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4ocean: 40 Million Pounds and Counting - The Impact of 4ocean on Ocean Cleanup Efforts · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  Have you ever looked at those videos on social media by 4oceans and
• 0:03
  seen that they are able to clean up a lot of plastic in
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  a very short amount of time or in a long time or they clean up plastic in
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  a river where it's like all of a sudden the river's clean but it was full
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  of plastic before that and you wonder how do they do that? How do they actually create
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  a business and an organization that can do this all
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  over the world? Well, I'm very happy to announce that
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  I have one of the co-founders and CEOs of Four
• 0:27
  Oceans, Alex Schultz, on the podcast talking
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  about sort of the nuts and bolts of Four Oceans, how it
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  started, how it's evolved, and how it actually cleaned
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  up 40 million pounds of plastic. We're
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  going to talk about Four Oceans on this episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey
• 0:52
  everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
• 0:55
  your host Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how
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  you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by
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  taking action. And action is what we're going to be talking about today,
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  because Alex Schultz is here. He's from Four Oceans. He's the co-founder and
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  leads this organization and company to
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  being able to clean up 40 million
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  pounds of plastic in the ocean. Now,
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  if you think about that, that is a lot. of weight that's
• 1:25
  incredible and you know to think about in eight years
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  this company has has been around it's taken the
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  world by storm you know it grew rapidly through viral videos
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  it continues to grow through social media it continues to
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  do amazing things and what i love about this organization is
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  it's not just like Slowly like, you know put together
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  a little bit by little bit just contracts here and there they build
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  out offices They build out infrastructure in all the different countries
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  that they live So it's not just people in North America going around the world cleaning
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  up plastics as they hire boat captains and crews from places
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  like Bali in Indonesia or Haiti or
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  different places in the Caribbean, anywhere that they work, they
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  actually have infrastructure there. They actually have people working for them that
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  are getting livable wages, full-time livable wages. You
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  don't see that a lot in non-profit organizations, in marine biology, in
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  marine conservation at all, or in for-profit companies
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  for that matter. I love the fact that Four Oceans
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  invests in its staff. and the way they've
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  built their company, the way they've cleaned up the
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  ocean, and the way they understand that, you know,
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  cleanup is just one aspect and more needs to be done, and
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  they're partnering with different organizations to get more done. But the
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  awareness campaign that they've run just through their actions, Absolutely
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  amazing. And when you talk about action, when you talk about somebody saying, hey,
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  you know what, we should be like cleaning up this, this stuff
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  on the ground, like the way their origin story started, you'll hear it in
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  a minute, but essentially a bunch of guys go surfing. And
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  they look around the ocean, they see all this plastic coming up on the shore, like
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  all the ton of plastic coming up on the shore. And this is we got to do something about
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  this. And to sort of put that into
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  practice. by starting off by selling bracelets and cleaning
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  up the ocean boat by boat and where
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  they are now. Unreal story. It's a
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  story that should be a Netflix documentary because it's something that
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  we all need to see and to have hope. that we
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  could see more companies and more organizations doing this. And now they're
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  working with companies to be able to scale that and be
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  able to help them fund more stuff. It's unreal, unreal.
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  Last thing I'm gonna say, love the fact that they also build the infrastructure on
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  land, the warehouses to sort, grind down, cut down all
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  the different plastic that's in there and being able to find places to put
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  it. And whether it's being reused, whether it's being recycled, whether it goes to
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  a proper landfill and stored properly, I love that
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  aspect. So here is none other than
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  Alex Schultz of Four Oceans talking about Four Oceans, the
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  origin story and the evolution. And it's quite
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  the story. So stay tuned, and I will talk to you after. Hey, Alex.
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  Welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about
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  four oceans and oceans plastics? I'm ready, let's do it.
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  I'm looking forward to it. We're going to talk a lot about the origin story
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  of Four Oceans and even how you got into the
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  business of cleaning up plastics and how the
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  growth went from this idea to
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  what it is now, which is an international company and non-profit and
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  charity where you're cleaning up oceans all over the place,
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  all over the world. And that is absolutely amazing to
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  see that grow. And so we're going to talk all about
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  that. And we're going to talk about some of the challenges you guys face on a day-to-day basis, because
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  it can't be easy work. I know hauling out plastics is
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  not easy. So we're going to talk all about that. Before we get
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  to all of that wonderful stuff, Alice, why don't you just let the audience know who
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  Sure, sure. So Andrew, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it and looking
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  forward to diving in. So my name is Alec Schultz. I'm
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  the co-founder and CEO here at 4ocean. I grew up
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  on a small island on the west coast of Florida, spent almost all my time
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  on or in the ocean. And that was really my hobbies and
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  my passion. Surfing, diving, fishing, just
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  my life revolved around that. So naturally, you know, after
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  high school, it was time to decide where I wanted to go to school. And,
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  you know, my brother and sister went to Florida Atlantic University. I'm sorry, Florida
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  State University up in Tallahassee. And so the whole family was like,
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  all right, you're going to Tallahassee, Florida State. And for me, it
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  was like landlocked, couldn't bring a boat. And,
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  you know, I just, it wasn't really for me. And I just heard
• 6:02
  about FAU and they, you know, I heard this random thing as far as you
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  can, you can see the ocean from the top of the buildings and it's like a
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  quarter of a mile from the ocean and kind of like a beach town. I
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  was hooked. So I originally actually came over to Boca
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  and went to FAU as an ocean engineer. You
• 6:19
  know, as a background, I love building things. I love, you
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  know, kind of innovating and designing and just, you know, just everything,
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  just from overworking to building materials and just kind of
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  3D printing and laser printing. Like, I just enjoy tinkering and
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  building stuff. So naturally coming over here for
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  ocean engineering, I was so excited because I thought I was going to put my
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  passion for the ocean and my passion for the hobbies together. And
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  I did that for about two years, two and a half years, and I ended up getting
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  an internship. And it turned out to be much more of a
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  desk job and did more research than that. And it wasn't something that
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  I was very, very passionate about. You know, I love the idea of creating
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  and building and spending time outdoors and being on
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  the water. And so I switched my degree to just
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  business management and entrepreneurship. And
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  it was in college that I ended up meeting a good group of
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  guys that did a lot of surf trips. And so, you know, went
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  surfing with them and we would go all over the place. We'd go to, you
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  know, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, El
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  Salvador. And so we were always going on surf trips throughout college and,
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  you know, just having a good time going on these different trips around the place. And
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  it was after college, I ended up going on a surf trip with a buddy of mine and we went to Bali. And
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  Bali is where kind of everything happened for the idea for 4ocean. And,
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  you know, when you think of Bali, you typically think of the picturesque, pristine,
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  tropical vacation destination. And, you know, what
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  we found in Kuta, which is the town
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  that you fly into just outside Denpasar, was
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  a crazy amount of plastic. And so what we were blown
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  away by was just absolutely football fields full
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  of plastic on the coastlines, washing up with every single wave and
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  the amount of just plastic packaging and wrappers,
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  straws, bags, bottles. I mean, it's unbelievable to
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  see. And so we were really confused by that. And
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  we realized that the plastic packaging in
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  the water and on the beaches was having so much of an impact you
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  know, the tourism on these fishermen's ability to catch
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  fish and literally seeing fishermen grabbing
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  plastic, so like they've had nets and seine nets and things like that, literally
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  grabbing plastic and throwing it on the other side. Their propellers
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  that they're running on their jukungs, their vessels, are getting wrapped
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  up with plastic bags. They're sitting there unwrapping the
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  plastic, tossing and keeping going. And it was at that point
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  that we were just like, man, this is crazy. We've got to find a way that we can fund some
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  cleanup. There's got to be a way to connect people with
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  the aspiration and goal of trying to clean plastic from
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  the ocean. So we came up with the idea for a 4ocean
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  bracelet. And so, the idea was pretty simple. Let's
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  make a product made from recycled materials, and then for everyone sold,
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  we'll remove a pound of trash from the ocean. Comparable to, like, Tom's Shoes. And
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  so, you know, Blake Mycoski is someone that I've seen the impact that
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  he's been able to make and was always so blown away by Tom's
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  Shoes and just the business and the impact that he's built. And
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  so, we created a model very comparable to that. And
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  it started like a bang. We started out with just two
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  of us and before we knew it, it was just
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  exploding in growth. And I think one of the main things that really attributed to that
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  growth were some videos that went viral. So, we had
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  some videos go viral on social media that just went
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  gangbusters overnight and and we were we could not
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  fill orders we could not pull pounds we could not it was crazy so
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  we yeah I told the story earlier we actually we went to FAU
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  and so like three days after this what this happened there was a
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  FAU job fair and so we went to the FAU job fair and
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  the quote was if you had a pulse you got a job We
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  left that job fair and we hired 17 people. Wow. Like,
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  it doesn't matter. You're going to clean plastic. You're going to be shipping orders. You're going
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  to help a customer service. Just come on down. We'll figure something out.
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  We'll get you guys dialed in. And so it was a roller
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  coaster ride. And it had been, you know, it just grew so quickly.
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  And we just scaled our cleanups. We were able to expand internationally,
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  hire local fishermen. in Florida, in
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  Bali. We had a facility in Haiti, Guatemala.
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  You know, we've expanded all around the world. And now, you know, the model
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  that we've built is something that I'm very passionate about. And what that
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  is, is it's creating jobs for these fishermen. We
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  realized that the plastic in the ocean was an issue that we wanted to
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  address, so we wanted to find a way to create full-time jobs
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  for these captains and crew to be able to employ them to collect
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  plastic instead of catching fish. So they have all
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  the experience on the ocean, all the similar tools, all the similar
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  training, and so it was a very simple shift to say, hey guys, why
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  don't we just pay you to collect plastic instead of catching fish? And
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  so I'm proud to say that all of our captains are paid
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  a fair living wage around the world. We cover 100% of health insurance
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  and benefits. And right now we have a 98% retention rate on our
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  cleanup. So it's something that we've really devoted
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  a ton of time and energy into, and I'm very proud of it. And
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  I'm proud to say that after seven or eight years
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  now of hard work, we're coming up on 40 million pounds of
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  Jeez. That's amazing. Just
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  think about it. Eight years ago, you guys were trying to figure out how to get plastic
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  out of one part of the ocean, like a small piece in
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  Bali. Seeing this devastation. Obviously, it probably
• 11:53
  soured your experience in the surfing, right?
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  Because you're seeing all this. And then you're seeing everybody who's enthralled in
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  this. And then eight years later, you're like, 40 million pounds of plastic you've
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  taken out. Did you ever dream that actually would have happened
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  Never, never in my wildest dreams did I think that we'd be where we are. I,
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  you know, we thought like, Hey, can we, you know, can we do small
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  little cleanup operation? Can we get some boats on the water? You
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  know, really just trying to build a business and a movement
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  around something we're passionate about. And, and so for me, that was something that
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  I really, really was determined to do is, is to, to
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  really build a legacy brand. And we want to create that
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  so at the point where it can have an impact on the amount of plastic that's
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  in the ocean, not only just recovering it, but also driving the awareness and
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  getting more people involved. And, you know, we thought we were
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  going to be a much smaller, you know, grassroots,
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  smaller group. And, you know, I'm proud to say that we're a
• 12:50
  few hundred people today and we're employing people
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  Well, I think there's a lot to unpack here, and we're going to
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  get into it. Let's start with it, because it's amazing how you're hiring people
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  that live in the country. It's not just people that you've hired from North America to
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  go travel and take it out. So that's it. We're going to
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  unpack that a little later, because I think that's absolutely fantastic. And
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  sort of like the new, it's really the way conservation should be going forward
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  in the future. It should have been done a while ago, but it wasn't. To
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  see a company doing that, absolutely amazing. I
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  want to go to the bracelets because I find like this is a really
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  interesting concept because I've seen this before and some, like you said, some
• 13:31
  companies remain small to medium size and
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  they sell a product and they use that product to fund something
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  else, whether it's creating like, you
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  know, some sort of like take out a pound of trash or
• 13:46
  something else, right? They do some other types of conservation. When
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  you first started, you came up with the bracelets.
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  How did you source the material for the bracelet? When
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  you said, hey, we'll sell bracelets, but it's going to be recycled material. That's not always
• 14:02
  easy to source, especially eight years ago. Where did
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  Sure, so it took a long time for us to source all of
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  the recycled materials and really just develop the product because,
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  you know, the bracelets were handmade in Bali. So that's something that
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  took a long time to try and find manufacturers that could
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  provide the RPET, convert it into the thread, develop
• 14:26
  and mix in some of our ocean plastic that we had collected and
• 14:30
  develop into this product. It
• 14:33
  took us about a year of building.
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  It was a, it was a very, very tough process to try and
• 14:42
  think about and develop. And you know, we're new, I've never sourced
• 14:47
  Yeah. Product development. You just kind of get out there and go for it.
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  And so I think we spent a ton of time and, and after we got
• 14:53
  everything set up in Bali, um, you know, with the local artisans
• 14:57
  there to, to help manufacture the bracelets, that was something that
• 15:01
  we just, we, we kind of cracked the code in a sense and, and
• 15:04
  said, let's, let's make it with, with RPT and, and post-consumer recycled
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  That's amazing. Now, it took you a year to come up with the prototype? Is
• 15:14
  that what it was? Like, finally to come up with the bracelet that you're willing
• 15:19
  Just about, yeah. To get to the point where we could actually reach any
• 15:23
  type of production volume. So we were doing samples, we were doing concepts
• 15:27
  and different thought process, and we really didn't know what we were going to
• 15:30
  sell for that first initial stage. And I say it a
• 15:34
  lot, that the bracelet is really our stepping stone to the bigger picture. We
• 15:38
  look at this, and I almost label the bracelet as like our Kickstarter campaign. We
• 15:42
  didn't raise a bunch of capital, we didn't go and get a bunch of investors, we took
• 15:45
  money that we literally made from myself parking cars at valet and
• 15:49
  my co-founder from from working on boats and we started this
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  and and so uh you know it it it was basically
• 15:56
  just something that we were able to to test out and find that it
• 15:59
  was going to be a bracelet it was going to be something that could be gender neutral
• 16:03
  uh that wasn't too much of a of a statement piece and and really just
• 16:06
  could get as many people involved because that's you know at the end of the day that
• 16:10
  is a firm belief of mine is that Clean oceans
• 16:13
  and the ocean plastic crisis really should bring people together. There's
• 16:17
  so many things in this world that are very divisive and I find that
• 16:21
  everybody can agree that we all appreciate clean oceans. We
• 16:25
  all can agree that we want a future for ourselves, future
• 16:28
  generations, for our kids, I have one son who's only
• 16:31
  a year and a half old and my wife is just about to be due with our second son. So it's
• 16:35
  very imperative for me to try and give them the things that I've experienced. So
• 16:38
  when we thought about a bracelet concept, it was something that could bring
• 16:42
  a bunch of people together and that it wouldn't really matter your
• 16:46
  interests or anything like that. It's just, hey, we're trying to stay focused on
• 16:51
  I think what I love about the bracelet, it's almost like it's a very big symbol that
• 16:55
  people can wear. And we've seen it with other things, breast
• 16:59
  cancer and other types of cancer. He's seen that braces to get a movement
• 17:02
  going. And so it's a simple piece of clothing or
• 17:06
  accessory to clothing. It can go with a bunch of different styles. Especially,
• 17:11
  I find that the bracelet, when you look at it, it screams out.
• 17:14
  I don't know, maybe it's the color. But I find it screams out
• 17:18
  people around the ocean who like the ocean. because it's simplified, it's not
• 17:22
  metal, it's a nice thread, and I guess
• 17:26
  the bubbles around it are clear. It's very simplified, but
• 17:30
  when you look at it, you're like, okay, I'm doing something good. I
• 17:34
  really enjoy it. You're right. I worked
• 17:38
  for the federal government a number of years ago. I
• 17:43
  live in Canada, we were working with the US on a bi-national agreement
• 17:47
  with the Great Lakes. One of the major things that was the focus is
• 17:51
  when people look out off the shore in the Great Lakes,
• 17:55
  what do they see? Do they see something that's clean? Or
• 17:58
  does it smell? Or is there nutrients or there's algae or
• 18:01
  anything like that? And until recently, plastics never
• 18:05
  really entered the equation in the Great Lakes. But now, with more and
• 18:08
  more research, we're starting to see that. And the same thing with the ocean. Nobody wants to go
• 18:11
  out on a dock or on a pier and look
• 18:15
  out into the ocean and see trash, and see plastic, and
• 18:19
  just see it. Just like what you guys saw in Bali, nobody wants to see that
• 18:22
  off the coast of Florida, California, BC, anywhere
• 18:26
  in the world. We don't want to see that. So it's nice to
• 18:29
  have that actual vision. Yes. So a year of
• 18:33
  working the jobs just to
• 18:37
  make things work and invest your money and time into that, probably
• 18:40
  a lot of trips to Bali and back and forth, I'm sure. And I
• 18:44
  think that's great. But you said you had viral
• 18:48
  videos that went off, and
• 18:52
  then that's when the bracelets really started to sell. Were you
• 18:56
  picking up trash while you were designing the
• 18:59
  bracelet and just filming it like we would on
• 19:06
  Yeah, we really started leaning into the videos
• 19:10
  and I guess filming once we started the
• 19:14
  business. Like, okay, let's start documenting this idea and concept. And
• 19:17
  so the model was simple. Purchase a product, we're gonna recover
• 19:21
  plastic from the ocean, and then we're gonna, this is kind of our model. And
• 19:24
  so we started filming that when the business
• 19:27
  started, and it was pulling together kind of like I
• 19:31
  guess what you'd call it is just like a video pitch. And it was like a
• 19:34
  60-second video that just said, hey, this is who we are. This is what we're trying to do. These
• 19:38
  are our goals and aspirations. And this is how we're going to do it. And
• 19:41
  this is how you could get involved if you want to join. And so I think that's what
• 19:45
  really ended up taking off. It, you
• 19:48
  know, just the videos going on face at the time, it was Facebook before Facebook
• 19:52
  kind of changed their algorithms and stuff. And, and it just, Facebook just
• 19:55
  happened to go viral. And next thing you know, it's getting picked up by a bunch of others. And
• 19:58
  then it was just like, okay, we're, we've got something here.
• 20:02
  We're ready to rock and roll and let's go expand our cleanups and expand
• 20:07
  That is, it's amazing. But I want to know, how
• 20:10
  hard was that first year? Or even the first couple of years?
• 20:13
  Because people look at Four Oceans and we
• 20:17
  look at you from the outside and just be like, they've got stuff together.
• 20:21
  They've got systems, they've got process, they've got boats, they're
• 20:25
  hiring captains and crew all over the world. It
• 20:29
  looks easy, but I know these things aren't easy, especially
• 20:33
  those first couple of years. What were the struggles that you
• 20:37
  went through? Because there's some people who are listening in the audience who
• 20:40
  want to build a business that also
• 20:44
  does good. So some of the people, they're just not ready,
• 20:47
  or they may have those fears where they're just like, well, this won't work,
• 20:50
  or this won't work, or this will take too long. So I just wanted to hear some of the challenges so
• 20:57
  Sure, sure, yeah. No business.
• 21:01
  I think it's important to understand, no business is
• 21:04
  just a simple walk in the park. They talk about, what
• 21:08
  is it, Elon Musk says a statement of being an entrepreneur is
• 21:11
  comparable to chewing on glass and staring into the dark abyss. You
• 21:15
  hear those different phrases and I don't think, well, it's that drastic. It's
• 21:19
  just, there's highs and lows. Of course you're gonna always see the majority of
• 21:22
  the highs and all the awesome things, but there are, a lot
• 21:26
  of struggles. And when we started out, I mean, it was tough. I
• 21:29
  think my advice to anybody getting involved in the space would be,
• 21:33
  be prepared to be curious and
• 21:36
  be prepared to have a relentless drive of
• 21:40
  learning new things. And I think that's something that's so important
• 21:44
  because when we started, it was tough. We had nothing. We literally had
• 21:47
  nothing. We started this business with two $5,000 Investments
• 21:53
  that we'd saved I literally I had a brick of ones save from
• 21:56
  ballet, you know, like I'm not kidding Yeah, like right it was it
• 22:00
  was like nothing and so we had to get scrappy So like right the thing starting
• 22:03
  out was, you know, we couldn't hire as some big marketing agencies
• 22:07
  and big companies you know, production and sourcing companies. We
• 22:10
  just had to learn and I say it a lot like YouTube University was
• 22:14
  one of the things. Like I got my degree in entrepreneurship from FAU and
• 22:19
  that was helpful from a macro perspective. You really get to understand, you
• 22:22
  know, the concepts of business. But when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of like,
• 22:25
  okay, how do I source a product? How do I build a website? How
• 22:29
  do I film and market? How do I fulfill a product, handle customer service?
• 22:33
  how do I set up a cleanup infrastructure and develop SOPs on
• 22:36
  how our vessels need to be handled and maintained? There's
• 22:39
  so many different components that factor into that and I think that the relentless
• 22:43
  drive to learn new things, it's one thing that I like. I
• 22:47
  love learning new things. I'm always chasing after these different things
• 22:50
  and trying to really find out and learn and improve and
• 22:54
  get better at things. And I think that when we started out, it
• 22:57
  was like we didn't have money to market, so we couldn't like brand
• 23:01
  products. So I learned how to, you know, cut with a
• 23:04
  vinyl machine and be able to brand all our own products and used
• 23:07
  a projector to project stuff onto walls to paint our logos and
• 23:11
  like get all creative with it. Because we didn't have money to go spend four
• 23:14
  grand on a tent. So it's like, all right, well, we're buying the blue tent from
• 23:17
  Walmart, and we're going to paint this thing and make it our own. And so
• 23:21
  I think that was the thing that was very tough,
• 23:24
  is that we had no resources. We had to start small. We had to be
• 23:28
  scrappy. And there were dark times. And
• 23:31
  there still are dark times, like 100%. There's ups and
• 23:34
  downs like crazy. And I think that that's something to just understand that
• 23:37
  you've got slow down, work with your team, understand
• 23:41
  what needs to be done in order to drive the business, drive the operations forward
• 23:44
  and, and really come out with a strategic plan to, to try and execute. And,
• 23:49
  uh, you know, it's, it's been something that's been, uh, uh, you
• 23:53
  know, a challenge for a lot of businesses starting out is like, just how
• 23:56
  do you start? Where do you start? And I would just say, that's one of the biggest pieces
• 23:59
  of advice that I could have is like, just get ready to use
• 24:02
  the internet. Now, I mean, and honestly, we have chat GPT and all this AI now,
• 24:06
  which is insane. But before it was like reading forums till
• 24:09
  late at night, joining Facebook groups, looking good, you
• 24:13
  know, just watching YouTube videos nonstop. And I mean, on anything
• 24:16
  like from marketing, teaching yourself how to film
• 24:21
  and take photos to, how are we going to install this outboard engine
• 24:24
  on this boat? You know, I don't have the money to pay a mechanic, but we're going
• 24:28
  to learn it and we're going to figure it out. So I think it was, it was very,
• 24:34
  Yeah. And I assume when you first started, too, you had access
• 24:37
  to boats so you can go out and do the cleanups. But
• 24:41
  boats are expensive to maintain, buy and maintain. What's
• 24:45
  the rule? If you want a boat, you just get ready to put more and more money into it,
• 24:48
  especially with, I would imagine, with the way you all use it,
• 24:52
  especially locally for the boats that you own. So I
• 24:57
  guess a question, for the worldwide management, you're paying
• 25:01
  people. people on the ground, you
• 25:04
  know, managing the business out there as well. So you have not only just captains
• 25:08
  and crew, but you have sort of like a bit of an infrastructure in
• 25:12
  There's a full hierarchy. We have an entire team. So we have directors,
• 25:15
  managers, captains, crews, you know, essentially
• 25:20
  leaders of each organization. So there's like full on infrastructure
• 25:23
  at each location and we own all of our own vessels. So I
• 25:26
  mentioned earlier my background, I'm a licensed captain. I
• 25:30
  grew up on the water. So I actually throughout college, not only parked
• 25:33
  cars, but I also bought and sold boats. I would buy them, fix
• 25:36
  them up and sell them. So that was like a, that was a kind of a side hustle of
• 25:40
  mine. And so that's how I
• 25:43
  paid a lot of my way through college, to be frank with you. And I
• 25:47
  probably bought and sold, I think, like 35 different boats. And it was all
• 25:50
  just like, started small, like a little John boat for a couple hundred dollars, and
• 25:53
  just slowly kept flipping and working my way up to bigger boats and bigger things. I
• 25:57
  got the chance to learn and understand how to
• 26:01
  maintain, how to do fiberglass work, how to run electronics, and
• 26:05
  just operate these vessels. So it's something I enjoy. It's
• 26:09
  a hobby of mine, honestly. It's not only just a matter of that. And so
• 26:13
  spending that time out there was, in the beginning, we had access
• 26:16
  to the idea and concept of, all right, well, let's get
• 26:20
  vessels on the water. And our first boat was a Carolina Skiff. So we
• 26:23
  purchased a used Facebook marketplace. And
• 26:28
  yeah, we just went for it. We got it painted. We got it,
• 26:31
  you know, branded. It's actually, it looks like this boat right here. I don't know if any of
• 26:35
  the viewers are watching, but so yeah, this is a very comparable boat. And
• 26:39
  so that was our first skiff ever. And you
• 26:42
  know, I'm actually proud to say, so we've, historically, we've always bought used
• 26:46
  boats. You know, we've always bought, we're going to be beating them up. We're going to
• 26:49
  be, throwing plastic and trash on them. So we always bought used boats
• 26:52
  and it's all we could afford. And we actually just kicked off a partnership with Carolina
• 26:56
  Skiff. So we got a first time ever in 4Ocean's history, a
• 26:59
  brand new, amazing vessel. And it's tricked
• 27:03
  out to the nine for cleanup. So we're dialed in to go
• 27:06
  clean anywhere. So it's a big moment. I'm very, very proud and very excited to
• 27:09
  finally get a reliable vessel that's not, you
• 27:15
  Yeah, I mean, it just goes to show how far you've gone. But it also goes
• 27:19
  to show how much people believe in what the mission that
• 27:23
  Four Oceans is about, too, right? To get a company like Carolina's Gift
• 27:26
  to just be like, yeah, no, we see this. And we're ready to put
• 27:30
  together a boat that's maximized for, I assume,
• 27:34
  the most plastic you can pick up on a boat with safety
• 27:37
  in mind, of course, and to bring it back and haul it back. Yes.
• 27:43
  Well, I'm actually also excited. So it's not only just Carolina Skip, but we have
• 27:46
  like partnerships with Sea-Doo. So they've provided vessels. They're a sponsor
• 27:50
  and a partner. Sea-Doo's, Can-Am, Defender for
• 27:53
  a quad. Like we've been supported now with these other businesses, other
• 27:57
  gear that we're now outfitted with. It's pretty cool. I
• 28:00
  say it a lot. And we're outfitted with the best tools
• 28:03
  to clean the ocean. And it's almost like we're utilizing the same equipment
• 28:07
  that Navy SEALs or these operators are utilizing,
• 28:11
  but we're doing it to clean plastic. And this is
• 28:14
  actually something that we did when we first started. It was very intentional. Everything
• 28:18
  from the paint schemes, the stripes, and
• 28:21
  installing the light bars on the boats, and putting all that stuff, we
• 28:24
  wanted to make cleaning the ocean cool. We didn't want it
• 28:27
  to just be viewed as something like, oh, they're just doing sanitary work, like they're
• 28:31
  just cleaning up trash. We wanted it to be like, hey, this is
• 28:34
  something that we are deliberately doing to try and clean plastic from the ocean,
• 28:41
  That's incredible. That's amazing. So let's
• 28:44
  talk about the actual picking up of the plastic. You know, because you
• 28:48
  have these boats and then you must have instruments
• 28:53
  or tools to get the plastic out of the boats because you're not going to lean
• 28:56
  over all the time and just pick it up by hand. How does
• 28:59
  all of that work? And like you can even talk about the beginning and
• 29:02
  how we've evolved over time to maximize that. But
• 29:09
  Sure. So that's a great question. We typically,
• 29:13
  and our standard method of collecting plastic is really
• 29:17
  through hand. It's by hand, but it's utilizing net systems. So
• 29:20
  like standard nets and dip nets and things like that. One
• 29:24
  core belief that we have here at 4ocean is that technology,
• 29:28
  while it can play an important role in the ocean plastic crisis, we
• 29:32
  really feel, and I feel very passionately about, you
• 29:35
  can spend a significant amount of money on a piece of technology, but
• 29:39
  I believe that the most effective and the most impactful way is to create full-time
• 29:43
  jobs for individuals. Because if you're going to create
• 29:47
  a very expensive machine that might cost millions of dollars to recover plastic,
• 29:51
  the amount of people that you can employ with that money is
• 29:55
  significant. And so there's not the maintenance aspect, there's not the
• 29:58
  you know, the shelf life and how long this or the life cycle of this product and how
• 30:01
  long it's going to last. But I think that what we're finding is that there's plastic
• 30:05
  is almost always mixed with organics, right? So sticks and
• 30:09
  seagrass and all sorts of seaweed and things like that. And so
• 30:13
  our captains and crews are very efficient with hand nets. So we're literally going out
• 30:16
  in the vessels. We're scooping the plastic with nets to
• 30:19
  bring back into the boat. And we're also walking the shorelines. And
• 30:23
  so we're walking the shorelines and collecting the plastic off of the shorelines with uh
• 30:27
  you know grabbers but also a lot of different individuals rather just
• 30:30
  to choose to use their hands you know obviously we have gloves and the necessary ppe
• 30:34
  but um it's it's a very basic method
• 30:38
  and it's to be frank with you very hard i mean what we're doing is
• 30:41
  it's backbreaking work you know when we're out there in the sun it
• 30:44
  is incredibly hot incredibly humid And we're collecting this
• 30:48
  plastic off the ground and out of the ocean on these beaches and
• 30:51
  and I think that it's it's, you know, we really view it as how
• 30:55
  can we create as much impact not only just on the environment, but
• 30:58
  even from a social and economic perspective. And so creating these
• 31:01
  full time jobs is something that. is very important to
• 31:05
  me and the impact that we're able to make with our captains and
• 31:08
  crews. So you really have the boats, you
• 31:11
  have, we say boats, boots, and booms. It's kind of like our term, right?
• 31:15
  So boats on the water, boots, we're walking down the beach, we're collecting, and
• 31:18
  then boom systems, which are barricades that are installed in rivers. Similar
• 31:22
  to what you see in the oil spill industry to contain the material. So
• 31:25
  we put those into some small rivers to try and stop plastic before it has
• 31:31
  Again, so much to unpack there. It's
• 31:35
  amazing what you're able to do. And the way you talk about it, it's like,
• 31:38
  yeah, this is what we do. And it must have taken a
• 31:42
  while. And there must be a learning process through the
• 31:46
  last eight years that you've taken to be like, OK, what's like you come to
• 31:49
  a river. Recently, we talked about this before we recorded. Recently, your
• 31:54
  team was in Bali, or you had a team in Bali. brilliantly
• 32:00
  posted on social media the cleanup process of this. And this river, when
• 32:03
  you look at this river, it was disgusting when
• 32:06
  you look at it from a plastic pollution perspective. It
• 32:09
  was just filled. There wasn't even a river. It just looked like a
• 32:13
  river of plastic that was going down. You could see
• 32:16
  the booms installed. You could see the backup of all this. And
• 32:20
  then it was just like this video that was put in, in like, I
• 32:23
  don't know if it was 10 times speed or what, but it was just being cleaned up
• 32:26
  and cleaned up and cleaned up. And then all of a sudden at the end of the video, you just saw
• 32:30
  a river again. You know, you're just like, this is incredible.
• 32:35
  What was that learning process of going into
• 32:39
  a river? Because when you look at a river like that, you're just like, whew, this is going to
• 32:42
  be a lot of work. This is not an easy job to do. What was
• 32:45
  that learning process to tackle this ocean plastic problem without
• 32:49
  getting your employees just being like, oh my god, we're
• 32:54
  Sure, sure. So yeah, we've had a lot of videos go
• 32:58
  out of all of our cleanup efforts and I think that the videos have
• 33:01
  really helped us a lot now. You know, it's
• 33:05
  completely flipped. So in the beginning stages of when we started 4ocean,
• 33:09
  we couldn't get anybody to work for us. It was so hard and
• 33:12
  the reason being nobody believed that what we were
• 33:16
  doing was real. They thought that
• 33:19
  it was all like, oh, you're just going to show up once. Because we showed
• 33:23
  up and we literally walked. I'm not kidding. We'd fly to these areas.
• 33:26
  We flew to Haiti with backpacks on, walking around trying to open
• 33:29
  up a cleanup location. We flew to Bali and literally walked
• 33:33
  around, met people, networked, and said, hey, this is what we're trying to do. It
• 33:36
  was a very, very Scrappy
• 33:41
  process, but yeah when we first started people thought we were crazy. They
• 33:45
  literally said wait a second You're gonna pay us full time.
• 33:49
  You're gonna pay us a fair living a living wage. So above the minimum wage
• 33:56
  So many people thought that we were just out
• 33:59
  there with a, they thought we were crazy. They thought we were just out there with a wacky idea.
• 34:03
  I can see a lot of people thinking that. So what happened was that we really struggled to
• 34:07
  get captains and crew to come in and say, you know what, hey, I will stop
• 34:10
  fishing and I will come over here and work with you guys. And so what happened is
• 34:13
  the power of social media is what changed that. And when we first started, it was like,
• 34:16
  all right, we got a small little group of captains and crew. We started growing.
• 34:20
  We started seeing the videos. And then the social media accounts gave us a little bit
• 34:24
  of a reputation. And people were like, whoa,
• 34:27
  wait a minute. And so now it's flipped to the complete opposite side. I
• 34:31
  just got back from a trip to Bali and I was talking with
• 34:34
  our team out there and they're explaining like it's actually a big problem right
• 34:37
  now. They said that they are so overwhelmed with people that
• 34:40
  are asking to work for 4ocean that they're breaking down
• 34:44
  their door like constantly. They have all friends and family always sending
• 34:47
  resumes of their friends and it's because we are paying
• 34:51
  for a living wage. We're giving them 100% of health insurance and benefits And,
• 34:55
  and the environment and what we try and do to take care of our staff is, is just so,
• 34:59
  uh, important to us. And so they just said, like, it's literally gotten
• 35:02
  to a point now where people are, are, uh, struggling to, to,
• 35:06
  I'm sorry, they're, they're, they're, you know, they want the job so
• 35:10
  So, so I would say, you know, in the beginning stages, it was very tough
• 35:14
  and, and, you know, to learn how to do this and teach the crews and
• 35:18
  develop all the SOPs and follow the process of documenting our
• 35:21
  plastic, because we document every pound that's been recovered. with
• 35:25
  photos and that entire process and so it
• 35:28
  took a lot of time and it was very tough but we were determined and
• 35:34
  Let me ask you this, when it comes to paying people the living
• 35:37
  wage and taking care of your staff, like really fostering
• 35:42
  a culture where it's like, yeah, we're working all over the world, but we're going to take
• 35:45
  care of you. Like you work for us, it's hard work, we know, but
• 35:49
  we're going to take care of you. There are a lot of businesses out there, and Alex, you and I know
• 35:52
  which businesses are there, that are literally just paying
• 35:55
  minimum wage. And they complain that if you have to raise minimum
• 35:59
  wage, they're not going to make a dollar. their money,
• 36:03
  low wages, you know, their products, lots of products, they probably
• 36:06
  pay a lot, like very little and make little profit on it.
• 36:10
  You have this company where you're cleaning up plastic, selling a
• 36:13
  bracelet, and other things as well, but
• 36:17
  here you are paying the people the money that, where
• 36:21
  they can be comfortable. They're not scrounging, they're not complaining that
• 36:25
  they can't live in the place that they're living and so forth. Is
• 36:30
  that a hard thing to do, especially as a company that's been
• 36:33
  building for eight years? I know you grew rapidly, but even growing rapidly,
• 36:37
  was there a concern about, are we going to be able to pay everybody
• 36:41
  for the long term? We're building a bit of an international family
• 36:45
  here. How can we pay all these? Was that a concern,
• 36:48
  especially you just starting out your first business and
• 36:53
  your staff and stuff like that? How difficult was that to figure
• 36:57
  So, from a decision perspective, not hard at all. It
• 37:01
  was a no-brainer. It was, you know, the idea
• 37:04
  and concept of if we're going to create something, we're going to have an impact and we're going to create
• 37:07
  a business that can really do amazing
• 37:10
  things. You know, when you talk about the triple bottom line, that's really
• 37:14
  what we believe in, is people, planet, and profit. And I think that that's
• 37:17
  something that's so important to be able to take care of our crews. And
• 37:21
  if it was going to be, hey, we're going to start a business
• 37:25
  that's going to take advantage of all of our crews internationally, That
• 37:28
  was not anything that we're interested in. So I think the decision to do it
• 37:32
  was no-brainer, dead forward, this is exactly what we want to do.
• 37:36
  In terms of the ability to pay our captains and crew, that
• 37:39
  is something that absolutely does get difficult. We're
• 37:43
  talking about a significant difference in
• 37:47
  compensation structures. Where, you know, at times when you go
• 37:50
  through low periods, it's so hard. And this has happened to us. We've
• 37:54
  gone through periods of dipping heavily with
• 37:57
  sales due to any type of influence, right? Whether that's
• 38:01
  coronavirus, when all of the wholesale businesses shut down, went to zero. whether
• 38:05
  it's Facebook changing their algorithm and all of a sudden the next day,
• 38:08
  your entire marketing strategy is just flipped upside down. We've
• 38:12
  experienced a ton of highs and lows and we have not been immune to any
• 38:15
  of that. And I will tell you in those down periods, it
• 38:19
  is something that is definitely a significant weight
• 38:24
  in terms of our expenses, but it is something that we always
• 38:32
  to be candid with you, uh, sometimes to a fault because
• 38:35
  we just, we prioritize the cleanup crews and it's just like, guys, no cleanup.
• 38:39
  It's one of our core values is ocean first ocean first product second.
• 38:43
  And so that's something that's so important is that, you know, we can always
• 38:46
  find ways to, to handle anything that we need to, but
• 38:49
  the cleanups are why we're here. We have to protect our cleanup crews and
• 38:55
  I love that. And it is difficult. Like you mentioned, there's been
• 38:58
  a lot that happened in the last eight years, including a global pandemic,
• 39:01
  which makes things very difficult. Algorithms that fly by, it
• 39:05
  seems like they change every day to suppress certain things
• 39:08
  and promote other things. It's not easy to,
• 39:12
  you know, not every video is going to go viral. You know, even for Four Oceans,
• 39:15
  as big as you guys are and as wonderful as you like, not everything's going to go viral, not
• 39:18
  everybody's going to see it. And that can make things complicated.
• 39:22
  But I love the fact that you work and
• 39:26
  scrape and scrounge for your staff. Because
• 39:30
  I think that builds loyalty. You're right. When they know that, like, hey,
• 39:33
  during hard times, we never had to worry. I think
• 39:37
  that builds loyalty in the long run. And I find that's the one thing that companies
• 39:41
  who are trying to be sustainable or trying to do good for the ocean, whether they're non-profits or
• 39:45
  for-profits or both, like a hybrid model, they
• 39:49
  tend not to invest in their people as much. And that could
• 39:52
  be because of funding structures and things like that. But I find when you invest in
• 39:55
  people, you get the best out of people. And I think what
• 39:59
  you guys are doing is exactly that. And what you're doing is you're getting the best out
• 40:02
  of people. Because let's be honest, it's got to be tough work out there.
• 40:08
  You're in the heat a lot of the times, you're in the water. Being on
• 40:11
  the ocean, it's lovely. Let's be honest, it's fun. It's
• 40:16
  noon and the sun's over you and it's hard
• 40:20
  work. You're sweating. You're probably
• 40:24
  in good shape afterwards because your calorie
• 40:28
  count must be way up here just to stay in shape like
• 40:31
  that. I mean, it's hard work. So I
• 40:35
  think fighting for them as much as possible for that staff will
• 40:38
  allow them to fight for you, especially for the reason that they're doing. Now,
• 40:43
  we talk about plastic pollution a lot on this podcast. There's an
• 40:46
  international treaty that's trying to be formalized around
• 40:52
  the world right now. I think the next meeting is in South Korea shortly.
• 40:58
  As you mentioned a couple of times, it's a crisis. We are
• 41:02
  in a crisis of plastic pollution. And your
• 41:05
  group is doing a great job at cleaning it up, especially from
• 41:09
  the rivers, not just out in the ocean, but from the
• 41:12
  rivers, which is a point of impact, essentially. How
• 41:17
  do you maintain, like how do you think
• 41:20
  you're doing right now? 40 million pounds of plastics is
• 41:23
  a lot. There's no doubt about that. Do you ever feel
• 41:28
  down when you come to a new place or
• 41:32
  you visit a place that you visited before and cleaned it up and it's back
• 41:36
  to normal? I guess the first question is,
• 41:39
  do you ever feel pessimistic about the situation that
• 41:42
  you're in and the job that you're doing? And then I'll ask a follow-up after.
• 41:48
  Sure, sure. So I would say that I,
• 41:52
  by nature, once again, almost to a fault, am such
• 41:55
  an optimistic person. So I
• 41:59
  always maintain a, or try to maintain the best outlook as
• 42:02
  possible. And, and I think that there are times, absolutely.
• 42:06
  When it's just heavy, like it's just, it's, it's, you know, standing on
• 42:09
  these coastlines where the plastic is like eight feet deep.
• 42:13
  It's I'm talking miles, absolutely miles. As far as
• 42:17
  your eye can see. and there's just millions of pounds of plastic sitting on
• 42:20
  the coastline, it's easy to get a little overwhelmed. And
• 42:24
  I will tell you that, you know, when I see those things, it
• 42:27
  really is like a fire. It fires me up because, you
• 42:30
  know, for us and our captains and crew, we know the impact that we can have.
• 42:34
  And so for me, instead of just feeling overwhelmed or
• 42:38
  anxiety or depression based off of like, man, this is just crazy. I
• 42:42
  want to see action. I want to start breaking down a plan. Okay, let's start thinking
• 42:45
  about it. How could we execute at this? Like, let's really start laying out
• 42:48
  a structure and an idea and a concept and let's start testing. Let's
• 42:52
  get after it. And so I think that's something where, you know,
• 42:55
  you can get overwhelmed by the sites that you see. but it's so important to
• 42:58
  stay positive and think about the solutions. Because within
• 43:03
  all environmental crisis that's happening right now, you
• 43:08
  can be very depressed and have a lot of anxiety towards it,
• 43:12
  but I think one of the best things that you can do that will start to solve that is take action.
• 43:16
  And so what we're trying to do is take action. And one thing that
• 43:19
  we talk a lot about, Andrew, is that we know that cleaning the
• 43:22
  ocean alone will not solve the ocean plastic crisis. We know
• 43:25
  that our captains and crew, they're doing an amazing job. We are working our
• 43:29
  butts off in the sun, just like you said, but cleaning plastic is not
• 43:32
  going to end this issue. What we believe is that cleanups are
• 43:35
  an amazing awareness tool, because what they're doing is they're driving
• 43:39
  that awareness. We are educating people on the problem that's happening out
• 43:42
  there, showing them that it exists, because what we find is
• 43:46
  a lot of people say, yeah, but isn't that just a bunch of plastic in
• 43:49
  developing countries? Like, that doesn't affect us. And so I'm like here,
• 43:52
  like, hey, listen, we're just cleaned all day. I got 1,200 pounds of
• 43:56
  plastic from a few hours out just outside of Miami. You know, this
• 43:59
  is an amazing destination. So, it's here on our doorsteps. And
• 44:02
  I think that we're really trying to drive that awareness from a social media perspective
• 44:06
  and leveraging mainstream tactics like athletes, celebrities, influencers.
• 44:10
  Because if we can continue to push the conversation forward, then
• 44:14
  we will get more people talking about it, learning about what's happening, And
• 44:17
  together, we can start to see some of these changes that are happening. So
• 44:21
  I think it can be really overwhelming, and you can get really depressed
• 44:25
  or just overwhelmed at times. But you've got to stay focused on it. You've
• 44:29
  got to take action. And you've got to clean the ocean to try and take
• 44:33
  Yeah, 100%. I completely agree. I
• 44:40
  really relate to Four Oceans because I'm always the guy
• 44:43
  who's just like, OK, somebody's got to do this job. I'm
• 44:47
  going to just pick up. you know pick up my pants go like just
• 44:50
  you know just do it right yes and and let's just get
• 44:54
  it done and i think that's what you guys have been able to do and continue to
• 44:57
  do it and i think a lot of people relate to that just
• 45:00
  by the support that you've been getting not only from a consumer perspective but
• 45:04
  also from you know a partnership perspective with other companies that
• 45:07
  you've mentioned already and and a lot more I'm
• 45:11
  sure. And so I think that's great. Now, I
• 45:14
  know you guys are focused on picking up plastic, but do
• 45:17
  you have people in your organization that
• 45:21
  focuses on the legislative aspect and speaking
• 45:27
  to government officials or policy people to be like, hey, look, this
• 45:30
  is what we see every day. We've got videos, we've got
• 45:34
  stuff like that. I feel like that would be an effective tool to
• 45:37
  either partner with another organization that specialize that or
• 45:40
  if you're able to do that within your own staff to go
• 45:44
  to Congress or go to the
• 45:47
  government within the different countries that you work in. Does
• 45:51
  Four Oceans have those opportunities to do that or
• 45:57
  So right now, we partner with other organizations. And
• 46:01
  so we have the 501c3. So 4ocean,
• 46:05
  as a company, we have a public benefit corporation, which is
• 46:09
  our for-profit business that's partnering with businesses and brands. And
• 46:12
  we're selling products and doing things. And all the proceeds go to fund
• 46:16
  ocean cleanup. But we also have our 501c3, which is our nonprofit. And
• 46:20
  so we historically have not gotten involved in policy. And
• 46:24
  some of the different aspects like education and going to schools and
• 46:27
  looking at the curriculums and these community engagement. We used to have
• 46:31
  a very large community activation team, but once
• 46:34
  COVID hit, we couldn't afford to keep them on. And so some
• 46:37
  of these different aspects are things that are very hard to
• 46:41
  fund on the business side when we have
• 46:45
  such a large cleanup crew and the expenses are very, very high.
• 46:48
  So that's what we're viewing the nonprofit as, an opportunity to get more involved
• 46:52
  in these different areas. And I understand that policy can be a little bit
• 46:55
  of a hornet's nest, and there's a lot of, you gotta be
• 46:59
  careful with how you manage that, because we
• 47:03
  want to try and drive as much awareness as possible, and we wanna try and
• 47:06
  have that impact and change. But I will tell you, I will
• 47:10
  be the first one to admit, when it comes to policy, when it comes to legislation, I
• 47:13
  am not an expert in that space. I am still very new to it, And
• 47:17
  I will tell you the things that I've seen and heard even on
• 47:20
  the Global Plastics Treaty that's happening right now. there
• 47:24
  are things that are a little discouraging, right? Because what I've heard is that like,
• 47:27
  hey, you know, this will be our, I think our fourth, fourth meeting, correct?
• 47:31
  So this is the fourth meeting and I, and I dig in, I'm so excited. I
• 47:34
  was just at Circularity Conference and Green Biz and you
• 47:37
  know, those are great, great events to get together with like-minded individuals in
• 47:40
  the sustainability space. And I'm like, guys, so tell me like, what are your thoughts? What
• 47:44
  are you seeing? And I got to tell you, it was a consistent theme
• 47:47
  of like, I'll be honest with you, it's just like a big run
• 47:50
  around. Like we go here, they're telling me all the things that happen as
• 47:54
  far as like, uh, we've proposed X amount of things, but
• 47:57
  then overnight they switched them to like this massive thing. And then there's
• 48:00
  like. Four to one lobbyist compared to the people that are there
• 48:04
  from a sustainable perspective. And so there's so many things that
• 48:07
  it's like, ah, man, like I really want to, to
• 48:11
  see progress in this space. And, and just to understand that it is, it
• 48:38
  While they might be getting sidetracked or not
• 48:43
  really reaching in the end goal, I think that we're making progress and
• 48:49
  I completely agree and you know there's going to be you know there's
• 48:53
  a lot of people who a lot of companies who depend on
• 48:56
  plastics for their bottom line and they're not going to give it up quickly
• 49:00
  and and you know they send lobbyists and Ottawa we've had
• 49:03
  people on where they went to Ottawa meeting and here just just north
• 49:07
  of here like four hours north of here and They're saying, yeah, there's so
• 49:10
  many lobbyists that work for the plastics industry, the chemical industries.
• 49:14
  But I think what happens is we're learning from that. You know, we're learning that,
• 49:18
  like, they're worried about these types of movements.
• 49:21
  They're worried about these types of laws and regulations that are coming in. and
• 49:25
  we're making some progress on finding sustainable alternatives.
• 49:29
  I mean, you've built a business on a sustainable bracelet and
• 49:32
  people are buying it because they see the work that
• 49:35
  you're doing. And I think, I feel like 4ocean is
• 49:39
  the opportunity to really get people to see how
• 49:42
  much trash is out there. We've been talking about it for decades, but
• 49:46
  really there hasn't been a company that's consistently
• 49:51
  showing Not only doing, but showing the amount
• 49:54
  of trash that you face on a regular basis. And it
• 49:58
  is, sometimes it's devastating too. When you look at it, you're like, oh
• 50:01
  my gosh. But then when you see people cleaning it up, you get that optimism just
• 50:05
  like you are. You get that optimism like, all right, so this river can be
• 50:08
  salvageable. This coastline is salvageable. Even though
• 50:11
  they took the time out and did it, and it may have taken them a week,
• 50:15
  two weeks, a couple of months to clean this up. they've
• 50:18
  cleaned it up. And I think that is, that's such
• 50:22
  a positive message that comes out of it. And now it's
• 50:26
  just a matter of like, how do we make sure that that doesn't, you
• 50:29
  know, accumulate again in that very same
• 50:32
  spot. And I think, I feel like that's a
• 50:36
  way that we can really move forward. But being able to see that, being able for
• 50:39
  you to provide that, I think is really great.
• 50:42
  Can you talk maybe like about a project that you're working on
• 50:46
  now or that one of your areas,
• 50:49
  like one of your groups of staff or locations are
• 50:53
  working on now that you would like sort of the audience to know just
• 50:56
  sort of how you're tackling it and how long a project takes and
• 51:01
  Sure, sure. Let's take
• 51:05
  Bali. So in Bali, Indonesia, right now, one of
• 51:08
  the things that we're doing is we're expanding our locations. So we have satellite offices. So
• 51:12
  we have our headquarters there, and then we have satellite offices. And
• 51:15
  what we typically do is we are utilizing a
• 51:19
  similar management strategy, or
• 51:23
  a similar hierarchy. And we're going to expand to these different areas. So we
• 51:26
  actually just moved over to the island of Java, which is an island just
• 51:29
  next to Bali. And we're expanding in that area. So, you know, it takes,
• 51:33
  uh, it will take anywhere from sometimes six months to a
• 51:36
  year to really formalize, you know, and, and I mean, these are, these
• 51:40
  are not like, you know, we're not just showing up with like a tent on a beach. Like we have
• 51:43
  full on facilities, I mean, at our, our Gembrana facility. So. I
• 51:47
  don't know if there's any photos up behind us here, but we actually have full-on, yeah,
• 51:51
  actually right up here. So this is a full-on recycling infrastructure. So
• 51:56
  in our facility in Gibrana, we're building, you know, these large warehouses
• 52:00
  and inside of it we have shredders, grinders, wash
• 52:04
  machines. We have a wastewater treatment plant. We have, you
• 52:08
  know, backup generators. We have It's a full-on operation that
• 52:12
  we have to build these different areas. So, you know, it takes a
• 52:15
  long time to set up. So once we get that going, we'll hire
• 52:19
  a manager for that location and then we'll build
• 52:22
  the team. And so, you know, it's getting the vessels, getting the...
• 52:26
  And we operate multiple different vessels. We have everything from a jukung, which
• 52:29
  is a Bali traditional style boat, that has kind
• 52:33
  of, you know, almost like pontoons, kind of like these right
• 52:36
  there. Then we'll use like skiffs, we use river
• 52:39
  boats, catamarans, kayaks, little plastic
• 52:43
  john boats, like we're attacking it from all different angles. And
• 52:47
  so it's, you know, it's a process to get set up. And so the
• 52:50
  team really just spends the time, we
• 52:54
  come up with a plan and we try and execute. And I think that's something that
• 52:57
  It'll take anywhere from six months to a year to get set up, but we're constantly improving.
• 53:03
  Yeah, for sure. And that's an evolution that
• 53:07
  will never stop, I think, and I love that. When
• 53:10
  you collected all the materials, you sort it, you grind
• 53:14
  it up, whatever, cut it, whatever you have to do with it. One of the big
• 53:17
  problems with plastic is trying to figure out what to
• 53:20
  do with it. We know the problems in North America with recycling. You
• 53:25
  know, it's a bit of a misleading sort of
• 53:29
  area for here in North America where some things can be
• 53:32
  recycled, some things can't. But it's confusing a
• 53:36
  lot of times of what you can put out and you're recycling. And that changes by
• 53:39
  region or by country or by municipality and
• 53:44
  county and so forth. So when
• 53:47
  you have facilities like that and you're able to sort it all down, grind it all down, what
• 53:53
  Sure, sure. So I'll actually even start from when we collect
• 53:56
  it. Yeah, that'd be great. So we track all the plastic that
• 54:00
  we collect. So what we do is we take photos of the crews that are going to be heading out
• 54:03
  on the water. We take photographs before, during, and
• 54:06
  after their cleanups to showcase exactly where this plastic is being
• 54:10
  collected and show the proof of these beaches and these coastlines
• 54:13
  and these oceans being clean. So all that plastic is then brought back
• 54:16
  to our facility. And our facility, each individual super sack,
• 54:21
  which is what we put all the plastic into it, is photographed and weighed
• 54:24
  individually. So all that information is then uploaded onto a
• 54:28
  physical sheet that we're tracking, and it's going into our digital trash tracker.
• 54:31
  So basically, we can go back to any pound that has been recovered over
• 54:35
  the past eight years And you can go back and see the day, the
• 54:38
  time, the captains and crew that were cleaning it, the time spent cleaning,
• 54:41
  the location, and all the photographs of that cleanup. So
• 54:45
  that's something that we've really put a ton of energy and effort into it when we started 4ocean,
• 54:49
  because we wanted to be transparent with our cleanups. Once that
• 54:52
  material is back at our facility, it depends on the location. So
• 54:56
  every location is different, but recycling is our highest priority.
• 54:59
  What we're doing is we're sorting this material by type, color, and condition, and
• 55:03
  preparing it for future recycling. So for example, in
• 55:06
  Gembrana, we have a facility. So we have a shredder, we
• 55:10
  have a wash tank, and a dryer, and we're processing it into
• 55:14
  a usable feedstock that can be recycled into new products. In
• 55:18
  Guatemala, we have a bunch of partners where we're transporting, because we
• 55:21
  don't need to own the actual facilities, because the partnerships, I'm
• 55:25
  sorry, the facilities exist that we can partner with to send these materials.
• 55:29
  So what we're doing is we're batching the materials in large batches, and
• 55:33
  then once we reach the necessary MOQs, or
• 55:36
  the volumes that it's efficient to ship this material, because you want
• 55:40
  to be as efficient as possible, so we're compressing it into what's known as bales. We're
• 55:43
  using a baler, which is compressing into little cubes, which
• 55:47
  is a highly densified plastic. And then we're shipping it to
• 55:50
  these locations. So the highest volume, the highest quality
• 55:54
  of plastic is being converted into products and
• 55:57
  even stockpiling. We have stockpiles of massive
• 56:01
  amounts of good quality plastic that we're ready to make new materials
• 56:04
  with and new products that can drive awareness around ocean plastic. The
• 56:08
  mid-grade materials are being used to create construction materials.
• 56:12
  So think of like a synthetic board or synthetic beam. So
• 56:16
  they're making roofing tiles, boards, pool deck, decking,
• 56:19
  and things like that. And then the lowest quality of material is
• 56:23
  either being co-processed, converted into
• 56:27
  electricity, or it's being landfilled. But we try
• 56:30
  to avoid landfill at all costs. There's just some things that you just can't
• 56:33
  do. Dirty diapers, the fabric loaded
• 56:36
  with mud and all sorts of stuff. And there's just materials that you have
• 56:40
  to find a sustainable solution. And we're always looking for better outlets.
• 56:43
  So if anybody out there does have any suggestions on
• 56:50
  Yeah, and I mean, at some point, like, you know, it's
• 56:53
  not your fault that you can't do something with it. It's just the material
• 56:57
  itself. And I think that's important for
• 57:00
  everybody to know. It's like you're just trying to you know, take this
• 57:03
  material and put them away so that if it's in a landfill, it stays in the landfill.
• 57:07
  It's not gonna rush out and I think that's really
• 57:10
  important to realize. If somebody's taking care of where
• 57:14
  this material needs to go, how it needs to be sorted, can it be reused, is
• 57:18
  there a market to be reused and so forth. And I think that's
• 57:22
  like That's the part you don't really see too from your business,
• 57:25
  you know is is you see the cleanup and stuff, which is great but
• 57:29
  that's the hard part is what to do with the material and
• 57:33
  I Give you guys a lot of kudos to you know building the
• 57:37
  the the the warehouses or or plants to sort
• 57:41
  this out and hiring the crews to sort this out not just cleaning them up and you
• 57:44
  know, dumping them somewhere where they'll probably end up being back in
• 57:48
  the ocean, you know, where it goes. Because that's a big problem, especially
• 57:51
  in small island states where they may not have the infrastructure for
• 57:56
  that type of waste management. So that's just amazing.
• 57:59
  I appreciate you going through that and the work that
• 58:05
  I appreciate it, and it's actually something that we realize as
• 58:09
  well, is that we've shown so much of the ocean cleanup and
• 58:13
  the slow motion shot of the scooping of the net.
• 58:17
  But we've got to show the nitty gritty. We've got to show behind the scenes. We've got to
• 58:20
  show how hard we work. And that is something that we're actively trying to
• 58:23
  do, is because social media, obviously, with
• 58:27
  these new algorithms, social media will always favor like, oh, no, we just want
• 58:30
  to see the great, amazing, polished shot
• 58:35
  of the cleanup. But what we're doing is we actually just launched a
• 58:38
  like a vlog like a YouTube channel And so what this is is
• 58:41
  it's a longer form content 30 40 50 minutes And
• 58:45
  this is you're gonna see the nuts and bolts behind 4ocean and
• 58:48
  this is where on the we just went to Bali and every single day I
• 58:52
  gave an overview and we just did a day in the life of each and every
• 58:55
  one of our locations from plastic to processing, uh, processing
• 58:59
  the plastic transporting, you know, we even had like a team field
• 59:03
  day. And so we got all the locations together. We had like 140 people
• 59:07
  and we did like, uh, we did a tug war, volleyball. obstacle
• 59:11
  courses. Man, we did everything, literally
• 59:15
  pillow fighting, Indonesian culture pillow fighting on the boats. Unbelievable,
• 59:19
  but I'm so excited to share this level of detail about
• 59:23
  4ocean because there's so many amazing things that are happening. There's so many people and
• 59:27
  our captains and crew work so hard, so I'm just so excited to be able to showcase what
• 59:31
  they're doing in the world and be able to show that to the world about what
• 59:36
  Absolutely. And I mean, you got to be careful because you're going to get more people
• 59:40
  who are going to want to work for you. It could be really batting down
• 59:43
  the doors, but it's, it's, I think it's, it's, it's
• 59:46
  a great model to show people what a company should
• 59:50
  look like doing something good for the environment, like great for the environment, working
• 59:54
  to make it even better and always going through those iterations, but
• 59:58
  also showing like what a company culture should look like and what happens when
• 1:00:01
  you invest in your staff. And it is like a family
• 1:00:05
  culture. And I love to hear that. It's a
• 1:00:08
  grueling job. Some of these jobs,
• 1:00:11
  like we've mentioned, it's hard work, and not only on
• 1:00:14
  the water, but also on land to do the sorting and everything. But
• 1:00:18
  it's great to see a company that brings together and values its
• 1:00:22
  employees and staff so much to say, hey, look,
• 1:00:25
  we appreciate you. And it's great to almost
• 1:00:29
  profile them. Like, here's so-and-so, and he's doing this,
• 1:00:36
  That's what we're trying to do. I love it. Oh, man,
• 1:00:39
  it's like you've been in my brain. I love that aspect. I've always been saying
• 1:00:42
  that organizations should do more of that. So it's great to see
• 1:00:46
  that you guys are doing that. Now, I
• 1:00:49
  know there's the bracelet, and that's how people can
• 1:00:52
  support. So I kind of want to just, as we end this
• 1:00:56
  interview here, I've got a great
• 1:00:59
  audience who want to help, who want to support. So how
• 1:01:02
  can they support? You got the bracelet, but are there other ways that they can
• 1:01:09
  Absolutely. And so that's a great topic, is while we've made so
• 1:01:13
  much progress over the past eight years, and we're so proud of
• 1:01:16
  what our team has accomplished, these are recurring funds that
• 1:01:19
  hit every single day. And so, you know, in the experience where videos
• 1:01:23
  go viral and you get a ton of attention, that's fantastic. You're growing,
• 1:01:26
  you've got the revenue and you've got the capital to continue to invest. When
• 1:01:29
  these videos don't go viral, and when you experience these hurdles like
• 1:01:33
  COVID, or changes in algorithms for marketing channels
• 1:01:36
  and things like that. We still have these ongoing expenses. Our
• 1:01:40
  expenses have been growing in a linear format.
• 1:01:44
  They just continue to grow. And so it's something that we're constantly still trying
• 1:01:47
  to grow and create new innovative business models to continue
• 1:01:51
  to fund. And so for people's interest in getting involved, the
• 1:01:54
  bracelet's the easiest way for a consumer to get involved. We've started
• 1:01:58
  our B2B business, which is our business-to-business focus,
• 1:02:02
  helping these brands implement sustainability programs. And
• 1:02:05
  so what we've done, it's actually become a very big portion of
• 1:02:09
  our company. And so what we're doing is we're working with brands to
• 1:02:12
  help them implement sustainability programs. So the first program is
• 1:02:16
  our plastic offset program. So we work with a brand that's producing
• 1:02:19
  plastic in their products or packaging. They want to get to a
• 1:02:22
  compostable, biodegradable, or sustainable solution, but some
• 1:02:26
  of it, the technology just doesn't exist today. So what they're doing
• 1:02:29
  is they're coming to us, we're calculating that footprint, and we're removing
• 1:02:33
  the equivalent amount of plastic directly from the ocean. So think of it as like carbon offsets,
• 1:02:37
  but for plastic. And we know that this is not a silver bullet and just
• 1:02:40
  a get out of jail free, like, hey, they can wipe their conscience with this. But
• 1:02:43
  in the meantime, until that innovation happens in the packaging sector, this
• 1:02:47
  is an opportunity for businesses to start taking responsibility for their actions
• 1:02:51
  and really looking at the materials they're putting out into the market and helping to
• 1:02:54
  fund cleanups of captains and crews around the world. So that's one
• 1:02:58
  way. We also offer our pull a pound partnership. So
• 1:03:01
  we offer the same commitment that for every product sold,
• 1:03:05
  4ocean will remove X from the ocean. So we're partnered with
• 1:03:09
  electric outboard companies that are removing 300 pounds for every motor
• 1:03:12
  sold. Shampoo bar companies that are removing plastic from
• 1:03:16
  the ocean for every shampoo bar sold. There's a ton of different examples of
• 1:03:19
  companies that are trying to take tangible actions with the products they
• 1:03:23
  sell into funding ocean cleanup. And
• 1:03:26
  then lastly, it's like the certified cleanup partnership. This is just for different
• 1:03:29
  brands that want to do more of a sponsorship and activation. and
• 1:03:33
  be able to do something for like Earth Day or World Oceans Day or things
• 1:03:36
  like that. And then I guess actually, lastly, we do corporate gift
• 1:03:40
  bracelets. So we can make brands. We've made bracelets for Dell,
• 1:03:44
  HP, Corona, T-Mobile, Barbie, some large
• 1:03:47
  companies that you can get your brand colors, a custom charm
• 1:03:51
  with your brand's logo on it. and it will pull plastic and
• 1:03:54
  trash from the ocean. So they're great holiday gifts, great, you know, handouts for
• 1:03:57
  events and things like that. But that's how we're funding
• 1:04:01
  it from a business perspective. And then I'd say lastly is
• 1:04:04
  on the foundation side. So we have the 4ocean Foundation, which
• 1:04:08
  is really going to be geared towards expanding education, advocacy,
• 1:04:12
  community activation, community cleanups, and and even cleanups
• 1:04:16
  as a whole. So that's an opportunity to get involved just purely from a 501c3
• 1:04:20
  perspective. So you've got the bracelet side for consumers, you've
• 1:04:28
  I love it. I love all of it. That is amazing. Alex,
• 1:04:31
  you have built quite the company organization
• 1:04:36
  and it's been a pleasure to dive deep into that
• 1:04:39
  and we appreciate the transparency of showing sort of
• 1:04:42
  the nuts and bolts behind it and the evolution behind it. It's
• 1:04:46
  been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast. Love
• 1:04:50
  to have you back on or somebody from your staff to kind of detail
• 1:04:53
  different Projects and and really get into some of those projects and
• 1:04:56
  give people more hope and more optimism around what we can do And
• 1:05:04
  Of course. Thank you so much Andrew I appreciate it. It was great speaking with you and we'll
• 1:05:08
  Thank you, Alex, for joining us on this episode of the How to Protect the
• 1:05:11
  Ocean podcast. Really love the fact that you spent some time with us today to
• 1:05:15
  be able to talk about four oceans. What an incredible story.
• 1:05:20
  Unreal, like just ridiculous. There's a lot of clips
• 1:05:23
  in there that I'm gonna be clipping and putting it on social media that people need to hear because
• 1:05:27
  to build a story like this, to build a company and
• 1:05:32
  a process like this, to be able to be all over the world and 40 million
• 1:05:35
  pounds of plastic, blows my mind.
• 1:05:39
  I think it's something that we really haven't seen that
• 1:05:43
  much of. I hope we see more of and more companies being able to do this.
• 1:05:46
  And if you've ever followed Alex on LinkedIn, He's
• 1:05:50
  always talking about how much fun he has, how much he appreciates the
• 1:05:54
  staff, and how the company appreciates the
• 1:05:57
  staff, and what he sees on a daily basis, some of the
• 1:06:01
  challenges that they face. Sometimes it's harder than others to clean
• 1:06:04
  up this plastic, especially at the beginning of a project, but then the feeling that
• 1:06:08
  he gets afterwards. You can follow that on LinkedIn. It's amazing
• 1:06:12
  to see what he posts and some of the places he's been and
• 1:06:15
  the staff have been and what they've been able to accomplish as a
• 1:06:18
  company organization and a charity. It's incredible. I
• 1:06:21
  can't wait to see what the next eight years gives.
• 1:06:25
  It's going to be incredible. Love the fact that he was very transparent
• 1:06:29
  talking about some of the good times, some of the bad times. But I'd love to hear
• 1:06:32
  your thoughts on Four Oceans. Have you bought a bracelet? Are you
• 1:06:36
  thinking of maybe having a company that you work for try and
• 1:06:40
  help Four Oceans out by having
• 1:06:43
  maybe some branded bracelets to give to people? I
• 1:06:47
  know my organization, my company that I work for, they go
• 1:06:50
  to conferences all the time. They're always hanging out swag. I
• 1:06:53
  think hanging out with Swag where you're like, hey, this company, as we pay
• 1:06:56
  for this, we're funding plastic ocean cleanups, I
• 1:06:59
  think is one of the things that would be really cool to see. So
• 1:07:03
  I'd love to hear if you're going to try and do that with your company and try and convince them in what
• 1:07:06
  you're going to do to do that. So that's going to be incredible. I'd
• 1:07:10
  love to hear what you have to say on that. You can put a comment on
• 1:07:14
  Spotify, on YouTube, on the video, just put in the comments. And
• 1:07:17
  of course, if you want to get in touch with me and let me know what you want to do with this and
• 1:07:20
  what you thought of the interview and what you think of Four Oceans, please let
• 1:07:24
  me know on Instagram. DM me at HowToProtectTheOcean. That's
• 1:07:27
  at HowToProtectTheOcean. But I want to thank you so much. for joining
• 1:07:31
  me today. And Alex, I want to thank you for spending an hour with me and
• 1:07:34
  our audience to tell us more about 4oceans. Thank you
• 1:07:38
  so much for joining us on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have