I was saving this for the Fourth of July It seemed like a great Independence day episode and then it didn’t quite get done but close!
Chantal Plamondon and Jay Sinha
I have kind of a mixed background
wife Chantal Plamondon
she has a background in law as well with business and ethics
Our story goes back several years, starts with our son who was born in 2003.
We were quite eco minded and environmentally friendly in the way we lived. When he was born we took it to a new level, we had some mold in the place that we were living and we got sick for about a year. As a result we became
Chantal read this great article on plastics and the chemicals that come out of plastics!
That was kind of news to us, we were doing what we thought was the eco friendly.
We would use the bottle and wash it and use it over and over
break down
single use disposable
chemicals
started to look for a non plastic bottle
it was very hard to find! Back in 2003.
There wasn’t that much out there, but we found a coop
they were making stainless steel bottles
tried it out
so when our son was born we wanted to buy some glass baby bottles
avoid plastics
They used to be the norm!
at that point in the early 2000s hard to find
did find a company that was making them
contacted them to buy some glass baby bottles but the minimum order was a 1000
Chantal always wanted to start her own business
wanted to do something environmental
offering alternatives
knew there were others out there looking for them
started with those products
glass water bottles
stainless steel food containers to replace tupperware
lots of tupperware and we would use it over and over
if you put a tupperware container
microwave it
over time you’ll find it might become a little red or orange can’t wash it off
That’s because the spaghetti sauce which is kind of oily, when it’s subjected to a lot of heat, it goes into the plastic so then some of the plastic is coming out into the spaghetti sauce.
began with these stainless steel
put up the website
It really took off!
The Canadian government back in 2007 decided to ban the use of BPA it’s a chemical that is used in plastic called polycarbonate which was used to make a lot of baby bottle and water bottles.
It’s still used in those huge plastic water dispensers in offices!
It’s also used to make epoxy that lines canned food. Pretty much all canned food there are a few examples now, but most still have lining made of BPA
strange but very widespread is those very thin cash register receipts
ink on them
So if you are touching the ink then it goes directly into your skin
antibacterial agent in it will actually increase the absorption of BPA from cash register receipt. So when the Canadian government banned that really put a lot more interest of people looking for alternatives to plastic and baby bottles and the lining of baby formula containers.
That got people more and more interested to finding an alternative and we happened to be there at the right time and place. That really gave a boost to our business.
We went more broadly. We were finding alternative plastics that would minimize contact with food and drink
sort of things
one stop shop for alternatives to plastic
I’m so bummed I didn’t catch the pre-chat, I was talking about having made a new years resolution. My good friend Dacia, has a business where she makes home made aprons and soaps and she’s been really getting into wildcrafting. Last year she made a resolution to eliminate plastic from her life because she has 2 kids too and she wants to keep them away from.
So I’m trying this year, and my students keep asking me why are you using a quart mason jar. I talked to this young girl who was a scientist she said that it was the bacteria I couldn’t get out when I cleaned it that would hurt me. But that could have bene a while ago, maybe plastic has changed since then too. It’s so flimsy. I also followed this Food Babe diet, she says you should get up and have lemon with cayenne pepper every day, but that works for me with a canning jar.
I wanted to say I think i found you because you were on Facebook, you went on a trip, where they were scuba diving and there was a two mile wide thing of ocean.
In Bali there’s a wildlife photographer who filmed plastic underwater. It’s just stunning.
It’s literally exploding as governments take notice and NGOs, and people.
As part of that plan they are trying to reduce the use of avoidable plastics. Single use plastic by 2042 completely. The European Union has a plan as well.
Also they were shipping a lot of the plastic waste to China, came into affect in January they are no longer accept plastics and other waste and this is applying to Canada and US. Ramping up recycling infrastructure.
Our focus is on reducing plastic comsumption
changing individual behavior habits
It’s a question of habits. You said yourself, it’s
second use bottles
just a after of chaining the mindset
Instead have a dispenser at home
bottle few bottles
get in the habit of using those
tap is tested regularly
bottled water is not tested the same
Many people don’t know a lot of bottled water is tap water that has likely been through a reverse osmosis
not regulated
most tap water is
unless there are known problems in a certain community
Like Flint
Well that’s what I was thinking because of the gas there it’s not drinkable.
In terms with reducing the plastic around the world it starts with individual behavior. The waste that comes from this packaging
but the oceans are like a giant sink.
waterways
waste that comes from ships
cruise ships
rivers that come from
straight into the oceans
issue
tons of research thats being done by scientific researchers and some NGOs
Algalita Research and Education Dr. Charles Moore
He was sailing from Hawaii across to California to Long Beach where he’s based and he was stunned to see there were islands of plastic just floating there. There’s a lot of visable plastic but for the first 6 inches there’s like all thse microplastics in this area in the North Pacific becae to be known as the Great Pacific Plastic Patch.
When the plastics go into the water they break down quite quickly into tinier pieces of plastic.
pollution
explain that
plankton tiny tiny organisms that produce water and oxygen. They are at the base of the oceanic and global food chain. We found the plankton are preferentially eating plastic over their normal food.
They’ve tagged pieces of micro plastic with a florescent tag and they can see the plastic going into the plankton and they get
They’re finding whales that are dying in quite large numbers because their stomachs are full of plastic and they can not digest real food their intestines are clogged and they basically starve
can not take in actual food
in terms of larger global issue
50% of oxygen in world
digesting plastic
serious issue
all of us humans as well
apart from the part
as these plastics go up
concentrated more
fat tissues
fish and birds
fish in particular are eaten by humans eventually
As the plastics are in the ocean they actually absorb, attach to outside things like
go into fish, birds, oil, concentrated up the food chain
When you’re eating fish theres a good change there could be a concentration of chemicals that are making it into that fish.
There’s basically a layer around the world
of plastics on land as well
most recently found in drinking water and bottled water!
Just this last week (recorded on March 17th 2018) study gone viral
done by a commissioned by a journalism organization
top researchers
259 different samples of bottle water from 11 different brands purchased in 9 different countries
Found 93% of those 259 samples had plastics in them!
These micro plastics
are made out of the caps.
I was just thinking that might be a good segue into your website and book!
launched back in December
how to...