business

A new app connects shoppers with more than 500 Native-owned businesses in the Southwest, from beauty salons to food carts to car repair shops. It’s called “Rez Rising” and it’s designed to give tourists access to authentic products and experiences on tribal lands, while giving a boost to local economies. One of its creators is Heather Fleming, executive director of Change Labs, a nonprofit incubators for Native businesses. She spoke with KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny about the vision behind Rez Rising.

A single concert at a nearly 3,000 seat venue like Pepsi Amphitheater in Flagstaff might generate well over a thousand pounds of trash. Tyler Linner, a master’s student at Northern Arizona University, wants to find creative ways to recycle as much of that trash as possible. KNAU spoke with him a year ago about his start-up project to reuse the broken plastic sleds that litter the forests in the winter. Now he has a business called Praxis Waste Solutions in a small warehouse near Buffalo Park, where he’s literally sorting through garbage to see how it can be salvaged. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke with him there.