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Making Events Better for All: The Journey to Compostable Cups · How To Protect The Ocean

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How many times have you thought about being at a party, drinking,
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you know, having a good time, drinking whatever you want to drink, whether it's alcoholic or non-alcoholic, it
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doesn't really matter. But you're drinking out of a cup and you look down at that cup and
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it's a plastic cup. It could be like a red cup, could be a blue cup, could be a yellow cup.
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Sometimes you're playing beer pong or some sort of beer pong, whether it's alcoholic or
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non-alcoholic, it doesn't matter. Or you're playing all these games with it, but you realize
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that those cups are not really good for the environment. They're plastic, they're single use,
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and they'll probably get thrown out and you'll never see
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it again. and it probably not getting, it's probably not getting
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recycled like you would normally think it would get recycled. It's
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probably just getting thrown out and going into a landfill. Not good for
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the environment, not good in the production process as it's oil-based and
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petroleum-based, and so you just think about that. But all you're doing is
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really you're at a party, so why do you have to be depressed and think about this? Wouldn't
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it be better if you had a cup that actually was compostable, like fully compostable, and
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you don't have to worry about that? Well, I'm telling you right now that there's a
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cup available, and it's not only better for you, but
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it's better for all. And we are here to talk to Regan Kelly,
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who works for Better for All, and she's here to talk about the cups, that
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journey to making this cup that's fully compostable, and what
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it means for the environment, and what it means for business in the future. We're going
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to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's
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start the show. Hey
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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
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your host, Andrew Loon, and this is a podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how
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you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by
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taking action. And on today's episode, we're gonna be talking about taking action,
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and that is how someone can create a business. that is
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Better For All. That's right, it's called Better For All. You can go to betterforall.co, C-O,
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or you can go to betterforall.shop to be able to take a look and buy
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these cups that are fully compostable. That's it, they are very good
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for the environment. You can drink at them, you can play beer
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pong with them, or some kind of beer pong with them, and you
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can just have them. You can see them at festivals,
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you can see them maybe in the future at concert venues or sporting events.
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they could be everywhere, and Regan Kelly is here to
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talk about the journey to create this cup, and why it's
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so important that we have them in our, in existence, and
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sort of in our supply chain, and how hard it was to create
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it, and, and the challenges that she had to face, and the challenges she overcame to
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be able to get this in production. And she talks about
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how it was in production of a recent music festival called
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the Tortuga Festival down in Florida, and how that went
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and what people were looking for and who they partnered with and everything. It's
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a great interview. I can't wait for you to be
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able to hear this interview because I think we need to see more businesses that
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are out there promoting more sustainable products. And
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it's just a great way of finding out how people are marketing these
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types of products. So here's the interview with Reg and Kelly from Better For All.
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Enjoy and I will talk to you after. Hey Reagan, welcome
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to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about compostable
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That is awesome. I have to admit, I never thought I would
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be so excited to talk about compostable cups. It's not something
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that comes on the top of your mind, but I'll have to tell
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you, seeing so many plastic cups that
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are just being thrown out after use, after a one-time use,
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or they're being cracked or things like that drives me insane.
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So when I came across you and I came across your
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site, I was like, We have to talk about this. This is
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important. You know, someone said, Hey, I'm going to
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stand up to the red K cups and I'm going to say, you
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know what? Enough is enough. We're going to go and we're going to, we're
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going to battle this and we're going to provide a better solution, which I love. And
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I'm sure a lot of the audience members here are going to love it as well. So we're going to get into
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all that. But first I want to get to know you a little bit, Reagan, and what led you
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into this journey of entrepreneurism. Can you just let us know who
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Yes. My name is Regan Kelly. I am a product
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lead and messaging, I guess,
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in charge of messaging at Better For All, which is
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a California company. We're family owned
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and founded, run out of Pasadena, California. And
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all you With
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the battle with cups these days and seeing how many people use cups, it
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seems like a pretty viable business to just have, look, we
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supply cups. That's what if you want cups, you come to us. That's
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what we do. How did it all start? How did this
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Yeah. So, um, in 2018, um,
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I think, uh, all us,
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our family, along with pretty much everyone else in the United States started
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to become keenly aware of how much plastic pollution we
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were dumping, um, in particular into the ocean. But
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I think for some reason, um, you know, part
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of it was that China stopped, you know, accepting our plastic, uh,
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recyclables, right. And we were suddenly facing these
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mountains of trash we were creating. Um, I
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had always been really obsessed with the environment and
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recycling and, you know, I was just really known
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for nerding out on that stuff. Um, uh, so I
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was kind of, that was my torch, if
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you like. And, um, as a family, we were living all
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in the same city for the first time in decades. And we were looking
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for something to do together. We have young kids and,
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uh, we were thinking about a restaurant play, went to a
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restaurant show and saw our first. plant-based
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compostable forks, actually. Yeah.
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And I was like, Oh, we should definitely incorporate these. Cause I
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was really like, I kept thinking with restaurants, you're going
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to get takeaway with takeaway, you're going to get trash. And it was
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giving me a headache. Um, and my
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stepfather was like, what if we made this the business? And
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so we just set off to learn everything we could
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about the world of compostable materials and plant-based
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materials. I learned that plastics were
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made out of oil. Um, and that kind
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You know, this whole problem we're looking at is one industry. So,
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um, you know, first we started with the familiar products
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and materials, PLA and, uh, bags.
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We were, we took on apparel bags and all kinds of sort of things
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that normally get characterized as trash and packaging pretty
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quickly. And we were having a really hard time finding a foothold and
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really finding a way for people to sink
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their teeth into the concept and decided in
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2020 to zero in on a product that people
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already felt a connection to. And
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the cup really just jumped out at us as one,
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something that hadn't really been taken on in terms of sustainability, right?
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Yes, people were starting to use reusable bottles. Definitely. There
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were some really interesting cup options out there. Most
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of them unfortunately made from petroleum plastic, but they were reusable. I
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was loving that. Um, but none of the big, like sort
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of takeout companies, et cetera, you know who you are or,
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uh, to really like address the problem.
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Um, and so, um, I had been working with PLA.
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I had thought to myself. At the time
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I thought to myself, if we go with PLA one, um,
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we're facing an uphill battle because PLA is commercially compostable
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and that's kind of the only way you can safely break it down. Um,
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and you know, in the U S there's just not a lot of infrastructure in
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place yet. So I had been doing a lot of research into
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different materials and I had discovered this material called PHA.
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At the time, the only story anecdote I could hear, find about
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it was about, you know, this test where people had made
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beach choice at a PHA, and they had fully
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biodegraded in the sand. And I thought, Oh,
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my God, that's so amazing, right? Because, of course, I was
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also doing a ton of reading about the five gyres and
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the ocean waste and the
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ocean cleanup was just getting underway. This was just
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like this kind of collision of
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things happening. And so I started calling all the PHA producers
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in the world, and having conversations with them, there were only about
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five. And we found one. It's
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a Japanese company called Monica, but it's headquartered, it's
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biopolymers division is headquartered in Houston. So that
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seemed great. It was also to 22 2020. And we all
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know what happened in 2020. So I had been flying back
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and forth to China, and I couldn't anymore. So decided
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to pivot development to the United States. And, um, and
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so Kanika was really interested. They were, they were very cool.
9:23
They they're huge, like a $5 billion Japanese company,
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but they were interested in partnering with a small family
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startup and like promoting our sort
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of like technical struggle with figuring out how to make a cup
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So this was like starting from scratch. Like you didn't look
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like another formula. It's like, help me make this formula so that when
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That's well, so they did have, they had PHA. So
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PHA is a, is a naturally occurring substance. It
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exists in the world around us, right? It's when it was first discovered
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in like 1920, it was discovered by a soil scientist. Um,
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it's a, product of cellular metabolism.
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Um, it's almost like body fat, but at a microscopic level. So
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it's nutrients that are sort of packaged for later. And
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you know, these people are way more brilliant than I am, but they saw the
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potential in the chemical structure, the molecular structure of
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PHP, PHA. So it limped
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along, you know, petroleum plastics were gaining a lot of
10:32
traction. They were super easy to work with. Um, And
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it just, it just kind of like languished, I
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think, until the end of the 20th century. And then a
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couple of companies seeing the plastic pollution
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problem growing and the problems with recycling, really
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addressing it. Um, they started to develop PLA
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in the United States and then PHA and a few other locations. Um,
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and so PHA at this point is about 30 years old. Um,
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but it is more expensive to develop than, or
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to make at this point, then, uh, petroleum byproducts. So
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a big part of that is just, you know, market
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adoption. You need to have like enough people buying this stuff
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to reduce prices and create efficiencies. Um,
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but anyway. And then you also just needed like movement
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in the market. Like we have to make a change. Right. And
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you know, that like for the last 20 years, there's been a lot of debate about
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whether climate change is even happening. So we
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So, yeah. So anyway, um, so when,
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when I went to Conaca, they did have a PHA, they call it PHBH. That's
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kind of this particular molecular structure and. It
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was, um, I could make a cup out of it. So
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I did make a cup. I was working with a small factory in Portland and
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managed to make a cup. It was too fragile. And
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so Konica went back to the drawing board and worked on the formula. And
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now we have a cup that is flexible, not
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too fragile, um, and can completely and safely
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compost in your home composter or in commercial composter.
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And so for a commercial composter, would that be something like so he I
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live in Ontario, we put our stuff out for composting, like
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for the garbage, people to pick it up, that they would take
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it to a commercial composter is that what is just a larger size composter
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Yeah, so typically, the difference between commercial composting and home composting
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is the temperature. Right. So when
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you're in a commercial compost setup, you have a very specific. So
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different soil microbes thrive in
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different temperatures and moisture levels. So commercial
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composters know exactly what microbial community they
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want to foster. They're going to eat and break down everything really
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fast. So they Constantly regulate and
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measure the temperature and the moisture level of the of
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the compost pile, right? They turn it a certain rate. They
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also are responsible for Putting it through a process at
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the end that will completely kill any kind of bacteria
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or something that could make the soil Yeah, I guess not
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not great for farming and for gardening at
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home you just you know, I mean I have a
13:28
compass I definitely not measuring and regulating. Right.
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Right. So you kind of put everything in and you turn it
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and you know, but you go away for this, you know, for two weeks, and you come
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back and it's dry and right. So you
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need a product that is delicious
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to a much broader array of microbes that that
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thrive in different temperatures and different types of soil and different
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moisture levels. So that's why PHA is so awesome.
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Because it is very friendly to a
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Right. Okay. So now let's, let's, I like how we're
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looking at sort of the composure and what it consists of,
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what this cup consists of. How long did it take you to develop
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it from, you know, you know, right from the beginning all
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Yeah. So I would say that we really just fully commercialized,
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um, in the last, seven months, eight
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months. So it's taken about almost six years to... It's
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taken really almost four years to get us here. The
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first two years we're making other things. And the good
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news is I know how to make other things. So
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the sleeves, the cups come in are also certified home compostable. But
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the cups themselves, because you need them to be able to withstand
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all kinds of wear and tear, travel. you know,
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sitting at a bar, getting thrown around, you know, so we
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just had our first kind of sizable use case,
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um, at the Tortuga festival in Florida in
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April. Um, so, you know, we had about
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104, we delivered 170,000 cups.
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I think about 140,000 cups just were used on the beach for
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three days in the sun and wow. Carried up
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on stage and, you know, people had really cool little
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like, I mean, festival goers are very clever, right? Yeah.
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So I saw all kinds of interesting like belts devices where
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they almost like a tool belt where they have the cup slotted in
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and okay, and they did well, you know, and then yeah, they're
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so different looking. They're the natural
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PHA color. They were easy for
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festival goers to know where to put them. So they put them in the compost bin,
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they have really high diversion rates. And then they were
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That's amazing. Now, I mentioned at the beginning of this
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episode, we mentioned it right before recording, where you're
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going up battling against the single-use red
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cups that people have or blue cups, the ones that people drink
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at a keg or maybe even at a festival probably in the
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past or even continues at different festivals. That's
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a challenge to get over because they almost have their own brand in themselves. Everybody
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knows that they're wasteful. Everybody knows that they're going to use
16:25
them. They'll crack at some point. They'll throw them out in the garbage.
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Maybe they'll put them in the recycling. I don't even know if they're fully recyclable at
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this point. Probably not as you shake your head. But
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they have their own brand. People look for the red cups or the blue cups
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or whatever cups they come in. You've got the beer pong game where it's like a
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big thing. And people look for that. How do
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you carve out a space in
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the market? Are you promoting that this is
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good for the environment? Is that the messaging around it?
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Or is it just, do you want a cup that's going to last? Is it just based
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on what it is? Because I know different companies who
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have built a sustainable product have gone different paths.
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And it changes each for each company is
17:13
unique to each company. So just curious, what was your messaging
17:19
Yeah, so I think, you know, we
17:22
have to we have a number of different markets that we're
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kind of reaching out to, I would say, on the business
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to business side. You know, you have businesses
17:33
that are either being regulated, you
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know, policies are requiring them to move away from single use plastic. They
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just care and they want to do something different. Or
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you have festivals that are really like connected to the
17:48
environments that the festivals are held in and they know what
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the impact is, how much trash is generated in three short
17:56
days. So they're looking, you know, they're really looking for
17:59
something better. Um, so with them, it's a different conversation. It's
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really like why our cup versus something
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else. I would say that, you know, I have this dream of having
18:10
a conversion of our cup. That's a bit more substantial
18:15
for reusable systems. I mean, reuse systems haven't quite
18:18
really caught up yet. Um, I
18:21
don't, you know, I think we're going to figure it out eventually, but right now you
18:25
have, reuse systems, but they're implementing like
18:29
pretty toxic petroleum plastic cups. So
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for me, you know, and I really passionately believe
18:36
this, like we need to move away from petroleum plastic everywhere
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that has a single use or limited use application. Obviously
18:46
like, you know, there's a lot of places where we have plastics that
18:50
last for decades, the way they're supposed to. That's
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not what I'm talking about. When you have something that's potentially going to have a use
18:57
life of 10 minutes or even months, like
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you don't want to use something that's got such a negative impact on the environment.
19:04
It's also, you know, a lot of these plastics have really pretty,
19:08
pretty harmful chemicals that leach out
19:12
of them. And then also when they break down, they can create microplastics. And
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I know because you're so knowledgeable about
19:19
the ocean, you know exactly what that's doing to our, to
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Even our health too, right? Like, we're seeing it now it's
19:29
in the air and it's in our lungs and it's in our blood. And we're seeing the
19:32
effects of that over long terms. Yeah. I think we're just starting to scratch the
19:40
I a million percent agree with you. So, um, so anyway,
19:44
so I could see our material, Our cup being
19:47
a really beautiful like component of a reuse
19:51
system. Now you have the cups being reused and recirculated in
19:55
a closed loop environment like a festival. On the direct to
19:58
consumer side, we just launched a better for all shop,
20:02
dot shop, which is, you know, send, you know, we
20:05
ship sleeves directly to consumers. And what I see there is,
20:10
you know, early adopter sort of smart
20:14
shoppers going out and looking for new materials. And
20:19
in those cases, typically, like if they're ordering, they're ordering for
20:22
a party, it looks like. Yeah, there's some small businesses, I
20:26
can see that are ordering for say, if they have, you
20:33
You can wash and reuse our cups. They are, this
20:37
material is high heat tolerant to the boiling
20:41
point of water, which is a unique, you know, so like PLA
20:45
and a number of plastics would melt in the same temperature. So
20:49
it's an interesting material. Um, but the cup is relatively
20:53
thin walls because we needed it to be as home
20:56
compostable spot. Like I wanted it to biodegrade in a
20:59
short period as possible. Yeah, that's true. It
21:03
also keeps the price point down. I mean, if you have tons of
21:10
Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, that's true, too. So it's really so
21:13
you have the sort of the business to business where you can do festivals, you
21:17
can do conference centers, maybe you can do universities and
21:21
things like that where you can have those cups for anywhere that they would
21:26
use that. And that would be like you said, we're
21:29
looking at hundreds of thousands of cups being used at a festival. Obviously
21:33
that makes it good for revenue but also for usage and I
21:36
can just imagine how much less plastic they have to deal with
21:39
instead of using just a plastic cup. Obviously, better messaging for
21:44
the festival. They can say, hey, isn't it great that we have these cups? We don't have
21:47
to worry about it. What was their reaction that there's a Tortuga Festival?
21:51
What was their reaction afterwards? Or did they kind of promote the
21:55
cups in any kind of way to just be like, hey, we're doing something different.
21:58
We're trying our best to not put out pollution. Because I
22:02
have to admit, I'm thinking of, There was a documentary a
22:05
while ago about, oh, what's the, oh,
22:09
it was a festival. Oh God, I can't remember, I can't remember. Glastonbury.
22:13
No, no, Woodstock too. The second Woodstock in the 90s
22:17
and how much plastic and garbage was left. Like, I mean, you
22:20
know that one, Regan, like that was disgusting. And
22:24
it even got to the point where it was unsanitary how much stuff was
22:27
around. But festivals
22:31
must love this, because a lot of the people who go to festivals are
22:34
a little bit more earthy. you know, like the,
22:37
the, the, the, you get the quote unquote hippies of the world who go
22:41
there, they want to be good for the environment. They're kind of camping out anyway at
22:44
a lot of the places. And so you want to kind
22:47
of say, Hey, this is good. You're not going to be impacting the environment with that. What
22:51
was the festivals reaction like throughout the festival about the
22:55
So, yeah, so, um, I would say I'll, I'll answer that
22:58
question in three parts. Um, one, it was the festival
23:02
producers, which, um, so live nation is the
23:05
sort of umbrella producer, but Rock the Ocean
23:09
is the non-profit producer of Tortuga,
23:13
and all of the funds that they raise go to ocean conservation issues.
23:17
So they were looking for our cup because of
23:20
the marine degradability of PEJs, right? And
23:24
so they were searching, they were already using compostables, but
23:28
they were really worried about the materials ending up in
23:31
the ocean because it's right on the beach, right? So they tracked
23:36
us down through my website and then emailed
23:40
me, asked me some questions. I sent them some samples
23:43
and they took them directly to their composter and said, you
23:47
know, yes or no. And the composter renewable
23:52
is their name. They're also in Fort Lauderdale. They said, please, please
23:56
take these cups. What was interesting is the reason they wanted the cups was
23:59
because they were so different looking than PLA
24:03
or plastic cups. Part of the issue with PLA is
24:06
they look so much like plastic that it's really
24:10
hard for composters to sort them out, right? So they don't know, is this contamination?
24:16
Sorting is a huge part of waste management. It is. I've learned so
24:19
much about waste management. Yeah.
24:24
So they said, please take these cups from a sorting perspective, you
24:27
know, and they looked at our certifications and were like, okay, these will
24:31
be fine. Yeah,
24:34
during the festival, they were, they had a, like
24:37
a, I guess, a booth on the Conservation Pavilion and
24:41
people came, you know, attendees came through and they chatted to them
24:45
about the cups and we got some really nice, what
24:49
I can see, and I know this would be true for me if I was at
24:52
a festival, is, you
24:55
know, you come to a festival to enjoy, to just
24:59
completely disconnect from your daily life and immerse yourself
25:03
in music. You're with other people who love the same thing
25:06
you do. And there's so much potential, I
25:10
think. for concert promoters to just add
25:14
to the joy, right? By helping people. I
25:17
mean, I don't think anyone who went to Woodstock wanted to like wade
25:20
through piles of their own trash, right? That
25:25
was not on their freaking bill, right?
25:30
So I think, you know, there's a huge, like, right. So just
25:34
recently, I think like a week and a half ago, Live Nation, Warner
25:38
Brothers Music, And then a whole bunch of different artists with
25:43
MIT Environmental Initiative, I think it's called, just
25:46
announced that they're bringing together a bunch of people
25:50
across all levels of the music industry
25:54
and the live event industry to figure out the
25:57
best way to lower climate emissions in relation to live
26:01
events, but also like, how do we find the best materials? How
26:04
do we do better? like preserve the
26:08
planet and the people on it. So I
26:16
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And especially like getting in with, you
26:19
know, companies like, you know, that put on festivals that put on music, you
26:23
know, conference centers and stuff like that. You feel like it's a,
26:26
it's a, it's a win win situation, right? You just, you know, you just have
26:30
to package it properly and make sure that it works. Like the cup works.
26:33
It does its function. It has to work. It
26:36
has to work. Now here's a question, you know, we're seeing a lot of,
26:40
now I'm not sure where the US is on this, I've seen it in certain places, but like
26:44
Canada, where I live, you know, the government is trying to crack down on single-use
26:47
plastic and there are, like right now, there are six plastics that are
26:51
banned from being used and they're slowly phasing those out. It's being
26:55
held up in court with a decision right now. That's a different episode to
26:59
deal with because all the plastic companies and the fossil fuel companies are
27:02
trying to fight it. But there are six single-use plastics that you cannot use.
27:06
And a lot of it has to do with plastic cutlery and takeout items
27:10
and things like that. With that said, you know, restaurants
27:15
are moving towards and, and, you know, like the takeout,
27:18
the better takeout contains, you're already starting to see it, you know, you're starting to
27:21
see better cut, like the, the single use cutlery is, is becoming
27:24
more sustainable. Do you see an option for moving
27:28
into our outside of the US where companies are having
27:31
that foresight or the governments are trying to kind of not
27:35
push, but just, you know, nudge the alternative sources
27:40
Yes, for sure. I mean, definitely North America is
27:44
not really an issue for us. Um, I would say, you know, we
27:47
get a lot of interest from Europe and some
27:51
of the island nations and even as far as India. Um,
27:55
but you know, not right now. Like that's just, I
27:58
don't think it makes any sense. You'd have to be manufacturing close to
28:02
the point of consumption just to make sense from an emissions perspective, I
28:05
believe. But, um, but yeah, North America for sure. Um,
28:10
I'm so curious to see what happens in Canada. I mean, we're so far
28:14
from anything like that. I mean, businesses
28:19
have to struggle with whatever policies are in place in
28:23
their state, in their municipality, right in their city, um,
28:27
and just figure it out piecemeal from what I can tell. Um, you
28:31
know, we, in California, of course, we have a little bit more progressive
28:36
legislation. Some would say. Um, but you know,
28:39
it's still all over the place. Like it's whoever, you
28:43
know, was active and engaged with the process
28:46
of writing the policy at the time and whatever their beliefs were. Um,
28:51
you know, I have my, I don't know, there's
28:54
probably some really interesting work being done on like, what will the impact,
28:58
would the impact be if we took all single use plastics and
29:01
turned it into paper? I mean, that's got, that
29:04
would, I don't know how many trees that would be. I
29:07
mean, just look at the impact of toilet paper on forests,
29:11
right? So I don't know. I think there needs to be a centralized
29:16
conversation about what the viable alternative materials
29:20
are. So for example, there's
29:23
a lot of interest in seaweed. Seaweed plastics, I'm sure you've heard.
29:32
I know for sure that at least one of the seaweed companies that are making products
29:36
right now and at a very small scale, um,
29:40
are using PHA as a blend because they, you
29:43
know, it's not easy to just take a, take
29:47
a, you know, a piece of seaweed and turn it into a
29:50
viable and commercial commercial product. So I
29:54
think that PHA has a long way to go in terms of promoting itself
29:57
as a viable alternative. And yeah, you're absolutely right.
30:01
The plastics. Lobbyists are well-funded and
30:04
you know, it's just gonna be an ongoing battle But
30:08
I just you know, we're I think we're gonna pull it off.
30:12
Absolutely 100% 100% It's exactly
30:17
well and I think a lot of the things to you know one of the messages what's
30:20
in the message that could come out of this of using and even for festivals or
30:23
businesses is the amount of sort
30:28
of their footprint, the reduction of their footprint by using non-plastic
30:32
items. I think I saw a stat recently and 20 to
30:35
30 percent of fossil fuel like petroleum and
30:39
oil goes into creating plastics. So
30:42
if we're trying to reduce the dependency on
30:46
fossil fuels, we have to reduce our dependency on plastics. Like
30:50
you said, we have a long way to go because it seems like every one
30:54
of our plastics, bottles, containers, things
30:57
like that, if they're single-use, they're pretty much plastic. We've
31:01
moved away from glass a long time ago. Now we're into plastics. It's
31:05
cheaper to make. It's great for the companies. They don't want to really move
31:08
away from it. It's going to need a lot of government regulation,
31:12
however. I feel like the companies who are progressive and
31:16
who have the same values of, look, if we're going to
31:19
use these things and there's an alternative that's affordable, that's
31:24
available, that we can use on mass scale if we're conference
31:27
centers or music festivals or concert
31:32
halls and things like that, we can start to move the
31:35
needle and companies can come out and just be like, hey, not only
31:38
did we reduce the amount of trash, but we reduced our footprint
31:42
by however many tons of carbon
31:46
dioxide, greenhouse gas emissions. And I think that is
31:50
a huge thing. And to be honest, most
31:53
people, when they go to these venues, they may not care. Who
31:57
knows? They may not care. But as long as it works, that's fine. And
32:00
then the companies can promote their sustainability and just be like, we're
32:04
doing our best. We're trying to figure this out. And if we know it works, and
32:07
it builds on referrals and things like that, and the messaging that
32:11
you guys provide, Then it's then it's perfect. So
32:15
I think it's I think it's great now. You've done a lot of work on
32:19
Building this these cups right like this product, you know,
32:23
I think on the I just like checking on your website I think you have like an 8 ounce and a
32:26
6 ounce cup. Is that like for like for? Customer
32:31
Yeah, so we have an 8 ounce and we have a 16 ounce Okay, and
32:35
we have a 20. Oh, yeah 20 22 ounce pilot So
32:40
that one's not on the website yet, but I send it off as a
32:43
sample just to gauge interest. It was initially specifically
32:47
for stadiums because that's a pretty large for but yeah, right.
32:52
But yeah, so the 16 is kind of your 1618 was
32:55
brimful. That's your classic red party cup size. Yeah.
32:59
And then eight ounce. It's a seven nine ounce. It's like perfect
33:02
for wine, water, etc. We
33:06
actually have a lot of I would say direct to consumer, there's more interest
33:09
in the eight outs than in the 16, which is interesting. It
33:13
could just be kind of who's, who's finding out
33:16
about it and purchasing at this point. Right. Um,
33:19
yeah, I mean, so back to your, I was just
33:22
thinking about, you had asked a marketing question earlier and I would say an
33:26
interesting thing that's emerging as I feel like, um, and this
33:29
may just be, you know, I have, I work with this wonderful group
33:32
of content creators in Florida and, um, you
33:36
know, one of them's always saying, you know, everything's connected,
33:40
right? And it's like, just remember, everything's connected.
33:44
And I think that's something that, you know, it might be
33:47
just dawning on a lot of people. You know, when you think about,
33:52
I think I was thinking about your podcast, and I also follow you
33:55
on LinkedIn. And I remember when Google
33:59
Earth first came out, and when they, when
34:02
you would zoom in on parts of the world that were just ocean,
34:06
They were just painted blue pixels. They didn't even bother showing
34:10
you the actual ocean in that. And I thought, yeah, I think we didn't
34:14
think of the ocean or conceive of it as a habitat, like
34:18
a place that all of these things were living, right?
34:24
And funny story about that is it didn't happen until
34:29
Dr. Sylvia Earle started to work with Google Earth because
34:32
they presented in front of her and they said what
34:35
do you think you'd like this Google Earth and it you're right it was just Earth
34:39
like it was just land on the planet and the rest was blue
34:43
like there was no 3d imaging there was no diving
34:47
into the ocean like you can do now and she said and they
34:50
asked her what do you think and they and she said look this is wonderful like this
34:53
is great like the map is going to change mapping it's going to change navigation all
34:57
this kind of stuff but she's like But what about why call it
35:00
Google Earth? And it's like, what do you mean? It's like, it should be called Google Ocean
35:04
because our planet is a planet of oceans, you know, over
35:08
70%. And they were like, oh, and she's like, why don't you start putting the
35:11
features of the ocean in the ocean? Like where
35:14
you have like you have all this. like 70% of that
35:19
globe is nothing right now. And that's how Google, in
35:23
a way, that's how Google Ocean was formed. And
35:26
now we start to see, like now, I don't even know what the education around
35:30
is and how many people know, but you can dive underneath the surface. You can look
35:33
at monuments and things like that and marine protected areas.
35:37
all this wonder, canyons and seamounts and things like that. So,
35:41
you know, that's how it progresses. It's people letting
35:45
people know. So, I can just imagine too, going back to these cups is,
35:49
you know, you're at a festival and you're like, wow, this is great. Like, you're probably looking
35:53
at it, it's different than your normal cups you get probably at festivals. You're
35:56
starting to, I'm sure the conversation happened with, you know, hundreds
36:00
of thousands of people that were at this conference or
36:03
at this festival. And people are talking about like, I wonder what the
36:06
benefit is. And then if they got to know what the benefit is, then they're
36:10
like, well, this is great. Like, this is really nice to see this kind of stuff. It makes
36:13
you feel better about yourself that, you know, there are companies out there who
36:16
are trying to do good. And it doesn't affect whether
36:20
you're having a good time or you're not having a good time. You know what I
36:23
mean? Like that, you're still getting your water, your juice, whatever
36:26
else you decide to consume at a a festival, right?
36:32
But it's the awareness of it. And I
36:35
think that's the big thing. It's why I started this podcast in
36:38
the first place was to make people aware of what's happening in
36:41
the ocean. And part of that is to like, how do we, you
36:45
know, it's tough to find sustainable items. You know, there
36:48
aren't many reasons. We're starting to see more and more resources of people coming out, you
36:52
know, with, you know, like just sort of a resource of where you can
36:55
find certain things. But this one is
36:58
great because it really battles the
37:02
plastic alternative of what we're used to. And
37:05
I'm looking forward to seeing this grow. Now, I
37:08
know this is all about cups, but the company is better for
37:12
all. So are there plans in the distant future of
37:15
coming out potentially with other types of
37:22
Yeah, well, so I would say initially, we're going to focus on cups
37:26
because you could go all the way down to, you
37:29
know, sample cups for trade shows. Oh, yeah. grocery
37:33
stores and dose cups, scoops
37:37
for laundry, like there's so many different so cup
37:40
applications, right? That could use to be made out of something a little
37:47
And then, um, you know, and then we, we also
37:50
are looking at different manufacturing methods. So right at the moment we
37:54
use a highly efficient manufacturing method, but that can't,
37:57
you know, the, the, the wall thickness can't go any
38:01
thinner than it currently is. If you wanted to make a super lightweight cup
38:05
that could go say on an airplane or something, um, you
38:08
would want to use a different manufacturing method that we're
38:11
just kind of the, the compound needs to be
38:15
modified in certain ways so that it can take that kind of, yeah,
38:19
the pressures, right, that are applied to the product so that it
38:22
doesn't just start to biodegrade in production. And
38:27
then yeah, and then there's, you know, there's a pet project that
38:30
I started working on seriously for a while. And then we put
38:34
it to one side because it's, it's just, a completely different
38:37
product. But it's got the same use case
38:41
in its water bags. I don't know if you've heard of them. But
38:45
actually, like some huge percentage of the world's population consumes
38:54
I was actually on an airplane recently, and someone walked up with a Ziploc and
38:57
sat next to me. And it had water in it. And I was like,
39:01
Oh my God, he's drinking water out of those.
39:09
In some cases they stick a straw on the top and in other cases they
39:12
bite the bottom of the corner off and drink it. It's considered sustainable
39:17
to some degree because it's lighter weight, it's less plastic than
39:21
a bottle. There
39:25
are these machines, they're called form, fill, and seal machines, and
39:28
they take these huge, thick, plastic rolls, and
39:32
they roll them down, and they seal them off, and
39:35
about 500 milliliters of water is dropped in, and they seal off the
39:38
top. Especially in
39:42
Africa, they get dropped off on
39:46
street corners and in small markets, and people buy maybe 10 at
39:49
a time. They bite off the corner, drink the water, and
39:52
throw the bag. And the bags are filling the bays.
39:56
They're just a huge problem on the beaches
39:59
and in the bays. So we of course were like,
40:03
Oh, we should do, you know, this was back when we were really focusing on film.
40:07
And, um, like this would be the most amazing thing ever, but you do
40:10
need a film that can like sustain 130 and
40:16
upwards degree heat in, you know, shipping containers
40:20
and on the ground, right in Africa. Um, And
40:24
that can be bounced around on a truck and can be frozen and
40:28
frosted. So I'm not there yet. But I not
40:31
there yet. I like that. I
40:35
have this like, you know, it's Yeah, I have a little brain worm
40:40
Now, you know, a lot of this time, it takes time, right, to develop these products, because
40:43
it's almost like you're starting it from scratch for every single Evo
40:47
product. And you would think, like, once you make one cup, other cups would
40:50
be the same. But you're right, it's very different, depending on how they're shipped, depending
40:54
on how they're contained in another container. You know, right
40:57
now, for some reason, on the top of my head, I'm thinking, you know, in a protein like
41:01
a protein powder container. There are the little scoops and
41:05
things like that. You mentioned scoops. And I would imagine like that gets to a
41:08
certain temperature and that, you know, that gets banged around a little bit, maybe a little bit
41:11
more protected because of the powder, but still, you know, you want to make sure
41:14
there's so many applications, but it takes time to develop. And
41:19
this could be like, as you said, it could be, you know, three, four years where it takes time
41:22
just to develop. you must have
41:25
to have a lot of patience to be able to develop these things. Even
41:29
just the sort of the use case you're using right now with the
41:32
bags of water, you're probably like, oh, we could help so many
41:35
people and so many like, you know, with the oceans
41:39
and the bays and things like that, we can really protect that, but you're still,
41:43
you know, you're not there. So how do you deal with that, the
41:52
I'm a creative, just a born creative. So I don't have a
41:55
problem with patients. I would say that the issue is funding.
42:01
You know, you know, yeah, but
42:04
like, it's, you know, funding. First
42:07
of all, you need a lot of funding to do development. You need a lot
42:11
of buy-in from, um, you know, so we've had like
42:14
really great support from Konica and we have a,
42:18
you know, a manufacturer for the last year and a half that got us
42:21
to commercial, um, American conglomerate
42:26
called Westfall Technic. They also are helping us
42:29
like you need people who. One, they're
42:32
committed to the same idea you are. They want to see it
42:36
happen. They believe in the concept. Because you
42:39
go through some and it's not like that, you know They're so used
42:43
to working with class that work with plastic for a hundred years All the equipment is
42:46
built for plastic the process engineers have
42:50
been doing you know, they use this they use PFAS You
42:53
know what PFAS are they spray Teflon on things
42:56
to make them release from the molds and I'm like no
43:00
way Examine everybody's
43:05
process and then bum them out by telling them
43:08
they can't use any of the tricks they've come up with. Everything has
43:11
to be changed. And then that needs to be controlled. And
43:15
so you need your manufacturer to buy in, and then you need your
43:18
customer to buy in, you need, and
43:22
then you need so that time takes money. And it
43:25
takes a while to get a product that's going to sell, you
43:29
know, at the volumes that would get you into the
43:33
black and you start seeing a little profit. Investors want
43:37
a five times return in a short amount of time. Of course. So
43:41
you need investors that are also bought in. So yeah,
43:44
so we're currently in the process of looking for our
43:47
next round of investment. So that would be why this is on my mind.
43:51
But yeah, so patience is one tiny part of it.
43:57
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I'll tell you, Reagan, this is I love I
44:01
love this business. I love this idea, you know, and
44:04
I just I love, you know, the saying, like if you go to better for all dot
44:07
shop and if you want to buy individually, you know, for
44:11
for my audience members, I just love how it says right off the
44:14
bat, make your event better for all. I was trying to see how it would
44:17
tie in betterforall.co or betterforall.shop and
44:21
I'm like now I see it. It's making better for all by just having
44:24
these cups and using these cups and it makes it so much
44:28
better. It makes me feel better knowing that products
44:31
like this are out there and they're growing. And I
44:35
can't wait to see it at my next event that I attend, or
44:39
if I'm not at an event, I'm gonna be like, you know what you should have? You should have these cups,
44:42
because I mean, they're much better. So I'm definitely gonna be promoting it locally here
44:46
and on the podcast. But yeah, this is
44:49
wonderful. Really love the fact that you spent the time with
44:52
us to explain the business, the innovation
44:56
that goes into it. And I wanna thank you for the dedication, the time that
44:59
you and your family have put into to making our world better for
45:02
all. It's really great. So thank you so much for
45:05
coming on the podcast. And we'd love to
45:18
You too. Thank you, Reagan, for joining us here on the How
45:21
to Protect the Ocean podcast. It's a great community to be a part of, and
45:25
I'm glad you are now a part of it, Reagan, to be able to say, hey, you
45:28
know what? We have this product that's good for the environment. You can use it. It's great
45:31
to use. It's easy to use. It's a cup. Let's think about it. We need more
45:34
products like this where everyday items that we get to use, whether
45:38
it be at a festival, a sports venue, concert venue, maybe
45:42
out you're having a picnic and you don't want to break any glasses or
45:46
have all reusable you know drinks or containers and
45:49
you just want to have these ones and you know they're fully compostable just makes it
45:52
easy you don't have to think about it makes it easy they're well they're well
45:56
priced and they compete with all the other non-sustainable items
46:00
and so why not have this and i just think it's wonderful to
46:03
be able to have this in circulation available for
46:07
people to use at you know high quantities if they need it like you
46:10
know reagan was talking about it i think it was like 140 000 cups were used unreal that's
46:16
available to us in such big venues that are now
46:20
not going to cause a lot of garbage because of those cups.
46:23
And I'm looking forward to seeing how this company evolves and other
46:27
types of innovative ways of using cups in any type of containers
46:31
that you need to scoop or you need to drink liquids out of or very
46:34
different usages. I'm dot
46:55
shop better for all dot shop take a look at what's available
46:59
and i highly recommend that you buy a sleeve for two you know or three
47:03
or four for your next event it's always great it's always wonderful
47:06
to be able to have something that is sustainable i mean let's be honest that's
47:10
why you're here if you want to know how to protect the ocean use these
47:13
Compostable Cups from Better For All. That's it for today's episode. I
47:16
really want to thank you for joining us. If you want to join the
47:20
community, I'm creating an app. I'm in the midst of
47:23
like talking back and forth to the creators and I've got some some
47:26
prints I'm going to put out like some some mock-ups I'm going to put out what it's going to look
47:30
like but it's a community app. I want people to be all on the same
47:33
device like the same app where you can interact with each other. We
47:36
can have you know, AMAs, Ask Me Anything, or have, you
47:40
know, scientists and business leaders on that are making sustainable items,
47:43
so you can ask questions to them. And it's a wonderful, provide
47:47
resources of where you can get these great materials and great products
47:51
and sustainable products. I want to just basically have it all there. It'll
47:54
be free to join. There'll be other, you know, products later on
47:57
where there might be services or anything else that I provide that might be a little, you
48:01
know, that'll be premium, but for the most part, it'll be free. All
48:04
you have to do right now is just go and sign up for any kind of updates, and
48:08
when it gets released, you'll have access to that app. It's
48:12
speakupforblue.com forward slash ocean app.
48:15
That's speakupforblue.com forward slash ocean app.
48:19
I want to thank you for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have