Super Search
 

Julie-CorbettMy guest today is Julie Corbett, Founder of Ecologic, a company that makes “packaging the earth can live with.” We’ll be talking about their new bottl that is turning the packaging industry inside out. This new bottle is made from recycled paper on the outside, with a nontoxic polyethylene plastic bag inside. Cut the paper bottle open, remove the plastic bag, and everything can be recycled again. Prior to founding Ecologic, Julie was a Vice President at Jurika, Mills & Keifer, where she helped launch the Counterpoint Mutual and Counterpoint Select funds. Julie was also a Partner at Jurika & Voyles, Inc., where she led the firm’s institutional service and marketing efforts that contributed to asset growth of more than $5 billion before it was sold in 1997. Previously, Julie worked for RBC Dominion Securities and the Royal Bank of Canada as well as BBDO Worldwide in Prague, Czech Republic. Julie holds a B.A. in Economics from McGill University in Canada and was once a professional gymnast-in-training (a helpful background in an entrepreneurial world that often requires one to jump through hoops). Julie is devoted to her two active girls, serving as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Oakland Lake School for 3 years and as Girl Scout Leader for her daughters’ troops. When not hunched over new bottle prototypes, she is an avid skier and an ardent friend of the earth. www.ecologicbrands.com

read-transcript

 

 

transcript

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Plastic or Paper??? The New Recycled Paper Bottles

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Julie Corbett

Date of Broadcast: May 13, 2015

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free. It’s Wednesday, May 13, 2015. It’s a beautiful day here in Clearwater, Florida. We had this big thunderstorm last night so the air is all clean. And it’s just beautiful today.

So today, we’re going to be talking about plastic versus paper, and particularly, in bottles. Bottles made of paper? Well, yes. There is new technology that they’re now making paper bottles for things like cleaning products and pet food and all those things that usually come in plastic bottles or jars or containers, whatever they’re called. And now, they’re being made out of recycled paper. And this, I think, is a brilliant thing to do because it very much lessens the amount of plastic that’s in the world. But it’s also much less toxic and toxic residues don’t get into the products inside from the container.

And we’re going to talk about all of that today with my guest, who is the founder. She actually developed these incredible things. And really, I’m sitting here looking at – I have four of these sitting on my desk. And I have never seen one in a store but I know that they’re there. And it’s something that you’ve never seen before, you can look at it on the shelf and go, “What’s that?” And it really is amazingly different. And I can see this being the future of what this is going to be on our store shelves instead of plastic bottles.

My guest is Julie Corbett. She’s the founder of Ecologic, and she makes this packaging that the earth can live with. Hi, Julie.

JULIE CORBETT: Good morning. How are you?

DEBRA: I’m good. How are you?

JULIE CORBETT: I’m very good.

DEBRA: Good. So I want to hear the story of how these bottles came to be first. How did you ever think of this and what motivated you to do it?

JULIE CORBETT: I think for many different perspectives, when you’re raising a family, at the time, I had two young children, they’ve grown up since, as they all do. But I had started when my children were very little, transitioning the family into basically buying food with better ingredients, more healthy ingredients, as you know, especially with babies. I started buying organic baby food, buying products with less sugar, ingredients that I could read on the back label that weren’t chemistry but really more akin to natural food.

So as you go through that transition, obviously, and I think most of America is looking for better, more healthy lifestyles, especially when it comes to their children, you’re a lot more sensitized to the environment around you because you realize whatever we grow in the ground, obviously, gets consumed by our beautiful babies. So I think it’s a natural evolution for a lot of new moms and mothers all over the world, actually. The minute you have children, you’re more sensitized.

So when my kids went to school, they go to school in Berkeley, always the hot bed of more radicalized and maybe more cutting edge thinking. Their school went to a way 3 lunch program. And when a school goes to a way 3 lunch program, they have a really great way to motivate kids. They were like the Biggest Loser, where the class had generated their least amount of weight in a given week. They would do a big weigh–in at the end of the day and they added it up over five days. So whatever class generated the least amount of waste won the ice cream party. So it doesn’t take much to motivate a bunch of kids.

DEBRA: I love that.

JULIE CORBETT: So what became very interesting is that it forced a lot of the families at the school that we go to, to really start thinking about how much waste they generate because a lot of the school projects were revolving around that. So we started measuring how much we generated as a family.

Now, what’s fascinating is that you go quickly into Tupperware, quickly into reusable bottles, clean canteen or [inaudible 00:05:33] bottles or camelback, whatever your fancy thermoses. I used to go to school with a thermos. All of a sudden, the thermos – you know, I bought a couple more thermoses for my girls.

So those were the easy things to do. But what happens is that you realize all the products you buy to put in your kid’s lunchbox, comes in a lot of packaging. So instead of throwing the packaging at school you start throwing it away at home.

So as we’ve gone through a month of this, I realized that we got to a point that it was really hard for us a family to reduce our waste. Now, the kids were doing great. I think my daughter’s fourth grade class won three weeks in a row. And we were getting to the point that I had to peel the banana before sending it to school so it would be weighed in with the rest of the trash.

But it was a big eye opener. So I started grocery shopping and buying – I’m always looking at buying better ingredients. But what was really quite striking to me and my children was that the choice in packaging, there was no choice. And it’s amazing. When you start thinking about it from a packaging perspective, just like you go down the aisle, call it the dairy/juice section in a grocery store, the amount of choices you have just in orange juice alone is a mindblow. I mean, no sugar, no pulp, mango–infused, organic, non–organic in a carton, in a plastic bottle. There are thousands of different options just when it comes to one orange juice purchase. The same thing for milk. Non–fat, 1%, 2%, 64 ounces, one gallon, small. It’s organic, non–organic, lactose 3, soy milk.

It’s just amazing. But when it comes to packaging, there were little choices. So I thought to myself, “Isn’t this amazing that we’ve gone to appoint as a society where we’re all understanding the impact of waste on the environment? And as a consumer, you want to have control – similar to you, you want to have control to the kind of ingredients you buy. And that choice is there. But when it comes to packaging, there was no choice.

So that set my thinking just understanding how big of a void there was. So I got an iPhone maybe about six months later, we’re well into this program, the kids are adapt. Everything is good. The school has seen a huge amount of not only waste reduction but they don’t have to pay as much money to get their waste taken away. So everybody’s winning. But our home trash and recycling had not changed.

So when I got this iPhone, I opened it. It was the first iPhone. This was in 2007. I opened it and inside, there was this beautiful molded fiber tray, a paper tray, that was molded just like a plastic tray would except it was paper. And it was the first time I’ve seen it – outside cartons, I started seeing this beautiful form factor and it really was clear that you could now – paper had evolved as a technology that you could shape it and make it look like platic but it wasn’t. And that’s really what’s amazing. It wasn’t plastic. It was paper.

So it set me down this journey thinking, “Gosh. I wonder if I can make a bottle out of this.”

So it turned me from an everyday working mom into speaking an alternative, and lo and behold, we came up with a paper bottle.

DEBRA: I think it’s amazing and it also goes to show that when you start to put your attention on something, then often solutions appear just because you’ve made a decision that you want to go in that direction. How many people opened those iPhone boxes but you were the one that said, “I can make a bottle out of this.” And I just think it’s wonderful the way that happens in the world. It’s a great thing.

JULIE CORBETT: It is. When you start drinking differently and I have to credit the school – schools are always an amazing anchor to change and thinking because schools all over America, children are so sensitive today to environmental issues, to health issues.

When I went to school, my mother gave me a little thing of Tang and I put it with water and I drink it. I’ve got nothing against Tang, but you know what I mean? But that wasn’t part of the conversation, right?

So schools do a good job and schools are doing an excellent job at raising the next generation. And that school program really changed our family’s perspective and sensitized us to how much waste we were generating.

DEBRA: I used to live in California. I was born and raised there and lived there for many years. And I was part of the founding of a company that made many environmental products that ended up in Wal–Mart. And it all started because somebody, a good founder’s daughter came home from school and said, “Dad, what are we doing to help the environment?” And we started a whole business. It still exists today.

So schools do make a difference.

We need to go to break but when we come back, we’ll talk more about plastic bottles and other solutions. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Julie Corbett, founder of Ecologic. And you can go to her website, EcologicBrands.com to see these wonderful bottles. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Julie Corbett. She’s the founder of Ecologic and they make bottles for packaging consumer products out of recycled paper instead plastic.
Julie, before we start talking about your bottles, could you tell us about the existing plastic bottles and packaging that you’re replacing? What kind of plastics are being used, things like.

JULIE CORBETT: So the company was founded in 2008. Once I had the bottles and quite frankly, what is interesting about packaging is that packaging serves a very, very important role in the distribution of products all the way from when the product is made, all the way to your pantry or your refrigerator. So it protects the product inside. America is a huge country and the world is a big place. So things are shipped far and wide.

So we had spent a fair amount of time at developing a package that we knew could withstand the shipping environment, the retail environment, the refrigerated environment, all the different environments that products endure before they get consumed.

So that took a while. But first, we had done a task with Straus Family Creamery that were instrumental in helping me move this technology forward. And Straus is the first organic dairy west of the Mississippi. Most of their milk is [cross–talking 00:15:23]

DEBRA: Actually, I used to live out there in West Marin, buy them, and I used to go to the farm. That’s great. It’s great. I love their place. I love what they’re doing. A long time ago, when they first became organic is when I lived out there.

JULIE CORBETT: Most of their milk is sold in glass, reusable glass bottles, like the old style milk van where you bring a bag and they resell. Anyway, we did a store task with Straus just to tell you how right the market is for sustainable packaging that people really care is that they sold 72% more milk in our container than they did the previous.

So we knew we’re on the right track. And what I wasn’t – I’m not a packaging person, obviously, by trade, and I don’t know the industry. At that time, I didn’t know the industry. There was an article published in Packaging Digest, which is the biggest periodical in the industry. And I got a call from Peter Swain at 7 Generation who saw the article. And 7 Generation has a very, very deep, very rooted in their DNA and their brand, the vision is sort of a reduction of virgin materials, specifically, a lot of their bottles were made out of recycled plastic, but also reduction in plastics overall.

And they were launching a new product, a new detergent product that used less water, so good for the environment. And they wanted to put in our bottle. They were our first customer and we developed a beautiful bottle for them. And it’s our longest selling product today. It’s been in the market for three–and–a–half, four years, sold all over the US. And they saw a 6% share in market gain and they saw a list in sales of – in the first years, almost 25% in our bottle.

And it’s been a good hero product for them. They also launched a baby detergent, baby laundry detergent in our bottle a couple of years later, a nice 32 oz. that you could find in specialty stores, specialty baby stores.

So it’s been a very, very big success. And since 7 Generation, we developed new products because think of the plastic bottle, it’s ubiquitous, it’s everywhere. So we developed a protein powder canister with the company called Body Logic. So you could see that in GNC, the vitamin shop, Walgreens. That is 75% reduction in plastic. It’s a beautiful bottle, different shape and size. And we have a lot of other customers around the planet who use our bottle. Our bottle sold in Austria. It’s sold in Germany, Holland. There are products in Australia, New Zealand. So it’s a very exciting time for our technology and company.

But we just launched our biggest launch and our biggest innovation today is with Nestle Purina. They launched a new kitty litter called Renew, which is non–clay–based. It’s a lightweight litter that’s made out of old corncobs and spruce. So again using discarded materials to make the world a better place and that just started selling in all the PetSmart around the U.S. and Canada, and that is 100% plastic–free, two sizes.

So it’s really exciting time. Very, very exciting time.

DEBRA: I have that new one, the Renew bottle. It’s sitting here on my desk. And one of the things about your bottles is that the other ones you sent me for samples, most of them have plastic lids. But the Renew one had a paper lid on it. And I thought that was very innovative. I really like that is 100% plastic free.

And also, it just makes sense that if you’re selling a product that has environmental benefits inside, the packaging should go along with that as well. It just makes everything in agreement.

And I have to say that I just think that I can just see in the future every product that is currently in a plastic bottle being in your paper bottles. I can see that.

JULIE CORBETT: I share the same dream. I share the same dream. Nobody tells you how hard it’s going to be. You come up with any idea where it was so intuitive with that d’oh kind of moment that a lot of people have in their life, I had the same.

I will tell you that I think there will be a day within the near definitive future where you’re going to walk down the aisle of the laundry aisle or the juice aisle or the condiment. So many aisles in the grocery story and you will see paper bottles. So the future is close. It’s just not easy. And that’s really the bottom line.

Every brand that has adopted our technology has seen huge growth in sales. And it just shows you how women, specifically 80% of all purchases in the retail environment are made by women at a household. So what women think is critical to the success of any product. And women, I think, across America, blue, red states, it doesn’t matter, I think people care about waste and litter and understand that we’re in a finite resource world.

The problem is that the industry is an old industry, and change is not easy. So that is what is going to take time. But I agree with your vision. I agree with your vision.

DEBRA: I love it. I love what you’re doing. We need to go to break.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Julie Corbett. She’s the founder of Ecologic and she makes packaging, she replaces plastic bottles with beautiful bottles made out of recycled paper. We’re going to talk more about that when we come back. Her website is EcologicBrands.com. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Julie Corbett, founder of Ecologic, and they make these beautiful, recycled paper bottles to replace plastic bottles.
So Julie, I do want to talk about plastic. Can you just tell us, what are the plastics that are used to make plastic bottles?

JULIE CORBETT: What process that we use. So at the end of each day, the backend of a grocery store, you have huge amount of cardboard waste because everything shipped into a supermarket, a Target, a Wal–Mart, or a drugstore, basically, it comes in a paper box. So at the end, they have this huge waste stream that they need to deal with.

So we take what they call old cardboard boxes, OTC. We take those cardboard boxes and we ship them to Manteca. And in Manteca, we have the technology that basically pulverizes the paper or the cardboard boxes and makes it into a blend like a smoothie blend. And then we have a technology that presses it into a paper shell.

So I like to say from box to bottle is really the process that we use.

DEBRA: A question that often comes up for me, people ask me about recycled paper is that you’re recycling the pulp but also whatever ink is on there. So does the recycling process remove inks or anything? I’ve never actually seen in person a recycling process, although I’ve read about it. So how does that happen? What happens to those inks?

JULIE CORBETT: Well that’s the beauty about paper. There’s what they call the inking processes. Ink separates pretty quickly from water. You don’t think it does but there are special enzymes that really separate the two. So that is an inherent part of paper recycling.

The reality about paper is that it’s one of the easiest materials to recycle compared to plastics. Plastics come in different colors and once you have a color in plastic, you actually cannot take out the color. So that’s what makes paper unique is it’s ease of recycle, it’s ease of convertibility. Once you’ve made paper – that’s why it’s the most broadly recycled product in the world today. It’s because it’s a natural product and all you have to do is re–wet it and it converts back into its fiber form.

DEBRA: Yes that’s pretty amazing. I love how that works. So would you describe the way your bottles are constructed because I think one other question that probably the listeners are wondering is if it’s just paper, how can you put a liquid in it?

JULIE CORBETT: If it’s just paper, how do you put a liquid in it? Well, some of our bottles, not all, but the ones that do carry liquid, we do have a very thin plastic pouch on the inside. Sometimes, at this stage, we don’t have a replacement for replacing it. But it is necessary evil in some ways because products once they are made have to fit on the shelf for sometimes more than a year. So you need what they call shelf ability to keep the product intact. And obviously waterproofing and plastic serves a good role for that at this point.

So our pouch has 70% less plastic than a regular bottle. So for liquid products that need that kind of stability, we do have a plastic pouch in the inside but the pouch is a separate – it’s really a separate thing. And it’s fully recyclable and it’s a lot less material. But it’s not embedded. The thing about paper is that the minute you coat paper with plastic – and you see that with milk cartons and the supras, for example – you know how you buy supras in those cartons, those laminated structures – once you coat paper with something like a plastic or any kind of petrochemical, it basically makes it impossible to recycle it. It makes it very difficult or very expensive to recycle. So we don’t embed the paper with plastic. We actually just have a little pouch on the inside. So two separate materials.

When you’re done, you crack it open and you recycle both of them separately or you can compost the shell.

DEBRA: I just think this is so brilliant because I can really see how instead of having this big plastic bottle that you can just – I have a house with a yard so I would just compost the bottle and that would be – and I have two little pieces of plastic to put in the recycling and done. It’s a white cap and I think it’s a clear plastic bag inside. And so this all can be recycled through the industrial system or through the natural system. And it’s just a brilliant design. Brilliant.

JULIE CORBETT: Well, thank you. I think when you talk about brilliant, you think about being an entrepreneur. What I’m finding is that our innovation has inspired many, many other inventors. Sorry, I have a cold. Sorry about that. And I think that you’re going to see more and move innovation in the packaging space. I think this has unlocked potential and it’s fantastic to see that an industry that has almost no [inaudible 00:32:27] no change in the past 50 years to see a renewed invigoration of the way people are thinking, the way people are thinking about the materials instead of plastic.

So I think if you could spark somebody else’s imagination, then you’re moving the pendulum in the right way.

DEBRA: I think so. One other thing that I see in this is that I’m always trying to think out of the industrial box and I know that you’re making these industrially, and I’m not saying that industry is a bad thing. But a natural material that can go through the cycle in nature of breaking down and going back into the ecosystem, et cetera. Then I’m always looking for that kind of solution. And most of your bottle is that kind of solution. We need to be moving in that direction so that we’re operating within the ecosystem rather than solely within the industrial system like most of what’s going on now.

JULIE CORBETT: I agree. And people are becoming more and more aware of these plastic islands that are forming in the ocean. Richard Branson just made out a call to the Billion Moms Call. Plastic, it doesn’t go into the right stream. It ends up in the ocean – our rivers, then through our ocean. It’s dramatically changing the system in the ocean. And the ocean is a very, very important – you live in Florida. It’s an amazingly important lung for the earth. So when you look at islands in the Pacific that are as large as a continent forming because of plastic waste, you know that anything that dissolves once it’s thrown away or it doesn’t make it to the recycling stream is a good thing.

DEBRA: Yes, absolutely. We need to go to break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Julie Corbett. She’s the founder of Ecologic. She makes these great recycle paper bottles that replace plastic bottles and her website is EcologicBrands.com. And we’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Julie Corbett. She’s the founder of Ecologic and we’ve been talking about her recycled paper bottles that will one day replace all plastic bottles on the planet.

So Julie, I think I’m running out of questions here but I know that you have more to say that I can’t even think of. So what’s something that we should be talking about?

JULIE CORBETT: Well, I think what everybody needs – I mean, look, I think we’re a collective [inaudible 00:39:19] individual choices. There are 300 million Americans and I’d say 50% of them are probably going to be going to the store within the next 48 hours to buy something. I think that you can’t move the needle alone. You can’t. But I think when you have a collective of people making individual choices that are starting to align with what is probably better for the overall planet, I think that’s where the needle gets moved.

I really do encourage people that when they do go shopping and they do buy products, I think there are some really important things that they need to be looking at, assuming that most products in the market today are quality products. If you really want to make a difference, you need to look at your package and look to see one, if it’s a recyclable package. Now, just because it says it’s recyclable doesn’t mean that it gets recycled. Those are two different things. But if you live in a community where you’re not – easy access recycling is not that prevalent, then you could buy products made out of recycled plastics.

For example, I know that [inaudible 00:40:48] seven generation, there are a lot of companies who are, instead of using virgin plastic in their bottles, they’re using recycled plastic. Paper-based, you go down the aisle of the grocery store and you see cereal boxes. There are some brands that actually, their cereal box is made out of recycled paper.

So I think if we want to go into a world where we’re not taxing our precious resources so much, buying products made of recycled content is actually going to make a big difference. Obviously, our paper bottle stands alone but we’re not at a point yet where it’s prolifically available in all products that we buy. That day is coming.

But I really encourage people to speak with their dollars. I think brands are understanding it today that the ingredients – they’ve focused so much on baking goodness inside their product, now they need to bake goodness on the outside of their product. And I think that that is going to make a sea of change.

DEBRA: I agree with you. One other thing that I have been running into my whole adult life as a consumer advocate is just being able to get the information about the products that you can’t always get the ingredient information. And so I’m actually right now doing a big push to do more work about increased disclosure. And it occurred to me that if we want people to make better packaging choices, it would be great if there was a little symbol that manufacturers could put on the front of the package. If it’s made out of recycled –that they would put a recycled symbol or something and indicate that this is a package, that we’re talking about the packaging material.

And people, as they’re going along the aisle, they could just look and see that symbol and know that this is a preferred packaging kind of thing.

I can look at this and say, “This is obviously recycled paper because I know what it looks like.” And then I can look on the back and see that it’s recycled. But if we want to get people to be making better packaging choices, I think something on the front of the label that indicates that the packaging, there’s something special about it, I think would be a very good idea.

JULIE CORBETT: Yes. I agree with you. And we’ve done – consumers like you have really made the change. Look at now and they list how many calories, fat, sodium content, sugar content. We’ve become – and when I go internationally and I buy products and I don’t see that it drives me crazy. So we’ve done a great job because of your advocacy on the ingredient side. But yes, I think to see the same thing happen with packaging that would be a dream come true. And it would help everybody make the better choices. We’re free to make the choices we want. But if we don’t have informed choices, we’re buying blind.

So I agree with you. And I think the sustainable – and this is the problem. Just because something has a number one or a number two on it doesn’t mean that it actually does get recycled. And people like the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, the SPC, it has started really pushing for standards on disclosures on recycling and symbol that are authentic to where we really are as a society, that number two is not good enough. It has to have number two. You know colored plastic doesn’t get recycled as much as clear plastic. Even though they’re both number two’s, the chance that a milk jug gets recycled is far higher than a colored plastic bottle like a Tide bottle or something of color because it’s not as sought after.

So SPC, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, has really worked hard. But not every brand is part of the SPC. So that is the problem. It’s still voluntary disclosures because you’re seeing people like 7 Generation method, you’re seeing some of the products on the natural side participate in the SPC standards but it’s not – by far, it’s still a small segment of that market.

So I don’t know if the government has to jump in and make a mandatory the way they have with food labeling. But something needs to be done to educate the public for sure.

DEBRA: Yes, it’s my impression – and you can tell me if I’m wrong, it’s my impression that actually, all these changes are really being driven by consumers. And that companies are responding to the consumer interest, and then government will respond. I don’t think it’s a top down thing.

JULIE CORBETT: No, I agree. But for food label disclosures, for example, it took the government – I think companies started doing it for responsibility, to be responsible and to educate, to establish brand loyalty. But at some point, you need a tipping point where everybody has to be on the same page and that nobody is lying. That’s the other thing.

I’m not saying that the government is the only solution but at some point [cross–talking 00:46:26]

DEBRA: I see what you’re saying. What I would like to see is, one of the things I think a lot of people don’t know is that the labeling laws are different for different types of products.

JULIE CORBETT: Correct.

DEBRA: And I would like there to be a universal labeling law that applies to every type of products that says all ingredients need to be disclosed. Period. And it doesn’t matter it is. And for food ingredients, if you are labeling a food product, you have to put the greatest amount, the highest percentage ingredient first. And then it goes down in descending order.

And we just need to have that on every product. And it seems like a simple thing to me.

JULIE CORBETT: I agree. [cross–talking 00:47:14] Go ahead.

DEBRA: That’s a place where I think that the government will have to require it because I see a lot of companies, especially more natural products, are giving that kind of disclosure but other companies aren’t.

JULIE CORBETT: I agree. I agree. It’s like the GMO debate. There’s a huge, at least in California, there’s a huge push, and we’re seeing California – places like California, places like Washington State, New York, even actually Florida, there’s a movement big enough that politicians are listening. So this GMO debate has been a hot bed in California. And I think forcing to disclose whether you have GMO content, people resist because nobody – when there’s a perception that GMO is bad, nobody wants to put in on their labels.

DEBRA: That’s exactly right. I think that if it were mandatory by law that everybody has to disclose everything than people will have to say, “Oh, we’re GMO and we thought this toxic chemical and all the things that they’re hiding today will come and they’ll go out of business.” Or they’ll change their formula or whatever.

JULIE CORBETT: That is exactly, yes, changing formulas. Isn’t that what we’re all about and we’ve done so much good work over the last 10 years. And that’s because people like you have educated the people about the toxicity out there in the environment. But also you’re speaking with your dollars and brands that disclose and that are transparent are getting more and more consumers attracted to them.

So transparency is a good thing. You’re right. It is a great thing.

DEBRA: Yes, it’s totally good because if what you’re doing is a good thing, why not say it? Why not show what you’re doing? And I think that those products that are transparent are moving forward and I’m always looking for transparency.

Well, we’re coming to the end of our time. So thank you so much for being with me today, Julie. Do you have any final words you want to say? We’ve got about 20 seconds.

JULIE CORBETT: No. It was a pleasure speaking with you. And I think I really applaud the fact that when you think about your mission as a radio show to sort of offer not only the diversity of conversation around products and ingredients but also about packaging. I think it’s time that we start talking more and more about it. And I really appreciate the opportunity.

DEBRA: Thank you. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well.

ARE TOXIC PRODUCTS HIDDEN IN YOUR HOME?

Toxic Products Don’t Always Have Warning Labels. Find Out About 3 Hidden Toxic Products That You Can Remove From Your Home Right Now.