On this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, Reagan Kelly from Better for All discusses the journey to creating fully compostable cups. Discover how these cups are not only better for individuals but also for the environment. Learn about the impact on sustainability and the future of businesses. Join us for an insightful conversation on sustainable alternatives to single-use plastic cups.
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Better For All is a company that offers fully compostable cups as a sustainable alternative to single-use plastic cups. The journey to creating these cups began in 2018 when the family-owned company became aware of the plastic pollution issue, particularly in the ocean. Reagan Kelly, the product lead at Better For All, was passionate about the environment and recycling, which led the family to explore the world of compostable and plant-based materials.
The company focused on developing cups that were not only compostable but also marine-degradable, addressing the concern of plastic waste ending up in the ocean. The cups are made from a material called PHA, which is naturally occurring and biodegrades safely in home composters or commercial composters. This material is friendly to a wide range of microorganisms, making it an environmentally friendly choice.
Better For All's cups were put to the test at the Tortuga Festival in Florida, where they delivered 170,000 cups. The festival organizers were impressed by the unique look of the cups, which helped in sorting them out for composting. The cups received positive feedback from attendees, showcasing the potential for sustainable alternatives at large events.
The company's focus on innovation and dedication to creating environmentally friendly products has led to the development of various cup sizes, catering to different needs and applications. The cups are not only functional but also contribute to reducing the environmental footprint of events and businesses that choose to use them.
Overall, Better For All's commitment to sustainability and providing a viable alternative to single-use plastic cups demonstrates the importance of conscious consumer choices and the impact of innovative solutions in reducing plastic pollution.
During the journey to develop the compostable cups, significant challenges in manufacturing were encountered. Traditional methods and equipment geared towards working with plastic had to be reevaluated and changed to align with the new sustainable material. The manufacturing process had to be modified to accommodate the unique properties of the compostable material, requiring a shift in mindset and practices.
Securing adequate funding was another major hurdle in the development process. Developing a new product like compostable cups required substantial financial investment for research, development, testing, and scaling up production. Convincing investors of the viability and potential success of the product was crucial, necessitating a strong business case and a clear vision for the future.
Overcoming the challenge of buy-in from manufacturers, customers, and investors was a critical aspect of the journey. Manufacturers had to be convinced to adopt new processes and materials, customers needed to be educated about the benefits of using compostable cups, and investors had to see the potential for a return on their investment. Convincing all stakeholders of the value and importance of the compostable cups was a key challenge that had to be overcome.
Better For All is not only focused on providing fully compostable cups but is also looking to expand its product line to include other sustainable items. Regan Kelly mentioned in a podcast episode that they are considering developing water bags as a potential new product. These water bags would serve as an alternative to single-use plastic bags commonly used for beverages in certain regions, especially in Africa.
Introducing water bags aligns with the company's mission to make events and gatherings better for all. By offering sustainable alternatives like water bags, Better For All aims to reduce the environmental impact of single-use plastics and provide a more eco-friendly option for consumers. The company's focus on creating products that are sustainable and practical for everyday use demonstrates their commitment to promoting environmental consciousness in various settings.
Expanding the product line to include water bags would cater to a different market segment and contribute to reducing plastic waste in different contexts. By introducing innovative and sustainable solutions like water bags, Better For All continues to prioritize sustainability and aims to make a positive impact on the environment while enhancing the overall experience of events and gatherings.
You know, how many times have you thought about being at a party, drinking, you know, having a good time, drinking, whatever you want to drink, whether it's alcoholic or non-alcoholic, it doesn't really matter, but you're drinking out of a cup and you looked out of that cup and it's a plastic cup. It could be like a red cup, it could be a blue cup, it could be a yellow cup. Sometimes you're playing beer pong or some tour de beer pong, whether it's alcoholic or non-alcoholic, doesn't matter. Right? You're playing all these games with it, but you realize that those cups are not really good for the environment. They're plastic, they're single use and they'll probably get thrown out and you'll never see it again and it's probably not getting recycled like you would normally think it would get recycled. It's probably just getting thrown out and going into a landfill. Not good for the environment, not good in the production process as it's oil and base and petroleum based and so you just think about that. But all you're doing is really you're at a party, so why do you have to be depressed and think about this? Wouldn't it be better if you had a cup that actually was compostable, like fully compostable and you don't have to worry about that? Well, I'm telling you right now that there's a cup available and it's not only better for you, but it's better for all and we are here to talk to Regan Kelly who works for better for all and she's here to talk about the cups, that journey to making this cup that's fully compostable and what it means for the environment and what it means for business in the future. We're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Let's start the show podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast podcast out how people are marketing these types of products. So here's the interview with Regan Kelly from Better For All. Enjoy and I will talk to you after. Hey Regan, welcome to the How To Protect The Ocean Podcast. Are you ready to talk about compostable cups? Yes I am. That is awesome. I have to admit I never thought I would be so excited to talk about compostable cups. It's not something that you know comes on like the top of your mind but I'll have to tell you seeing so many plastic cups that are just being thrown out after use after a one-time use or they're being cracked or things like that drives me insane. So when I came across you and I came across your site I was like we have to talk about this. This is important. You know someone said hey I'm gonna stand up to the red cake cups and I'm going to say you know what enough is enough. We're gonna go and we're gonna we're gonna battle this and we're gonna provide a better solution which I love and I'm sure a lot of the audience members here are gonna love it as well. So we're gonna get into all that but first I want to get to know you a little bit Regan and what led you into this journey of entrepreneurism. Can you just let us know who you are and what you do? Yes my name is Regan Kelly. I am a product lead and messaging I guess in charge of messaging at Better For All which is a California company where family owned and founded run out of Pasadena California and yeah all we do is cups. All you do is cups. Now that's a big I mean I know it seems like you know a company coming out with just doing one product and you're like okay it's just cups. How do you you know build a business just on cups? I feel like that's something that you know a lot of people like why don't you have more kind of products but with the battle with cups these days and seeing how many people use cups it seems like a pretty viable business to just have look we supply cups that's what if you want cups you come to us that's what we do. How did it all start? How did this whole journey start? Yeah so in 2018 I think us our family along with pretty much everyone else in the United States started to become keenly aware of how much plastic pollution we were dumping in particular into the ocean but I think for some reason you know part of it was that China stopped accepting our plastic recyclables right and we were suddenly facing these mountains of trash we were creating. I had always been really obsessed with the environment and recycling and you know I was just really known for nerding out on that stuff so I was kind of that was my torch if you like and as a family we were living all in the same city for the first time in decades and we were looking for something to do together we have young kids and we were thinking about a restaurant play went to a restaurant show and saw our first plant based compostable forks actually right yeah and I was like oh we should definitely incorporate these because I was really like yeah I kept thinking with restaurants you're going to get takeaway what takeaway you're going to get trash and it was giving me a headache and my stepfather was like what if we made this the business and so we just set off to learn everything we could about the world of compostable materials and plant based materials. I learned that plastics were made out of oil and that kind of blew my mind yeah oh wow you know this whole problem we're looking at is one industry so you know first we started with the familiar products and materials PLA and bags we took on apparel bags and all kinds of sort of things that normally get characterized as trash and packaging pretty quickly and we were having a really hard time finding a foothold and really finding a way for people to sink their teeth into the concept and decided in 2020 to zero in on a product that people already felt connection to and the cup really just jumped out at us is one something that hadn't really been taken on in terms of sustainability right yes people were starting to use reusable bottles definitely there were some really interesting cup options out there most of them unfortunately made from petroleum plastic but they were reusable I was loving that but none of the big like sort of take out companies etc you know who you are we're doing anything to really like address the problem yeah and so I'd been working with PLA I had thought to myself at the time I thought to myself if we go with PLA one we're facing an uphill battle because PLA is commercially compostable yeah and that's kind of the only way you can safely break it down and you know in the US there's just not a lot of infrastructure in place yet so I had been doing a lot of research into different materials and I had discovered this material called PHA at the time the only story anecdote I could hear find about it was about you know this test where people had made beach choice at a PHA and they had fully biodegraded in the sand and I thought oh my god that's so amazing right because of course I was also doing a ton of reading about the five gyres and the ocean waste and the ocean cleanup was just getting underway this was just like this kind of collision of things happening and so I started calling all the PHA producers in the world and having conversations with them there were only about five and we found one it's a Japanese company called Hanukkah but it's headquartered its biopolymers division is headquartered in Houston so that's him great it was also 2020 and we all know what happened in 2020 so I had been flying back and forth to China and I couldn't anymore right so decided to pivot development to the United States and so Hanukkah was really interested they were very cool they're huge like a five billion dollar Japanese company but they were interested in partnering with a small family startup and like promoting our sort of like technical struggle with figuring out how to make a cup out of a brand new plant-based material so this was like starting from scratch like you didn't look like another formula it's like help me make this formula so that when it's done in its usage it will be fully compostable that's well so they did have they had PHA so PHA is a is a naturally occurring substance it exists in the world around us right it's when it was first discovered in like 1920 it was discovered by a soil scientist it's a product of cellular metabolism it's almost like body fat but at a microscopic level so it's nutrients that are sort of packaged for later and you know these people are way more brilliant than I am but they saw the potential in the chemical structure the molecular structure of PHA so it limped along you know petroleum plastics were gaining a lot of traction they were super easy to work with and it just it just kind of like languished I think until the end of the 20th century and then a couple of companies seeing the plastic pollution problem growing and the problems with recycling really addressing it they started to develop PLA in the United States and then PHA and a few other locations and so PHA at this point is about 30 years old but it is more expensive to develop than or to make at this point than petroleum byproducts so a big part of that is just you know market adoption you need to have like enough people buying this stuff to reduce prices and create efficiencies but anyway and then you also just needed like movement in the market like we have to make a change right and you know that like for the last 20 years has been a lot of debate about whether climate change is even happening so we had to get over that yeah yeah so anyway um so when when I went to conica they did have a PHA they call it PHBH that's kind of a particular molecular structure and it was um I could make a cup out of it so I did make a cup I was working with a small factory in Portland and managed to make a cup it was too fragile and so conica went back to the drawing board and worked on the formula and now we have a cup that is flexible not too fragile and can completely and safely compost in your home composter or a commercial composter and so for a commercial composter would that be something like so he I live in Ontario we put our stuff out for composting like for the garbage people to pick it up that they would take it to a commercial composter is that what it is just a larger sized composter instead of like something in the home in your backyard yeah so typically the difference between commercial composting and home composting is the temperature um right so when you're in a commercial compost setup you have a very specific so different soil microbes thrive in different temperatures and moisture levels so commercial composters know exactly what microbial community they want to foster they're going to eat and break down everything really fast so they constantly regulate and measure the temperature and the moisture level of the of the compost pile right they turn it a certain rate they also are responsible for putting it through a process at the end that will completely kill any kind of bacteria or something that could make the soil yeah I guess you know not great for farming and for gardening um at home you just you know I mean I have a compost I'm definitely not measuring and regulating it right so you right so you kind of put everything in and you turn it and you know but you go away for this you know for two weeks and you come back and it's dry and right so you need a product that is delicious to a much broader array of microbes that that thrive in different temperatures and different types of soil and different moisture levels so that's why PHA is so awesome because it is very friendly to a wide host of microorganisms right okay so now let's let's I like how we're looking at sort of the composure and then what it consists of what this cup consists of how long did it take you to develop it from you know you know right from the beginning all the way till you had the product in your hand yeah so I would say that we really just fully commercialized in the last seven months oh wow so second bell almost six years to it's taken really almost four years to get us four years okay the first two years we're making other things um and the good news is I know how to make other things but so I so are like the sleeves the cups come in are also certified home compostable but okay the cups the cups themselves because you need them to be able to you know withstand all kinds of wear and tear yeah travel yeah you know sitting at a bar getting thrown around you know so we just had our first kind of sizable use case at the Tortuga festival in Florida in April so you know we had about a hundred and four I we delivered 170 000 cups I think about 140 000 cups just were used on the beach for three days in the sun and wow carried up on stage and you know people had really cool little like I mean festival goes very clever right yeah so I saw all kinds of interesting like belts devices where they almost like a tool belt where they had the cups slotted in and okay and they did well you know and then yeah they're so different looking they're the natural pha color um they were easy for festival guards to know where to put them so they put them in the compost bin they had really high diversion rates and then they were hauled to the local composter that's amazing now I I mentioned at the beginning of this of this episode we mentioned right before uh recording where you're going up battling against the single use you know red cups that people have or blue cups you know the the ones that people drink at a keger maybe even at a festival probably in the in the past or even continues at different festivals uh that's a challenge to get over because they almost have their own brand in themselves everybody knows that they're wasteful everybody knows that they're going to use them they'll crack at some point they'll throw them out in the garbage maybe they'll put them in the recycling I don't even know if they're fully recyclable at this point probably not as you shake your head um but they have their own brand like people look for the red cups or the blue cups or whatever cups they come in you know you got the beer pong game where it's like a big thing and people look for that how do you carve out a space in the market are you promoting that this is good for the environment is that the the messaging around it or is it just do you want a cup that's going to last like is it just based on what it is because I know different companies who have built a sustainable product have gone different paths you know right and and it changes each for each company and it's unique to each company so just curious what was your messaging style with this with this yeah so I think um you know we have to we have a number of different markets that we're kind of reaching out to I would say on the business to business side um you know you have businesses that are either being regulated um you know policies are requiring them to move away from single-use plastic they just care and they want to do something different um or you have festivals that are really like connected to the environments that the festivals are held in and they know what the impact is how much trash is generated in three short days so they're looking you know they're really looking for something better um so with them it's a different conversation it's really like why our cup versus something else I would say that you know I have this dream of having a conversion of our cup that's a bit more substantial for reusable systems I mean reuse systems haven't quite really caught up yet um I don't you know I think we're going to figure it out eventually but right now you have reuse systems but they're implementing like pretty toxic petroleum plastic cups so for me you know and I really passionately believe this like we need to move away from petroleum plastic yeah everywhere that has a single use or limited use application obviously like you know there's a lot of places where we have plastics that last for decades the way they're supposed to that's not what I'm talking about when you have something that's potentially going to have a use select of 10 minutes or even months like you don't want to use something that's got such a negative impact on the environment it's also you know a lot of these plastics have really pretty pretty harmful chemicals that leech out of them and then also when they break down they create micro plastics and I know because you're so knowledgeable about the ocean you know exactly what that's doing to our water ways and our soil and even our health too right like we're seeing it now it's in the air and it's in our lungs and it's in our blood and we're seeing the effects of that over long terms yeah I think we're just starting to scratch surface in terms the effects of micro plastics on the human body as well I am 0% agree with you yeah I am 0% agree with you so um so anyway so I could see our material our cup being a really beautiful like component of a reuse system now you have the cups being reused and recirculated in a closed loop environment like a festival on the direct-to-consumer side we just launched um better for all shop dot shop which is you know send you know we ship sleeves directly to consumers and what I see there is um you know early adopter sort of smart shoppers going out and looking for new materials and in in those cases typically like if they're ordering they're ordering for a party it looks like yeah there's some small businesses I can see that are ordering per se if they have you know physical therapy center or something like that water cups and yeah you can wash and reuse our cups they are this material is high heat tolerant to the boiling point of water which is a unique you know so like PLA and a number of plastics wood melts in the same temperature so it's an interesting material um but the cup is relatively thin walled because we needed it to be as home compostable spot like I wanted it to biodegrade in a shorter period as possible yeah that's true it also keeps the price point down I mean if you have tons of expensive material in a product it's kind of expensive gotcha yeah yeah that's true too so it's it's really so you have the sort of the business to business where you can do festivals you can do conference centers maybe you can do yep universities and and things like that where you can have those those cups or anywhere that they would uh you know use that and that would be like you said like you know you said that we're looking the hundreds of thousands of cups being used at a festival obviously that makes it good for for revenue but also for usage and I can just imagine how much less plastic they have to deal with instead of using just a plastic cup obviously better messaging for the festival they can say hey isn't it great that we have these cups we don't have to worry about it what was their reaction that there's a tortilla tortuga festival was their reaction afterwards or did they kind of promote the cups in any kind of way to just be like hey we're doing something different we're trying our best to not you know put out pollution because I have to admit I'm thinking of there's a documentary a while ago about um oh what's the be oh it was a festival oh god I can't remember I can't believe no no woodstock too the second woodstock in the 90s and how much plastic and garbage was left like I mean you know that when we're again like that was disgusting um and even got to the point where it was like unsanitary how much stuff was around yeah but like they must like festivals must love this because they you know a lot of the people who go to festivals are a little bit more like earthy you know like the the the you get the quote unquote hippies of the world who go they're they want to be good for the right they're kind of camping out anyway at a lot of the places and so you want to kind of say hey this is good you're not going to be impacting the environment with that what was the festival's reaction like throughout the festival about the cups so yeah so um I would say I'll I'll answer that question in three parts um one it was the festival producers which um so live nation is the sort of umbrella producer but rock the ocean is a not is the non-profit producer of tortilla and they're all the funds that they raise go to ocean conservation issues so they were looking for our cup because of the marine degradability of pj right and so they were searching they were already using compostables but they were really worried about the materials ending up in the ocean because it's right on the beach right so they tracked us down through my website and then emailed me asked me some questions I sent them some samples and they took them directly to their composter and said you know yes or no yeah and the composter renewable is their name they're also in Fort Lauderdale they said please please take these cups what was interesting is the reason they wanted the cups was because they were so different looking than pla or plastic cups so part of the issue of pla is they look so much like plastic that it's really hard for composters to sort them out right so they don't know is this contamination is it both well I see what you might be right yeah sorting is a huge part of waste management like it is I learned so much about waste management so um yes so they said please take these cups from a sorting perspective you know and they looked at our certifications we're like okay these will be fine um and then yeah during the festival they were they had a like a I guess a booth on the conservation pavilion and people came you know attendees came through and they chatted to them about the cups and we got some really nice what I can see and I know this would be true for me if I was at a festival is you know you you come to a festival to enjoy to just completely disconnect from your daily life and immerse yourself in music you're with other people who love the same thing you do and there's so much potential I think for concert promoters to just add to the joy right by helping people I mean I don't think anyone who went to Woodstock wanted to like wade through piles of their own trash right like not at all that was not on their freaking like bill right yeah exactly so I think you know there's a huge like right so just recently I think like a week and a half ago live nation Warner Brothers music and then a whole bunch of different artists with MIT environmental initiative I think it's called just announced that they're bringing together a bunch of people in across all levels of the music industry and a live event industry to figure out the best way to lower climate emissions in relation to live events but also like how do we find the best materials how do we do better how do we like preserve the planet and the people on it so I think there's I think there's some good movement happening in that sector for sure well absolutely absolutely and especially like getting in with you know companies like you know the put on festivals they put on music you know conference centers and stuff like that you feel like it's a it's a it's a win-win situation right you just you know you just have to package it properly and and make sure that it works like the cup works does it's function of what a cup has to work it has to work now here's a question you know we were seeing a lot of now I'm not sure where the US is on this I've seen it in certain places but like Canada where I live you know the government is trying to crack down on single-use plastic and there are like right now there are six plastics that are banned from being used and they're slowly phasing those out it's being held up in court with the decision right now that's a different different episode to deal with because you know all the plastic companies and the fossil fuel companies are trying to fight it but there are six single-use plastics that you cannot use and a lot of it has to do with like plastic cutlery you know and take out items and things like that with that said you know restaurants are moving towards and and you know like the take out the better take out contains you're already starting to see it you know you're starting to see better cut like the the single-use cutleries is becoming more sustainable do you see an option for moving into our outside of the US where companies are having that foresight or the governments are trying to kind of not push but just you know nudge the alternative sources that are that are more sustainable yes for sure I mean definitely North America is not really an issue for us I would say you know we get a lot of interest from Europe and some of the island nations and even as far as India but you know not right now like that's just right I don't think it makes any sense you'd have to be manufacturing close to the point of consumption just to make sense from an emissions perspective I believe but right but yeah North America for sure yeah I'm so curious to see what happens in Canada I mean we're so far from anything like that I mean businesses have to struggle with whatever policies are in place in their state in their municipality right in their city um and just figure it out piecemeal from what I can tell um you know we in California of course we have a little bit more progressive legislation so I would say um but you know it's still all over the place like it's whoever you know was active and engaged with the process of writing the policy at the time and whatever their beliefs were um you know I have my I don't know there's probably some really interesting work being done on like what will the impact would the impact be if we took all single use plastics and turned it into paper I mean that's got that would I don't know how many trees that would I would just look at like the impact of toilet paper um forests right so I don't know like I think there needs to be a centralized conversation about like what the viable alternative materials are yeah like you know so for example there's a lot of interest in seaweed seaweed plants I'm sure you right I'm interested in them I think it's fantastic right for sure but I would say that I know for sure that at least one of the seaweed companies that are making products right now and at a very small scale um are using pha as a blend because they you know it's not easy to just take a take a you know a piece of seaweed and turn it into a viable and commercial commercial product so yeah I think that pha has a long way to go in terms of promoting itself as a viable alternative and yeah you're actually right the plastics lobbyists are well-funded and you know it's just going to be an ongoing battle um but I just you know we're I think we're going to pull it off absolutely 100 percent 100 percent it's we have to it's inevitable exactly well and I think a lot of the things too you know one of the messages what's the message that could come out of this of using and even for festivals or businesses is the amount of um sort of their footprint the reduction of their footprint by using non-plastic items I think that I saw stat recently and 20 to 30 percent of fossil fuel like like petroleum and oil and goes into creating plastics so if we're trying to reduce the the uh sort of the dependency on fossil fuels we have to reduce our dependency on plastics now like you said we have a long way to go because it seems like every one of our our plastics bottles containers things like that if they're single use they're pretty much plastic you know we've moved away from glass a long time ago now we're into plastics it's cheaper to make it's great for the companies they don't want to really move away from it you know and they're it's gonna need a lot of government regulation however I feel like the companies who are progressive and who have the the same values of like if we're going to use these things and we there's an alternative that's affordable you know that's available that we can use on mass scale if we're conference centers or fest music festivals or you know concert halls and things like that we can start to move the needle and companies can come out and just like hey just like not only did we reduce the amount of trash but we reduced our footprint by however many and you know however many tons of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions and I think that is a huge thing and to be honest like most people when they go to these venues they may not care you know who knows they may not care but as long as it works that's fine and then the companies can promote their sustainability and just be like we're doing our best you know we're trying to figure this out and if we know it works and it builds on like referrals and things like that and the messaging that you guys provide then it's then it's perfect so I think it's I think it's great now you've done a lot of work on building this these cups right like this product you know I think on the wall I just like checking on your website I think you have like an eight ounce and a six ounce cup is that like for like four customer like business to customers is that it yeah so we have an eight ounce and we have a 16 ounce okay and we have a 20 oh yeah 20 22 ounce pilot so okay that one's not on the website yet but I send it off as a sample just to gauge interest it was initially specifically for stadiums because that's a pretty large pour but yeah right but yeah so the 16 is kind of your 16 18 was brim full that's your classic red party cup size yeah and then eight ounce it's a seven nine ounce it's like perfect for wine water etc we actually have a lot of I would say direct to consumer there's more interest in the eight ounce than in the 16 which is interesting yeah it could just be kind of who's who's finding out about it and purchasing at this point right for sure yeah I mean so back to your I was just thinking about you had asked a marketing question earlier and I would say an interesting thing that's emerging is I feel like and this may just be you know I have I work with this wonderful group of content creators in Florida and you know one of them's always saying you know everything's connected right and it's like just remember everything's connected and I think that's something that you know it might be just dawning on a lot of people you know when you think about I think I was thinking about your podcast and I also follow you on LinkedIn and I remember when Google Earth first came out and when they when you would zoom in on parts of the world that were just ocean they were just painted blue pixels they didn't even bother like showing you the actual ocean and that and I thought yeah I think we didn't think of the ocean or conceive of it as a habitat it's true that all of these things were living right yep um and funny story about that is it didn't happen until uh Dr. Sylvia Earl started to work with Google Earth because they presented in front of her uh and they said what do you think you like this Google Earth in it you're right it was just Earth like it was just land on the planet and the rest was blue like there was no 3D imaging there was no diving into the ocean like you can do now and she said and they asked her what do you think and they and she said look this is wonderful like this is great like the map it's going to change mapping it's going to change navigation all this kind of stuff but she's like but what about why call it Google Earth and it's like what do you mean it's like it should be called Google Ocean because our planet is a planet of oceans you know over 70 percent and they were like oh and she's like why don't you start putting the features of the ocean in the ocean like where you have like you have all this percent like 70 percent of that that globe is is nothing right now and that's how Google Google in a way that's how Google Ocean was was formed and now we start to see like now I don't I don't even know what the education around is it how many people know but you can dive underneath the surface you can look at monuments and things like that and marine protected areas and all this one of canyons and sea mounts and things like that so you know that's how it progresses it's it's people letting people know so I can just imagine too going back to these cups is you know you're at a festival and you're like wow this is great like what it like you're probably looking at it's different than your normal cups you get probably at festivals you're starting to you know I'm sure the conversation happened with you know hundreds of thousands of people that were at this with that this at this conference and just or at this festival and people are talking about like I wonder what the like the benefit is and then if they got to know what the benefit is then they're like well this is great like this is really nice to see this kind of stuff it makes you feel better about yourself that you know there are companies out there who are trying to do good and and it doesn't affect whether you're having a good time or you're not having a good time you know anything like that you're still getting your your water your juice whatever else you decide to consume at a festival right and but it's it's it's it's the awareness of it and I think that's the that's the big thing it's why I started this podcast in the in the first place was to make people aware of what's happening in the ocean and and part of that is to like how do we you know it's it's tough to find sustainable items you know there aren't many reasons we're starting to see more and more resources of people coming out you know with you know like just sort of a resource of where you can find certain things but this one is is great because it really battles the you know the plastic alternative of what we're used to and I'm looking forward to seeing to seeing this grow now I know you're this is all about cups but the company is is better for all so is are there plans in the distant future of coming out potentially with other types of similar products maybe not in the cup form yeah well so I would say initially we're gonna focus on cups because you could go all the way down to you know sample cups for trade shows oh yeah grocery stores and and dose cups scoops for laundry like there's so many different so many cup applications right that could use to be made out of something a little more friendly thought about that that's awesome right yeah and then you know and then we we also are looking at different manufacturing methods so right at the moment we use a highly efficient manufacturing method but that can't you know the the wall thickness can't go any thinner than it currently is you wanted to make a super lightweight cup that could go say on an airplane or something you would want to use a different manufacturing method that we're just kind of the compound needs to be modified in certain ways so that it can take that kind of yeah the pressures right that that are applied to the product so that it doesn't just start to biodegrade in production and then yeah and then there's you know there's a pet project that I started working on seriously for a while and then we put it to one side because it's it's just a completely different product but it's got the same use case in its water bags i don't know if you've heard of them but actually like some huge percentage of the world's population consumes beverages out of plastic bags and i did not know that interesting yeah this wild i was actually an airplane recently and someone walked up with a ziplock it sat next to me and it had water in it and i was like oh my god he's drinking water out of those scenes does it have like a spout like a like a little in some cases they stick a straw on the top and in other cases they bite the bottom of corner off and drink it it's considered sustainable to some degree because it's lighter weight is less plastic than a bottle but there are these machines they're called form fill and seal machines and they take these huge thick plastic rolls and they roll them down and and they seal them off and about 500 milliliters of water is dropped in and they seal up the top and they get like especially in Africa they get you know dropped off on street corners in small markets and people buy maybe 10 at a time they bite off the corner drink the water and throw the bag and the bags are filling the bags they're just a huge problem on the beaches and in the bays so we of course like oh we should you know this is back when we were really focusing on film and um like this would be the most amazing thing ever but you do need a film that can like sustain 130 and upwards degree heat in you know shipping containers yeah and on the ground right in Africa um and that can be bounced around on a truck and can be frozen and then depressed so i'm not there yet but if i i have a little yeah i like that yeah i'm not there yet but i have this like you know it's yeah i have a little brain worm about it so yeah you know a lot of this time it takes time right to develop these products because it's almost like you're starting it from scratch for every single evil product and you would think like once you make one cup other cups would be the same but you're right it's very different depending on how their ship depending on how they're contained in another container or what you know right now for some reason on the top of my head i'm thinking you know in a protein uh like a protein powder container there are the little scoops and things like that you mentioned scoops and i would imagine like that gets to a certain temperature and that you know that gets banged around a little bit maybe a little bit more protected because of the powder but still you know you want to make sure there's so many applications but it takes time to develop and in this could be like as you said it could be you know three four years where it takes time just to develop must have to have a lot of patience to be able to develop these things even just the sort of the use case you're using right now with the with the bags of water you're probably like oh we could help so many people and and and so many like you know with the oceans and the bays and things like that we can we can really protect that but you're still you know you're not there so how do you deal with that the patience of innovation and the iterations of that i i'm a creative just a born creative so i don't have a problem with patience i would say that the issue is funding you know you know you know you know patient but like it's you know funding first of all you need a lot of funding to do development you need a lot of buy-in from you know so we've had like really great support from conica and we have a you know a manufacturer for the last year and a half that got us to commercial american conglomerate called westwell technique they also are helping us like you need people who one they're committed to the same idea you are they want to see it happen they believe in the concept because you go through so i mean it's not like that you know they're so used to working with class they're working plastic for a hundred years all the equipment is built for plastic the process engineers have been doing you know they use this they use PFAS you know what PFAS are they they spray teflon on things to make them release from the molds and i'm like no way go in and literally like examine everybody's process and then bum them out by telling them they can't use any of the tricks they've come up with yeah everything has to be changed and then it needs to be controlled and so you need your manufacturer to buy in and then you need your customer to buy in you need and then you need so that time takes money and it takes a while to get a product that's going to sell you know at the volumes that would get you into the black and you start seeing a little profit investors want to five times return in a short amount of time of course so you need investors that are also bought in so yeah so we're we're currently in the process of looking for our next round of investment so that would be why this is on my mind but yeah so patience is all one tiny part of it absolutely absolutely well i'll tell you reagan this is i love i love this business i love this idea you know and i just i love you know the saying like if you go to better for all dot shop and if you want to buy it individually you know for for my audience members i just love how it says right off the bat make your event better for all i was trying to see where how it would tie in better for all dot co or better for all dot shop and i'm like now i see it how i see it it's making it better for all by just having these cups and and using these cups and it makes it so much better it makes me feel better knowing that products like this are out there and they're growing and and they're i can't wait to see it at my next event that i attend or if i'm not at an event i can be like you know what you should have you should have these cups because i mean they're much better so i'm definitely going to be promoting it locally here and on the podcast so but yeah this is this is wonderful really love the fact that that you spent the time with us to to explain the business um you know the innovation that goes into it and i want to thank you for the dedication the time that you and your family have put into to making our world better for all i really it's it's really great so thank you so much for coming on the podcast and um and we'd love we'd love to have you on again to see where you're going with how this is growing oh that's terrific i appreciate you having me thank you you bet no problem all right take care you too thank you Regan for joining us here on the how to protect the ocean podcast it's a great community to be a part of and i'm glad you are now part of it Regan to be able to say hey you know what we have this product it's good for the environment you can use it it's great to use it's easy to use it's a cup let's think about it we need more products like this where everyday items that we get to use whether it be at a festival sports venue concert venue maybe out you're having a picnic and you don't want to you know break any glasses or have all reusable you know drinks or containers and you just want to have these ones and you know they're fully compostable just makes it easy you don't have to think about it makes it easy they're well they're well priced and they compete with all the other non-sustainable items and so why not have this and i just think it's wonderful to be able to have this in circulation available for people to use at you know high quantities if they need it like you know Regan was talking about it i think it was like 140,000 cups for use unreal that that's available to us in such big venues that are now not going to cause a lot of garbage because of those cups and i'm looking forward to seeing how this company evolves and other types of innovative ways of using cups and any type of containers that's you know you need to scoop or you need to drink liquids out of or very different usages powders or anything like that it'll be interesting to see where this company goes i don't think they're going to be a fly by net company i think they're going to be here for a while and i'm looking forward to seeing that and helping to promote their business and helping you get those items so if you want to buy something from them you can go like a cup you can go to better for all dot shop better for all dot shop take a look at what's available and i highly recommend that you buy a sleeve or two you know or three or four for your next event it's always great it's always wonderful to be able to have something that is sustainable i mean let's be honest that's why you're here if you want to know how to protect the ocean use these compostable cups from better for all that's it for today's episode i really want to thank you for joining us if you want to join the community i'm creating an app i'm in the midst of like talking back and forth to the creators and i've got some some prints i'm going to put out like some mock-up so i'm going to put out what it's going to look like but it's a community app i want people to be all on the same device like the same app where you can interact with each other we can have you know ama's ask me anything or have you know scientists and business leaders on that are making sustainable items so you can ask questions to them and it's it's a wonderful provide resources where you can get these these great materials and great products and sustainable products i want it just basically have it all there it'll be free to join there'll be other you know products in the later on where there might be services or anything else that i provide that might be a little you know that they'll be premium but for the most part it'll be free all you have to do right now is just go and sign up for any kind of updates and when the when it gets released you'll have that you'll have access to that app it's speak up for blue dot com forward slash ocean app that speak up for blue dot com forward slash ocean app i want thank you for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast have a great day we'll talk to you next time and happy conservation
