to focus on one of the biggest overlaps of our times: the quest to reduce plastic in our bodies and our environment. We've done a few shows on this over the years, and this week is wonderful.

Let me introduce you to Kal Glanznig. He's a filmmaker, a counsellor in his local government area, and a leading youth ocean and climate champion. He’s also a young man of 25 who got his body tested for phthalate levels due to concerns for future fertility and was shocked to see how high his levels were, as he considered himself having a very healthy nature-focused lifestyle.

He's created documentaries, Rising Up, back in 2024, and this year just released The Plastic Country. He's a multiple TEDx and UN COP speaker, and he's driven by the motto "Change Happens Locally". In high school, he led a 100 kW solar project, leading to 20 schools to follow suit. This guy is definitely not someone who rests on his laurels. He is here to effect change.

Kal is on a mission to make it clear that if we don't shape the policies that make things truly better at every stage of government, then chances are we just keep going in swings and roundabouts on social media, either trying to raise awareness or trying to complain about how nothing is happening. Join me this week. I think you will be inspired,

Alexx Stuart
Your Host of the Low Tox Life

Fancy a few more podcasts we’ve done over the years, related to this one?
Show #484. Nanoplastics: 2 Drs on the quest to help us bind and excrete them with Drs Eva Berkes and Nicholas Monsul
Show #472. What is safe? River, Ground, Tank and Ocean water and PFAS “Forever chemicals” with water scientist, Professor Ian Wright
Show #93: Plastic pollution and the Plastic Free July story with founder Rebecca Prince Ruiz
Show #172 – The Plastic Crisis with Brett Chamberlin, Story of Stuff.

Want to learn more about this week’s guest?
Instagram or LinkedIn: https://www.instagram.com/kalglanznig

Thank you to this month’s show partners for joining us to help you make your low tox swaps!

@waterscofilters removes all contaminants from modern tap water + keeps all the minerals. 7-15 filtration stages, depending on which filter you choose. Lock in their auto-subscription, cancel-anytime, 10% off + refill subscription price ongoing. No code required. waterscoaustralia.com.au

@ausclimate continues to give you 10% off their range in 2026, with Winix Air Purifiers, the best Dehumidifiers I’ve ever used, energy-efficient heating and air-circulating range. code LOWTOXLIFE (often works on top of their sales - pro tip!) https://bit.ly/ShopAusclimate

Be sure to join me on Instagram @lowtoxlife and tag me with your shares and AHAs if something resonated! I love to see your thoughts, genuinely!

Want to support the Low Tox Life podcast?
Free option: Leave a 5 star review wherever you listen to Low Tox Life - thanks SO much!
Paid + Member PERKS: Join the Low Tox Club - monthly practitioner live masterclasses, a suite of low tox store discounts from around the world and the most supportive and lovely chat group on all low tox topics on the internet: Check it out and join here for just the price of a coffee per month!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.