Podcast transcript: Why “dirt-to-dirt” is the real circular economy

36 min approx | 14 Mar 2023

Intro

My circular economy begins and ends with dirt. We really need to steer more toward solutions that begin and end with dirt. We spend a great deal of time and money on innovation. We see that as core and key. We need to take a good look at the materials that we use as we make things.

Announcer

Welcome to the Decoding Innovation Podcast series, brought to you by the EY Nottingham Spirk Innovation Hub, where we explore the innovative technologies, business models and ideas that are shaping the future of industries. During each episode, Mitali Sharma, a principal in the EY-Parthenon strategy practice, meets with stakeholders at the cutting edge to discuss innovations in their space, challenges they need to overcome, and their outlook on the future.

Mitali Sharma

Hello and welcome. I'm your host, Mitali Sharma and today's topic is sustainability, in particular, compostable packaging. Our guest is Douglas Horne, the CEO and founder of Evanesce. Evanesce is trying to help us all move away from single use plastics and Styrofoam toward more plant-based products. Doug, welcome to the show.

Douglas Horne

It's great to be here. Thanks so much.

Sharma

Before we get into Evanesce and your products, and the journey of the company so far, would you mind sharing with us your own personal journey, and how did you come up with this idea?

Horne

I've had a varied background in government and in finance from the beginning. I started in government, moved as a fund manager and built a number of businesses in my past. Then was lured back into government as an elected official for a number of years just prior to founding Evanesce. And in the time that I was there, I spent quite a bit of time on committees that had to do with the environment and environmental protection as well as finance. I met a group that had some very innovative technology, while I was elected. And when I left politics, I reapproached them and got a bit of an update of where they were at. They had fantastic technology, but just weren't getting any traction to bring it to market. I saw a huge opportunity and a huge ability to move that type of technology into a real desire and need within the market. So, we acquired Evanesce’s technology and we’ve built the company from there. That was in 2016. And a few years later, we're now in sales, and building a fairly vibrant business in North America, but also in other areas of the world.

Sharma

Thank you for that, Doug. Let's start with a few basics for our audience. Would you mind sharing with us why plastics are such a problem and why should our audience care?

Horne

Sure. Plastics and polystyrene foam, which are two major difficulties within landfills, are a huge problem globally. And for many years, we shipped all of this waste off to Asia for it to be dealt with there. Some of it was actually dealt with, much of it wasn't. There's a real difficulty with the number of different resins that are out there and the number of different plastics that are all part and parcel of plastic, but very different in the way that they are and in the way they can be dealt with. And it makes it very difficult for them to be recycled. Oftentimes too, there's many types of plastics in a single container. So, for example, a PET bottle, which is actually very recyclable, oftentimes has a cap on it, which isn't. And, most people leave the cap on the bottle, which makes the whole process very difficult. So, we have this situation where we talk about recycling for a long time, but we ended up with very low numbers of recycling actually happening. The vast majority of recyclables in North America are actually incinerated still today and very few recyclables were actually recycled. And the way I've looked at it always, one of the biggest problems we also have in landfills is with food waste. There is a huge amount of food waste that goes into landfills. And the reason why that happens is that, basically, if you talk to the recyclers, it's contaminating their streams potentially. There's just not a lot of situations where we've had composting in the past. So, a lot of it's just gone straight into landfills or a lot of it's mixed up with things that aren't compostable and just don't make a good mix. And that's why it's so important to really differentiate things — pull things that are easy to recycle and make sense to recycle — and let's get recycling them and recycling them properly. And for food waste and things around food service, let's use compostable items that basically allow for a customer or a client in a restaurant or other place of business that sells food to put it in a single bin. Because, one of the big problems we have with recycling as well is that when people are faced with five, six, seven or eight, I've seen situations where it's a huge number of bins, and they're looking to have people separate their waste, they just don't. And the difficulty is that we end up with all of those bins being contaminated and all of those bins basically useless. And so, if you can be in a situation and it's very simple — where basically all of the food waste and all of the service items — all are compostable and all go into a single green bin. All are sent to be composted and it takes a big chunk and is a solution that's much more workable and something that actually people will do. And, I think, that's what's important and it’s making these things easy, but really changing behavior in the process. And the easiest way to change behavior is by making it simple and making it so that people can do it without much thought. I think that's what we need to do as we move forward.

Sharma

So, when you were talking, you mentioned a couple of terms, you said “recyclable” and you said “compostable”. We also used the term “biodegradable”. Is there a nuance or difference that you would like to point out?

Horne

The sad reality is everything's biodegradable and a lot of companies use the term biodegradable as if it's sustainable. And in many cases, things that are biodegradable aren't sustainable. Plastic, for example, is actually biodegradable. It takes 500 years, but eventually, it will degrade. And that's the problem that we face, which is with these words. Compostability is a term that has specific meaning and under the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards has very consistent guidelines as to what compostability means. It means that it will degrade within 90 days. By having items that are certified compostable, we ensure that they meet those types of standards and that they can be biodegraded in a reasonable period of time so that a compost operator or a commercial operation can deal with those items. The interesting thing on the composting side is the notion of home compostability and industrial compostability as is what it's called in the marketplace. And the interesting thing is when most people hear the word industrial compostable, they have this sort of vision of some large machine with huge amounts of pressure and everything else that makes these things happen and it's not. A commercial composting operation has a larger pile of material. And then, having a larger pile of material, the internal temperature in that larger pile is higher than it would be in a small bucket. And so, the only difference is that basically in a commercial situation, the internal temperature is slightly higher because it's a larger mass of material than it would be in a home situation. But there's no machine that's necessary; it's not some large pressurized industrial-type machine that many think it is. It's just a pile of material that sits on the ground. They turn that material so that basically what's on the outside goes into the inside. And then, in 30 to 45 days, most of that material has degraded to the point that it's back to being soil. And that's why I always like to term that my circular economy begins and ends with dirt. So, I always say “dirt to dirt,” I believe, that's true circular economy. You know, many would argue on the recycling side that the circular economy begins and ends with plastics. I just don't see how that is the sustainable solution for the long run. There's opportunity for it and there are some products that make sense, but we really need to steer more toward solutions that begin and end with dirt because that's the natural and organic product that we start and end with in most circular projects.

Sharma

I like that quote “dirt to dirt.” So, just going back a little bit from what you said about temperatures within the industrial compostable products, is it helpful that the temperatures are higher?

Horne

In some industrial compostable products, the temperature they require is a slightly higher temperature in order to degrade, but that's also true in a lot of natural materials. We did a social media campaign, poking fun at a number of cities and states that you would see as being very green, asking them why they won't take compost-certified compostable food services products when they'll take things like a corn cob or a pit from an avocado or an orange peel. All of these things that I've mentioned take longer in a commercial composting situation to degrade than a certified compostable plant-based polymer food services item. This is one of the things that's a bit of an educational trend as well because we have to talk about these things and say, it's important that we use these things and it's important that they all come together. It's important for packaging as well. One of the things that I often talk about with people is oftentimes, and it's a sad reality, but people will buy more food than they can eat and they'll end up with one or two carrots that are in their crisper at the bottom that turn black and brown, and they're sitting there in this plastic bag at the bottom. Well, most people will take that out and they'll throw the whole thing into their garbage can because they're not going to take it out and start washing out the bag and putting the carrots into the green bin, which they should be doing. But they don't, unfortunately, because it's just too complex. But if that packaging was compostable in the first place and is marked as compostable, it's very simple. You just take and throw the whole thing into the green bin, the whole thing can be disposed of and the whole thing can basically go back into a “dirt to dirt” again. And so, and that's why, with food waste especially, I think, compostable solutions are so important for the future. And something that we all need to keep much more at the top of mind. And it's far more sustainable. In some of the packaging that we make that we can talk about more as we go forward, we use upscaled waste products. So, we're taking things that would be seen as waste by many and we're actually making packaging out of it. So, it's taking these organic materials that are around that are already there in the market and putting them to use and that's really important. It's something that we can all benefit from a great deal.

Sharma

And so, this is perfect segue. I'd really want to dive deeper into the product that you're creating. Tell us a little bit more about the technology that you're utilizing.

Horne

We're very excited. We have two technologies. We have some fairly traditional biopolymers that we make items like straws and those types of things out of that are completely plant-based and are made from corn starch and those types of things. But the more exciting thing that is really an innovation is our molded starch products. And it's, as I say, taking waste streams — so waste starch and waste fiber — and whether that's pea starch or corn starch or potato starch is really not relevant. What is the fantastic thing about our technology is that it can take many different starches in combination with many different fibers and produce the same or similar results. They look slightly different. We made some trays recently out of ground up corn cobs, for example, and they have nice little brown bits in them, which are parts of the corncob. But, that natural look to them actually enhances the value of them, not takes away from it. And when we use things like a wheat chaff and husk in combination with the potato starch, for example, we end up with a very creamy white tray that would look like a traditional piece of polystyrene foam. You can have a whole bunch of different options and different combinations that make the same thing. What's so exciting about it is that you take these upscaled wastes and you end up with something that's completely organic and completely compostable. And going back to my point about home compostable and commercial compostable — these items are all both. And that being said, it's funny because home compostable in our business is seen as the top of the food chain. But when it comes right down to it, to be honest, it's much better that we have proper commercial composting systems that are dealing with this rather than having waste being treated in people's backyards or on their sundecks. Whether it's home or whether it's commercial is really not that relevant because we need to have proper commercial facilities in place to be able to deal with these things and build things much more sustainable than we have in the past.

Sharma

When you were talking about how the company came about, you said you required the technology. So I'm assuming they didn't have a product at that time when you acquired it?

Horne

When we acquired our molded starch product at the beginning, they had hundreds and hundreds of handmade samples of different cups, bowls, plates and things like that. The handmade samples that they'd made were very exciting and appealing. And I saw the potential of it, but also understood that unless you can make millions of these things, they're really not a viable commercial option. And so, what we did after we acquired the technology is we've invested heavily in further development. We filed some additional patents last year as we came to the end of that development process. And we've come up with a solution that we can make in mass quantities that is, as I say, independent of the starch and fiber that's in the item and can be made to be molded into a number of different shapes and a number of different sizes. We're at an exciting point. We're going to have commercial quantities of five-compartment — like institutional meal trays — that are in many prisons, hospitals and schools for their lunch programs and things like that. The army and the military use a lot of them as well. We're going to have those available next year and this is a big one for us because many of those items today are still Styrofoam.

The amount of waste that they represent is huge and it's those types of items that we've been targeting. We targeted the five-compartment trays. We've also spent a lot of time on traditional protein, meat and vegetable trays that are used extensively in the market. The estimates are that there's a 100 million meat trays that are used a day in the United States. So, if you think about that number of polystyrene, think of that number of trays on a daily basis and how much waste that represents, it's huge. And to be able to take and move that to a completely compostable and completely sustainable option makes a huge impact and it's these types of things that are important.

Sharma

Doug, why did you choose the product that you just talked about — the trays — out of all that was available to you. Was it the property of the material, the polymer that you were working with or the size of the market, a little bit of both, manufacturing capability? What was it?

Horne

It was a little bit of all three of those. Our manufacturing capability of our initial products is quite simple for smaller and shallower trays rather than bowls and cups, which require a different molding system. The shallower trays are far more easy to create, and the market for those types of trays and food services items is huge. The interesting thing is the five-compartment tray that I talked about before — the global market for five-compartment trays is about US$26 billion a year. Just that one vertical. When I was in finance for many years, I've had companies come to me excited about the market that they can attack that's a fraction of that. And for us, that just represents one vertical and one opportunity for us of many. It was one of the exciting things to take a look at that vertical and really attack it. And lastly, which I will briefly get into is the amount of waste that's created in these areas because it's a US$26 billion market for the industrial food service trays. Because there are 100 million meat trays used today in the United States, these represent massive waste streams. And addressing those waste streams, which I also saw as critical              and very important in the overall process, because we have to get ourselves a handle on this. We can't be dumping plastics in the oceans and we can't be shipping our waste material to Asia. It's just not sustainable in the long run and not something that's able for us to continue.

Sharma

For sure. And when you talk about the market size, the two things that come into mind is one, cost, because you're now comparing yourself to “cents on a dollar” kind of a plastic tray. And the second thing that comes into mind is the scalability. Let's start with cost. If you can talk to us about how does the pricing compare to what's available in the market?

Horne

And that was one of the real considerations that we took right from the beginning. And that was “can we be competitive,” and even in our analysis, it's interesting because we have a graph that we use in our investor pitch, which shows the market. And it has two lines on it. It has the entire market and then it has the market for green packaging or certified compostable packaging today, which is a huge number. But, it's still only about one-third of the overall market. I always like to point out that with the pricing that we have with our products, that the entire market is addressable. And, because we are more competitive than other materials that are out there in the market, and I see that as critical and important, we're less than half the cost of most molded fiber products that would be in the market. So, for a tray — comparing a similar tray to ours that's in the market right now — we would be about half the cost. We also have a superior product in the sense that it's far more rigid rather than using design characteristics or those types of things. Our material is fairly rigid to start with, so it feels much more solid. For a food services tray, for example, it's like the old paper plates, which many of these molded fiber items feel like traditional paper plate items, and because that's really what they are. And they fold and they bend and those types of things, much like the old ads that they used to show for the paper plate, putting your food on the floor. And this is what we're competing against. Ours is far more robust and rigid and capable of holding items in it and not folding and not breaking than anything that's out there. So from a value proposition standpoint, we're in a position where we can basically say “here is a superior product at a lower price”. And when you can say that, you're in very good shape. And it's also why I say that we can address the entire market because while we certainly are more expensive than plastics and polystyrene, we're not in a situation where we're double or triple or 10 times. And as I said before, there's many products in the market. A typical meat tray, for example, would be two to three cents per polystyrene tray today. We're looking at selling it for five cents, more than what it is, but certainly not a huge amount more if you compare it to where others are in the 10-12 cent range. And there's a big difference between three and 10 cents, much less of a difference between three and five cents.

Sharma

When you're trying to source your raw materials, how does that value chain play?

Horne

Well, the interesting thing is, as they say, we're using upsourced products that would be considered waste. When you've got a facility, for example, that's making frozen corn — corn cobs are their waste stream­ — and they're trying to get rid of those. So, taking those from them is something that they like, and especially taking them from them and using them for a purpose of upscaling them and making packaging products out of them. In the same way, one of the real opportunities we have right now is for a lot of the plant-based protein products that are out there right now. A huge number of them use peas as the protein source. In the process of manufacturing these products, one of the by-products that's created is pea starch. And that pea starch is very well-suited for making our products. There's lots of opportunity for a lot of different waste streams to be used.

Sharma

When you are creating your products, what is the biggest challenge in manufacturing them?

Horne

One of the things that we face is we manufacture a lot of our products in North America and we see that as important. And obviously because we've taken that decision, we potentially have slightly higher labor costs and other costs because we meet certain regulatory regimes. And so, it's important, as time goes on, especially when it comes to the environment — the environment doesn't have boundaries. And so internationally, we need to look at what's suitable and appropriate, and make sure that we maintain some level of standard on a more global basis. And that's really important as we move forward, which would certainly level the playing field to a huge extent as well. And as things are becoming more automated, it's not necessarily the labor costs that impacts North American manufacturers as much as it is maintaining some of those regulatory requirements.

Sharma

I was curious about how you're thinking about the ecosystem that you're developing. Are you thinking of keeping things in-house? Which things to keep in-house versus where do you want to collaborate, maybe with manufacturers and marketing firms or even customers?

Horne

One of the things that we see as exciting and something that really has a lot of opportunity is working with companies that are large companies across the value chain. We have a project that we're working on right now with a very large company that is both on the milling side. They're producing some of these waste products — waste starch and waste fibers — but they're also in their business into proteins and meat packaging. Taking their own waste and making their own packaging is something that would be fantastic for a circular and sustainable world. And pursuing opportunities like that is what we see as very important.

One of the more exciting ones we've been working on lately is in the medical field. There's a lot of internal packaging for different products. And obviously, in the medical world they're looking for compostable solutions for themselves and so they had done quite a bit of work. One of the issues that they'd faced is that the materials that they tested to date couldn't meet their sterilization requirements, using a gamma ray sterilization system that they use to sterilize their packaging material. They've been having a real problem because they weren't able to go down that compostable route because of the fact that sterilization is very important. When you're dealing with a pacemaker or something like that, it's very important — the cleanliness of it and all that.We did some tests with them, and we were able to meet and exceed their requirements on the sterilization side. So, we're excited about that as another potential vertical and use of our technology as we move forward.

And it's about researching these verticals and researching the opportunities and branching out there, and we're going to continue to do that. Cups and those types of things are also on the food services side, something that's important and something that we hope to have to market within the short period of time, and we're going to continue to build out and prototype out different possibilities so that we can work with partners and bring those two to market as quickly as we can.

Sharma

If we can shift gears, Doug, a little bit to the business model, when you started this company, you had, as you said before the start of the conversation, you bought the technology. How did you get that business, so to speak, off the ground?

Horne

You know, I did what most entrepreneurs do. I started by funding it myself and then, I I've built it from there. We basically started with typical sort of rounds of financing. I put some money in myself. We then did some friends and family round. We built up from there to a slightly larger group.

Today, Evanesce is still a private company, but we have 270 shareholders and we've raised over US$30 million today in building up the company and building up to where we are right now. We're continuing to move forward. Likely in the not-too-distant future, I probably will be looking at a public listing and so, we're working toward that as well. That will allow us to continue through some M&A activity as well to continue to build our technology portfolio and continue to be able to provide solutions that are innovative and are leading edge of the market and we see that as important. We want to be a significant player within the sustainable materials and packaging market and to do that, we need to continue to be innovative. But, also, we need to continue to seek out and find good technology and be in a position to bring that within our portfolio.

Sharma

And obviously, intellectual property is a big portion of your business model, right? So, there is a limited time between filing of a patent and your time allowed to get it to the market because you get about 20 years, right? How do you think about patents in general? Is it more of a defense mechanism for you or is it an aggressive strategy?

Horne

Given that we're using a licensing model it's difficult to sell a license to someone when you don't actually own the intellectual property in their area. So we, very broadly, patented our core technologies globally. There's a number of markets that even our patent attorney said “why would you want that market?” But as I saw it, having those markets and having the ability to find licensees within those markets is important to us. As you say, intellectual property is very important. We do things in a way that we use both patents and trade secrets to protect ourselves and broadly, our patents protect our core technology and our core knowledge. But in doing so, as everyone knows, you have to share quite a bit of what you're doing in those patent disclosures.

We've got a bit of an innovative way of doing that where we map out a number of different ways you could do the things that we do and don't actually tell people which of it that we actually use, which gives us an added layer of protection. And then, we do use some trade secrets as well to add to it. We spend a great deal of time and money on innovation. We see that as core and key and as you say, we see the value in the company very much being in our technology and in what we've created.

Sharma

When you're thinking about bringing new products to the market, given the manufacturing capabilities, is there a volume threshold or is there a shape constriction that you have in the products that you're going after right now?

Horne

In the products we're going after right now, we take both into consideration — the volumes within the market. Obviously from our own standpoint and the things that we make, we're looking for high-volume products for ourselves. When it comes to our licensees, lower volumes could work quite well for them. We're in the process right now, working with the company that makes our equipment and our processes. We have our R&D lab co-located in their facility in Europe and have a very strong relationship with them. And we've been working very closely with them to come up with more flexible ways of manufacturing so that we could make smaller runs much easier than we can right now.

Sharma

If you wouldn't mind sharing with us, what kind of volumes are we talking about here?

Horne

We're looking at runs, especially in the short runs, we're looking at runs that are in the millions of units. We're looking at larger-run items right now that have significant markets for them here as well.

Sharma

If you think about regulations and laws which are country-specific or which might be local, how have they helped you or not?

Horne

It's interesting because when it comes to our molded starch product, you look at Canada's plastic bans and those types of things — Canada has a plastic ban. It's a fantastic thing for our molded starch product. But that being said, I'm not certain that we necessarily need it. I think the market is going there on its own, to be honest. But when it comes to plant-based biopolymers, which I also view as a huge part of the solution, Canada hasn't included those. They've included those as “plastics” and this is the awkward part. I think the other issue that we really face from a regulatory standpoint is that we make straws. For example, we make straws out of corn starch and out of our biopolymers. Our straws look and feel like a plastic straw — traditional plastic straw would — good parts of the market have gone to paper straws. Vancouver, for example, requires paper straws. Well, the sad reality of it is a vast majority of paper straws are absolutely and utterly coated in polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which is a form of chemical that's both poisonous and carcinogenic. And, it's interesting because there's some very large restaurant chains right now that are having a class action lawsuit against them because the wrappers that they wrap their sandwiches in contain PFAS. And there's a concern that the PFAS is having contact with the sandwich. Well, there's a big difference between having contact with a sandwich and drinking through a straw that's melting in your drink as you're drinking, and pulling that PFAS directly into your mouth. It's a real concern. This is the difficulty that we face in a lot of places. There's these knee-jerk reactions that aren't fully appreciative of all of the aspects of what they're saying and what they're doing.

There needs to be more understanding of some of these issues. And as time goes on and as technology improves, maybe that necessarily isn't all the case. But when it comes to paper products and straws, I live in British Columbia, we have a lot of paper mills here. I think paper from a recycling standpoint is a fantastic thing, but I've stood in beside a pulp mill and smelled the smells that are coming out of it — and those smells aren't coming out of it because they're using wonderful chemicals there. These are nasty places. To be making straws out of that, regardless of whether it's coated in PFAS or not, I question. We need to take a good look at the materials that we use as we make things, what we're making out of them, what people are using them for and what is the best. Things have to be economic, but quite frankly, the cheapest solution isn't necessarily the best solution as is always in the world. And so, you need to really look at what you're doing.

Sharma

You point to a very interesting conundrum. As technology rapidly advances, governments are frequently trying to catch up. And when they make laws, it's at that point of time. And as a former politician, what would be your recommendation of how governments can effectively interact with markets or should they stay out of those markets which they don't understand?

Horne

It's interesting the way governments look at things. I'm not an advocate of huge government and huge regulation. I think that a government is there to create a fair playing field and to maintain the safety of its population. And when the safety of the population is in jeopardy, they need to move. And, quite frankly, when you have players that are doing things that they shouldn't be, they also need to move to make sure that the playing field is fair for all. But when it comes to massive regulation and those types of things, they get it wrong more than they get it right. It was one of the things that was so frustrating with me with that when I was in the government is so often, the government doesn't get it right. They're behind the times. And they often don't understand the science behind it. And the difficulty is in trying to do something right, they often do it wrong.

Sharma

And it also seems like consumer awareness is a big part of what you will be doing or this whole industry needs to be doing. So that the consumer themselves can get up and say we want this product or we don't want this product and we're aware enough to make choices.

Horne

I think that's very important. And for people to be educated about how they're making those choices and the choices that they are making.

Sharma

Since you founded the company in 2016, Doug, what has surprised you the most in this journey?

Horne

There's been a lot of surprises along the way. And, to be honest, I'll probably leave the company when I stop being surprised. There's a lot of different things that you don't anticipate as you build the company. And one of the keys of it is to build a team that's got the experience that when you do run into some of these difficulties, you can react and pivot and move a different way. One of the things when I started the company in 2016, we were completely concentrating on our molded starch product. I saw the market evolve, I saw the benefit and the need — one, as we took longer in development than I had hoped, I saw the need to get the company into revenue and to be supplying the market. And so, we pivoted a little bit and added the biopolymers to our portfolio. And, it's constantly making certain you stay on top of things. It’s constantly staying innovative and staying flexible. There's many things on a day-to-day basis that come up and you have to deal with them and move forward. But it's the joy of being an entrepreneur, it's the joy of building something from nothing. And it's what makes it exciting and it's what I enjoy and love to do.

Sharma

One thing that I got curious about was the name of the company. How did you think about the name? Is there a story behind that?

Horne

You know, it's funny because I spent a lot of time coming up with the name. And, it's one of these things where you try to create names sometimes and try to create words and Evanesce is a word. It is a word in the English language. It means to vaporize or disappear and it’s exactly what we do. When I was thinking through things, I thought the name of the company describes our mission and it describes the technology that we want to have around us. And it really describes what it is that we're trying to create — that is products that provide the solution that they need in the short run, but in the long run vaporize and disappear.

Sharma

Fascinating. What is your advice to somebody trying to create a different innovative or disruptive product today?

Horne

Never give up. Never believe that you can't do what you want to do. I have a sign on my wall in my office that says “where there's a will, there's a way”. One of the most important things for entrepreneurs and people that are trying to build things is, there are a lot of people that tell you why you won't be able to do it, why you won't be successful, why you won't reach the goals that you've set for yourself. You just have to, from day one to the last day, believe that you can, and believe that you're going to make it there. Because the second you stop believing, that's the second you fail.

Sharma

Great. You also said that you don't view competitors as such. You think of them as collaborators, maybe, going through the same journey. What is exciting you about the new stuff that's coming out, either directly in the areas that you're working in or just in terms of compostable packaging?

Horne

I see a lot of innovation out there. In the conferences that we attend, we see a lot of new innovation that we're really excited about. There's innovation that we've made and we've coupled with innovation of others that make an even better product. And that's why I see collaboration as very important. And I'm not fearful of working with very large companies as well, which has been part of our success. We have some very large companies as partners and I see that as an advantage to us to a huge extent.

It's about bringing the best technologies forward and the best things to really enhance and make things sustainable for the future and for future generations.

The key to that and all of the technology that we're doing, which is key to us, is our solutions that are truly circular and start with dirt and end with dirt. We go from there.

Sharma

This has been a fascinating conversation. Doug, thank you for your time.

Horne

Great. Well, thank you so much for having me. And it was wonderful having a chat. Take care.

Announcer

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