Your Forest Podcast by Matthew Kristoff

Recycling Is Dead with Raz Razgaitis

Episode highlight

Raz Razgaitis, CEO of FloWater, talks about water security, the failure of the plastics recycling system, and how his company is making clean drinking water democratized and pure while eliminating plastic waste.

Resources

FloWater: https://www.drinkflowater.com/ 

Social Media: @drinkflowater

Plastic Pollution Coalition: https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/

Sponsors

West Fraser: https://www.westfraser.com/

GreenLink Forestry Inc.: http://greenlinkforestry.com/

Damaged Timber: https://www.damagedtimber.com/

Giveaway

Enter YourForest10 at checkout at the Damaged Timber store for a 10% discount!

Quotes

 15.40 - 15.47: “I think, in many ways, big bottled water is very much… the big tobacco of 2020 and 2021”.

 16.39 - 16.44: “Let’s keep these plastics from even being created in the first place so then we don’t have to recycle them.”

 31.40 - 31.48: “We’re facing a situation today where there are going to be more plastics in the ocean by the year 2050 than there are fish.”

 34.35 - 34.38: “We do believe everyone deserves access to clean drinking water that they can trust.”

 43.03 - 43.11: “There’s a lot of data that even the stuff that makes it into your recycle bin, there’s a pretty low chance that it actually makes it all the way through the recycling system.”

Takeaways

What makes Raz get out of bed each morning (5.01)

Raz is motivated to end the use of single-use plastic water bottles by democratizing and decentralizing water. He also feels a sense of “responsibility and obligation” towards making these happen for the planet and its people.

A big opportunity to do good while doing well (10.57)

Raz took a natural wellness approach to break free from medications and to make water the healthy drink of choice for everyone. He also wanted to move from a greenwashed idea of recycling to ‘uncycling’ - removing plastics from the ecosystem.

Whether you’re drinking bottled water or not, you’re now drinking bottled water (20.40)

Raz cites a SUNY study stating 90% of bottled and tap water contains 300 microplastic particles per litre. While cigarettes contain 6000 known chemicals, plastic bottles contain 10,000 which permeate our organs. Though tap water is cheap and easily available, people can’t trust it.

A regression back to a positive natural state (29.24)

Raz explains that microplastics contribute to oxidative stress and inflammation in human and non-human animals, and cause the destruction of marine life. Aquatic animals ingest them and lead them into our food system. FloWater makes tap water plastic-free, safe and re-mineralized.

Recycling is broken (41.41)

Raz laments that instead of being recycled, 8 million tonnes of plastic bottles get dumped into waterways every year. Human behaviour is difficult to change, especially moving people away from the convenience of single-use plastic water bottles when they don’t like or trust tap water.

Make the switch from trash to treasure (49.19)

Focussed on ending single-use plastic water bottle use, FloWater is offering touchless refill stations to purify water fountains at schools and other public places, and water packed in aluminum bottles to transition people from single-use to reusables through infinite recyclables.