Commingled Conversation: Michele Nestor

Waste and recycling consultant and National Recycling Coalition vice president Michele Nestor loves the Rolling Stones and dreams of curating a museum. Yet somehow she doesn’t run the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; being president of Nestor Resources Inc. is plenty for now —especially when it involves explaining how to properly dispose of a beast of burden.

Waste Age: What is your pet peeve?

Nestor: People who take phone calls or send text messages while meeting with you.

Waste Age: What is your idea of the perfect day?

Nestor: No agenda, no responsibilities, travelling the world with my husband, John.

Waste Age: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

Nestor: Your work and your reputation always precede you.

Waste Age: What was the last book you read?

Nestor: “The Things They Cannot Say – Stories Soldiers Won’t Tell You About What They’ve Seen, Done, or Failed to Do in War” by Kevin Sites.

Waste Age: What is your favorite movie?

Nestor: “The Right Stuff.”

Waste Age: What is your favorite TV show?

Nestor: Currently, it’s a tie between “The Big Bang Theory” and “Person of Interest.” One of my all-time faves is still “The Sopranos.”

Waste Age: Beatles or Rolling Stones?

Nestor: The Stones, hands down. The real question: Mick or Keith?

Waste Age: What is the strangest piece of trash you’ve ever come across?

Nestor: The strangest episode that I remember was when I had to explain to a rural veterinarian that the entire dead donkey, which he placed feet up into a front-load dumpster, wasn’t good practice. Stranger was that I had to go on to explain that cutting it up didn’t necessarily improve the situation. Also, at an unwanted pharmaceuticals collection event somebody handed me a set of dentures.

Waste Age: Do you prefer the beach or mountains?

Nestor: I am a mountain girl at heart. At one time, I lived in a very rustic cabin in the Colorado Rockies.

Waste Age: Besides your family, what is the one thing you couldn’t live without?

Nestor: Music. It is always with me.

Waste Age: If you could invite three people — living, dead or fictional — to a dinner party, who would they be?

Nestor: Jon Stewart, Diane Rehm and Edward R. Murrow.Bobby Flay would be at the grill and Paula Deen would make dessert.

Waste Age: If you weren’t serving in your current role, what would you like to be?

Nestor: My secret desire is to be a curator for a museum.  It’s like being paid to hunt for buried treasure. I am fanatical about the need to preserve historical artifacts and artwork for others to enjoy. So, that would be very gratifying to me.

Waste Age: What is your favorite sports team?

Nestor: I am part of Steeler Nation. However, when it comes to college football, my loyalties are to the Michigan Wolverines and the Big Ten Conference.

Waste Age: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Nestor: Time travel.

Waste Age: What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve done?

Nestor: Shuffled back and forth on a train between Moscow and Kiev during the last few days of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Waste Age: What’s the one talent you have that not many people know about?

Nestor: It only occurs when I am alone in my car speeding down the highway, so nobody else has ever seen it happen, but when I start to sing, I suddenly turn into Adele. I turn back into Michele as soon as I shut off the engine.