Notes from Chris

Episode 912

Emma Cohen was always interested in sustainability. While working for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, she completed her masters in Environmental Management and Sustainability from Harvard Extension School. She was involved in important work, but she wondered if there was a way to be more personally proactive about fighting plastic pollution. One day in Thailand, she found it.

While traveling around Southeast Asia, Emma was walking along a beach that was completely covered in plastic waste.

For her, it was the last straw... She became an activist against single-use plastics, talking up the issue with friends and then in a local TEDx talk about how plastic was harming our oceans. And it was through being vocal that Emma was introduced to Miles Pepper in 2017.

Miles had an idea that he’d been sitting on for a while: a reusable straw that can be bent into a small case, but still capable of being stiff enough to not feel flimsy in a drink. With his idea and her professional background, it seemed like a match made in heaven.

They got to work right off the bat. They found a local designer to create a CAD design, printed a few prototypes at a local machine shop in Los Angeles, and within just a few months, landed on a rough design they were proud of: a silicone interior wrapped in metal tubes that could be connected to create a firm outer straw.

The result was a collapsible straw that could fit in a pocket or purse, but still strong enough once the metal pieces were connected to stir a thick drink with. They called it The Final Straw.

Emma set up a Google News alert for anything that had to do with plastic straw waste or government bans. She’d then take the names of journalists behind those articles and put them in a big list to use later as her press list when the Kickstarter launched.

They got a few sales over the next few days, along with a couple of articles on small websites, but nowhere near close to their $12,500 goal. But then—like a diver rushing into the water to save a plastic-trapped turtle in the ocean—Buzzfeed got involved.

Someone there had created a short video about The Final Straw and plastic pollution. It was a huge hit: over 30 million people watched it. Emma and Miles blew past their $12,500 goal, reaching over $100,000 in backing within a couple of days. And that was just the beginning.

Some of the success came down to timing. Plastic straws were already in the news a lot, and including The Final Straw was an easy way to add something interesting and unusual to an article on the part of the journalist.

By the end of the campaign, Emma and Miles had raised $1.8 million dollars and sold over 100,000 straws to strangers.

When the real Final Straws finally started shipping out in October, the team was flooded with great reviews. Customers loved the straw, and those that had accidentally purchased a counterfeit emailed Emma and told her how much better the real one was compared to the fakes. And the sales have been rolling in ever since.

But Emma knows that in order to The Final Straw a sustainable brand—and not a one-time product that’s endlessly knocked off—she needs to keep innovating.

Thankfully, Emma’s not letting her knockoff troubles slow down innovation. She’s thrilled to begin releasing new products in 2019 to fight other areas of single-use plastic waste, like reusable cutlery and water bottles. The best part of it—despite the challenges—is knowing she’s helping people all over the world get excited about fighting plastic pollution with a straw that doesn’t suck.

 

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  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• The Final Straw: Learn more about this sustainable, plastic-free solution over on Emma's website
• Kickstarter | The Final Straw: The Kickstarter campaign that started it all

SEE ALSO:

• Environmentally Impassioned Citizen Designs Plastic-Free Bags: A Washingtonian carries her passion for sustainability on her sleeve with a line of eco-friendly grocery bags
• Multiple-Use Plastics Take Big Bite for the Environment: A designer reinvents her life and work, starting an eco-friendly line of multiple-use plastics. It’s good for the environment, AND it’s highly profitable
• Yoga Mat Reseller Changes Lives While Earning $4,000/Month: After being inspired by social good companies like TOMS, a woman in London creates a yoga accessories business that focuses on empowering women worldwide

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,

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