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

1
00:00:00,048 --> 00:00:03,732
Have you ever looked at those videos on social media by 4oceans and

2
00:00:03,872 --> 00:00:07,116
seen that they are able to clean up a lot of plastic in

3
00:00:07,136 --> 00:00:10,460
a very short amount of time or in a long time or they clean up plastic in

4
00:00:10,480 --> 00:00:13,683
a river where it's like all of a sudden the river's clean but it was full

5
00:00:13,723 --> 00:00:17,187
of plastic before that and you wonder how do they do that? How do they actually create

6
00:00:17,207 --> 00:00:20,491
a business and an organization that can do this all

7
00:00:20,551 --> 00:00:23,794
over the world? Well, I'm very happy to announce that

8
00:00:23,814 --> 00:00:27,697
I have one of the co-founders and CEOs of Four

9
00:00:27,797 --> 00:00:31,500
Oceans, Alex Schultz, on the podcast talking

10
00:00:31,660 --> 00:00:34,822
about sort of the nuts and bolts of Four Oceans, how it

11
00:00:34,862 --> 00:00:38,445
started, how it's evolved, and how it actually cleaned

12
00:00:38,705 --> 00:00:41,968
up 40 million pounds of plastic. We're

13
00:00:41,988 --> 00:00:45,070
going to talk about Four Oceans on this episode of the How

14
00:00:45,090 --> 00:00:51,996
to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey

15
00:00:52,016 --> 00:00:55,458
everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm

16
00:00:55,478 --> 00:00:58,900
your host Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how

17
00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:02,242
you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by

18
00:01:02,302 --> 00:01:05,884
taking action. And action is what we're going to be talking about today,

19
00:01:06,364 --> 00:01:10,286
because Alex Schultz is here. He's from Four Oceans. He's the co-founder and

20
00:01:10,406 --> 00:01:14,368
leads this organization and company to

21
00:01:14,508 --> 00:01:18,291
being able to clean up 40 million

22
00:01:18,572 --> 00:01:21,694
pounds of plastic in the ocean. Now,

23
00:01:21,734 --> 00:01:25,353
if you think about that, that is a lot. of weight that's

24
00:01:25,493 --> 00:01:28,995
incredible and you know to think about in eight years

25
00:01:29,175 --> 00:01:32,456
this company has has been around it's taken the

26
00:01:32,476 --> 00:01:36,297
world by storm you know it grew rapidly through viral videos

27
00:01:36,617 --> 00:01:39,878
it continues to grow through social media it continues to

28
00:01:39,918 --> 00:01:43,339
do amazing things and what i love about this organization is

29
00:01:43,399 --> 00:01:47,062
it's not just like Slowly like, you know put together

30
00:01:47,082 --> 00:01:50,405
a little bit by little bit just contracts here and there they build

31
00:01:50,606 --> 00:01:54,029
out offices They build out infrastructure in all the different countries

32
00:01:54,069 --> 00:01:57,332
that they live So it's not just people in North America going around the world cleaning

33
00:01:57,392 --> 00:02:01,216
up plastics as they hire boat captains and crews from places

34
00:02:01,276 --> 00:02:04,599
like Bali in Indonesia or Haiti or

35
00:02:05,340 --> 00:02:08,643
different places in the Caribbean, anywhere that they work, they

36
00:02:08,703 --> 00:02:11,846
actually have infrastructure there. They actually have people working for them that

37
00:02:11,866 --> 00:02:15,409
are getting livable wages, full-time livable wages. You

38
00:02:15,449 --> 00:02:18,711
don't see that a lot in non-profit organizations, in marine biology, in

39
00:02:18,731 --> 00:02:22,434
marine conservation at all, or in for-profit companies

40
00:02:22,474 --> 00:02:25,937
for that matter. I love the fact that Four Oceans

41
00:02:26,037 --> 00:02:29,380
invests in its staff. and the way they've

42
00:02:29,500 --> 00:02:32,642
built their company, the way they've cleaned up the

43
00:02:32,742 --> 00:02:35,865
ocean, and the way they understand that, you know,

44
00:02:35,885 --> 00:02:38,987
cleanup is just one aspect and more needs to be done, and

45
00:02:39,007 --> 00:02:42,169
they're partnering with different organizations to get more done. But the

46
00:02:42,229 --> 00:02:46,792
awareness campaign that they've run just through their actions, Absolutely

47
00:02:46,853 --> 00:02:50,595
amazing. And when you talk about action, when you talk about somebody saying, hey,

48
00:02:50,635 --> 00:02:53,977
you know what, we should be like cleaning up this, this stuff

49
00:02:54,017 --> 00:02:57,119
on the ground, like the way their origin story started, you'll hear it in

50
00:02:57,159 --> 00:03:01,202
a minute, but essentially a bunch of guys go surfing. And

51
00:03:01,302 --> 00:03:04,484
they look around the ocean, they see all this plastic coming up on the shore, like

52
00:03:04,504 --> 00:03:07,947
all the ton of plastic coming up on the shore. And this is we got to do something about

53
00:03:07,987 --> 00:03:11,469
this. And to sort of put that into

54
00:03:11,549 --> 00:03:14,840
practice. by starting off by selling bracelets and cleaning

55
00:03:14,860 --> 00:03:18,101
up the ocean boat by boat and where

56
00:03:18,141 --> 00:03:21,262
they are now. Unreal story. It's a

57
00:03:21,302 --> 00:03:24,543
story that should be a Netflix documentary because it's something that

58
00:03:24,583 --> 00:03:27,955
we all need to see and to have hope. that we

59
00:03:28,075 --> 00:03:31,356
could see more companies and more organizations doing this. And now they're

60
00:03:31,396 --> 00:03:34,617
working with companies to be able to scale that and be

61
00:03:34,677 --> 00:03:39,319
able to help them fund more stuff. It's unreal, unreal.

62
00:03:39,359 --> 00:03:42,660
Last thing I'm gonna say, love the fact that they also build the infrastructure on

63
00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:46,421
land, the warehouses to sort, grind down, cut down all

64
00:03:46,461 --> 00:03:50,142
the different plastic that's in there and being able to find places to put

65
00:03:50,182 --> 00:03:53,443
it. And whether it's being reused, whether it's being recycled, whether it goes to

66
00:03:53,463 --> 00:03:57,005
a proper landfill and stored properly, I love that

67
00:03:57,085 --> 00:04:00,267
aspect. So here is none other than

68
00:04:00,327 --> 00:04:04,469
Alex Schultz of Four Oceans talking about Four Oceans, the

69
00:04:04,589 --> 00:04:07,830
origin story and the evolution. And it's quite

70
00:04:07,850 --> 00:04:11,172
the story. So stay tuned, and I will talk to you after. Hey, Alex.

71
00:04:11,452 --> 00:04:15,014
Welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about

72
00:04:15,114 --> 00:04:18,229
four oceans and oceans plastics? I'm ready, let's do it.

73
00:04:33,615 --> 00:04:36,917
I'm looking forward to it. We're going to talk a lot about the origin story

74
00:04:36,937 --> 00:04:40,359
of Four Oceans and even how you got into the

75
00:04:40,459 --> 00:04:44,161
business of cleaning up plastics and how the

76
00:04:44,281 --> 00:04:47,623
growth went from this idea to

77
00:04:48,163 --> 00:04:51,846
what it is now, which is an international company and non-profit and

78
00:04:51,886 --> 00:04:55,167
charity where you're cleaning up oceans all over the place,

79
00:04:55,348 --> 00:04:58,510
all over the world. And that is absolutely amazing to

80
00:04:58,590 --> 00:05:01,912
see that grow. And so we're going to talk all about

81
00:05:01,932 --> 00:05:05,334
that. And we're going to talk about some of the challenges you guys face on a day-to-day basis, because

82
00:05:05,374 --> 00:05:08,937
it can't be easy work. I know hauling out plastics is

83
00:05:08,977 --> 00:05:12,179
not easy. So we're going to talk all about that. Before we get

84
00:05:12,319 --> 00:05:15,441
to all of that wonderful stuff, Alice, why don't you just let the audience know who

85
00:05:17,412 --> 00:05:21,093
Sure, sure. So Andrew, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it and looking

86
00:05:21,113 --> 00:05:24,315
forward to diving in. So my name is Alec Schultz. I'm

87
00:05:24,335 --> 00:05:27,476
the co-founder and CEO here at 4ocean. I grew up

88
00:05:27,536 --> 00:05:30,897
on a small island on the west coast of Florida, spent almost all my time

89
00:05:31,117 --> 00:05:34,478
on or in the ocean. And that was really my hobbies and

90
00:05:34,718 --> 00:05:38,100
my passion. Surfing, diving, fishing, just

91
00:05:38,180 --> 00:05:41,461
my life revolved around that. So naturally, you know, after

92
00:05:41,501 --> 00:05:44,862
high school, it was time to decide where I wanted to go to school. And,

93
00:05:45,023 --> 00:05:48,465
you know, my brother and sister went to Florida Atlantic University. I'm sorry, Florida

94
00:05:48,485 --> 00:05:51,607
State University up in Tallahassee. And so the whole family was like,

95
00:05:51,627 --> 00:05:54,769
all right, you're going to Tallahassee, Florida State. And for me, it

96
00:05:54,789 --> 00:05:58,691
was like landlocked, couldn't bring a boat. And,

97
00:05:58,951 --> 00:06:02,134
you know, I just, it wasn't really for me. And I just heard

98
00:06:02,154 --> 00:06:05,336
about FAU and they, you know, I heard this random thing as far as you

99
00:06:05,356 --> 00:06:08,418
can, you can see the ocean from the top of the buildings and it's like a

100
00:06:08,458 --> 00:06:12,720
quarter of a mile from the ocean and kind of like a beach town. I

101
00:06:12,760 --> 00:06:16,584
was hooked. So I originally actually came over to Boca

102
00:06:16,724 --> 00:06:19,846
and went to FAU as an ocean engineer. You

103
00:06:19,866 --> 00:06:23,789
know, as a background, I love building things. I love, you

104
00:06:23,809 --> 00:06:27,292
know, kind of innovating and designing and just, you know, just everything,

105
00:06:27,372 --> 00:06:30,515
just from overworking to building materials and just kind of

106
00:06:30,655 --> 00:06:33,898
3D printing and laser printing. Like, I just enjoy tinkering and

107
00:06:33,938 --> 00:06:37,160
building stuff. So naturally coming over here for

108
00:06:37,241 --> 00:06:40,663
ocean engineering, I was so excited because I thought I was going to put my

109
00:06:40,703 --> 00:06:43,906
passion for the ocean and my passion for the hobbies together. And

110
00:06:44,527 --> 00:06:47,930
I did that for about two years, two and a half years, and I ended up getting

111
00:06:47,950 --> 00:06:51,073
an internship. And it turned out to be much more of a

112
00:06:51,113 --> 00:06:54,396
desk job and did more research than that. And it wasn't something that

113
00:06:54,416 --> 00:06:57,898
I was very, very passionate about. You know, I love the idea of creating

114
00:06:57,958 --> 00:07:01,079
and building and spending time outdoors and being on

115
00:07:01,099 --> 00:07:04,700
the water. And so I switched my degree to just

116
00:07:04,740 --> 00:07:08,061
business management and entrepreneurship. And

117
00:07:08,101 --> 00:07:11,322
it was in college that I ended up meeting a good group of

118
00:07:11,342 --> 00:07:14,703
guys that did a lot of surf trips. And so, you know, went

119
00:07:14,743 --> 00:07:18,124
surfing with them and we would go all over the place. We'd go to, you

120
00:07:18,144 --> 00:07:22,245
know, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, El

121
00:07:22,285 --> 00:07:25,826
Salvador. And so we were always going on surf trips throughout college and,

122
00:07:25,846 --> 00:07:30,328
you know, just having a good time going on these different trips around the place. And

123
00:07:30,388 --> 00:07:34,230
it was after college, I ended up going on a surf trip with a buddy of mine and we went to Bali. And

124
00:07:34,550 --> 00:07:38,151
Bali is where kind of everything happened for the idea for 4ocean. And,

125
00:07:38,291 --> 00:07:41,933
you know, when you think of Bali, you typically think of the picturesque, pristine,

126
00:07:42,033 --> 00:07:45,394
tropical vacation destination. And, you know, what

127
00:07:45,474 --> 00:07:48,776
we found in Kuta, which is the town

128
00:07:48,796 --> 00:07:52,577
that you fly into just outside Denpasar, was

129
00:07:52,777 --> 00:07:56,318
a crazy amount of plastic. And so what we were blown

130
00:07:56,378 --> 00:07:59,799
away by was just absolutely football fields full

131
00:07:59,819 --> 00:08:03,200
of plastic on the coastlines, washing up with every single wave and

132
00:08:03,480 --> 00:08:07,101
the amount of just plastic packaging and wrappers,

133
00:08:07,201 --> 00:08:10,982
straws, bags, bottles. I mean, it's unbelievable to

134
00:08:11,062 --> 00:08:14,942
see. And so we were really confused by that. And

135
00:08:15,022 --> 00:08:18,263
we realized that the plastic packaging in

136
00:08:18,283 --> 00:08:22,185
the water and on the beaches was having so much of an impact you

137
00:08:22,205 --> 00:08:25,508
know, the tourism on these fishermen's ability to catch

138
00:08:25,568 --> 00:08:29,371
fish and literally seeing fishermen grabbing

139
00:08:29,411 --> 00:08:32,774
plastic, so like they've had nets and seine nets and things like that, literally

140
00:08:32,794 --> 00:08:36,298
grabbing plastic and throwing it on the other side. Their propellers

141
00:08:36,318 --> 00:08:39,621
that they're running on their jukungs, their vessels, are getting wrapped

142
00:08:39,681 --> 00:08:43,044
up with plastic bags. They're sitting there unwrapping the

143
00:08:43,064 --> 00:08:46,428
plastic, tossing and keeping going. And it was at that point

144
00:08:46,468 --> 00:08:49,752
that we were just like, man, this is crazy. We've got to find a way that we can fund some

145
00:08:49,792 --> 00:08:54,117
cleanup. There's got to be a way to connect people with

146
00:08:54,298 --> 00:08:57,502
the aspiration and goal of trying to clean plastic from

147
00:08:57,522 --> 00:09:00,746
the ocean. So we came up with the idea for a 4ocean

148
00:09:00,766 --> 00:09:04,028
bracelet. And so, the idea was pretty simple. Let's

149
00:09:04,068 --> 00:09:07,570
make a product made from recycled materials, and then for everyone sold,

150
00:09:07,830 --> 00:09:11,691
we'll remove a pound of trash from the ocean. Comparable to, like, Tom's Shoes. And

151
00:09:11,792 --> 00:09:15,113
so, you know, Blake Mycoski is someone that I've seen the impact that

152
00:09:15,153 --> 00:09:18,635
he's been able to make and was always so blown away by Tom's

153
00:09:18,655 --> 00:09:22,596
Shoes and just the business and the impact that he's built. And

154
00:09:22,696 --> 00:09:25,818
so, we created a model very comparable to that. And

155
00:09:26,558 --> 00:09:29,759
it started like a bang. We started out with just two

156
00:09:29,799 --> 00:09:33,140
of us and before we knew it, it was just

157
00:09:33,460 --> 00:09:36,601
exploding in growth. And I think one of the main things that really attributed to that

158
00:09:36,641 --> 00:09:39,902
growth were some videos that went viral. So, we had

159
00:09:39,922 --> 00:09:43,243
some videos go viral on social media that just went

160
00:09:43,803 --> 00:09:47,205
gangbusters overnight and and we were we could not

161
00:09:47,265 --> 00:09:50,846
fill orders we could not pull pounds we could not it was crazy so

162
00:09:50,886 --> 00:09:54,448
we yeah I told the story earlier we actually we went to FAU

163
00:09:54,968 --> 00:09:58,230
and so like three days after this what this happened there was a

164
00:09:58,530 --> 00:10:01,992
FAU job fair and so we went to the FAU job fair and

165
00:10:02,012 --> 00:10:05,773
the quote was if you had a pulse you got a job We

166
00:10:05,813 --> 00:10:10,515
left that job fair and we hired 17 people. Wow. Like,

167
00:10:10,535 --> 00:10:13,656
it doesn't matter. You're going to clean plastic. You're going to be shipping orders. You're going

168
00:10:13,696 --> 00:10:16,797
to help a customer service. Just come on down. We'll figure something out.

169
00:10:16,977 --> 00:10:20,398
We'll get you guys dialed in. And so it was a roller

170
00:10:20,418 --> 00:10:23,960
coaster ride. And it had been, you know, it just grew so quickly.

171
00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:28,341
And we just scaled our cleanups. We were able to expand internationally,

172
00:10:28,401 --> 00:10:31,963
hire local fishermen. in Florida, in

173
00:10:32,023 --> 00:10:35,826
Bali. We had a facility in Haiti, Guatemala.

174
00:10:36,487 --> 00:10:39,809
You know, we've expanded all around the world. And now, you know, the model

175
00:10:39,849 --> 00:10:43,072
that we've built is something that I'm very passionate about. And what that

176
00:10:43,132 --> 00:10:46,354
is, is it's creating jobs for these fishermen. We

177
00:10:46,394 --> 00:10:49,595
realized that the plastic in the ocean was an issue that we wanted to

178
00:10:49,635 --> 00:10:53,175
address, so we wanted to find a way to create full-time jobs

179
00:10:53,316 --> 00:10:56,716
for these captains and crew to be able to employ them to collect

180
00:10:56,796 --> 00:11:00,077
plastic instead of catching fish. So they have all

181
00:11:00,117 --> 00:11:03,398
the experience on the ocean, all the similar tools, all the similar

182
00:11:03,478 --> 00:11:07,218
training, and so it was a very simple shift to say, hey guys, why

183
00:11:07,258 --> 00:11:10,679
don't we just pay you to collect plastic instead of catching fish? And

184
00:11:10,719 --> 00:11:15,262
so I'm proud to say that all of our captains are paid

185
00:11:15,302 --> 00:11:18,684
a fair living wage around the world. We cover 100% of health insurance

186
00:11:18,724 --> 00:11:21,906
and benefits. And right now we have a 98% retention rate on our

187
00:11:21,926 --> 00:11:25,408
cleanup. So it's something that we've really devoted

188
00:11:25,428 --> 00:11:28,630
a ton of time and energy into, and I'm very proud of it. And

189
00:11:29,010 --> 00:11:32,533
I'm proud to say that after seven or eight years

190
00:11:32,593 --> 00:11:35,734
now of hard work, we're coming up on 40 million pounds of

191
00:11:37,566 --> 00:11:41,347
Jeez. That's amazing. Just

192
00:11:41,387 --> 00:11:45,608
think about it. Eight years ago, you guys were trying to figure out how to get plastic

193
00:11:45,628 --> 00:11:48,888
out of one part of the ocean, like a small piece in

194
00:11:49,289 --> 00:11:52,789
Bali. Seeing this devastation. Obviously, it probably

195
00:11:53,289 --> 00:11:56,490
soured your experience in the surfing, right?

196
00:11:56,510 --> 00:11:59,911
Because you're seeing all this. And then you're seeing everybody who's enthralled in

197
00:11:59,931 --> 00:12:03,472
this. And then eight years later, you're like, 40 million pounds of plastic you've

198
00:12:03,532 --> 00:12:06,892
taken out. Did you ever dream that actually would have happened

199
00:12:08,852 --> 00:12:12,674
Never, never in my wildest dreams did I think that we'd be where we are. I,

200
00:12:12,954 --> 00:12:16,175
you know, we thought like, Hey, can we, you know, can we do small

201
00:12:16,196 --> 00:12:19,417
little cleanup operation? Can we get some boats on the water? You

202
00:12:19,457 --> 00:12:22,858
know, really just trying to build a business and a movement

203
00:12:22,918 --> 00:12:26,360
around something we're passionate about. And, and so for me, that was something that

204
00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:30,101
I really, really was determined to do is, is to, to

205
00:12:30,201 --> 00:12:33,403
really build a legacy brand. And we want to create that

206
00:12:33,543 --> 00:12:36,964
so at the point where it can have an impact on the amount of plastic that's

207
00:12:36,984 --> 00:12:40,425
in the ocean, not only just recovering it, but also driving the awareness and

208
00:12:40,465 --> 00:12:43,546
getting more people involved. And, you know, we thought we were

209
00:12:43,566 --> 00:12:47,207
going to be a much smaller, you know, grassroots,

210
00:12:47,247 --> 00:12:50,608
smaller group. And, you know, I'm proud to say that we're a

211
00:12:50,628 --> 00:12:53,929
few hundred people today and we're employing people

212
00:12:56,113 --> 00:12:59,235
Well, I think there's a lot to unpack here, and we're going to

213
00:12:59,275 --> 00:13:02,817
get into it. Let's start with it, because it's amazing how you're hiring people

214
00:13:03,297 --> 00:13:06,659
that live in the country. It's not just people that you've hired from North America to

215
00:13:06,699 --> 00:13:10,121
go travel and take it out. So that's it. We're going to

216
00:13:10,141 --> 00:13:13,983
unpack that a little later, because I think that's absolutely fantastic. And

217
00:13:14,003 --> 00:13:17,465
sort of like the new, it's really the way conservation should be going forward

218
00:13:18,005 --> 00:13:21,948
in the future. It should have been done a while ago, but it wasn't. To

219
00:13:22,008 --> 00:13:25,204
see a company doing that, absolutely amazing. I

220
00:13:25,224 --> 00:13:28,547
want to go to the bracelets because I find like this is a really

221
00:13:28,627 --> 00:13:31,809
interesting concept because I've seen this before and some, like you said, some

222
00:13:31,849 --> 00:13:35,172
companies remain small to medium size and

223
00:13:35,192 --> 00:13:38,734
they sell a product and they use that product to fund something

224
00:13:38,814 --> 00:13:42,737
else, whether it's creating like, you

225
00:13:42,777 --> 00:13:46,840
know, some sort of like take out a pound of trash or

226
00:13:46,920 --> 00:13:51,873
something else, right? They do some other types of conservation. When

227
00:13:51,913 --> 00:13:55,437
you first started, you came up with the bracelets.

228
00:13:55,777 --> 00:13:59,121
How did you source the material for the bracelet? When

229
00:13:59,161 --> 00:14:02,485
you said, hey, we'll sell bracelets, but it's going to be recycled material. That's not always

230
00:14:02,545 --> 00:14:05,828
easy to source, especially eight years ago. Where did

231
00:14:08,007 --> 00:14:11,210
Sure, so it took a long time for us to source all of

232
00:14:11,250 --> 00:14:14,753
the recycled materials and really just develop the product because,

233
00:14:14,793 --> 00:14:18,596
you know, the bracelets were handmade in Bali. So that's something that

234
00:14:18,636 --> 00:14:21,799
took a long time to try and find manufacturers that could

235
00:14:21,839 --> 00:14:26,063
provide the RPET, convert it into the thread, develop

236
00:14:26,223 --> 00:14:29,746
and mix in some of our ocean plastic that we had collected and

237
00:14:30,047 --> 00:14:33,230
develop into this product. It

238
00:14:33,270 --> 00:14:37,014
took us about a year of building.

239
00:14:39,069 --> 00:14:42,230
It was a, it was a very, very tough process to try and

240
00:14:42,310 --> 00:14:45,652
think about and develop. And you know, we're new, I've never sourced

241
00:14:47,072 --> 00:14:50,254
Yeah. Product development. You just kind of get out there and go for it.

242
00:14:50,414 --> 00:14:53,535
And so I think we spent a ton of time and, and after we got

243
00:14:53,575 --> 00:14:57,136
everything set up in Bali, um, you know, with the local artisans

244
00:14:57,176 --> 00:15:00,598
there to, to help manufacture the bracelets, that was something that

245
00:15:01,138 --> 00:15:04,419
we just, we, we kind of cracked the code in a sense and, and

246
00:15:04,539 --> 00:15:07,941
said, let's, let's make it with, with RPT and, and post-consumer recycled

247
00:15:11,325 --> 00:15:14,951
That's amazing. Now, it took you a year to come up with the prototype? Is

248
00:15:14,971 --> 00:15:18,296
that what it was? Like, finally to come up with the bracelet that you're willing

249
00:15:19,267 --> 00:15:23,110
Just about, yeah. To get to the point where we could actually reach any

250
00:15:23,150 --> 00:15:27,414
type of production volume. So we were doing samples, we were doing concepts

251
00:15:27,454 --> 00:15:30,796
and different thought process, and we really didn't know what we were going to

252
00:15:30,917 --> 00:15:34,339
sell for that first initial stage. And I say it a

253
00:15:34,379 --> 00:15:38,042
lot, that the bracelet is really our stepping stone to the bigger picture. We

254
00:15:38,062 --> 00:15:42,286
look at this, and I almost label the bracelet as like our Kickstarter campaign. We

255
00:15:42,346 --> 00:15:45,649
didn't raise a bunch of capital, we didn't go and get a bunch of investors, we took

256
00:15:45,729 --> 00:15:48,991
money that we literally made from myself parking cars at valet and

257
00:15:49,011 --> 00:15:52,233
my co-founder from from working on boats and we started this

258
00:15:52,373 --> 00:15:56,114
and and so uh you know it it it was basically

259
00:15:56,155 --> 00:15:59,216
just something that we were able to to test out and find that it

260
00:15:59,236 --> 00:16:02,738
was going to be a bracelet it was going to be something that could be gender neutral

261
00:16:03,338 --> 00:16:06,780
uh that wasn't too much of a of a statement piece and and really just

262
00:16:06,800 --> 00:16:10,042
could get as many people involved because that's you know at the end of the day that

263
00:16:10,082 --> 00:16:13,724
is a firm belief of mine is that Clean oceans

264
00:16:13,924 --> 00:16:17,569
and the ocean plastic crisis really should bring people together. There's

265
00:16:17,589 --> 00:16:21,654
so many things in this world that are very divisive and I find that

266
00:16:21,995 --> 00:16:25,179
everybody can agree that we all appreciate clean oceans. We

267
00:16:25,219 --> 00:16:28,663
all can agree that we want a future for ourselves, future

268
00:16:28,683 --> 00:16:31,807
generations, for our kids, I have one son who's only

269
00:16:31,827 --> 00:16:35,029
a year and a half old and my wife is just about to be due with our second son. So it's

270
00:16:35,069 --> 00:16:38,252
very imperative for me to try and give them the things that I've experienced. So

271
00:16:38,873 --> 00:16:42,216
when we thought about a bracelet concept, it was something that could bring

272
00:16:42,236 --> 00:16:46,199
a bunch of people together and that it wouldn't really matter your

273
00:16:46,639 --> 00:16:49,722
interests or anything like that. It's just, hey, we're trying to stay focused on

274
00:16:51,003 --> 00:16:54,987
I think what I love about the bracelet, it's almost like it's a very big symbol that

275
00:16:55,027 --> 00:16:58,993
people can wear. And we've seen it with other things, breast

276
00:16:59,033 --> 00:17:02,474
cancer and other types of cancer. He's seen that braces to get a movement

277
00:17:02,554 --> 00:17:06,155
going. And so it's a simple piece of clothing or

278
00:17:06,455 --> 00:17:11,017
accessory to clothing. It can go with a bunch of different styles. Especially,

279
00:17:11,057 --> 00:17:14,378
I find that the bracelet, when you look at it, it screams out.

280
00:17:14,438 --> 00:17:18,319
I don't know, maybe it's the color. But I find it screams out

281
00:17:18,739 --> 00:17:22,041
people around the ocean who like the ocean. because it's simplified, it's not

282
00:17:22,101 --> 00:17:26,824
metal, it's a nice thread, and I guess

283
00:17:26,844 --> 00:17:30,266
the bubbles around it are clear. It's very simplified, but

284
00:17:30,287 --> 00:17:34,249
when you look at it, you're like, okay, I'm doing something good. I

285
00:17:34,569 --> 00:17:38,372
really enjoy it. You're right. I worked

286
00:17:38,592 --> 00:17:42,315
for the federal government a number of years ago. I

287
00:17:43,855 --> 00:17:47,577
live in Canada, we were working with the US on a bi-national agreement

288
00:17:47,597 --> 00:17:51,019
with the Great Lakes. One of the major things that was the focus is

289
00:17:51,419 --> 00:17:54,701
when people look out off the shore in the Great Lakes,

290
00:17:55,061 --> 00:17:58,383
what do they see? Do they see something that's clean? Or

291
00:17:58,403 --> 00:18:01,505
does it smell? Or is there nutrients or there's algae or

292
00:18:01,545 --> 00:18:05,307
anything like that? And until recently, plastics never

293
00:18:05,347 --> 00:18:08,549
really entered the equation in the Great Lakes. But now, with more and

294
00:18:08,569 --> 00:18:11,791
more research, we're starting to see that. And the same thing with the ocean. Nobody wants to go

295
00:18:11,911 --> 00:18:15,112
out on a dock or on a pier and look

296
00:18:15,193 --> 00:18:19,175
out into the ocean and see trash, and see plastic, and

297
00:18:19,215 --> 00:18:22,377
just see it. Just like what you guys saw in Bali, nobody wants to see that

298
00:18:22,397 --> 00:18:26,039
off the coast of Florida, California, BC, anywhere

299
00:18:26,059 --> 00:18:29,201
in the world. We don't want to see that. So it's nice to

300
00:18:29,241 --> 00:18:33,414
have that actual vision. Yes. So a year of

301
00:18:33,654 --> 00:18:37,398
working the jobs just to

302
00:18:37,438 --> 00:18:40,882
make things work and invest your money and time into that, probably

303
00:18:40,902 --> 00:18:44,946
a lot of trips to Bali and back and forth, I'm sure. And I

304
00:18:44,986 --> 00:18:48,473
think that's great. But you said you had viral

305
00:18:48,573 --> 00:18:52,114
videos that went off, and

306
00:18:52,154 --> 00:18:55,515
then that's when the bracelets really started to sell. Were you

307
00:18:56,135 --> 00:18:59,396
picking up trash while you were designing the

308
00:18:59,436 --> 00:19:03,057
bracelet and just filming it like we would on

309
00:19:06,508 --> 00:19:10,552
Yeah, we really started leaning into the videos

310
00:19:10,752 --> 00:19:14,035
and I guess filming once we started the

311
00:19:14,075 --> 00:19:17,478
business. Like, okay, let's start documenting this idea and concept. And

312
00:19:17,518 --> 00:19:21,061
so the model was simple. Purchase a product, we're gonna recover

313
00:19:21,081 --> 00:19:24,204
plastic from the ocean, and then we're gonna, this is kind of our model. And

314
00:19:24,244 --> 00:19:27,567
so we started filming that when the business

315
00:19:27,587 --> 00:19:31,350
started, and it was pulling together kind of like I

316
00:19:31,370 --> 00:19:34,952
guess what you'd call it is just like a video pitch. And it was like a

317
00:19:34,972 --> 00:19:38,213
60-second video that just said, hey, this is who we are. This is what we're trying to do. These

318
00:19:38,273 --> 00:19:41,335
are our goals and aspirations. And this is how we're going to do it. And

319
00:19:41,375 --> 00:19:45,017
this is how you could get involved if you want to join. And so I think that's what

320
00:19:45,077 --> 00:19:48,679
really ended up taking off. It, you

321
00:19:48,719 --> 00:19:52,163
know, just the videos going on face at the time, it was Facebook before Facebook

322
00:19:52,183 --> 00:19:55,467
kind of changed their algorithms and stuff. And, and it just, Facebook just

323
00:19:55,507 --> 00:19:58,891
happened to go viral. And next thing you know, it's getting picked up by a bunch of others. And

324
00:19:58,911 --> 00:20:02,194
then it was just like, okay, we're, we've got something here.

325
00:20:02,234 --> 00:20:05,658
We're ready to rock and roll and let's go expand our cleanups and expand

326
00:20:07,036 --> 00:20:10,400
That is, it's amazing. But I want to know, how

327
00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:13,883
hard was that first year? Or even the first couple of years?

328
00:20:13,983 --> 00:20:17,307
Because people look at Four Oceans and we

329
00:20:17,347 --> 00:20:21,030
look at you from the outside and just be like, they've got stuff together.

330
00:20:21,671 --> 00:20:25,455
They've got systems, they've got process, they've got boats, they're

331
00:20:25,475 --> 00:20:29,025
hiring captains and crew all over the world. It

332
00:20:29,045 --> 00:20:33,686
looks easy, but I know these things aren't easy, especially

333
00:20:33,786 --> 00:20:37,007
those first couple of years. What were the struggles that you

334
00:20:37,027 --> 00:20:40,627
went through? Because there's some people who are listening in the audience who

335
00:20:40,668 --> 00:20:44,048
want to build a business that also

336
00:20:44,128 --> 00:20:47,429
does good. So some of the people, they're just not ready,

337
00:20:47,469 --> 00:20:50,730
or they may have those fears where they're just like, well, this won't work,

338
00:20:50,790 --> 00:20:54,670
or this won't work, or this will take too long. So I just wanted to hear some of the challenges so

339
00:20:57,701 --> 00:21:01,082
Sure, sure, yeah. No business.

340
00:21:01,402 --> 00:21:04,504
I think it's important to understand, no business is

341
00:21:04,544 --> 00:21:07,985
just a simple walk in the park. They talk about, what

342
00:21:08,305 --> 00:21:11,747
is it, Elon Musk says a statement of being an entrepreneur is

343
00:21:11,767 --> 00:21:15,528
comparable to chewing on glass and staring into the dark abyss. You

344
00:21:15,548 --> 00:21:19,490
hear those different phrases and I don't think, well, it's that drastic. It's

345
00:21:19,510 --> 00:21:22,851
just, there's highs and lows. Of course you're gonna always see the majority of

346
00:21:22,871 --> 00:21:26,032
the highs and all the awesome things, but there are, a lot

347
00:21:26,072 --> 00:21:29,215
of struggles. And when we started out, I mean, it was tough. I

348
00:21:29,235 --> 00:21:32,577
think my advice to anybody getting involved in the space would be,

349
00:21:33,338 --> 00:21:36,741
be prepared to be curious and

350
00:21:36,801 --> 00:21:40,524
be prepared to have a relentless drive of

351
00:21:40,604 --> 00:21:43,986
learning new things. And I think that's something that's so important

352
00:21:44,006 --> 00:21:47,329
because when we started, it was tough. We had nothing. We literally had

353
00:21:47,629 --> 00:21:53,074
nothing. We started this business with two $5,000 Investments

354
00:21:53,114 --> 00:21:56,437
that we'd saved I literally I had a brick of ones save from

355
00:21:56,477 --> 00:21:59,980
ballet, you know, like I'm not kidding Yeah, like right it was it

356
00:22:00,020 --> 00:22:03,484
was like nothing and so we had to get scrappy So like right the thing starting

357
00:22:03,584 --> 00:22:07,227
out was, you know, we couldn't hire as some big marketing agencies

358
00:22:07,287 --> 00:22:10,810
and big companies you know, production and sourcing companies. We

359
00:22:10,830 --> 00:22:14,772
just had to learn and I say it a lot like YouTube University was

360
00:22:14,812 --> 00:22:18,994
one of the things. Like I got my degree in entrepreneurship from FAU and

361
00:22:19,034 --> 00:22:22,276
that was helpful from a macro perspective. You really get to understand, you

362
00:22:22,296 --> 00:22:25,498
know, the concepts of business. But when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of like,

363
00:22:25,558 --> 00:22:29,360
okay, how do I source a product? How do I build a website? How

364
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:32,862
do I film and market? How do I fulfill a product, handle customer service?

365
00:22:33,162 --> 00:22:36,505
how do I set up a cleanup infrastructure and develop SOPs on

366
00:22:36,545 --> 00:22:39,828
how our vessels need to be handled and maintained? There's

367
00:22:39,868 --> 00:22:43,751
so many different components that factor into that and I think that the relentless

368
00:22:43,971 --> 00:22:47,374
drive to learn new things, it's one thing that I like. I

369
00:22:47,554 --> 00:22:50,917
love learning new things. I'm always chasing after these different things

370
00:22:50,997 --> 00:22:54,721
and trying to really find out and learn and improve and

371
00:22:54,761 --> 00:22:57,844
get better at things. And I think that when we started out, it

372
00:22:57,884 --> 00:23:01,268
was like we didn't have money to market, so we couldn't like brand

373
00:23:01,308 --> 00:23:04,351
products. So I learned how to, you know, cut with a

374
00:23:04,411 --> 00:23:07,655
vinyl machine and be able to brand all our own products and used

375
00:23:07,755 --> 00:23:11,019
a projector to project stuff onto walls to paint our logos and

376
00:23:11,039 --> 00:23:14,621
like get all creative with it. Because we didn't have money to go spend four

377
00:23:14,661 --> 00:23:17,941
grand on a tent. So it's like, all right, well, we're buying the blue tent from

378
00:23:17,982 --> 00:23:21,382
Walmart, and we're going to paint this thing and make it our own. And so

379
00:23:21,462 --> 00:23:24,803
I think that was the thing that was very tough,

380
00:23:24,863 --> 00:23:27,964
is that we had no resources. We had to start small. We had to be

381
00:23:28,004 --> 00:23:31,345
scrappy. And there were dark times. And

382
00:23:31,365 --> 00:23:34,506
there still are dark times, like 100%. There's ups and

383
00:23:34,546 --> 00:23:37,747
downs like crazy. And I think that that's something to just understand that

384
00:23:37,767 --> 00:23:41,308
you've got slow down, work with your team, understand

385
00:23:41,409 --> 00:23:44,870
what needs to be done in order to drive the business, drive the operations forward

386
00:23:44,911 --> 00:23:48,573
and, and really come out with a strategic plan to, to try and execute. And,

387
00:23:49,393 --> 00:23:53,015
uh, you know, it's, it's been something that's been, uh, uh, you

388
00:23:53,035 --> 00:23:56,377
know, a challenge for a lot of businesses starting out is like, just how

389
00:23:56,417 --> 00:23:59,659
do you start? Where do you start? And I would just say, that's one of the biggest pieces

390
00:23:59,679 --> 00:24:02,861
of advice that I could have is like, just get ready to use

391
00:24:02,901 --> 00:24:06,163
the internet. Now, I mean, and honestly, we have chat GPT and all this AI now,

392
00:24:06,203 --> 00:24:09,825
which is insane. But before it was like reading forums till

393
00:24:09,845 --> 00:24:13,127
late at night, joining Facebook groups, looking good, you

394
00:24:13,168 --> 00:24:16,630
know, just watching YouTube videos nonstop. And I mean, on anything

395
00:24:16,690 --> 00:24:20,933
like from marketing, teaching yourself how to film

396
00:24:21,113 --> 00:24:24,777
and take photos to, how are we going to install this outboard engine

397
00:24:24,817 --> 00:24:28,060
on this boat? You know, I don't have the money to pay a mechanic, but we're going

398
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:31,584
to learn it and we're going to figure it out. So I think it was, it was very,

399
00:24:34,547 --> 00:24:37,809
Yeah. And I assume when you first started, too, you had access

400
00:24:37,849 --> 00:24:41,550
to boats so you can go out and do the cleanups. But

401
00:24:41,630 --> 00:24:45,491
boats are expensive to maintain, buy and maintain. What's

402
00:24:45,531 --> 00:24:48,772
the rule? If you want a boat, you just get ready to put more and more money into it,

403
00:24:48,833 --> 00:24:52,174
especially with, I would imagine, with the way you all use it,

404
00:24:52,694 --> 00:24:56,015
especially locally for the boats that you own. So I

405
00:24:57,375 --> 00:25:01,116
guess a question, for the worldwide management, you're paying

406
00:25:01,277 --> 00:25:04,400
people. people on the ground, you

407
00:25:04,420 --> 00:25:07,947
know, managing the business out there as well. So you have not only just captains

408
00:25:08,007 --> 00:25:11,133
and crew, but you have sort of like a bit of an infrastructure in

409
00:25:12,231 --> 00:25:15,754
There's a full hierarchy. We have an entire team. So we have directors,

410
00:25:15,854 --> 00:25:19,357
managers, captains, crews, you know, essentially

411
00:25:20,037 --> 00:25:23,600
leaders of each organization. So there's like full on infrastructure

412
00:25:23,620 --> 00:25:26,843
at each location and we own all of our own vessels. So I

413
00:25:26,883 --> 00:25:30,045
mentioned earlier my background, I'm a licensed captain. I

414
00:25:30,085 --> 00:25:33,368
grew up on the water. So I actually throughout college, not only parked

415
00:25:33,388 --> 00:25:36,911
cars, but I also bought and sold boats. I would buy them, fix

416
00:25:36,971 --> 00:25:40,073
them up and sell them. So that was like a, that was a kind of a side hustle of

417
00:25:40,153 --> 00:25:43,378
mine. And so that's how I

418
00:25:43,478 --> 00:25:47,023
paid a lot of my way through college, to be frank with you. And I

419
00:25:47,043 --> 00:25:50,188
probably bought and sold, I think, like 35 different boats. And it was all

420
00:25:50,228 --> 00:25:53,693
just like, started small, like a little John boat for a couple hundred dollars, and

421
00:25:53,733 --> 00:25:57,696
just slowly kept flipping and working my way up to bigger boats and bigger things. I

422
00:25:57,736 --> 00:26:01,337
got the chance to learn and understand how to

423
00:26:01,637 --> 00:26:05,597
maintain, how to do fiberglass work, how to run electronics, and

424
00:26:05,637 --> 00:26:09,338
just operate these vessels. So it's something I enjoy. It's

425
00:26:09,378 --> 00:26:13,299
a hobby of mine, honestly. It's not only just a matter of that. And so

426
00:26:13,319 --> 00:26:16,679
spending that time out there was, in the beginning, we had access

427
00:26:16,759 --> 00:26:20,200
to the idea and concept of, all right, well, let's get

428
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:23,400
vessels on the water. And our first boat was a Carolina Skiff. So we

429
00:26:23,420 --> 00:26:27,541
purchased a used Facebook marketplace. And

430
00:26:28,062 --> 00:26:31,263
yeah, we just went for it. We got it painted. We got it,

431
00:26:31,923 --> 00:26:35,125
you know, branded. It's actually, it looks like this boat right here. I don't know if any of

432
00:26:35,145 --> 00:26:39,087
the viewers are watching, but so yeah, this is a very comparable boat. And

433
00:26:39,147 --> 00:26:42,909
so that was our first skiff ever. And you

434
00:26:42,929 --> 00:26:46,090
know, I'm actually proud to say, so we've, historically, we've always bought used

435
00:26:46,130 --> 00:26:49,192
boats. You know, we've always bought, we're going to be beating them up. We're going to

436
00:26:49,212 --> 00:26:52,493
be, throwing plastic and trash on them. So we always bought used boats

437
00:26:52,533 --> 00:26:56,134
and it's all we could afford. And we actually just kicked off a partnership with Carolina

438
00:26:56,174 --> 00:26:59,455
Skiff. So we got a first time ever in 4Ocean's history, a

439
00:26:59,575 --> 00:27:02,937
brand new, amazing vessel. And it's tricked

440
00:27:03,037 --> 00:27:06,178
out to the nine for cleanup. So we're dialed in to go

441
00:27:06,218 --> 00:27:09,339
clean anywhere. So it's a big moment. I'm very, very proud and very excited to

442
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:12,800
finally get a reliable vessel that's not, you

443
00:27:15,802 --> 00:27:19,144
Yeah, I mean, it just goes to show how far you've gone. But it also goes

444
00:27:19,184 --> 00:27:23,006
to show how much people believe in what the mission that

445
00:27:23,066 --> 00:27:26,567
Four Oceans is about, too, right? To get a company like Carolina's Gift

446
00:27:26,607 --> 00:27:30,650
to just be like, yeah, no, we see this. And we're ready to put

447
00:27:30,750 --> 00:27:34,371
together a boat that's maximized for, I assume,

448
00:27:34,391 --> 00:27:37,873
the most plastic you can pick up on a boat with safety

449
00:27:37,933 --> 00:27:41,335
in mind, of course, and to bring it back and haul it back. Yes.

450
00:27:43,512 --> 00:27:46,634
Well, I'm actually also excited. So it's not only just Carolina Skip, but we have

451
00:27:46,654 --> 00:27:50,337
like partnerships with Sea-Doo. So they've provided vessels. They're a sponsor

452
00:27:50,357 --> 00:27:53,799
and a partner. Sea-Doo's, Can-Am, Defender for

453
00:27:53,819 --> 00:27:57,221
a quad. Like we've been supported now with these other businesses, other

454
00:27:57,301 --> 00:28:00,503
gear that we're now outfitted with. It's pretty cool. I

455
00:28:00,543 --> 00:28:03,864
say it a lot. And we're outfitted with the best tools

456
00:28:03,904 --> 00:28:07,405
to clean the ocean. And it's almost like we're utilizing the same equipment

457
00:28:07,445 --> 00:28:11,286
that Navy SEALs or these operators are utilizing,

458
00:28:11,566 --> 00:28:14,727
but we're doing it to clean plastic. And this is

459
00:28:14,787 --> 00:28:18,188
actually something that we did when we first started. It was very intentional. Everything

460
00:28:18,228 --> 00:28:21,349
from the paint schemes, the stripes, and

461
00:28:21,409 --> 00:28:24,569
installing the light bars on the boats, and putting all that stuff, we

462
00:28:24,589 --> 00:28:27,791
wanted to make cleaning the ocean cool. We didn't want it

463
00:28:27,811 --> 00:28:31,013
to just be viewed as something like, oh, they're just doing sanitary work, like they're

464
00:28:31,033 --> 00:28:34,675
just cleaning up trash. We wanted it to be like, hey, this is

465
00:28:34,855 --> 00:28:38,078
something that we are deliberately doing to try and clean plastic from the ocean,

466
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:44,822
That's incredible. That's amazing. So let's

467
00:28:44,862 --> 00:28:48,479
talk about the actual picking up of the plastic. You know, because you

468
00:28:48,519 --> 00:28:52,961
have these boats and then you must have instruments

469
00:28:53,001 --> 00:28:56,203
or tools to get the plastic out of the boats because you're not going to lean

470
00:28:56,303 --> 00:28:59,504
over all the time and just pick it up by hand. How does

471
00:28:59,624 --> 00:29:02,766
all of that work? And like you can even talk about the beginning and

472
00:29:02,866 --> 00:29:06,208
how we've evolved over time to maximize that. But

473
00:29:09,222 --> 00:29:13,226
Sure. So that's a great question. We typically,

474
00:29:13,727 --> 00:29:17,071
and our standard method of collecting plastic is really

475
00:29:17,251 --> 00:29:20,574
through hand. It's by hand, but it's utilizing net systems. So

476
00:29:20,614 --> 00:29:23,978
like standard nets and dip nets and things like that. One

477
00:29:24,018 --> 00:29:27,942
core belief that we have here at 4ocean is that technology,

478
00:29:28,002 --> 00:29:32,771
while it can play an important role in the ocean plastic crisis, we

479
00:29:32,811 --> 00:29:35,914
really feel, and I feel very passionately about, you

480
00:29:35,954 --> 00:29:39,576
can spend a significant amount of money on a piece of technology, but

481
00:29:39,637 --> 00:29:43,279
I believe that the most effective and the most impactful way is to create full-time

482
00:29:43,319 --> 00:29:47,102
jobs for individuals. Because if you're going to create

483
00:29:47,162 --> 00:29:50,865
a very expensive machine that might cost millions of dollars to recover plastic,

484
00:29:51,306 --> 00:29:54,928
the amount of people that you can employ with that money is

485
00:29:55,209 --> 00:29:58,351
significant. And so there's not the maintenance aspect, there's not the

486
00:29:58,631 --> 00:30:01,772
you know, the shelf life and how long this or the life cycle of this product and how

487
00:30:01,812 --> 00:30:05,553
long it's going to last. But I think that what we're finding is that there's plastic

488
00:30:05,593 --> 00:30:09,174
is almost always mixed with organics, right? So sticks and

489
00:30:09,274 --> 00:30:12,556
seagrass and all sorts of seaweed and things like that. And so

490
00:30:13,036 --> 00:30:16,217
our captains and crews are very efficient with hand nets. So we're literally going out

491
00:30:16,237 --> 00:30:19,798
in the vessels. We're scooping the plastic with nets to

492
00:30:19,838 --> 00:30:23,239
bring back into the boat. And we're also walking the shorelines. And

493
00:30:23,259 --> 00:30:27,000
so we're walking the shorelines and collecting the plastic off of the shorelines with uh

494
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,183
you know grabbers but also a lot of different individuals rather just

495
00:30:30,223 --> 00:30:34,366
to choose to use their hands you know obviously we have gloves and the necessary ppe

496
00:30:34,386 --> 00:30:37,948
but um it's it's a very basic method

497
00:30:38,128 --> 00:30:41,551
and it's to be frank with you very hard i mean what we're doing is

498
00:30:41,691 --> 00:30:44,773
it's backbreaking work you know when we're out there in the sun it

499
00:30:44,853 --> 00:30:48,176
is incredibly hot incredibly humid And we're collecting this

500
00:30:48,256 --> 00:30:51,380
plastic off the ground and out of the ocean on these beaches and

501
00:30:51,941 --> 00:30:55,245
and I think that it's it's, you know, we really view it as how

502
00:30:55,285 --> 00:30:58,510
can we create as much impact not only just on the environment, but

503
00:30:58,570 --> 00:31:01,834
even from a social and economic perspective. And so creating these

504
00:31:01,874 --> 00:31:05,197
full time jobs is something that. is very important to

505
00:31:05,257 --> 00:31:08,518
me and the impact that we're able to make with our captains and

506
00:31:08,538 --> 00:31:11,799
crews. So you really have the boats, you

507
00:31:11,839 --> 00:31:15,080
have, we say boats, boots, and booms. It's kind of like our term, right?

508
00:31:15,100 --> 00:31:18,261
So boats on the water, boots, we're walking down the beach, we're collecting, and

509
00:31:18,281 --> 00:31:22,142
then boom systems, which are barricades that are installed in rivers. Similar

510
00:31:22,162 --> 00:31:25,524
to what you see in the oil spill industry to contain the material. So

511
00:31:25,564 --> 00:31:28,685
we put those into some small rivers to try and stop plastic before it has

512
00:31:31,799 --> 00:31:35,542
Again, so much to unpack there. It's

513
00:31:35,582 --> 00:31:38,704
amazing what you're able to do. And the way you talk about it, it's like,

514
00:31:38,724 --> 00:31:41,787
yeah, this is what we do. And it must have taken a

515
00:31:42,487 --> 00:31:45,750
while. And there must be a learning process through the

516
00:31:46,370 --> 00:31:49,673
last eight years that you've taken to be like, OK, what's like you come to

517
00:31:49,713 --> 00:31:54,757
a river. Recently, we talked about this before we recorded. Recently, your

518
00:31:54,797 --> 00:31:59,748
team was in Bali, or you had a team in Bali. brilliantly

519
00:32:00,148 --> 00:32:03,392
posted on social media the cleanup process of this. And this river, when

520
00:32:03,432 --> 00:32:06,596
you look at this river, it was disgusting when

521
00:32:06,636 --> 00:32:09,920
you look at it from a plastic pollution perspective. It

522
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:13,445
was just filled. There wasn't even a river. It just looked like a

523
00:32:13,565 --> 00:32:16,889
river of plastic that was going down. You could see

524
00:32:16,949 --> 00:32:20,314
the booms installed. You could see the backup of all this. And

525
00:32:20,354 --> 00:32:23,438
then it was just like this video that was put in, in like, I

526
00:32:23,458 --> 00:32:26,662
don't know if it was 10 times speed or what, but it was just being cleaned up

527
00:32:26,722 --> 00:32:30,027
and cleaned up and cleaned up. And then all of a sudden at the end of the video, you just saw

528
00:32:30,067 --> 00:32:33,832
a river again. You know, you're just like, this is incredible.

529
00:32:35,732 --> 00:32:39,074
What was that learning process of going into

530
00:32:39,094 --> 00:32:42,476
a river? Because when you look at a river like that, you're just like, whew, this is going to

531
00:32:42,496 --> 00:32:45,697
be a lot of work. This is not an easy job to do. What was

532
00:32:45,717 --> 00:32:49,339
that learning process to tackle this ocean plastic problem without

533
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:53,241
getting your employees just being like, oh my god, we're

534
00:32:54,833 --> 00:32:58,577
Sure, sure. So yeah, we've had a lot of videos go

535
00:32:58,637 --> 00:33:01,820
out of all of our cleanup efforts and I think that the videos have

536
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:05,304
really helped us a lot now. You know, it's

537
00:33:05,344 --> 00:33:08,987
completely flipped. So in the beginning stages of when we started 4ocean,

538
00:33:09,608 --> 00:33:12,771
we couldn't get anybody to work for us. It was so hard and

539
00:33:12,811 --> 00:33:15,994
the reason being nobody believed that what we were

540
00:33:16,054 --> 00:33:19,538
doing was real. They thought that

541
00:33:19,938 --> 00:33:23,221
it was all like, oh, you're just going to show up once. Because we showed

542
00:33:23,281 --> 00:33:26,564
up and we literally walked. I'm not kidding. We'd fly to these areas.

543
00:33:26,604 --> 00:33:29,947
We flew to Haiti with backpacks on, walking around trying to open

544
00:33:29,967 --> 00:33:33,231
up a cleanup location. We flew to Bali and literally walked

545
00:33:33,271 --> 00:33:36,754
around, met people, networked, and said, hey, this is what we're trying to do. It

546
00:33:36,794 --> 00:33:41,703
was a very, very Scrappy

547
00:33:41,743 --> 00:33:45,364
process, but yeah when we first started people thought we were crazy. They

548
00:33:45,424 --> 00:33:48,986
literally said wait a second You're gonna pay us full time.

549
00:33:49,486 --> 00:33:52,767
You're gonna pay us a fair living a living wage. So above the minimum wage

550
00:33:56,608 --> 00:33:59,949
So many people thought that we were just out

551
00:33:59,989 --> 00:34:03,449
there with a, they thought we were crazy. They thought we were just out there with a wacky idea.

552
00:34:03,950 --> 00:34:07,150
I can see a lot of people thinking that. So what happened was that we really struggled to

553
00:34:07,190 --> 00:34:10,431
get captains and crew to come in and say, you know what, hey, I will stop

554
00:34:10,451 --> 00:34:13,751
fishing and I will come over here and work with you guys. And so what happened is

555
00:34:13,792 --> 00:34:16,972
the power of social media is what changed that. And when we first started, it was like,

556
00:34:16,992 --> 00:34:20,393
all right, we got a small little group of captains and crew. We started growing.

557
00:34:20,733 --> 00:34:23,974
We started seeing the videos. And then the social media accounts gave us a little bit

558
00:34:24,074 --> 00:34:27,714
of a reputation. And people were like, whoa,

559
00:34:27,774 --> 00:34:31,056
wait a minute. And so now it's flipped to the complete opposite side. I

560
00:34:31,096 --> 00:34:34,198
just got back from a trip to Bali and I was talking with

561
00:34:34,258 --> 00:34:37,761
our team out there and they're explaining like it's actually a big problem right

562
00:34:37,781 --> 00:34:40,944
now. They said that they are so overwhelmed with people that

563
00:34:40,964 --> 00:34:44,306
are asking to work for 4ocean that they're breaking down

564
00:34:44,346 --> 00:34:47,689
their door like constantly. They have all friends and family always sending

565
00:34:47,729 --> 00:34:51,111
resumes of their friends and it's because we are paying

566
00:34:51,151 --> 00:34:55,194
for a living wage. We're giving them 100% of health insurance and benefits And,

567
00:34:55,414 --> 00:34:58,856
and the environment and what we try and do to take care of our staff is, is just so,

568
00:34:59,576 --> 00:35:02,798
uh, important to us. And so they just said, like, it's literally gotten

569
00:35:02,818 --> 00:35:06,099
to a point now where people are, are, uh, struggling to, to,

570
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:09,401
I'm sorry, they're, they're, they're, you know, they want the job so

571
00:35:10,581 --> 00:35:13,983
So, so I would say, you know, in the beginning stages, it was very tough

572
00:35:14,383 --> 00:35:17,585
and, and, you know, to learn how to do this and teach the crews and

573
00:35:18,085 --> 00:35:21,547
develop all the SOPs and follow the process of documenting our

574
00:35:21,587 --> 00:35:25,390
plastic, because we document every pound that's been recovered. with

575
00:35:25,430 --> 00:35:28,695
photos and that entire process and so it

576
00:35:28,735 --> 00:35:32,061
took a lot of time and it was very tough but we were determined and

577
00:35:34,425 --> 00:35:37,906
Let me ask you this, when it comes to paying people the living

578
00:35:37,966 --> 00:35:42,508
wage and taking care of your staff, like really fostering

579
00:35:42,548 --> 00:35:45,709
a culture where it's like, yeah, we're working all over the world, but we're going to take

580
00:35:45,749 --> 00:35:49,070
care of you. Like you work for us, it's hard work, we know, but

581
00:35:49,110 --> 00:35:52,431
we're going to take care of you. There are a lot of businesses out there, and Alex, you and I know

582
00:35:52,511 --> 00:35:55,932
which businesses are there, that are literally just paying

583
00:35:55,972 --> 00:35:59,273
minimum wage. And they complain that if you have to raise minimum

584
00:35:59,333 --> 00:36:02,755
wage, they're not going to make a dollar. their money,

585
00:36:03,335 --> 00:36:06,697
low wages, you know, their products, lots of products, they probably

586
00:36:06,737 --> 00:36:09,878
pay a lot, like very little and make little profit on it.

587
00:36:10,739 --> 00:36:13,900
You have this company where you're cleaning up plastic, selling a

588
00:36:13,940 --> 00:36:17,843
bracelet, and other things as well, but

589
00:36:17,903 --> 00:36:21,765
here you are paying the people the money that, where

590
00:36:21,805 --> 00:36:25,206
they can be comfortable. They're not scrounging, they're not complaining that

591
00:36:25,226 --> 00:36:30,462
they can't live in the place that they're living and so forth. Is

592
00:36:30,482 --> 00:36:33,723
that a hard thing to do, especially as a company that's been

593
00:36:33,783 --> 00:36:37,284
building for eight years? I know you grew rapidly, but even growing rapidly,

594
00:36:37,825 --> 00:36:41,426
was there a concern about, are we going to be able to pay everybody

595
00:36:41,546 --> 00:36:45,227
for the long term? We're building a bit of an international family

596
00:36:45,307 --> 00:36:48,628
here. How can we pay all these? Was that a concern,

597
00:36:48,648 --> 00:36:52,289
especially you just starting out your first business and

598
00:36:53,010 --> 00:36:56,631
your staff and stuff like that? How difficult was that to figure

599
00:36:57,861 --> 00:37:01,023
So, from a decision perspective, not hard at all. It

600
00:37:01,063 --> 00:37:04,325
was a no-brainer. It was, you know, the idea

601
00:37:04,365 --> 00:37:07,527
and concept of if we're going to create something, we're going to have an impact and we're going to create

602
00:37:07,567 --> 00:37:10,958
a business that can really do amazing

603
00:37:10,998 --> 00:37:14,301
things. You know, when you talk about the triple bottom line, that's really

604
00:37:14,341 --> 00:37:17,484
what we believe in, is people, planet, and profit. And I think that that's

605
00:37:17,504 --> 00:37:21,087
something that's so important to be able to take care of our crews. And

606
00:37:21,728 --> 00:37:25,291
if it was going to be, hey, we're going to start a business

607
00:37:25,331 --> 00:37:28,654
that's going to take advantage of all of our crews internationally, That

608
00:37:28,694 --> 00:37:32,017
was not anything that we're interested in. So I think the decision to do it

609
00:37:32,178 --> 00:37:36,021
was no-brainer, dead forward, this is exactly what we want to do.

610
00:37:36,381 --> 00:37:39,905
In terms of the ability to pay our captains and crew, that

611
00:37:39,965 --> 00:37:43,528
is something that absolutely does get difficult. We're

612
00:37:43,568 --> 00:37:47,432
talking about a significant difference in

613
00:37:47,712 --> 00:37:50,875
compensation structures. Where, you know, at times when you go

614
00:37:50,895 --> 00:37:54,420
through low periods, it's so hard. And this has happened to us. We've

615
00:37:54,460 --> 00:37:57,764
gone through periods of dipping heavily with

616
00:37:57,804 --> 00:38:01,148
sales due to any type of influence, right? Whether that's

617
00:38:01,188 --> 00:38:05,092
coronavirus, when all of the wholesale businesses shut down, went to zero. whether

618
00:38:05,132 --> 00:38:08,434
it's Facebook changing their algorithm and all of a sudden the next day,

619
00:38:08,974 --> 00:38:12,216
your entire marketing strategy is just flipped upside down. We've

620
00:38:12,276 --> 00:38:15,597
experienced a ton of highs and lows and we have not been immune to any

621
00:38:15,617 --> 00:38:19,179
of that. And I will tell you in those down periods, it

622
00:38:19,299 --> 00:38:23,641
is something that is definitely a significant weight

623
00:38:24,001 --> 00:38:27,443
in terms of our expenses, but it is something that we always

624
00:38:32,525 --> 00:38:35,788
to be candid with you, uh, sometimes to a fault because

625
00:38:35,948 --> 00:38:39,732
we just, we prioritize the cleanup crews and it's just like, guys, no cleanup.

626
00:38:39,972 --> 00:38:43,295
It's one of our core values is ocean first ocean first product second.

627
00:38:43,375 --> 00:38:46,558
And so that's something that's so important is that, you know, we can always

628
00:38:46,598 --> 00:38:49,841
find ways to, to handle anything that we need to, but

629
00:38:49,901 --> 00:38:53,725
the cleanups are why we're here. We have to protect our cleanup crews and

630
00:38:55,023 --> 00:38:58,245
I love that. And it is difficult. Like you mentioned, there's been

631
00:38:58,265 --> 00:39:01,807
a lot that happened in the last eight years, including a global pandemic,

632
00:39:01,887 --> 00:39:04,988
which makes things very difficult. Algorithms that fly by, it

633
00:39:05,028 --> 00:39:08,350
seems like they change every day to suppress certain things

634
00:39:08,410 --> 00:39:11,852
and promote other things. It's not easy to,

635
00:39:12,112 --> 00:39:15,613
you know, not every video is going to go viral. You know, even for Four Oceans,

636
00:39:15,854 --> 00:39:18,955
as big as you guys are and as wonderful as you like, not everything's going to go viral, not

637
00:39:18,975 --> 00:39:22,657
everybody's going to see it. And that can make things complicated.

638
00:39:22,677 --> 00:39:26,478
But I love the fact that you work and

639
00:39:26,799 --> 00:39:30,319
scrape and scrounge for your staff. Because

640
00:39:30,339 --> 00:39:33,840
I think that builds loyalty. You're right. When they know that, like, hey,

641
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:37,101
during hard times, we never had to worry. I think

642
00:39:37,141 --> 00:39:41,222
that builds loyalty in the long run. And I find that's the one thing that companies

643
00:39:41,262 --> 00:39:45,163
who are trying to be sustainable or trying to do good for the ocean, whether they're non-profits or

644
00:39:45,283 --> 00:39:48,943
for-profits or both, like a hybrid model, they

645
00:39:49,043 --> 00:39:52,246
tend not to invest in their people as much. And that could

646
00:39:52,266 --> 00:39:55,650
be because of funding structures and things like that. But I find when you invest in

647
00:39:55,690 --> 00:39:59,635
people, you get the best out of people. And I think what

648
00:39:59,675 --> 00:40:02,839
you guys are doing is exactly that. And what you're doing is you're getting the best out

649
00:40:02,859 --> 00:40:06,123
of people. Because let's be honest, it's got to be tough work out there.

650
00:40:08,112 --> 00:40:11,313
You're in the heat a lot of the times, you're in the water. Being on

651
00:40:11,353 --> 00:40:16,235
the ocean, it's lovely. Let's be honest, it's fun. It's

652
00:40:16,415 --> 00:40:19,996
noon and the sun's over you and it's hard

653
00:40:20,036 --> 00:40:24,157
work. You're sweating. You're probably

654
00:40:24,437 --> 00:40:28,198
in good shape afterwards because your calorie

655
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:31,600
count must be way up here just to stay in shape like

656
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,780
that. I mean, it's hard work. So I

657
00:40:35,020 --> 00:40:38,701
think fighting for them as much as possible for that staff will

658
00:40:38,721 --> 00:40:43,422
allow them to fight for you, especially for the reason that they're doing. Now,

659
00:40:43,502 --> 00:40:46,583
we talk about plastic pollution a lot on this podcast. There's an

660
00:40:46,723 --> 00:40:52,664
international treaty that's trying to be formalized around

661
00:40:52,684 --> 00:40:56,465
the world right now. I think the next meeting is in South Korea shortly.

662
00:40:58,825 --> 00:41:02,026
As you mentioned a couple of times, it's a crisis. We are

663
00:41:02,086 --> 00:41:05,867
in a crisis of plastic pollution. And your

664
00:41:05,907 --> 00:41:09,407
group is doing a great job at cleaning it up, especially from

665
00:41:09,447 --> 00:41:12,628
the rivers, not just out in the ocean, but from the

666
00:41:12,708 --> 00:41:16,968
rivers, which is a point of impact, essentially. How

667
00:41:17,069 --> 00:41:20,329
do you maintain, like how do you think

668
00:41:20,369 --> 00:41:23,730
you're doing right now? 40 million pounds of plastics is

669
00:41:23,770 --> 00:41:27,746
a lot. There's no doubt about that. Do you ever feel

670
00:41:28,166 --> 00:41:32,488
down when you come to a new place or

671
00:41:32,568 --> 00:41:36,070
you visit a place that you visited before and cleaned it up and it's back

672
00:41:36,110 --> 00:41:39,272
to normal? I guess the first question is,

673
00:41:39,412 --> 00:41:42,694
do you ever feel pessimistic about the situation that

674
00:41:42,714 --> 00:41:45,975
you're in and the job that you're doing? And then I'll ask a follow-up after.

675
00:41:48,457 --> 00:41:52,153
Sure, sure. So I would say that I,

676
00:41:52,574 --> 00:41:55,936
by nature, once again, almost to a fault, am such

677
00:41:55,976 --> 00:41:59,299
an optimistic person. So I

678
00:41:59,419 --> 00:42:02,761
always maintain a, or try to maintain the best outlook as

679
00:42:02,822 --> 00:42:06,444
possible. And, and I think that there are times, absolutely.

680
00:42:06,464 --> 00:42:09,867
When it's just heavy, like it's just, it's, it's, you know, standing on

681
00:42:09,907 --> 00:42:13,269
these coastlines where the plastic is like eight feet deep.

682
00:42:13,810 --> 00:42:17,072
It's I'm talking miles, absolutely miles. As far as

683
00:42:17,092 --> 00:42:20,330
your eye can see. and there's just millions of pounds of plastic sitting on

684
00:42:20,370 --> 00:42:24,013
the coastline, it's easy to get a little overwhelmed. And

685
00:42:24,234 --> 00:42:27,336
I will tell you that, you know, when I see those things, it

686
00:42:27,436 --> 00:42:30,920
really is like a fire. It fires me up because, you

687
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:34,363
know, for us and our captains and crew, we know the impact that we can have.

688
00:42:34,863 --> 00:42:38,326
And so for me, instead of just feeling overwhelmed or

689
00:42:38,426 --> 00:42:42,109
anxiety or depression based off of like, man, this is just crazy. I

690
00:42:42,129 --> 00:42:45,492
want to see action. I want to start breaking down a plan. Okay, let's start thinking

691
00:42:45,532 --> 00:42:48,655
about it. How could we execute at this? Like, let's really start laying out

692
00:42:48,675 --> 00:42:52,218
a structure and an idea and a concept and let's start testing. Let's

693
00:42:52,258 --> 00:42:55,400
get after it. And so I think that's something where, you know,

694
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:58,883
you can get overwhelmed by the sites that you see. but it's so important to

695
00:42:58,923 --> 00:43:02,944
stay positive and think about the solutions. Because within

696
00:43:03,044 --> 00:43:08,486
all environmental crisis that's happening right now, you

697
00:43:08,766 --> 00:43:12,087
can be very depressed and have a lot of anxiety towards it,

698
00:43:12,407 --> 00:43:15,849
but I think one of the best things that you can do that will start to solve that is take action.

699
00:43:16,329 --> 00:43:19,430
And so what we're trying to do is take action. And one thing that

700
00:43:19,450 --> 00:43:22,551
we talk a lot about, Andrew, is that we know that cleaning the

701
00:43:22,631 --> 00:43:25,772
ocean alone will not solve the ocean plastic crisis. We know

702
00:43:25,792 --> 00:43:29,135
that our captains and crew, they're doing an amazing job. We are working our

703
00:43:29,295 --> 00:43:32,578
butts off in the sun, just like you said, but cleaning plastic is not

704
00:43:32,618 --> 00:43:35,820
going to end this issue. What we believe is that cleanups are

705
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:39,403
an amazing awareness tool, because what they're doing is they're driving

706
00:43:39,423 --> 00:43:42,926
that awareness. We are educating people on the problem that's happening out

707
00:43:42,966 --> 00:43:46,228
there, showing them that it exists, because what we find is

708
00:43:46,248 --> 00:43:49,471
a lot of people say, yeah, but isn't that just a bunch of plastic in

709
00:43:49,491 --> 00:43:52,653
developing countries? Like, that doesn't affect us. And so I'm like here,

710
00:43:52,673 --> 00:43:55,995
like, hey, listen, we're just cleaned all day. I got 1,200 pounds of

711
00:43:56,015 --> 00:43:59,216
plastic from a few hours out just outside of Miami. You know, this

712
00:43:59,256 --> 00:44:02,497
is an amazing destination. So, it's here on our doorsteps. And

713
00:44:02,517 --> 00:44:06,138
I think that we're really trying to drive that awareness from a social media perspective

714
00:44:06,598 --> 00:44:10,380
and leveraging mainstream tactics like athletes, celebrities, influencers.

715
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:14,041
Because if we can continue to push the conversation forward, then

716
00:44:14,061 --> 00:44:17,255
we will get more people talking about it, learning about what's happening, And

717
00:44:17,295 --> 00:44:20,857
together, we can start to see some of these changes that are happening. So

718
00:44:21,277 --> 00:44:25,779
I think it can be really overwhelming, and you can get really depressed

719
00:44:25,819 --> 00:44:29,001
or just overwhelmed at times. But you've got to stay focused on it. You've

720
00:44:29,041 --> 00:44:32,243
got to take action. And you've got to clean the ocean to try and take

721
00:44:33,707 --> 00:44:38,835
Yeah, 100%. I completely agree. I

722
00:44:40,437 --> 00:44:43,783
really relate to Four Oceans because I'm always the guy

723
00:44:43,843 --> 00:44:47,548
who's just like, OK, somebody's got to do this job. I'm

724
00:44:47,568 --> 00:44:50,972
going to just pick up. you know pick up my pants go like just

725
00:44:50,992 --> 00:44:54,256
you know just do it right yes and and let's just get

726
00:44:54,296 --> 00:44:57,479
it done and i think that's what you guys have been able to do and continue to

727
00:44:57,519 --> 00:45:00,742
do it and i think a lot of people relate to that just

728
00:45:00,862 --> 00:45:04,366
by the support that you've been getting not only from a consumer perspective but

729
00:45:04,406 --> 00:45:07,709
also from you know a partnership perspective with other companies that

730
00:45:07,749 --> 00:45:11,043
you've mentioned already and and a lot more I'm

731
00:45:11,124 --> 00:45:14,427
sure. And so I think that's great. Now, I

732
00:45:14,467 --> 00:45:17,671
know you guys are focused on picking up plastic, but do

733
00:45:17,731 --> 00:45:21,775
you have people in your organization that

734
00:45:21,855 --> 00:45:26,100
focuses on the legislative aspect and speaking

735
00:45:27,702 --> 00:45:30,945
to government officials or policy people to be like, hey, look, this

736
00:45:30,965 --> 00:45:34,108
is what we see every day. We've got videos, we've got

737
00:45:34,148 --> 00:45:37,329
stuff like that. I feel like that would be an effective tool to

738
00:45:37,389 --> 00:45:40,691
either partner with another organization that specialize that or

739
00:45:40,731 --> 00:45:43,953
if you're able to do that within your own staff to go

740
00:45:44,073 --> 00:45:47,314
to Congress or go to the

741
00:45:47,654 --> 00:45:51,436
government within the different countries that you work in. Does

742
00:45:51,816 --> 00:45:55,018
Four Oceans have those opportunities to do that or

743
00:45:57,770 --> 00:46:00,952
So right now, we partner with other organizations. And

744
00:46:01,032 --> 00:46:04,874
so we have the 501c3. So 4ocean,

745
00:46:05,834 --> 00:46:09,016
as a company, we have a public benefit corporation, which is

746
00:46:09,076 --> 00:46:12,357
our for-profit business that's partnering with businesses and brands. And

747
00:46:12,377 --> 00:46:15,719
we're selling products and doing things. And all the proceeds go to fund

748
00:46:16,119 --> 00:46:20,161
ocean cleanup. But we also have our 501c3, which is our nonprofit. And

749
00:46:20,241 --> 00:46:24,023
so we historically have not gotten involved in policy. And

750
00:46:24,404 --> 00:46:27,846
some of the different aspects like education and going to schools and

751
00:46:27,866 --> 00:46:30,987
looking at the curriculums and these community engagement. We used to have

752
00:46:31,007 --> 00:46:34,350
a very large community activation team, but once

753
00:46:34,390 --> 00:46:37,972
COVID hit, we couldn't afford to keep them on. And so some

754
00:46:37,992 --> 00:46:41,194
of these different aspects are things that are very hard to

755
00:46:41,294 --> 00:46:44,996
fund on the business side when we have

756
00:46:45,056 --> 00:46:48,278
such a large cleanup crew and the expenses are very, very high.

757
00:46:48,818 --> 00:46:52,179
So that's what we're viewing the nonprofit as, an opportunity to get more involved

758
00:46:52,259 --> 00:46:55,420
in these different areas. And I understand that policy can be a little bit

759
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:59,382
of a hornet's nest, and there's a lot of, you gotta be

760
00:46:59,422 --> 00:47:03,203
careful with how you manage that, because we

761
00:47:03,243 --> 00:47:06,424
want to try and drive as much awareness as possible, and we wanna try and

762
00:47:06,444 --> 00:47:10,226
have that impact and change. But I will tell you, I will

763
00:47:10,246 --> 00:47:13,587
be the first one to admit, when it comes to policy, when it comes to legislation, I

764
00:47:13,627 --> 00:47:17,289
am not an expert in that space. I am still very new to it, And

765
00:47:17,309 --> 00:47:20,498
I will tell you the things that I've seen and heard even on

766
00:47:20,518 --> 00:47:23,942
the Global Plastics Treaty that's happening right now. there

767
00:47:24,022 --> 00:47:27,346
are things that are a little discouraging, right? Because what I've heard is that like,

768
00:47:27,366 --> 00:47:30,669
hey, you know, this will be our, I think our fourth, fourth meeting, correct?

769
00:47:31,229 --> 00:47:34,272
So this is the fourth meeting and I, and I dig in, I'm so excited. I

770
00:47:34,292 --> 00:47:37,536
was just at Circularity Conference and Green Biz and you

771
00:47:37,576 --> 00:47:40,819
know, those are great, great events to get together with like-minded individuals in

772
00:47:40,839 --> 00:47:44,142
the sustainability space. And I'm like, guys, so tell me like, what are your thoughts? What

773
00:47:44,162 --> 00:47:47,445
are you seeing? And I got to tell you, it was a consistent theme

774
00:47:47,485 --> 00:47:50,808
of like, I'll be honest with you, it's just like a big run

775
00:47:50,848 --> 00:47:54,070
around. Like we go here, they're telling me all the things that happen as

776
00:47:54,110 --> 00:47:57,473
far as like, uh, we've proposed X amount of things, but

777
00:47:57,493 --> 00:48:00,856
then overnight they switched them to like this massive thing. And then there's

778
00:48:00,896 --> 00:48:04,118
like. Four to one lobbyist compared to the people that are there

779
00:48:04,158 --> 00:48:07,260
from a sustainable perspective. And so there's so many things that

780
00:48:07,300 --> 00:48:11,103
it's like, ah, man, like I really want to, to

781
00:48:11,203 --> 00:48:14,526
see progress in this space. And, and just to understand that it is, it

782
00:48:38,712 --> 00:48:43,038
While they might be getting sidetracked or not

783
00:48:43,058 --> 00:48:46,763
really reaching in the end goal, I think that we're making progress and

784
00:48:49,854 --> 00:48:53,057
I completely agree and you know there's going to be you know there's

785
00:48:53,077 --> 00:48:56,280
a lot of people who a lot of companies who depend on

786
00:48:56,340 --> 00:48:59,984
plastics for their bottom line and they're not going to give it up quickly

787
00:49:00,585 --> 00:49:03,868
and and you know they send lobbyists and Ottawa we've had

788
00:49:03,908 --> 00:49:07,231
people on where they went to Ottawa meeting and here just just north

789
00:49:07,271 --> 00:49:10,694
of here like four hours north of here and They're saying, yeah, there's so

790
00:49:10,754 --> 00:49:14,197
many lobbyists that work for the plastics industry, the chemical industries.

791
00:49:14,458 --> 00:49:17,881
But I think what happens is we're learning from that. You know, we're learning that,

792
00:49:18,181 --> 00:49:21,584
like, they're worried about these types of movements.

793
00:49:21,624 --> 00:49:25,107
They're worried about these types of laws and regulations that are coming in. and

794
00:49:25,127 --> 00:49:28,990
we're making some progress on finding sustainable alternatives.

795
00:49:29,010 --> 00:49:32,292
I mean, you've built a business on a sustainable bracelet and

796
00:49:32,332 --> 00:49:35,474
people are buying it because they see the work that

797
00:49:35,494 --> 00:49:39,337
you're doing. And I think, I feel like 4ocean is

798
00:49:39,377 --> 00:49:42,939
the opportunity to really get people to see how

799
00:49:42,999 --> 00:49:46,721
much trash is out there. We've been talking about it for decades, but

800
00:49:46,881 --> 00:49:51,364
really there hasn't been a company that's consistently

801
00:49:51,544 --> 00:49:54,945
showing Not only doing, but showing the amount

802
00:49:54,986 --> 00:49:58,546
of trash that you face on a regular basis. And it

803
00:49:58,566 --> 00:50:01,707
is, sometimes it's devastating too. When you look at it, you're like, oh

804
00:50:01,727 --> 00:50:05,107
my gosh. But then when you see people cleaning it up, you get that optimism just

805
00:50:05,147 --> 00:50:08,348
like you are. You get that optimism like, all right, so this river can be

806
00:50:08,408 --> 00:50:11,709
salvageable. This coastline is salvageable. Even though

807
00:50:11,749 --> 00:50:15,069
they took the time out and did it, and it may have taken them a week,

808
00:50:15,189 --> 00:50:18,570
two weeks, a couple of months to clean this up. they've

809
00:50:18,630 --> 00:50:22,953
cleaned it up. And I think that is, that's such

810
00:50:22,993 --> 00:50:26,296
a positive message that comes out of it. And now it's

811
00:50:26,316 --> 00:50:29,638
just a matter of like, how do we make sure that that doesn't, you

812
00:50:29,658 --> 00:50:32,920
know, accumulate again in that very same

813
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:36,283
spot. And I think, I feel like that's a

814
00:50:36,323 --> 00:50:39,525
way that we can really move forward. But being able to see that, being able for

815
00:50:39,585 --> 00:50:42,967
you to provide that, I think is really great.

816
00:50:42,987 --> 00:50:46,190
Can you talk maybe like about a project that you're working on

817
00:50:46,270 --> 00:50:49,773
now or that one of your areas,

818
00:50:49,833 --> 00:50:53,097
like one of your groups of staff or locations are

819
00:50:53,137 --> 00:50:56,500
working on now that you would like sort of the audience to know just

820
00:50:56,540 --> 00:50:59,684
sort of how you're tackling it and how long a project takes and

821
00:51:01,466 --> 00:51:05,106
Sure, sure. Let's take

822
00:51:05,126 --> 00:51:08,228
Bali. So in Bali, Indonesia, right now, one of

823
00:51:08,248 --> 00:51:12,030
the things that we're doing is we're expanding our locations. So we have satellite offices. So

824
00:51:12,090 --> 00:51:15,252
we have our headquarters there, and then we have satellite offices. And

825
00:51:15,652 --> 00:51:19,554
what we typically do is we are utilizing a

826
00:51:19,654 --> 00:51:23,276
similar management strategy, or

827
00:51:23,296 --> 00:51:26,470
a similar hierarchy. And we're going to expand to these different areas. So we

828
00:51:26,530 --> 00:51:29,773
actually just moved over to the island of Java, which is an island just

829
00:51:29,833 --> 00:51:33,116
next to Bali. And we're expanding in that area. So, you know, it takes,

830
00:51:33,756 --> 00:51:36,879
uh, it will take anywhere from sometimes six months to a

831
00:51:36,939 --> 00:51:40,102
year to really formalize, you know, and, and I mean, these are, these

832
00:51:40,162 --> 00:51:43,425
are not like, you know, we're not just showing up with like a tent on a beach. Like we have

833
00:51:43,965 --> 00:51:47,865
full on facilities, I mean, at our, our Gembrana facility. So. I

834
00:51:47,885 --> 00:51:51,588
don't know if there's any photos up behind us here, but we actually have full-on, yeah,

835
00:51:51,608 --> 00:51:55,711
actually right up here. So this is a full-on recycling infrastructure. So

836
00:51:56,151 --> 00:52:00,455
in our facility in Gibrana, we're building, you know, these large warehouses

837
00:52:00,635 --> 00:52:04,918
and inside of it we have shredders, grinders, wash

838
00:52:04,978 --> 00:52:08,801
machines. We have a wastewater treatment plant. We have, you

839
00:52:08,821 --> 00:52:12,023
know, backup generators. We have It's a full-on operation that

840
00:52:12,043 --> 00:52:15,226
we have to build these different areas. So, you know, it takes a

841
00:52:15,266 --> 00:52:18,849
long time to set up. So once we get that going, we'll hire

842
00:52:19,089 --> 00:52:22,392
a manager for that location and then we'll build

843
00:52:22,412 --> 00:52:25,795
the team. And so, you know, it's getting the vessels, getting the...

844
00:52:26,135 --> 00:52:29,678
And we operate multiple different vessels. We have everything from a jukung, which

845
00:52:29,758 --> 00:52:33,000
is a Bali traditional style boat, that has kind

846
00:52:33,060 --> 00:52:36,322
of, you know, almost like pontoons, kind of like these right

847
00:52:36,362 --> 00:52:39,744
there. Then we'll use like skiffs, we use river

848
00:52:39,784 --> 00:52:43,165
boats, catamarans, kayaks, little plastic

849
00:52:43,185 --> 00:52:47,587
john boats, like we're attacking it from all different angles. And

850
00:52:47,667 --> 00:52:50,929
so it's, you know, it's a process to get set up. And so the

851
00:52:50,969 --> 00:52:54,310
team really just spends the time, we

852
00:52:54,370 --> 00:52:57,532
come up with a plan and we try and execute. And I think that's something that

853
00:52:57,972 --> 00:53:01,753
It'll take anywhere from six months to a year to get set up, but we're constantly improving.

854
00:53:03,934 --> 00:53:07,174
Yeah, for sure. And that's an evolution that

855
00:53:07,214 --> 00:53:10,515
will never stop, I think, and I love that. When

856
00:53:10,875 --> 00:53:14,176
you collected all the materials, you sort it, you grind

857
00:53:14,216 --> 00:53:17,397
it up, whatever, cut it, whatever you have to do with it. One of the big

858
00:53:17,477 --> 00:53:20,758
problems with plastic is trying to figure out what to

859
00:53:20,818 --> 00:53:25,220
do with it. We know the problems in North America with recycling. You

860
00:53:25,260 --> 00:53:28,362
know, it's a bit of a misleading sort of

861
00:53:29,262 --> 00:53:32,485
area for here in North America where some things can be

862
00:53:32,545 --> 00:53:36,267
recycled, some things can't. But it's confusing a

863
00:53:36,287 --> 00:53:39,630
lot of times of what you can put out and you're recycling. And that changes by

864
00:53:39,890 --> 00:53:43,712
region or by country or by municipality and

865
00:53:44,013 --> 00:53:47,115
county and so forth. So when

866
00:53:47,155 --> 00:53:50,998
you have facilities like that and you're able to sort it all down, grind it all down, what

867
00:53:53,527 --> 00:53:56,909
Sure, sure. So I'll actually even start from when we collect

868
00:53:56,949 --> 00:54:00,071
it. Yeah, that'd be great. So we track all the plastic that

869
00:54:00,091 --> 00:54:03,292
we collect. So what we do is we take photos of the crews that are going to be heading out

870
00:54:03,332 --> 00:54:06,574
on the water. We take photographs before, during, and

871
00:54:06,794 --> 00:54:10,076
after their cleanups to showcase exactly where this plastic is being

872
00:54:10,136 --> 00:54:13,618
collected and show the proof of these beaches and these coastlines

873
00:54:13,658 --> 00:54:16,919
and these oceans being clean. So all that plastic is then brought back

874
00:54:16,959 --> 00:54:21,122
to our facility. And our facility, each individual super sack,

875
00:54:21,222 --> 00:54:24,524
which is what we put all the plastic into it, is photographed and weighed

876
00:54:24,584 --> 00:54:28,006
individually. So all that information is then uploaded onto a

877
00:54:28,067 --> 00:54:31,509
physical sheet that we're tracking, and it's going into our digital trash tracker.

878
00:54:31,909 --> 00:54:35,291
So basically, we can go back to any pound that has been recovered over

879
00:54:35,331 --> 00:54:38,473
the past eight years And you can go back and see the day, the

880
00:54:38,553 --> 00:54:41,854
time, the captains and crew that were cleaning it, the time spent cleaning,

881
00:54:41,914 --> 00:54:45,496
the location, and all the photographs of that cleanup. So

882
00:54:45,536 --> 00:54:49,118
that's something that we've really put a ton of energy and effort into it when we started 4ocean,

883
00:54:49,138 --> 00:54:52,339
because we wanted to be transparent with our cleanups. Once that

884
00:54:52,379 --> 00:54:55,981
material is back at our facility, it depends on the location. So

885
00:54:56,121 --> 00:54:59,622
every location is different, but recycling is our highest priority.

886
00:54:59,862 --> 00:55:03,724
What we're doing is we're sorting this material by type, color, and condition, and

887
00:55:03,764 --> 00:55:06,805
preparing it for future recycling. So for example, in

888
00:55:06,825 --> 00:55:10,267
Gembrana, we have a facility. So we have a shredder, we

889
00:55:10,307 --> 00:55:14,028
have a wash tank, and a dryer, and we're processing it into

890
00:55:14,088 --> 00:55:18,409
a usable feedstock that can be recycled into new products. In

891
00:55:18,609 --> 00:55:21,690
Guatemala, we have a bunch of partners where we're transporting, because we

892
00:55:21,730 --> 00:55:25,811
don't need to own the actual facilities, because the partnerships, I'm

893
00:55:25,831 --> 00:55:29,412
sorry, the facilities exist that we can partner with to send these materials.

894
00:55:29,792 --> 00:55:33,093
So what we're doing is we're batching the materials in large batches, and

895
00:55:33,113 --> 00:55:36,453
then once we reach the necessary MOQs, or

896
00:55:36,973 --> 00:55:40,094
the volumes that it's efficient to ship this material, because you want

897
00:55:40,114 --> 00:55:43,895
to be as efficient as possible, so we're compressing it into what's known as bales. We're

898
00:55:43,955 --> 00:55:47,376
using a baler, which is compressing into little cubes, which

899
00:55:47,676 --> 00:55:50,836
is a highly densified plastic. And then we're shipping it to

900
00:55:50,877 --> 00:55:54,357
these locations. So the highest volume, the highest quality

901
00:55:54,377 --> 00:55:57,678
of plastic is being converted into products and

902
00:55:57,758 --> 00:56:01,159
even stockpiling. We have stockpiles of massive

903
00:56:01,199 --> 00:56:04,719
amounts of good quality plastic that we're ready to make new materials

904
00:56:04,739 --> 00:56:08,560
with and new products that can drive awareness around ocean plastic. The

905
00:56:08,620 --> 00:56:12,102
mid-grade materials are being used to create construction materials.

906
00:56:12,262 --> 00:56:16,064
So think of like a synthetic board or synthetic beam. So

907
00:56:16,084 --> 00:56:19,726
they're making roofing tiles, boards, pool deck, decking,

908
00:56:19,766 --> 00:56:23,608
and things like that. And then the lowest quality of material is

909
00:56:23,728 --> 00:56:26,970
either being co-processed, converted into

910
00:56:27,010 --> 00:56:30,191
electricity, or it's being landfilled. But we try

911
00:56:30,211 --> 00:56:33,474
to avoid landfill at all costs. There's just some things that you just can't

912
00:56:33,514 --> 00:56:36,838
do. Dirty diapers, the fabric loaded

913
00:56:36,898 --> 00:56:40,182
with mud and all sorts of stuff. And there's just materials that you have

914
00:56:40,222 --> 00:56:43,726
to find a sustainable solution. And we're always looking for better outlets.

915
00:56:43,786 --> 00:56:46,870
So if anybody out there does have any suggestions on

916
00:56:50,202 --> 00:56:53,427
Yeah, and I mean, at some point, like, you know, it's

917
00:56:53,628 --> 00:56:57,153
not your fault that you can't do something with it. It's just the material

918
00:56:57,213 --> 00:57:00,419
itself. And I think that's important for

919
00:57:00,439 --> 00:57:03,735
everybody to know. It's like you're just trying to you know, take this

920
00:57:03,776 --> 00:57:07,278
material and put them away so that if it's in a landfill, it stays in the landfill.

921
00:57:07,298 --> 00:57:10,921
It's not gonna rush out and I think that's really

922
00:57:10,981 --> 00:57:14,263
important to realize. If somebody's taking care of where

923
00:57:14,303 --> 00:57:18,466
this material needs to go, how it needs to be sorted, can it be reused, is

924
00:57:18,506 --> 00:57:22,129
there a market to be reused and so forth. And I think that's

925
00:57:22,149 --> 00:57:25,651
like That's the part you don't really see too from your business,

926
00:57:25,871 --> 00:57:29,094
you know is is you see the cleanup and stuff, which is great but

927
00:57:29,614 --> 00:57:32,777
that's the hard part is what to do with the material and

928
00:57:33,317 --> 00:57:37,180
I Give you guys a lot of kudos to you know building the

929
00:57:37,320 --> 00:57:41,284
the the the warehouses or or plants to sort

930
00:57:41,324 --> 00:57:44,806
this out and hiring the crews to sort this out not just cleaning them up and you

931
00:57:44,826 --> 00:57:48,170
know, dumping them somewhere where they'll probably end up being back in

932
00:57:48,190 --> 00:57:51,554
the ocean, you know, where it goes. Because that's a big problem, especially

933
00:57:51,574 --> 00:57:55,438
in small island states where they may not have the infrastructure for

934
00:57:56,459 --> 00:57:59,763
that type of waste management. So that's just amazing.

935
00:57:59,803 --> 00:58:03,006
I appreciate you going through that and the work that

936
00:58:05,848 --> 00:58:09,110
I appreciate it, and it's actually something that we realize as

937
00:58:09,170 --> 00:58:12,851
well, is that we've shown so much of the ocean cleanup and

938
00:58:13,231 --> 00:58:16,513
the slow motion shot of the scooping of the net.

939
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:20,563
But we've got to show the nitty gritty. We've got to show behind the scenes. We've got to

940
00:58:20,583 --> 00:58:23,826
show how hard we work. And that is something that we're actively trying to

941
00:58:23,886 --> 00:58:27,490
do, is because social media, obviously, with

942
00:58:27,750 --> 00:58:30,953
these new algorithms, social media will always favor like, oh, no, we just want

943
00:58:30,993 --> 00:58:34,837
to see the great, amazing, polished shot

944
00:58:35,177 --> 00:58:38,280
of the cleanup. But what we're doing is we actually just launched a

945
00:58:38,600 --> 00:58:41,723
like a vlog like a YouTube channel And so what this is is

946
00:58:41,783 --> 00:58:45,106
it's a longer form content 30 40 50 minutes And

947
00:58:45,146 --> 00:58:48,469
this is you're gonna see the nuts and bolts behind 4ocean and

948
00:58:48,509 --> 00:58:52,252
this is where on the we just went to Bali and every single day I

949
00:58:52,332 --> 00:58:55,573
gave an overview and we just did a day in the life of each and every

950
00:58:55,633 --> 00:58:59,554
one of our locations from plastic to processing, uh, processing

951
00:58:59,574 --> 00:59:03,075
the plastic transporting, you know, we even had like a team field

952
00:59:03,095 --> 00:59:06,556
day. And so we got all the locations together. We had like 140 people

953
00:59:07,016 --> 00:59:11,898
and we did like, uh, we did a tug war, volleyball. obstacle

954
00:59:11,958 --> 00:59:15,219
courses. Man, we did everything, literally

955
00:59:15,279 --> 00:59:19,502
pillow fighting, Indonesian culture pillow fighting on the boats. Unbelievable,

956
00:59:19,902 --> 00:59:23,243
but I'm so excited to share this level of detail about

957
00:59:23,344 --> 00:59:27,025
4ocean because there's so many amazing things that are happening. There's so many people and

958
00:59:27,085 --> 00:59:31,148
our captains and crew work so hard, so I'm just so excited to be able to showcase what

959
00:59:31,188 --> 00:59:34,709
they're doing in the world and be able to show that to the world about what

960
00:59:36,670 --> 00:59:40,012
Absolutely. And I mean, you got to be careful because you're going to get more people

961
00:59:40,032 --> 00:59:43,253
who are going to want to work for you. It could be really batting down

962
00:59:43,293 --> 00:59:46,555
the doors, but it's, it's, I think it's, it's, it's

963
00:59:46,815 --> 00:59:50,196
a great model to show people what a company should

964
00:59:50,236 --> 00:59:54,278
look like doing something good for the environment, like great for the environment, working

965
00:59:54,358 --> 00:59:58,080
to make it even better and always going through those iterations, but

966
00:59:58,140 --> 01:00:01,461
also showing like what a company culture should look like and what happens when

967
01:00:01,501 --> 01:00:04,961
you invest in your staff. And it is like a family

968
01:00:05,021 --> 01:00:08,063
culture. And I love to hear that. It's a

969
01:00:08,123 --> 01:00:11,564
grueling job. Some of these jobs,

970
01:00:11,584 --> 01:00:14,926
like we've mentioned, it's hard work, and not only on

971
01:00:14,946 --> 01:00:18,828
the water, but also on land to do the sorting and everything. But

972
01:00:18,868 --> 01:00:22,270
it's great to see a company that brings together and values its

973
01:00:22,310 --> 01:00:25,532
employees and staff so much to say, hey, look,

974
01:00:25,572 --> 01:00:28,954
we appreciate you. And it's great to almost

975
01:00:29,034 --> 01:00:32,375
profile them. Like, here's so-and-so, and he's doing this,

976
01:00:36,117 --> 01:00:39,358
That's what we're trying to do. I love it. Oh, man,

977
01:00:39,398 --> 01:00:42,779
it's like you've been in my brain. I love that aspect. I've always been saying

978
01:00:42,799 --> 01:00:46,020
that organizations should do more of that. So it's great to see

979
01:00:46,061 --> 01:00:49,702
that you guys are doing that. Now, I

980
01:00:49,722 --> 01:00:52,903
know there's the bracelet, and that's how people can

981
01:00:52,923 --> 01:00:56,124
support. So I kind of want to just, as we end this

982
01:00:56,164 --> 01:00:59,436
interview here, I've got a great

983
01:00:59,496 --> 01:01:02,702
audience who want to help, who want to support. So how

984
01:01:02,842 --> 01:01:06,067
can they support? You got the bracelet, but are there other ways that they can

985
01:01:09,820 --> 01:01:13,002
Absolutely. And so that's a great topic, is while we've made so

986
01:01:13,062 --> 01:01:16,324
much progress over the past eight years, and we're so proud of

987
01:01:16,364 --> 01:01:19,706
what our team has accomplished, these are recurring funds that

988
01:01:19,726 --> 01:01:23,108
hit every single day. And so, you know, in the experience where videos

989
01:01:23,148 --> 01:01:26,370
go viral and you get a ton of attention, that's fantastic. You're growing,

990
01:01:26,390 --> 01:01:29,592
you've got the revenue and you've got the capital to continue to invest. When

991
01:01:29,633 --> 01:01:33,115
these videos don't go viral, and when you experience these hurdles like

992
01:01:33,155 --> 01:01:36,701
COVID, or changes in algorithms for marketing channels

993
01:01:36,761 --> 01:01:40,023
and things like that. We still have these ongoing expenses. Our

994
01:01:40,064 --> 01:01:44,387
expenses have been growing in a linear format.

995
01:01:44,507 --> 01:01:47,890
They just continue to grow. And so it's something that we're constantly still trying

996
01:01:47,931 --> 01:01:51,294
to grow and create new innovative business models to continue

997
01:01:51,314 --> 01:01:54,737
to fund. And so for people's interest in getting involved, the

998
01:01:54,777 --> 01:01:58,240
bracelet's the easiest way for a consumer to get involved. We've started

999
01:01:58,300 --> 01:02:01,964
our B2B business, which is our business-to-business focus,

1000
01:02:02,385 --> 01:02:05,848
helping these brands implement sustainability programs. And

1001
01:02:05,909 --> 01:02:09,372
so what we've done, it's actually become a very big portion of

1002
01:02:09,452 --> 01:02:12,596
our company. And so what we're doing is we're working with brands to

1003
01:02:12,636 --> 01:02:16,260
help them implement sustainability programs. So the first program is

1004
01:02:16,300 --> 01:02:19,743
our plastic offset program. So we work with a brand that's producing

1005
01:02:19,783 --> 01:02:22,886
plastic in their products or packaging. They want to get to a

1006
01:02:22,946 --> 01:02:26,269
compostable, biodegradable, or sustainable solution, but some

1007
01:02:26,309 --> 01:02:29,651
of it, the technology just doesn't exist today. So what they're doing

1008
01:02:29,691 --> 01:02:33,214
is they're coming to us, we're calculating that footprint, and we're removing

1009
01:02:33,254 --> 01:02:36,977
the equivalent amount of plastic directly from the ocean. So think of it as like carbon offsets,

1010
01:02:37,337 --> 01:02:40,499
but for plastic. And we know that this is not a silver bullet and just

1011
01:02:40,539 --> 01:02:43,741
a get out of jail free, like, hey, they can wipe their conscience with this. But

1012
01:02:43,782 --> 01:02:47,444
in the meantime, until that innovation happens in the packaging sector, this

1013
01:02:47,484 --> 01:02:50,846
is an opportunity for businesses to start taking responsibility for their actions

1014
01:02:51,286 --> 01:02:54,649
and really looking at the materials they're putting out into the market and helping to

1015
01:02:54,749 --> 01:02:58,031
fund cleanups of captains and crews around the world. So that's one

1016
01:02:58,091 --> 01:03:01,653
way. We also offer our pull a pound partnership. So

1017
01:03:01,693 --> 01:03:05,015
we offer the same commitment that for every product sold,

1018
01:03:05,496 --> 01:03:08,837
4ocean will remove X from the ocean. So we're partnered with

1019
01:03:09,237 --> 01:03:12,498
electric outboard companies that are removing 300 pounds for every motor

1020
01:03:12,518 --> 01:03:16,519
sold. Shampoo bar companies that are removing plastic from

1021
01:03:16,559 --> 01:03:19,820
the ocean for every shampoo bar sold. There's a ton of different examples of

1022
01:03:19,880 --> 01:03:23,141
companies that are trying to take tangible actions with the products they

1023
01:03:23,201 --> 01:03:26,321
sell into funding ocean cleanup. And

1024
01:03:26,341 --> 01:03:29,642
then lastly, it's like the certified cleanup partnership. This is just for different

1025
01:03:29,682 --> 01:03:33,143
brands that want to do more of a sponsorship and activation. and

1026
01:03:33,403 --> 01:03:36,645
be able to do something for like Earth Day or World Oceans Day or things

1027
01:03:36,685 --> 01:03:39,966
like that. And then I guess actually, lastly, we do corporate gift

1028
01:03:40,026 --> 01:03:44,108
bracelets. So we can make brands. We've made bracelets for Dell,

1029
01:03:44,348 --> 01:03:47,550
HP, Corona, T-Mobile, Barbie, some large

1030
01:03:47,590 --> 01:03:51,091
companies that you can get your brand colors, a custom charm

1031
01:03:51,131 --> 01:03:54,413
with your brand's logo on it. and it will pull plastic and

1032
01:03:54,433 --> 01:03:57,875
trash from the ocean. So they're great holiday gifts, great, you know, handouts for

1033
01:03:57,935 --> 01:04:01,337
events and things like that. But that's how we're funding

1034
01:04:01,377 --> 01:04:04,699
it from a business perspective. And then I'd say lastly is

1035
01:04:04,799 --> 01:04:08,101
on the foundation side. So we have the 4ocean Foundation, which

1036
01:04:08,161 --> 01:04:12,083
is really going to be geared towards expanding education, advocacy,

1037
01:04:12,483 --> 01:04:16,005
community activation, community cleanups, and and even cleanups

1038
01:04:16,426 --> 01:04:20,147
as a whole. So that's an opportunity to get involved just purely from a 501c3

1039
01:04:20,187 --> 01:04:24,409
perspective. So you've got the bracelet side for consumers, you've

1040
01:04:28,469 --> 01:04:31,872
I love it. I love all of it. That is amazing. Alex,

1041
01:04:31,912 --> 01:04:36,295
you have built quite the company organization

1042
01:04:36,315 --> 01:04:39,678
and it's been a pleasure to dive deep into that

1043
01:04:39,798 --> 01:04:42,961
and we appreciate the transparency of showing sort of

1044
01:04:42,981 --> 01:04:46,123
the nuts and bolts behind it and the evolution behind it. It's

1045
01:04:46,183 --> 01:04:50,006
been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast. Love

1046
01:04:50,026 --> 01:04:53,529
to have you back on or somebody from your staff to kind of detail

1047
01:04:53,569 --> 01:04:56,932
different Projects and and really get into some of those projects and

1048
01:04:56,952 --> 01:05:00,935
give people more hope and more optimism around what we can do And

1049
01:05:04,257 --> 01:05:07,720
Of course. Thank you so much Andrew I appreciate it. It was great speaking with you and we'll

1050
01:05:08,268 --> 01:05:11,451
Thank you, Alex, for joining us on this episode of the How to Protect the

1051
01:05:11,491 --> 01:05:15,314
Ocean podcast. Really love the fact that you spent some time with us today to

1052
01:05:15,794 --> 01:05:19,498
be able to talk about four oceans. What an incredible story.

1053
01:05:20,018 --> 01:05:23,301
Unreal, like just ridiculous. There's a lot of clips

1054
01:05:23,361 --> 01:05:27,544
in there that I'm gonna be clipping and putting it on social media that people need to hear because

1055
01:05:27,805 --> 01:05:32,068
to build a story like this, to build a company and

1056
01:05:32,088 --> 01:05:35,431
a process like this, to be able to be all over the world and 40 million

1057
01:05:35,471 --> 01:05:38,865
pounds of plastic, blows my mind.

1058
01:05:39,947 --> 01:05:43,191
I think it's something that we really haven't seen that

1059
01:05:43,251 --> 01:05:46,395
much of. I hope we see more of and more companies being able to do this.

1060
01:05:46,856 --> 01:05:50,461
And if you've ever followed Alex on LinkedIn, He's

1061
01:05:50,641 --> 01:05:54,382
always talking about how much fun he has, how much he appreciates the

1062
01:05:54,422 --> 01:05:57,503
staff, and how the company appreciates the

1063
01:05:57,523 --> 01:06:00,684
staff, and what he sees on a daily basis, some of the

1064
01:06:01,084 --> 01:06:04,785
challenges that they face. Sometimes it's harder than others to clean

1065
01:06:04,825 --> 01:06:08,206
up this plastic, especially at the beginning of a project, but then the feeling that

1066
01:06:08,226 --> 01:06:11,807
he gets afterwards. You can follow that on LinkedIn. It's amazing

1067
01:06:12,187 --> 01:06:15,568
to see what he posts and some of the places he's been and

1068
01:06:15,588 --> 01:06:18,669
the staff have been and what they've been able to accomplish as a

1069
01:06:18,769 --> 01:06:21,890
company organization and a charity. It's incredible. I

1070
01:06:21,930 --> 01:06:25,491
can't wait to see what the next eight years gives.

1071
01:06:25,652 --> 01:06:29,313
It's going to be incredible. Love the fact that he was very transparent

1072
01:06:29,353 --> 01:06:32,574
talking about some of the good times, some of the bad times. But I'd love to hear

1073
01:06:32,654 --> 01:06:35,895
your thoughts on Four Oceans. Have you bought a bracelet? Are you

1074
01:06:36,915 --> 01:06:40,036
thinking of maybe having a company that you work for try and

1075
01:06:40,076 --> 01:06:43,458
help Four Oceans out by having

1076
01:06:43,498 --> 01:06:47,039
maybe some branded bracelets to give to people? I

1077
01:06:47,059 --> 01:06:50,260
know my organization, my company that I work for, they go

1078
01:06:50,280 --> 01:06:53,381
to conferences all the time. They're always hanging out swag. I

1079
01:06:53,401 --> 01:06:56,586
think hanging out with Swag where you're like, hey, this company, as we pay

1080
01:06:56,626 --> 01:06:59,931
for this, we're funding plastic ocean cleanups, I

1081
01:06:59,951 --> 01:07:03,797
think is one of the things that would be really cool to see. So

1082
01:07:03,817 --> 01:07:06,921
I'd love to hear if you're going to try and do that with your company and try and convince them in what

1083
01:07:06,961 --> 01:07:10,345
you're going to do to do that. So that's going to be incredible. I'd

1084
01:07:10,385 --> 01:07:14,008
love to hear what you have to say on that. You can put a comment on

1085
01:07:14,088 --> 01:07:17,511
Spotify, on YouTube, on the video, just put in the comments. And

1086
01:07:17,531 --> 01:07:20,814
of course, if you want to get in touch with me and let me know what you want to do with this and

1087
01:07:20,874 --> 01:07:24,117
what you thought of the interview and what you think of Four Oceans, please let

1088
01:07:24,157 --> 01:07:27,660
me know on Instagram. DM me at HowToProtectTheOcean. That's

1089
01:07:27,860 --> 01:07:31,242
at HowToProtectTheOcean. But I want to thank you so much. for joining

1090
01:07:31,362 --> 01:07:34,924
me today. And Alex, I want to thank you for spending an hour with me and

1091
01:07:34,964 --> 01:07:38,125
our audience to tell us more about 4oceans. Thank you

1092
01:07:38,145 --> 01:07:41,286
so much for joining us on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have