My name is Julie Flesmullen, founder and CEO of a company called Eclarity and at Eclarity we are the PFAS management company. We manage, destroy, and monitor these PFAS compounds, the last quarter PFAS, these are forever chemicals that are found pretty much everywhere. They're forever because they don't degrade in the environment and they don't necessarily degrade in our bodies and so they're toxic and carcinogenic and they've caused a lot of issues. And what we do is we treat them in water, mostly in other liquid waste and we destroy them forever, which is really quite amazing. From the optimist side, I'm very much of an optimist, although running a startup for the past seven years has perhaps brought out my pessimism here and there too. But I do have a really strong optimism for the future and I speak for the environment in public health as well. And you know, in the United States we've found that probably 50% of water supply is a drinking water supply as have these forever chemicals in them, which is not good. But on the other hand, there's a lot of devotion from technology providers like ourselves but also from society, from parents, from schools, from activists, and even from the users and producers of a lot of contaminants in the environment. And I want to say that the issues around water quality and pollution are being solved and we're innovating and we're acting together as a society to really solve those problems and I think that while we continue to use a lot of these chemicals that enter into the environment, we're doing a good job or could be doing a better job, but we're getting there and taking them out of use and then remediating as need be. >> Future optimist. >> Oh, welcome to this show, Julie. It's such an honor to have you here. Your middle name, awesome bliss. I can only assume it was after how your parents felt when you were born. >> It's a vegan game. That was my -- >> Oh, I see. My middle name is disappointment because my parents, I was an accident and they still regret that choice to this day. But we have to begin today's conversation by addressing what are PFAS or PFA's. This was hot in the news a couple years ago. I can only assume that the problem is over since then since it's not on the news anymore. Should we just say case closed? Everything's fine? >> No way. I guess PFAS in the news follows me even on my -- you know, on every social media, just called media in general when I wake up in the morning and I see my Google feed, it's still completely filled with PFAS articles on LinkedIn, which I'm on all the time. It's just straight PFAS, but that's kind of, you know, funny, I wouldn't say I live and breathe PFAS. I hope I don't live and breathe PFAS, but I do live and breathe a problem. And so that follows me and I'm pretty up to date with what's going on here. How would you dive in, though? What's specific? >> Sure. I mean, if you ask DuPont, there is no problem, although a corporate rule that not too long ago that they had to pay a billion dollars in a class action settlement, if I recall correctly at the start of this year, there's a lot of question about what to handle it. But these are what are known as forever chemicals. Let's start with the definition, right? So where do these forever chemicals come from and what makes them so harmful in our bodies? >> So we refer to them in the industry as PFAS. It's PFAS and technically they stand for per- and polyfluoryl alkyl substances, which I would never -- never expect anybody to memorize that, but again, this is sort of my -- my thing. Essentially, they're these chemicals that have really wonderful properties. They repel water, they repel oil. They're used in a lot of really important products that really keep our economy going. Semiconductors, very much in the semiconductor industry, very much in firefighting foams. You know? So it's the part that's affected that makes up these foams. You know, buildings burning down or there's a fire exercise and firefighters and others are going to be using those foams to fire out. So that's important. They're used in catheters. We've found them in silly things like popcorn bags, pizza boxes, receipts, contact lines as toilet paper now. We're just finding them everywhere. >> Dwayne. Also like Teflon, right? Pan's cooking supplies and things like that? >> Yes. Yeah. Teflon pans. Actually, like textiles. They're probably in the shirt. I'm wearing. I'm just breathing it in. I mean, it's one of them. I'm on the rug that I put my children on. Yeah. Under me. They're on everything. They're fire retardants as well. So they do a lot of good in terms of protecting people and whatnot, but they also are really quite toxic. We started to manufacture them around the 1940s, deploying them in around the Manhattan Project time frame and we've incorporated these PFAS chemicals in so many consumables. The biggest issue that we found out is that they, yeah, well, of course, they do good things for products. They bioaccumulate in humans in the environment, but in humans and because they're toxic and they're carcinogenic and they don't degrade, they stay inside of humans for a long time and they do cause a lot of issues. So we're here now trying to solve this problem of what do we do? How do we limit exposure? And once they're in the environment, how do we get them out and how do we stop the cycle from just recycling PFAS in the environment and different in the air and in the rain and the rivers and lakes and eventually in drinking water. And you said 50% of all of the water might have it present in the United States. Is this a global phenomenon, I assume? Is it worse in other countries? It is a global phenomenon. I wouldn't say it's worse in other countries, but I would say that it's a lot worse in environmental justice areas, areas where there's landfills or there are incinerators, people that live around the areas where it's produced or it has been put back into the environment, the people around those areas are significantly more impacted than on the general public. That makes sense, like so many other things in this world, they haven't had a hard enough time already, just one more thing to add to the pile, right? So many other harmful things. Is this related to what Aaron Brockovich was about or is that something else? I know that was also related to water. Yeah, it's very related. That's what I thought. Aaron Brockovich and Bob Bocock, they're still fighting this fight and I've worked with them here and there on this as well. Incredible, incredible. So what was the personal journey for you to get into this then? How did you start taking up this cause? What made you think it was something that you could potentially even solve? I started working at the US EPA in about 2010 and I was in the New England region, where I had first learned about PFAS. The fact that we had called them PFCs. PFAS was a perfluoral carbons or something like that. Yeah, yeah, perfluoral carbons is right. Yeah. So I started to learn about PFAS on Cape Cod, which is the arm of Massachusetts. I live in Massachusetts and so did a lot of stakeholder outreach there, decided to essentially was going to school at the time. So I was an intern at the EPA when I first started there. And I ended up getting a degree in environmental policy, doing a lot of work with PFAS. And then I also stayed on for an extra semester to complete a degree in environmental engineering and decided to go the technical route in the beginning. So then I went back, got those two degrees. I was working for the EPA for a couple more years after school and then decided to go for a PhD. I wanted to focus my PhD on the technical side of engineering and water treatment and understanding how to break down contaminants like PFAS. But we also looked at other contaminants, like one for dioxane and some other, what they call contaminants of emerging concern. Sort of like hormones, endocrine disruptors, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, things along those lines that aren't quite regulated, but are widespread and cause issues for human health. So I started a PhD in 2014 and was looking at a variety of innovative water treatment technologies to break down chemicals like PFAS, these forever chemicals. And I filed a patent with the university and then started taking some business courses. I ended up winning a business pitch challenge at the university, and then spun it right out immediately, like the week after. That's awesome. That's great for the company. Congratulations, that's so cool. One week, a good turnaround time. Pretty much a week, I was forced very quickly to come up with a name and incorporate and go through the whole legal process. That's fantastic. I don't know if we kicked this off, yeah. So you had a push, were you always entrepreneurial at heart, or was that always something that you wanted to do, or did you really just get kicked into it at that moment? I've always been entrepreneurial. Okay. Very much as a child, I was always exploring, I was always outside. Like I was that kid that brought in ants and they had an ant farm in my house so much time. I was very curious, right? Always very curious. And so I had the science mind, but also I have a degree in policy. So I've got that going on, but there was very much of a, I'm not sure I would say a business part of my brain, but maybe a little bit more of organizational, organizational type sort of business, but not competitive in that sense, more from an organizational standpoint. And so it is very natural. Like looking back at my childhood through college, through PhD, I knew I did not want to be titrating chemicals on a bench for the rest of my life. It very much makes sense where I am today, the CEO of the company. That makes sense. And what made you rule out going the other route? Like following a career in the EPA or going the non-profit route? Because I'm just super fascinated in this idea of capitalism for change or companies that are seeking to do good. It's one of the areas that I'm most interested in as a person. So I'm kind of curious how you gravitated towards that yourself. That's a great question. When I was working for the EPA, I started as an intern and then stayed up for a couple more years. I was convinced that that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Wow. I loved talking with stakeholders. I did a lot of technical work, but it was very much a applied technical work. And really getting in the field, taking samples, talking with daycare providers. I was really into it. And that was so cool, right? And I had this opportunity to continue my schooling and to do a PhD that I knew from the onset. I knew when I was doing my undergrad that I didn't really want to be doing the bench work as much as I really did a lot of bench work when I was doing my PhD. But the opportunity came where I guess I invented the technology, right? Or at least filed the first patent and other patents subsequent. And it was really the right opportunity for me to make a really big impact. Take a big leadership stance, which was kind of a big theme in my life as well. I was on the student government, served as vice president of the student government at WPI's intern president there. And same thing, student councils and all of these things throughout my life. So is the leadership impact and environmental sustainability all kind of combined together? It's been a home run. So kind of a lazy bum, if you will, throughout your life. And underperforming, lazy. You got it. Where was your drive? Where was your motivation to do good? Okay. So so you're one of those people, one of those special unicorn, which is great. We need more people like you. But I get it. It started with a young age. Yeah, maybe not me, but not me. Fair enough. Well, that is incredible. So I'm a big fan. There are so many things that I didn't understand. And I talk with so many scientists who are doing incredible things. And I look at the process on your website and I have a chart here in front of me to help me dimly understand it. I am not a scientist, but I do like to use logic and reasoning. And some of the things that I have deduced, I'm curious how you feel about this. I think in terms of first principles, oftentimes when I can. And when it comes to water, I've often thought. A, I don't know what's happening in water treatment plants. I happen to, at this moment in time, live in Los Angeles County, which is probably one of the worst, if I had to guess water supplies in the country, or maybe it's not that great. But let's assume that they do a perfect job of removing contaminants. I believe there's so much pipe and so much stuff that it has to get through from wherever it's purified or distilled to get into my house. And then to go through the pipes in my house, it seems to me to be almost impossible the idea that what could be coming out of my literal tap could be free from contaminants. And as such, I've had a Berkey filter. I'm not sure if you know what that is. I've had a Berkey filter for years and I only drink tap water that's been filtered through that. Are my assumptions about that correct and does something like a Berkey filter at the end stage help with any of these problems in terms of what an individual can do for their own health? I can see where you're coming from. You can shatter my dreams. You can tell me I'm an idiot. No, I would say it's hard to believe that the water quality that leads the drinking water plant is maintained throughout the distribution system and the pipes, right? Yeah. I will assure you to say most the time it is maintained. Now we have an issue. We have a big infrastructure issue where I believe it's something like 50% of water that is treated at the plant is lost through leaks and whatnot, right? So that's super unfortunate. It's a massive waste of clean water. So that's a whole other discussion. But the water that does make it to your home typically is still pretty good. We try to do a really good job. I say we just representing the industry, especially in the drinking water side. We have a decent amount of experience and we do a good job at making sure that we have enough disinfectant in the water so that if your house is at the end of the pipes, that you're still going to have some chlorine or some type of residual in there, that's going to be making sure that bacteria and viruses don't enter. We do a decent job at that. I would also say it's very rare for somebody like me where I wear the PFAS lens. It's rare for PFAS to enter. If it's taken out at the drinking water plant, it's not going to enter. It's not going to enter in through the pipes. Now metals and whatnot could enter from the pipes, that's nerding out for a second, but that's really a pH problem. That's what happens with Flint, Michigan, whereas the pH. They're setting their tap water on fire. But I would say in general, we do a really good job at making sure that the water is drinkable, it's potable, it's not going to make people sick. And if there is some instance where there's some belief that it could make people sick, the cities and towns, municipalities are required to send notices out for boil it or someone not. To get to your question around filters, it depends on what you're concerned about. An activated carbon filter like a Brita filter is good at taking things out like PFAS, but it's not going to do a whole lot for bacteria and viruses. So there's no real one solution solves all takes cleans all your water. Maybe reverse osmosis is the closest one you could get. Interesting. Yeah, because there are these websites, I wish I could the name escapes me. There's a website where you can type in your zip code and it says these are all of the things that we found in your drinking water and it's horrible. It's chromium, arsenic, all of these terrible things. And also when I fill up a bath for my kid, I also have two kids. It smells like chlorine, which I guess you're saying is a good thing, but I perceive that as a bad thing, is chlorine healthy to ingest? Relatively, yes, it is. Okay. I'd rather taste chlorine in city water than not taste it. Because if we're not tasting it, that likely means that there's potential for bacteria and viruses to enter or to grow. And that chlorine is going to kill those off. And the amount of chlorine should be relatively small. I mean, you may taste it, but it's not going to do anything to your body. It's very protective. No long-term effects of chlorine. That's awesome to hear. Wow. Okay. All right. So well, then in your eyes, if it's not coming, if the plant gets to my house safely, if we can take that as a given now, which I think is great. Where is the issue of the 50% of the people? Is the issue that the treatment plants aren't doing it? Who is responsible for this issue in terms of humans consuming this contaminated PFAS water? Oh, it's an argument of source. Okay. Where is this PFAS coming from? Yeah. We're finding that it's in so many things. I rattled it off. It's even in toilet paper. I mean, it's in our contact lenses. It's in our pots and pans. It's everywhere. So from a personal perspective, or from an individual perspective, if you're a homeowner or you live in a house, you have all this stuff with PFAS. You're using it. I'm probably, I don't know, maybe this is my mug, right? So there could be PFAS in the inside of this, right? Probably on this microphone cover. I'm probably just breathing in particle after particle. Yeah, it looks like it's there. It looks like there's micro particles. So we use these products. We ingest PFAS if it's, it could be volatilizing when we're taking a shower. I'm not trying to scare anybody, but this is kind of just the reality. No, yeah, that's good. We've got to know. We've got to know. We've used these products for so long. Yeah. They've accumulated in the air, in the water, in the soil, and all these products. A lot of it ends up in your trash, right? So you like, in the end of the day, you're, you know, when at the, you reach the end of life of these materials, you throw them away, the trash company comes, and they take them and typically it goes to a landfill. Maybe between incinerator, mostly it goes to a landfill. So now you have all this trash building up. And then, inevitably, it rains on that trash. And now you're left. What comes out of the landfill is this nasty liquid called leachate. Yeah, I saw that. Historically, a lot of landfills wouldn't have to treat leachate, because it wasn't regulated. And so they would discharge that leachate back into the environment, into a local stream, for example. More recently, they've been becoming becoming more stringent. Okay, now you have to take the leachate to a wastewater treatment plant, but still the wastewater treatment plant is not doing anything really. They're kind of just taking it, processing it, and then dumping it back into the river. And so you can see over time, with every release, every, every use, and every release, it just builds up in the environment. It evaporates. So PFAS itself will evaporate. And when it precipitates in the rain, we've got PFAS in the rain, right? So it's just, it's just a certain cycle. So we have to stop the cycle. So stop, stop the use of these chemicals, where it's not necessary. There's no reason why there should be PFAS in our pizza boxes. That's ridiculous, right? So, you know, stop the use in non-essential items, and then get to the point where there's sort, the source of PFAS is there, like this landfill leachate. And where we come in is we manage that PFAS and destroy the PFAS, so we're breaking the cycle and breaking the bonds of these PFAS chemicals forever, right? That's amazing. So you mentioned non-essential items. Are there some essential items? Where does this need to be? Yeah, I would argue yes. There are a couple come to mind. One is in semiconductors. If they, meaning industry researchers, they have not found an alternative for PFAS in semiconductors. So that's a big one. And I honestly think if they just completely got rid of PFAS in semiconductors, I think, honestly, our economy would crash. We wouldn't be able to operate anything that's electronic. Smart electronic, you know, that would be a big deal. I would also say catheters too. There's PFAS in a lot of medical equipment. And now it sounds contrary because it's not good for you. But on the other hand, if you're not able to have a life-saving procedure, I would, I personally would rather like inject me with PFAS before I have to, you know, die. Give me another 20 years before the cancer sets. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Firefighting foam. So I guess would be the third, although it's probably really low. Number three, they are finding that actually you come to find out water does a decent job at putting fires out. Yeah, who would have thought? And there are some other alternatives. Because it's so full of PFAS, that's why the water has the element in it. So that makes it particularly well-suited to putting out fires. I'm learning a lot today. I'm piecing it all together in this interview. This is fantastic. Those are the three. Those are really the three. I would say the third, the foam. And there are PFAS-free foams that they can use. And water works fairly well. But again, if my family was inside of a burning building and somebody was, you know, had foam to put the fire out, I would still advocate for them to use the foam. As long as hopefully it's really contained afterwards and we manage it appropriately. So why are we spraying this on pizza boxes? What's the thought? Just for the heck of it, does it, in theory, do something there? It does. Yeah. So all the oils from the pizza are basically collected on that film. You know, if you were to look inside of a pizza box, there's that really, there's a thin film. And that is to separate the oil. Okay. Otherwise, it would be a little greasier on the bottom of your pizza. That's basically it. So the question is whether we can tolerate that in the United States of America. Can you tolerate a slight amount of grease in exchange for not having cancer? I'm going to argue no. I think we can't. I think convenience trumps all in this country. That's my honest opinion. I think our standards have to be lessened. Never going to happen. It's my God-given right to have my pizza not be greasy. But okay, in the past, Forbes 30 under 30, you have won awards for Inventorship in 2019. You've gotten a lot of accolades. You've said you've been at this for seven years. It's an ongoing fight. You also mentioned that your perception of this problem has changed through being an entrepreneur for this long. Where do you see the problem today? Are there things that you're proud that you've achieved? Are there new hurdles that you think are more difficult now than when you first started? What a question. I feel like at times, I am dumber today. I feel that every day. I know I'm dumber today. I feel like I learned so much. The market matures, we're maturing as a company, and we're growing and learning. We're adapting our services and expanding our offerings. And yet, I'm learning something new every day that makes me feel dumber. Never felt more connected to a guest. Everything I learned makes me feel more like an idiot. That's for sure. Why didn't I think of this before? I don't know, Julie. Not trying hard enough. I'm sure that's the problem. The thing here is that the industry is maturing. What I mean by that is, regulations are coming in for PFAS. The industry is starting to understand, "Oh, maybe I need to do something about this." They may not know how or where or why or whatever, but they're coming to us. And they're asking the right questions, "What can I do to manage my PFAS?" And it's our job to provide them the best treatment solutions for their problems. And that could be a really good fit for us. Or maybe we say, "That's not a super good fit, but I know a company or I can point you in the right direction as to where to go." The industry matures, we are maturing, and we're getting the right offerings over to our customers and helping legislatures and unsticking permitting issues. And it's just an ongoing battle every day, but we've got to do it. We've got to do it for the sake of the environment and humanity, really. I love that. That's so great that you keep going in the face of that adversity. For the average human knowing that we're consuming this, we're ingesting this from literally everything in our surroundings. What does that pie chart break down to? Is it more that I'm sitting on my couch in a boof of fire retardant chemicals coming to the air that I breathe in? Is it me taking a sip from the water glasses? Is it me deep inhaling from this microphone? Where am I individually consuming the most of these in my life? Yeah, great question. It's not from your water. Okay. So that's good. Oh my gosh, there was an article the other day that came out. Oh, sunscreen. Sunscreen. Oh, goodness. It's a ton of P-facet. Oh, goodness. Does it matter which kind of sprayer, it's all the same? It's not all the same. Actually, I think today, I came just shared something I linked in, which brands this came out from the environmental working group. So you can look at which brands, which brands they've tested, which ones have the highest and the lowest amount of P-facet. That's a big source of exposure. But cooking on your pans every day is a big source of exposure. Any type of fast food wrappers and things along those lines have a lot of P-facet. It's any of those little like wax. They don't want any wax covered paper. Is it paraffin? Any kind of wax covered paper type thing, like paraffin covered paper or cardboard, that's the source of that. Yeah, you think of disposable cups. You go to a little Dixie cups. And they have coffee cups. Yeah. I know what you're talking about. Well, on the inside, the lining is typically used. I know what you're talking about. Yikes, yikes, yikes, yikes. That's interesting. But yeah, I'm starting to zero in on what this actual issue is. The tech, I'm looking at little chart of this, which is a handy little graphic. This little thing you may recognize from the top of this. How does it work? So here we're talking about landfill leachate on this particular chart. But I'd like it if you could describe a bit about how we can eliminate forever, chemicals forever. Yeah, that's right. There are multiple ways to do it. The ways that we are doing it today, we're using electrochemical oxidation. And that's just a really fancy, fancy term for zapping PFAS chemicals. We essentially flow water through reactors. They have a positive charged electrode and a negatively charged electrode. Then these PFAS chemicals essentially swim between the two, stick on to the positively charged anode and break apart. What characterizes PFAS chemicals as themselves is this carbon and fluorine bond. And that bond is known as the strongest bond in nature. So what we're able to do is break that carbon fluorine bond and then break down the fragments so that we completely mineralize or completely destroy these PFAS compounds. There's really no filter, so to say it's not like we're filtering PFAS. We're truly getting rid of it. But in the case, you mentioned that it's coming in the air and then coming down in precipitation. I think it also comes from tires wearing on the road, right? Little particles fly off of tires that get into the air. Is that true too? Me too. I haven't really looked into it too much. Interesting. If it's coming in the air and coming to the ground, how can we treat something that's just coating every surface all around us? Probably touching every wall in my home, every floor. What's the mechanism there? I think the best way to go about this is to figure out where the biggest sources of PFAS compounds are and treat it there. Because we're never going to be able to, unless it's truly phased out in everything, which is not going to happen. There are companies like Patagonia is working on this. There's some other companies that are working to phase out PFAS in all of their products, which is amazing. We're big supporters of those types of companies. Great. But from a get it out of the environment standpoint, where it builds up and has a concentrate to a big source is where we focus. Which is why we've put a lot of emphasis in our commercial deployments at landfills, because a lot of it accumulates there. I read a statistic one time that says that 50% of PFAS in the environment has been cycled through a landfill. Landfills, huh? Yeah, these things we know that there's so much wrong with landfills also. I've had guests who talk about other angles of landfills, such as the food waste component. So many issues with our landfill system. This is obviously another good one. I wonder about the future when we think about the dystopian type of future. Think Blade Runner. These types where there's a burnt out where Los Angeles is nothing but a hellscape. There's no more green, there's no more plants or even Wall-E. We've destroyed our planet and the consumerist dystopian future. The hallmark of those types of things is that we need to take steps to protect ourselves at the individual level or the end chain level versus ever hoping to stop anything at its source. Just like an astronaut isn't hoping to stop the sun from radiating, you put on an astronaut suit and you protect yourself from that radiation. I think so many of our technologies in this emerging world have to do with changing my perception of the world around us. Noise pollution, I have AirPods Pro that have noise canceling. I'm not getting rid of urban city noise even though I would love to, but I can turn on noise canceling for myself and be a little more at peace in the middle of a city. We've also got air factories all around the world, belching out emissions and in China. Every home has an air filter so that we can hope to filter the air in our own individual units. Here, we're not sure about the water quality that we're drinking, but we might be able to have a reverse osmosis filter system. Do you think that it's more likely in the future that we're just going to get very good at isolating ourselves, the end of these processes or handling PFA's within our own bodies versus ever curtailing any of these things at the source? That's so philosophical. Yeah, I do think so. A progressive movement in water right now around decentralized treatment. Just isolating water for a minute and drinking water specifically. There's a lot of economists out there who believe that if every home had a treatment system for PFAS and all these other compounds as well, we would save a significant amount of money as an economy. I personally don't think that in our lifetime or even in our grandchildren's lifetimes, that is going to catch on. In some futuristic state, perhaps that is what it looks like. I just think to be honest homeowners and others who own spaces are going to need significant hand-holding for how to maintain and upkeep these systems. Not like they're really intensive, but you can imagine, I've been guilty. Not like you're really happy you used a broader filter in many years, but like saying college, I think I had a broader filter in my little refrigerator. And I don't think I threw it out as frequently as I should, and then it has the risk of growing bacteria because now it's all clogged up, and bacteria love that stuff. So it's like, are we really going to go down that path? Maybe someday, I think it's going to be a driver of it's an individual homeowners decision or renters decision to how they want to do. But I know I still think it's going to be a centralized issue for a long time. And then I think it just comes down to making the right decisions and understanding where the PFAS is and limiting yourself from those. I will say though, I'm a realist, and there are still a lot of things that I buy that I know have PFAS in them because they're convenient. And like I said, I'm a supporter of companies who are phasing out PFAS and doing the right thing for the environment. But I also understand that there are conveniences with PFAS. So I don't want to be, you know, I see both sides. And I don't think that we need to everybody freak out and, you know, you proclaim that we're all going to die and all of this stuff. That's my go to. I just want everybody to freak out and proclaim that we're all going to die. It's like, I mean, we've been having so many, there's so much cancer. Like, I think one or four people have cancer for lifetime. I mean, like, wow, everybody is wild. Yeah. We're never going to stop that. Seems to be just ramping up. Yeah. I don't know. We can lose our minds trying to reduce exposure to a lot of chemicals in the environment. But these are making smart decisions and understanding what the impact is for specific consumer goods, especially. Do you think it's even theoretically possible to treat this on the human scale, say with a pill or nanobots or whatever kind of futuristic technology to eradicate these things from within my own body as we might do other things? I don't know. But I will say that the best way to eradicate it from your body is to donate blood. Really? It's kind of like this oddly cynical thing because, like, oh, I'm going to donate blood every three months or so, right? Yeah. I know that the periodicity is of how frequently you can do that. And they say, oh, yeah, like, every time you donate blood, you're getting rid of a lot of the PFAS in your blood. But then you're passing it off to somebody else. Right, that's good. But, you know, as an American, that really deeply resonated me. I love turning my problem into somebody else's problem. I throw my garbage over the fence in my backyard out of sight, out of mind. That's my motto. That is, I mean, it is the way to get rid of PFAS in your blood. And I mean, I am a journeyman in support of donating blood. But it also just seems a little like, wow. Do you donate as often as you can? Are you just waiting, champing at the bit for the next chance? Are you regularly scheduling that? Well, I've had three children in the last, like, five years. So I've had a lot of blood to get through me. So I haven't been donating blood in the last five years. But before that, absolutely. So that's a seriously. I will be restarting that very shortly. OK, well, I got to get on that. I've never done. I'm afraid of needles like so many Americans. The idea of, you know, when they draw a little bit of blood for me, I just, I hate it. But maybe I got to overcome that fear for the sake of my future longevity. You've got me, and, you know, for the sake of giving my polluted blood to somebody else. God knows what God knows what's in there, but it's not good. It's a disaster zone, that much we're sure of. But hopefully we can save a life in the meantime. Yeah, for now, we can save them today, which, as we agreed, is more important. All things being equal versus greater suffering there. So once upon a time, I think maybe on LinkedIn, you had said, and this is just, you know, by way of wrapping things up, you said that your best role yet is being a mom. I'm the father of two children. I have to sharply disagree with that sentiment. I don't like being screamed at all day every day. Why do you consider being a mom to be your best role yet? Oh my gosh. Oh, it is actually very much the best role. My issue is that I feel this way. I don't get to spend enough time with my kids. I feel like I'm on the road a lot. Probably once a month, I'm away, which I could be, I could be on the road every day, right? If I didn't have children, I would be on the road all the time. Okay. And I've gotten to the point where this is super personal, but even if my kids wake up in the middle of the night, I don't mind laying in bed with them. Some parents would be like, oh my gosh, for me, I just am like, maybe it's just another time that I get to spend with my kids, because I just feel like I don't spend enough time with them. I think we're pretty good parents. And we really maximize all the time we can on the evenings and on the weekends, for sure. But yeah, if I could spend more time with my kids, that would be the thing, but that would be what I would want. But that being said, it's not going to happen anytime soon, at least for the longevity of this company. So yeah, we're going to do what we can do. Well, it is one of those regrets of the dying. People often wish they had spent less time with their kids. That's something. You'll never get that valuable work time back. That's right. If only I had worked more. Only I could travel more. Lost at two. Who cares? That's not my problem. But again, I have deep admiration for the fact that you have committed so much of your life to fighting the good fight and also from a young age. The world definitely needs more people who not only see these problems, but want to take meaningful action on these problems. So consider me a champion in your corner. I think it's incredible and I hope that when times get tough, you can take some comfort in knowing that you're fighting a battle that is truly worth fighting. Thank you so much. That's so great. And I'm very glad that we were able to make this conversation happen. So by way of wrapping things up, where can people support you or find out more about what they can do in their personal life? It's just following for tips on LinkedIn, on social media, whatever you'd like to say. Best place to follow what's going on with PFAS and with the company is on LinkedIn. I believe it's linkedin.com/EclarityWater, I'm pretty sure. I could post that officially though, but we probably post on a daily or every other day, cadence and everything on PFAS. What's going on in the industry? What we're doing as a company? All the exciting things that are going on. And about PFAS and our sunscreens. Do you want to learn about that? Yeah, that's where I'm headed right after this. That and then McDonald's, and I'm just going to lick the wrapper. I'm just going to chew on it. Make sure I just load up before I donate blood later this afternoon. That's right. And that is Eclarity, folks, not Alacrity. Eclarity, A-C-L-A-R-I-T-Y Water.com, no space, no hyphen. Julie Blissmullen, it's been an absolute pleasure. Now I know that Bliss is your last name and not your middle name. So I'll never forget that. But thanks for joining me and with that, the official podcast is over. [Music]
