Meeting People
Revolutionizing Recycling: Polytag's QR Codes, Productivity Insights, and the Future of Work-Life Balance - Alice Rackley
"Actions speak louder than words" is a hackneyed phrase but nowhere is it more applicable than with Alice Rackley and the plastics problem. I really enjoyed to speaking to the CEO of Polytag; a circular economy focused company looking to tackle waste in the realm of packaging. Not only is she a friend, mentor and all-round inspiration but also a force of nature. Beyond plastic packaging we cover modern working, leadership, management, the power of networking, gsd*, and the challenges of being a mother/CEO in 2024. Spoiler alert - Environmental virtue signalling from companies isn't matched by tangible action.
*getting s*%£ done
"Actions speak louder than words" is a hackneyed phrase but nowhere is it more applicable than with Alice Rackley and the plastics problem. I really enjoyed to speaking to the CEO of Polytag; a circular economy focused company looking to tackle waste in the realm of packaging. Not only is she a friend, mentor and all-round inspiration but also a force of nature. Beyond plastic packaging we cover modern working, leadership, management, the power of networking, gsd*, and the challenges of being a mother/CEO in 2024. Spoiler alert - Environmental virtue signalling from companies isn't matched by tangible action.
*getting s*%£ done
Hello and welcome to Meeting People with me, amal Pandya. Meeting People is a podcast where I have long conversations with adventurous, rebellious and sometimes courteous free spirits, and today I'm super excited to have Alice Rackley with me. Say hello, alice, hello everybody. Alice is a business leader, an entrepreneur, a mentor and, I would say, an all-round inspiration to anyone looking to make a difference and get on in life. So I'm really really looking forward to this conversation. Alice, thanks for being here and sparing the time.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for that introduction. That's very kind of you, amal.
Speaker 1:Well, look, normally I try and start these things by kind of fleshing out a bit of the personal side of things, but I think I want to come to that a bit later and talk about the mission to begin with, because what you're working on at the moment is something that obviously carries a lot of importance, not just for people today but for our futures as well, and effectively. I'll let you explain it better, but the way I see it is, we have a plastic problem and you're trying to solve that in some way. Now, initially I viewed the kind of idea of banning single-use plastics as a bit of a luxury belief. It's something that is held by people with discretionary spending power and time, which is generally the people who have luxury beliefs. Now, what I find interesting about what you're doing is trying to accept that we have plastics, but what can we do about it to make it a bit more? You know, to come to terms with that and tackle it without banning it. Is that a fair way of looking at it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the plastics problem is massive and there's no one silver bullet, and banning it would be the one silver bullet, but it's just not realistic. We kind of come to rely on plastics in many aspects of our life, from healthcare through to food and beverage. It's not going away and there isn't one single problem, and you all have heard lots of people talking about, like designing packaging better, ensuring it's made out of material that can be easily recycled or indeed can be reused. So, yeah, there's lots of different things that can be done to solve it. There isn't one single silver bullet, but the particular focus of the business that I'm running at the moment, which is called Polytag, is on collecting data about the life cycle of plastics so that those brands that deal in single-use plastic can make more informed decisions, and then unlocking some incentives and ways to optimise the recycling rates of the single-use plastic. So it's really quite a small part of a huge problem that we've developed a solution for.
Speaker 1:Right, I try and be a good citizen. When I'm walking down the street and I've not found a glass bottle of water, I've had to buy a plastic bottle of water and I finished it, maybe walked past two or three bins until I see a recycling bin and I'll put it in there, feeling slightly good about myself. Now, what's really happening after that, when that plastic bottle goes in the recycling bin? What's the journey that typically happens with what I've just done?
Speaker 2:Well, if you put it in your home recycling bin, there's actually a much greater chance that it's going to take into a sorting centre and then the plastic will get bailed, and then that bail of plastic will be taken to a plastics recycling centre and it will be washed and flaked and then pelletised and sold, as, in that case, the plastic bottle RPET. So it will be turned back into a plastic bottle, hopefully. If you put it in a street bin where it's likely to be covered in unsavories and chips and what have you, the chances are it's probably just going to get burned, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:And tell me then what it is. What's the kind of solution that you guys? Can you go a bit deeper into the solution?
Speaker 2:that you guys are trying to help with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Polytag is a two-tag solution for labels that will be applied to single-use plastic bottles, and the first tag format is a unique, every-time QR code. It means every single instance of packaging has got a unique identifier on it, baked into a QR code, and that QR code can be used to take consumers to a landing page where they can access information about that particular barcode. So, in particular, you know, give them quite rich, hyper-relevant recycling instruction if the brand chooses. But the same QR code can also be used by any app to manage rewards and loyalty schemes. And our particular area of interest is in managing deposits.
Speaker 2:Right, because there's this piece of legislation that is gaining traction across Europe and hopefully you know we'll see it land in the UK called deposit return scheme, and traditionally what that's meant is that when you buy a bottle of single-use plastic bottle, you pay an extra 20 pence, for example, at the point of purchase, and you get that 20 pence back when you dispose of the bottle in a correct reverse vending machine. Right, but reverse vending machines, I mean I could spend all day talking about you know why? They're 1980s technology but also supercarbon intensive in the way they're manufactured and also in the way that they're maintained and emptied, et cetera. They're also not particularly convenient for today's consumer who, from banking through to organising taxis, tend to use their mobile devices. And why would you want to manage deposits on in-scope containers any differently? And so that unique, every-time QR code that we're putting onto labels can be used by a recycling app for consumers to claim their 20 pence deposits back and incentivise more people to dispose of their plastic in the correct bins?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're like a bit like the old days where you would take your bottles back to whoever and you'd get a you know 5p back, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:That's right. I didn't think you were old enough to remember that. Yeah, people talk about Corona lemonade bottles.
Speaker 1:I remember it from being a kid visiting family in India.
Speaker 1:And it's still a huge thing in India, where you know you'll see people rooting through bins to collect them up, to try and, you know, get enough to feed themselves at the end of the day. So it's certainly it's amazing how these things can go full circle. And are you finding it? What are the frustrations about doing what you do in terms of getting traction or getting people interested? Or have you found? Actually, you know we're on it as a society and we want to solve this.
Speaker 1:Or do you still feel a bit miffed sometimes when you kind of walk the street or look around and see attitudes?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I think I'm pretty frustrated about particularly the FMCG businesses that I deal with, because I know we've got a solution that could really help them get a handle on the pollution that they're creating and they're still very slow to want to even explore and engage, let alone deliver any of these initiatives. They're kind of waiting for government policy to drop before they feel forced to do anything. I think it just proves that sustainability, although it sort of seems to be top of people's agendas, unless there's an economic benefit or it's going to positively impact their profits, it's not likely to voluntarily adopt any of these opportunities.
Speaker 1:So you're saying greenwashing, shock horror is a thing.
Speaker 2:It's a total thing and actually it's a really nice segue into the second tag format that we've developed, which is an invisible tag format that you can print all over the surface of your labels or indeed on your bottles as well, and nobody can see it.
Speaker 2:But when the bottle is actually spotted in a recycling centre by a piece of hardware that we've developed but we're about to openly publish a specification for it because we think it's important that it gets rolled out that piece of hardware in a recycling centre can actually count in bottles at barcode level and, for the first time, is giving the brands who we are lucky enough to be working with information they've never seen before about whether their plastic is actually getting into a recycling centre, and that, I think, has really big potential to stop the accusations of greenwashing In the news.
Speaker 2:This week we've seen Coca-Cola and Danone coming under pressure. This morning PepsiCo were in trouble with New York State because most of the waste that's been collected in the Hudson River has been identified as being PepsiCo's and a couple of other high profile brands. There's a massive issue these brands are facing and they're all claiming their packaging is 100% recycled, but they've got no information to support those claims whatsoever, and this second tag format that we've developed would enable them to know how many of their bottles are actually being recycled. It's a low cost solution, wouldn't really take too much adjustment to their label design, because the tag formats are invisible. And yet they're still really slow to want to come to the party.
Speaker 1:The first part of the problem is that your solution sounds like a simple, clean one, and in this world of ESG that we live in, you have this tyranny of disclosure, where you see these ESG reports that companies disclose, and this 70, 80 pages long. If I was being conspiratorial with a tinfoil hat, I'll written to precisely at such a length so that no one reads them and they're kind of put in with such jargon that they're indisciproable.
Speaker 2:And they're not based on any facts. They're based on averages.
Speaker 1:They're based on averages and they're designed for consulting firms, written by consulting firms, and they're designed for analysts, new ESG roles in investment firms and wherever it might be, whereas if you had simple data, this is how many bottles we produce, this is how many are consumed and this is how many last year were recycled. This is how many this year were recycled, and this is what we're aiming for next year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty uncomfortable. Right One page done.
Speaker 1:And simplicity is often kind of the enemy of getting big organisations getting stuff done, because things are done by committee and the truth right, Because that's the issue right.
Speaker 2:Simplicity is one issue, but knowing the truth about how your recycling rate actually is, it's potentially really uncomfortable for some brands. We have had those conversations where we've said, within a region, we could tell you what your recycling rate is based on your distributed sales, and then the next point is what if we don't like it? Yeah, that's the point.
Speaker 1:At least you'd be able to.
Speaker 2:Move forward with some information to help you develop a strategy to sort it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it reminds me of a conversation I was having with Matt on the train about tracking my own out, because I went for myself and I realised I do this with a mutual friend of ours, faisal, where we track on a daily basis our output in terms of sales, reading, writing, admin, which is the kind of four key things that I judge myself on, let's say, and I've only this year started going. Actually I need to figure out how much this I'm actually doing, to see where there are improvements, where there are, and it's actually very scary how, when you shine a light on something, you think you're doing lots, but actually you're doing a lot less, admin being the one that is, unsurprisingly, the one I least focus on, but it's been terrifying looking at it, but now I can do something about it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think that's the thing.
Speaker 1:And maybe next year can be a bit better. Is there anyone you want to? You know this is a, you know we're in the UK and I'm guessing you're talking to UK brands. Is there anyone that you want to maybe single out for praise or think there's been a bit more forward thinking about this that you're trying to deal with? Or do you think the sector as a whole is coming together in this sort of circular economy, recycling technology business?
Speaker 2:Well, I've got a shout out that PolyTag's got three major brand partners which we're very proud to be working with. So we're working with Accardo, who are the UK's largest online grocery retailer. We're working with Aldi, I think their third biggest in the world global retailer, and we're also working with the team at Co-op and all three of those businesses. Fairplay have stepped forward and taken a risk of working with relatively small startup. We are a small startup, but they can see that we are on a journey and they can also see that the data they'll be able to collect with our tools and the incentives and optimisations they'll be able to deliver to improve their plastic packaging recycling rate are promising. So yeah, I must single those three out.
Speaker 1:Shout out to Carp Aldi and Accardo. If you want to sponsor the pod, then you know where I am. Alice, you can hook us up Shameless. So what's it like running a business, running a team, keeping people motivated? Is this something new to you and how are you finding it?
Speaker 2:I'm loving it. It's the best job I've ever had and I've spent most of my career in big corporates, so this is a real change moving into the land of startups. And it's also a change in terms of my focus, because I was previously always working in retail digital retail and now, of course, I'm in real hotspot sector with this recycling gig that I've found myself doing and I'm really enjoying it. But I think the reasons I'm enjoying it are actually the same, because I've always loved managing people and working within a team and I've always enjoyed complex problems and processes that have a kind of pace to them, that move quickly, and so those three things were true when I was working in large corporate digital retail spaces, and they are also true in the land of recycling startups. So, yeah, I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker 1:It's great, but I'm assuming you know, 21 year old Alice didn't know how to tackle complex problems in such a way. So how do you? What advice would you give to someone who's been faced with us, you know, has either been promoted or is looking to get out and do something similar to you? How do you take these things on board? Is it a lot of trial and error or is it a lot of planning? Is it long hours? Is it all of the above?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, there's no replacement for hard work, that's for sure. I've always had quite a strong work ethic. It's stop or go, there's nothing in between. I think that was probably quite common to people that have got to the point where they can un-knot tricky problems, you know, because when you put the hard work in, it means that you are able to unlock new information in whichever way your brain works.
Speaker 2:I mean, some people like to do a lot of reading and research, and other people and I'm definitely one of these people like to talk and meet people, meeting people exactly, and I think you know I've had a lot of conversations and I've learned a lot from people who I've been fortunate enough to work with and meet along the way. So, yeah, activity and hard work allow you to gain knowledge and insight information in the way that you learn best.
Speaker 1:So you can draw on this kind of ecosystem of experiences, but also people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got a lovely network that I've built up over my 20 years working in various roles and I appreciate them very much. And there's still people that I worked with you know, right back when I was 21 that I'm in touch with and I've very much appreciated them passing on their expertise and knowledge and I've done my best to learn from it.
Speaker 1:Networking is something that I think is so important. I love doing it and I know people hate doing it and it's something that just doesn't come naturally to them and it's seen as a kind of necessary evil. Do you have any advice to people in that camp who don't see the value in it? Or because the reason I ask is if people should follow Alice on social media, particularly on LinkedIn, because you are just everywhere. It's phenomenal. You're at the grocery packaging awards one evening and then you're at the recycling center with a high-vis jacket on and a hard hat.
Speaker 2:Only follow me if you're interested in recycling.
Speaker 1:Well, it's pretty tedious, otherwise Well recycling or just getting shit done. It's quite nice to see over and above social media. Particularly LinkedIn is full of humble brags and look at me this, that and the other, but without much meaning in that. But you come across genuinely authentic in terms of identifying meaningful problems and wanting to get them solved. But you're also you're out and about and in amongst it. Thanks.
Speaker 2:Samuel. It's quite refreshing, that's actually one of our values at Polytag get shit done. We've got a Venn diagram. There's three things on our values Venn diagram get shit done is the first one, have fun is the second one. And oh my God, I forgot what I'm saying Get shit done, have fun, dream big.
Speaker 1:Dream big. How can I forget that? Well, that's because it's so obvious.
Speaker 2:Then, in the middle it just says people I like to work with, and so we've had that as our. That Venn diagram has been our WhatsApp group icon since the beginning, and if you can't subscribe to that set of values, then you're not welcome at Polytag, because we definitely do like to get shit done, that is for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, one source of frustration I've had doing what I do over the last couple of years is one of the things I love doing is talking to people who are running businesses or trying to do something innovative or different that intuitively maybe doesn't make sense to a rational minded person, and then, by help them, I try and help them get funding to be able to pursue whatever it is they're trying to do, whether it's a project or a business or a stuff, and the landscape is just so challenging in terms of interesting ideas getting funded. Have you found that? Do you spend more time than you'd like on the kind of actually trying to get people to back you from a well is the.
Speaker 1:Could the UK be a lot better than it is? And I think I know the answer to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we've spent the last 12 months trying to close our seed round. I'm happy to say we are about to. We've managed to complete the round and get enough investors on board and prepared to commit and back us. But it is tough. Yeah, it's tough particularly for us, because I think a lot of our catalysts for growth are linked to legislation and the government has been, you know, so reluctant to lock in legislation around, like packaging, extended producer responsibility or deposit return scheme. There's been real lack of certainty and nothing's crystallized, and so it's been difficult for a business like Polytag that you know, some of the tech we provide would definitely be more successful if there was legislative catalyst sitting behind it. So that's made things tough.
Speaker 1:But shouldn't the brands not need legislation? You would think right.
Speaker 2:But I've been to so many events where I've heard, you know, large soft drinks brands representatives sit on a panel, go, you know, sort of ringing their hands and saying, oh god, if only the government would tell us what they want us to do, we would be able to, you know, then make arrangements to sort out this single use plastic issue. You know To do it yourself.
Speaker 2:You know that's my point, unless there is a real sort of economic drive. It's yeah, I guess it's difficult for them to sell things in. Sustainability is a cost centre for all businesses. It's not seen as a value driver, and I know that there's got to be a big realignment of the way that businesses think about resources and, in our case, packaging, because what we're basically asking them to do is move from this linear take make waste model to one that's circular, either because it's designed better for reuse or because we can recycle it more effectively. And and that new. That move to circularity requires a real rethink about the economics and the way the money flows Do you think the customers or the consumers of packaging are still not.
Speaker 1:You know, despite all the David Attenborough documentaries and you know it feels like there was a huge push a few years ago about sustainability in companies. Has it kind of tapered off a bit or is there not enough pressure? You know, if XYZ let's say, let's take a hypothetical soft drink brand, let's call it Boca Bola you know, genuinely felt like we're gonna sell fewer bottles if we don't take this seriously, it's like we better do something ourselves rather than wait for legislation. So is it partly the consumers fault for not being pushy enough with their choice of preferred in their soft drink producer?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's chicken and egg. I mean, you know how easy is it to buy water that's not in a plastic bottle when you're on the go, you know it's just really. It's just harder, isn't it, to remember to bring your flask with you, and yeah, so it's a bit of both, really. I think the key thing, though, is trying to change behavior through something maybe like incentives, and that's what a deposit would do, because, at the moment, when you buy a bottle of fizzy drink, you buy it for the fizzy drink. You don't buy it for the packaging. Packaging's got no value to you. Yeah, in fact, the packaging's got no value to the brand once they've sold it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But what we're trying to do with this transition to circularity is say you know, actually packaging has a value at all points in the supply chain and every moment during that circular journey of that bottle, there has to be some representation of value, some way of putting a cost on.
Speaker 1:You're kind of extracting in dreaded economic models.
Speaker 2:You're extracting some sort of consumer surplus, that's there and waiting to be a lot and that would drive behavioral change.
Speaker 1:yeah and gamifying it in some way so that you can like go. This month I've you know recycled expo amount and actually it's happening faster when I buy this one versus this one, or it's this company's not doing it as much as this one, so maybe I should drink more of this and you know information.
Speaker 2:Data drives behavior, and so does financial incentives. Yeah, that's basically what it boils down to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I very much on the funding thing, find culturally here there's not enough of people. Obviously think about how much money can this make me, what the returns, what's the kind of valuation XYZ. And these are people like hard numbers and I think because that brings comfort and it brings some form of accountability to an investment committee or whoever it is you're responsible for funding you know it's certain businesses. But I like to kind of flip. The question on its head is like is this an idea that deserves being trialled in the world? Right, is this something that is probably won't work? It might work, it might not, but bit like fusion or small modular nuclear rat or something. Is this something worth trying?
Speaker 1:yeah if it goes wrong, what's the cost? Probably minimal, but is it useful for me? And not enough people think like that because I've. It strikes me as Poy-Tag is something that you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're a very risky VC punt right and and, and we've been really lucky to find those teams that they would call themselves impact investors that recognise that there's a lot of risk associated with coming in at this stage of Polytag's journey, but I think they also, to some degree, are excited by giving us a go and and want us to be tested and want us to be out there, because, even if it's not Polytag that succeeds in, you know, transitioning a small part of the problem towards a more circular economy, somebody else will, off the back of what we have tested and developed.
Speaker 2:Achieve it at some point in the future.
Speaker 1:And use whatever mistakes you've made as invaluable information.
Speaker 2:Obviously I'd love it if that didn't happen, and you guys yeah of every intention of making sure we are the company that makes it happen but and it takes a particularly special type of VC investor to take a punt on an organisation like us.
Speaker 1:So I just want to ask you, just asking for, for you know, a friend, let's say not actually, genuinely, not not even on my behalf, and you'll understand why, but you're running a business, a startup. You're here, there and everywhere. You're also a mother of kind of two adorable children by the way, mine, I throw in. What's that like? What's it like adjusting from being a mom to being, you know, a leader in knowledge, just in the home, but outside the home, and have you found being a mother has made you a better business person? As being a business person made you a better mother, and or is it? Is it actually just a huge challenge and there's too much stacked against women to be entrepreneurial leaders, and we need to be better at empowering, incentivising, normalising women, particularly not, you know, not just women who don't want to have a family, but women who are, you know, you know, with young families to go and, you know, fulfill themselves in multiple ways.
Speaker 2:That's a big question. Yes, I've got an eight year old and a five year old and I don't really know where to start. It's a massive topic. Just some general reflections, though, as that motherhood doesn't happen all at once. It's actually a very soft, gradual process and I think that it's important when I look back at least. I mean maybe didn't feel like this at the time.
Speaker 2:When I look back, I feel that I had a chance of managing the transition from not having children to having children and a job in quite a gradual way, just because I made a few key decisions.
Speaker 2:One was and these were just right for me, right, and I guess that's saying everything's different but one decision I made was that I took the full maternity leave with my first child and that was a sort of a more gentle transition from being working woman to being working mother.
Speaker 2:And then another thing I did which sort of made the transition perhaps gentler, was that I spent some time being a freelance consultant and affording myself quite a lot of flexibility about what jobs I took on and and how and when I worked. Yeah, and I was also lucky that I could afford some childcare to buy myself some additional headspace and time, yeah to think about. You know, what do I want to do next? What's the right way of me sort of feeling fulfilled. Now I've got this most important responsibility. So, yeah, there's a gradual time and the sort of transition phases when I first became a mum, I think were quite key to giving me that opportunity to like transition. And then, yeah, I just I guess I always knew I wanted to go back to work as well, and so if you've got that core feeling that it's what you want to do, then you're able to make choices and be positive in the decisions that you make.
Speaker 1:You've not just gone back to work, you've gone back to run a startup and be all over the country and probably work very long hours at various parts of the week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I absolutely have boundaries as well, and I think that's something that's important. So I don't work at the weekend and I don't work in the mornings, when I've got my children at home before they go to school, and I think those moments allow you to feel okay about working very hard when they're at school and in the evenings, when they've gone to bed, because I want to. I love my job, I love my kids, and so when I'm with my kids and I'm fully focused on them, I'm not distracted. But when I'm working, I you know, as I said at the beginning, I've got to stop or go to a race, two modes, you know it's grey zones.
Speaker 1:It almost feels like you have to go to a startup, not have to. But there aren't that large companies that have are slower to shift culturally. I don't know, I've never worked at a big company, but I suspect that you know, you almost you know, working at a startup is a kind of act of rebellion, and I'll come back to that later. And you have to, and so is flexible working is kind of almost an act of rebellion to the 90s and 90s and the hustle culture that we're kind of.
Speaker 2:Oh, but COVID helped a lot as well, right, I mean that actually has to be mentioned that I was on maternity leave and sort of making this transition from career woman to working mum and COVID happened in between, and so there's a lot that needs to be sort of credited in terms of, like the change of style and that flexibility and work where works for you. I think it's had a big impact, positive one actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you know video technology has been good enough for long enough, but it's always seen as a weird thing to suggest a video call.
Speaker 2:It's not now, is it? It's de facto a way of doing business.
Speaker 1:You know, obviously there are things you lose by not having a face to face, but you capture 80% of the benefits 100% of the time. You know when you can have a remote and it's a shame it took a global pandemic to teach us that lesson, but it's empowered a lot of people to create value in a way that's not the narrow predefined societal norm of creating value in a kind of corporate setting, and it's also, I guess, enabled you to run a high flying technology business from North Wales which is you know, yeah, north Wales woo it's actually in London where I live.
Speaker 2:It's got the most startups per capita than anywhere in the UK.
Speaker 1:Moving to London in itself is an act of rebellion, which has automatically earned you a podcast invite which we could talk about. It's great.
Speaker 2:Everybody should come and visit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's amazingly high Wi-Fi speeds. We've got sea and mountains on our doorstep and plenty of ice cream.
Speaker 1:Like what is not to like if you're already a startup and lots of startups, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's weird. There's a really interesting vibe in Clendon now, A lot of entrepreneurial people. They're sort of yeah, it's just a great culture up there.
Speaker 1:I really like it and an ecosystem and I'm like well who knew, or maybe if I ever launched a venture capital firm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you also have to believe in dragons.
Speaker 1:right To live in North Wales, I have to believe in dragons, which actually having a two and a half year old daughter is a lot easier to do, because Zog and all other dragons are kind of very in vogue at the moment you would be very welcome.
Speaker 1:So there's a question that I like to wrap up with, or that I ask all guests, which I call the long bet, and the long bet is basically something you have a 10 year time frame and it's something that you think will happen over the next 10 years, or that you would, or you have a choice or something that you would like to happen, or both, if you have to. And why is it 10 years? Well, it's soon enough for it to kind of matter, but it's not so far away that you can hide in it and never be made accountable. So when I next have you on the pod, we'll kind of pick you up on how it's kind of going. So what do you think? Something of the next 10 years that you would like to happen or you think is going to happen, positive or negative?
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, continuing the theme of Polytag, which is obviously focused on solving the single use plastics crisis, or at least a small bit of it, I would like to think that in 10 years time, we would be a little bit horrified about how much single use packaging we used to handle and throw away wherever a way is.
Speaker 1:Well, into the ocean. Well, yeah pretty much.
Speaker 2:I mean, everyone just says I'll throw it away, but it goes somewhere. I get burned or buried mostly. And it's just so prolific, there's so much of it and it's just getting more and more and more. And you think when will we get to peak disposable packaging and start to realize that we have to dial it back and find alternatives? So, I'd like to think that that will be the case.
Speaker 2:So we will be of a mindset where we looked back and you know, like, oh God, do you remember when you used to go and buy your lunch and you used to have to buy, you know, a sandwich box and a disposable bottle of water and a packet of crisps, that you just need to chuck it all in the bin?
Speaker 1:Well, it's akin to you know, it is akin to looking back. And you know, wasn't it weird that we kept slaves? Yeah, that was like wow, yeah, but I mean exactly that kind of shock. It was totally normal at the time, normalized yeah, it is normalized now.
Speaker 2:The single use packaging thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'd like to think in 10 years time, we have really started to challenge ourselves and looked very carefully at like right, like is this, is this okay?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the slope. So you think the slope of the curve. You're optimistic that over the net, at some point, let's say between year zero and year five, we would hit the peak of the slope. Yeah, let's hope so, and so that's actually a really optimistic way to kind of think about it and that in 10 years we'll be like looking back and going crikey Thank God we're not doing that anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And all thanks to people like you who are kind of, you know, hustling away trying things, experimenting.
Speaker 2:In our own little corner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and people who back you and people backing other businesses trying to do something similar. Like you know, can only take my hassle off to that and hopefully by enabling you to kind of come on here and talk to me about it, you know I've tangentially helped in some way as well Sure. But it's been a ton of fun.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Samuel.
Speaker 1:Seeing you, catching up, talking to you, and would love to do it again soon.
Speaker 2:Oh, thanks for having me. It's been a great chat.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Thanks so much.