10. Interview - Nick Torday, Bower Collective

James Piper: Hello. Welcome to Talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one sided stories. I'm James Piper, author of the rubbish book, and I'm joined by Robbie Staniforth, my far from rubbish friend, and Nick Torday, our, far, from rubbish guest. Hi, Nick.

Nick Torday: Hi, guys.

Robbie Staniforth: Hi. I'm here, too.

James Piper: Hi, Robbie. You're a bit further away from the mic this time. We've all sort of come into one room, which is great, but we have. It's really nice, but we haven't been able to do that before, so we're just all leaning into the mics.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, I think sitting on your lap wasn't really an option. So we're going to be moving back and forth. Hopefully you can hear me.

We have some really amazing guests lined up for the future podcast

James Piper: Okay, so here we are with our second interview, which is episode ten. I think we said we'd try and pencil them in every five episodes, and so far, we've stuck to that, which is great. We have some really amazing guests lined up for the future. Robbie and I are in the same room. Last time I did the interview on my own, and let me tell you, the backlash on YouTube, you just would not believe. He literally, we had someone comment going hash bringbackbaldi, and, he's back with a freshly shaved head. So, yeah, bring back Baldi, as official, that is. We needed Robbie to be here for the interview, so I'm so delighted that the three of us are in the same room and we're able to have this conversation. So no more bring back Baldi. I was slightly devastated because this guy also said, I enjoy him because he's the funny one. And someone had said to me, which of you is the funny one and which of you is the serious one on the podcast? And I honestly thought I was the funny one. So it was, like, absolutely devastating to be put in my place by YouTube. So I will be the serious one, and baldy over here could be the fun.

Robbie Staniforth: Not quite sure who wants to bring back baldy, but Baldy is here with a vengeance. Looking forward to it.

Nick Bauer founded Bauer collective to help reduce plastic waste in the home

So, Nick, we met each other a few years ago through a mutual acquaintance. And I remember at the time you were looking at new business ideas. The issue of, I think Blue Planet had just come out. The issue of plastics in the ocean was huge, and you were deciding around a new startup business that has eventually become the Bauer collective. So do you want to just tell us a bit of a story about how Bauer collective started?

Nick Torday: Yeah. Thanks, Robbie. you're right. You and I did meet really early doors and you know, we've always been, you know, hugely grateful for the advice and support you've given us. So the story goes back a little bit further and I was just saying to James when we met that I used to run a tech business just around the corner from here in Bristol. And as a business we did a lot of work in the social and environmental impact space. So our clients were people like the, the UN, WWF, Greenpeace, as well as Big Blue chip corporates who are trying to develop their ESG agenda, et cetera. Going back now about, I'd say eight years, maybe nine years, we built with one of the big global ngo's the first ever data visualised model of marine plastic waste. What we all now understand to be the great, the great Pacific garbage patch, et cetera, was still fairly nebulous and opaque back in those days. And we built this data model with this organisation and it absolutely blew my mind. This was before the issue of existential plastic waste in the natural environment was kind of headline news every day or every week. That began a process for me as a consumer of trying to live differently. I've got a family, I've got three kids, and you generate. There's a lot of stuff comes out of the house. As I started to dig into how do we eliminate waste coming out of our home? How do we interact with products and services in a different way? I discovered a number of things. One was it was a very fragmented consumer ecosystem. So you had to sort of shop around to lots of different places to get your sort of bamboo toothbrush here and your plastic free laundry detergent tablets here or whatever it was. So that was sort of number one. Number two was the product quality was often a compromise. Like back then, sustainable natural eco products. there were still questions around sort of product delight and efficacy, these really important things that you want to have products in your home. But the third thing critically was the process for reuse and refill was super cumbersome. So this was in the day and I live in rural Somerset, I now live in South Somerset. At the time I lived in north Somerset but you know that we had a bricks and mortar refill store like a six mile journey. So you had to get in the car with a tote bag full of vessels, go to the refill store, work out which dispensers which. Now I'm not, this is not me being down on refill stores. I'm obviously a massive proponent of all things reuse. And refill. But in terms of the customer experience, it was very, it was

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Nick Torday: full of friction. These were my three core hypotheses that were kicking around in my head, like, there's got to be a better way of doing this. And there's enormous latent consumer demand to solve to address this problem. So that's kind of the foundational hypotheses that were going around in my head, that there was a big problem that needed to be addressed here.

James Piper: Great. And it's funny, we put out our refill episode, I think, episode six, and I'd like to put a photo up on social media, and I put up a photo that I went into preserve, you know, the, refill store that we have in Bristol. And I asked whether I could take a photo or not, and it was, it was quite interesting because they were instantly like, well, are you doing something bad about refill? Are you being negative? And I was like, no, no. Like, I like refill and I want to talk about it. And we've got this podcast. And eventually they let me take a photo. And then, the lady in the shop said, so, do you shop here regularly, then? And I was like, this is actually my second time, second time in the store, which I felt really guilty about. And she was going, but you do an eco podcast. And I was thinking, yeah, I know, what's my barrier here? And I think I'm just being super honest here, but I'm like, this shop is. It is actually the closest shop to my house. I have to walk past it to get to Tesco and co op. And I still struggle because I know I haven't brought with me my packaging. And, they will provide a paper bag or a, or packaging. But then I'm thinking, but if I forget it next time, I've now got more packaging in my house than I wanted, so it'd be worth you explaining how you've gone about solving that.

Bauer collective is a subscription refill service for liquid consumer products

Nick Torday: Yeah. So just to sort of continue the story, I guess, I then, you know, went to my co founder, Marcus, an old mate of mine. He'd built a very successful compostable packaging business, for the food service industry, which he'd sold, just recently to a business called Bunzel, who are a FTSE 100 packaging distributor. So he was looking for his next challenge with my background in sort of technology innovation, service design, his background in packaging and sort of environmental sustainable business, it just felt like a great team to address this challenge. So we then got our heads together and, started to explore what a system might look like. And I was listening to a, preview that Robbie kindly shared of your refill episode, which, was talking about loop. So loop was a big deal when we were sort of first raising money for the business. and we all know it hasn't really panned out, at least not in the UK. But actually, I believe still in France, is performing quite well. But, for me, and just picking up James and what you were saying about the burden, the friction, the cognitive load for the consumer to go, oh, mama, I forgot my. I can't go in there because I forgot my vessel, my bottles, dispensers, and it's just like, I don't want to get more packaging, et cetera. So we were like, service design is critical to behavioural change, to making a system that works for people. I'll fast forward to explain how Bauer works, right, is we use flexible packs. So they are the refill packs that you will see, ah, on supermarket shelves now, for liquid consumer products. So we have a multi category range across household and personal care. So we do three categories in household dishwash, laundry and cleaning. three categories in personal care, hands, body and hair. So that's pretty much you're covered for all of your sort of liquid product needs across the household. And what happens is you'll order from Bauer collective, and you'll either have your own vessels, dispensers, bottles at home, or you'll buy them. We have a full range of custom Bauer dispensers. You'll buy them from us and then you'll get your refill packs, you'll set up the cadence for your subscription. We're a subscription refill service. so one month, two months, three months, whatever suits the needs of your household. The packs arrive, you extrude the product into the dispenser. and because they're a flexible pack, they pack completely flat. I, And we send you a prepaid returns envelope and you simply slide the empty m packaging slots in neatly to that. It's a large letter format, so you don't have to go to a post office, you don't have to arrange a career pickup, you just pop it in your local mailbox, which most people have access to within a reasonable. And also putting stuff in the post is like a regularised household behaviour. Anyway, that packaging comes back to us, it's put through a QC process and then we refill those packs with exactly the same product. It's all technology enabled. So we have a, sort of custom scanning fill line in our, refill centre, circularity centre, which is in Swindon. So we fill with product, we scan them into the system. We know exactly what batch coded product is in each individual pack. When they come back from the consumer, they're scanned back in. So we know exactly which packaging has come back, how many times it's been reused. When they're refilled

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Nick Torday: with the next batch, that batch code is overwritten so that we have a full sort of audit trail of the pack. we conduct randomised microbiological testing to ensure the safety and security of the product inside. and the pack keeps going back out over and over again. so that's a high level how it's called Bauer pack as well. That's what the technology is called. So that's how it works.

James Piper: Amazing. And it really is incredible products. And you've actually brought some for us today, which is so kind.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah.

Nick Torday: Pleasure.

James Piper: What have we got today?

Nick Torday: We have sent you our kitchen sink starter kit.

James Piper: Nice. So, like with Natalie's books, we will put that on our instagram, which isubishpodcast. And if you like and follow us there, then you'll be in with the chance of winning that. So that's just my quick social plug. It all sounds amazing what you do, Nick, and I'm fascinated by it.

Companies like terracycle do waste by post, where you post things

I've got loads of questions. I've actually got a difficult question that we haven't, talked about. So I'm just going to cheque in with it and see whether you've thought this through when I looked at this in the past, because, companies like terracycle do waste by post, where you post things back to them and then they will recycle it. I had a look at the Royal Mail kind of rules and they had. They're not very happy about people posting waste. Is this something you've looked at and got agreement with, or how does that work?

Nick Torday: Well, we're not posting waste. We're posting packaging for reuse. So it actually falls out of that consideration. we, encourage our customers to screw the lid back onto the Bauer pack before they send it back in the post. So there's no leakage? There's no. Sometimes there might be a bit of spoil on the outside of the packaging, but it's in a sealed, large letter format envelope. And we've actually built quite a good relationship with Royal Mail through other initiatives that we've been doing on. So we're actually looking to build a relationship with them long term for how we can leverage the mail network because, of course, there's a huge carbon benefit as well to using the mail bag as opposed to individual, couriers or. Which has an enormous carbon impact, which, of course was. The thing about loop that was just never going to be scalable was these enormous tote boxes with heavyweight containers being picked up by motorcycle couriers. I mean, it's kind of bonkers when you look at it in retrospect. So, no, that's not an issue. And we do have a proactive dialogue with Royal mail around what we're doing.

James Piper: Oh, that's great to hear. Yeah, it was something I've looked at in the past because there's often these schemes that pop up and people say, post us back this. And you look at it and it's very clear, you know, because you need a waste carrier's licence, there's all sorts.

Nick Torday: Of rules, but it's not waste.

James Piper: But it's not waste.

Nick Torday: These are, assets that are going to be back in production almost immediately. So we're sort of like a lot of these things, James, we're sort of. There's loads of regulatory frameworks for whom we don't fit within into their buckets because we're doing something which is still very nascent and new that there aren't, like the BRC, the british retail consortium, do not have a definition for reuse. so we're kind of like pushing these boundaries and helping these organisations to build consideration for this new model.

Robbie Staniforth: And I suppose that's part of being the trailblazer. But as the policy guy, I've just got to come in very quickly to explain that, waste is basically defined by the intention to discard it. So the intention when you put it in the bin, that it is rubbish. And the intention when you're getting those posted back is not that it's rubbish, is that it's still a packaging format that is very clearly marked as able to be refilled again. So it's the fact that the individual who's posting it back does not have the intention to discard it as rubbish, which means they're not posting back rubbish, through the mail system. Just thinking back to. So when we were first introduced, you were in that stage of trying to decide what was the business model you were going to create to try tackle this plastic crisis. And I remember you looking at lots, of different options when we had those board meetings to decide should it be this or should it be that? And you eventually effectively settled on becoming an actual retailer, an online retailer. And there were times when we were looking at was it a packaging supply company or was it to build a system? But the first thing you did was to become a retailer. Wondered what the challenges were back then and exactly why you decided to hone in on the fact that you needed to actually retail the stuff yourself to get refill off the ground.

Nick Torday: Good question, very good question. One that we get asked a lot, by investors and other sort of third parties. I think I'd say we're not really a retailer conventionally. We're a brand. We built a brand, a sustainable

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Nick Torday: consumer goods brand. I think we were more excited by that. As a founder, you want to be excited by the thing you're setting out to do. Marcus, my co founder, as I said, had successfully built a b, two b licenced, bio packaging business, which he'd sold. So he kind of done that, and wanted a different challenge. And we also looked at the market and felt like the best possible chance of us validating this business model was to build the entire service. Because it's not just about the packaging, it's about the product, the customer experience, the entire end to end service. The general narrative around reuse and refill is quite negative. All these supermarket trials and if something doesn't work and the trade press are all over it going, oh, it's been another, there's been another failure. And I think we felt that rather than trying to intersect into these legacy linear supply models that the big retailers and brands have, we could build something from the ground up, the whole thing, the manufacturing, the reverse logistics, the packaging technology, the product. And, that was super compelling and exciting to us. So that's why we went down that road. And I think that's when we talk about business. Yes, reuse is central to it, but we are also developing our own product formulations. Like I went from running a technology business to understanding how to develop shampoo fragrance, again, for my own personal and professional development. That's super exciting to be broadening and expanding our, horizons and developing a holistic brand product and packaging proposition.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah. So thinking back to those days of helping you on that sort of journey of building your business and deciding how the model would work, I look very fondly upon those days. and also the six bottles of wine. I remember you sending me, for devoting some of my time, extracurricular time. I remember it was easy.

Nick Torday: We allowed to declare stuff like that.

Robbie Staniforth: It was not bribery.

Nick Torday: HMRC are going to be knocking on the door.

James: We're trying to shine a light on how exactly recycling works

Robbie Staniforth: but so, coming fast, forwarding now to the customer journey that you took us through. Just explain a little bit about how the technology actually works with refilling these pouches and stuff. Because people as much as, you know, lots, of people just think that stuff goes into a black hole with waste and rubbish. It just sort of goes away and magically gets recycled. We're trying to shine a light with this podcast on how exactly recycling works. Tell us how exactly does. So the pouch comes to your site. What happens to that pouch in getting it back out and sent to a different customer?

Nick Torday: Okay, so an envelope comes back. We encourage for the uni economics to be optimised. We encourage customers to send back a minimum of four packs. Now, that's the average Bauer subscriber has 4.5, subscriptions. So that kind of tallies with the average number of subscriptions. So they might have washing up liquid laundry, liquid body wash and hand wash, let's say. So we say, look, rather than sending them back one by one, just wait until there's a bit more of a lag on the packaging coming back. But we can tolerate that because the uni economics work better sending multiple packs back, via royal mail. So they come back to our team in the refill centre. We open the packs. At the moment it's quite manual and we are in the process of investing in some, sort of automation strategy. But currently what happens is they get the packs out, they do a visual QC is so one thing I haven't talked about yet, which is super important. And actually, James, we had an email exchange, one of the key innovations with Bauer pack. So in the early days, we were washing the packaging between use cycles. Now, imagine, washing a small flexible pack with a 24 mil aperture, which has foaming surfactant based products inside it.

James Piper: Yeah. And this is why we had the email exchange, because I couldn't understand how you wash a pouch like that.

Nick Torday: So back in the day, in 2020, we worked with Miele, the, global, white goods.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, the washing machine guys. Okay, yeah, high quality washing machine. Wish I had one. Was using one on holiday just recently and thinking, bloody hell, these are good.

Nick Torday: Yeah, they are good. Other washing machines are available, but Mila have got a, R and D, wash centre in Abingdon. So I was schlepping up to Abingdon with all of these bower packs. We were trying to wash them out and it was like an Ibiza foam party, like these enormous industrial.

Robbie Staniforth: Sounds fun.

Nick Torday: Well, without the fun, these enormous industrial washing machines were just like pouring out. So we discovered very quickly, that washing flexible packaging between news cycles was neither technically, environmentally,

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Nick Torday: nor economically viable at any sort of scale. So at that point, we applied for a grant from innovate UK, the sort of, plastic packaging solution funding stream, which, we won, which was great. And that enabled us to hire a guy who became our de facto head of packaging. He'd done 17 years at Procter and gamble in packaging engineering. And our, big thing was, how do we design out the needs? So, Bauer packs now have a proprietary one way valve system. So when we fill the pack, the filling nozzle comes into, the pack, fills with product comes out, and that valve snaps shut. Okay. And when it gets to the customer, you tip. You'll see when you get these packs, while they're actually going to one of your listeners, not to you guys, but, Robbie, you'll have probably interacted with the bow pack before, so you tip the pack.

James Piper: My reuse story has made you feel that I haven't. I think that's a, you know, have you, James?

Nick Torday: Have you put me on the spot now?

James Piper: No, I haven't, but I will be, because I have, you know, obviously doing research. I'm like, I'm in. It's interesting, because I said on, Natalie's interview that I was moving to refillable pods, and my friend came around last night and said, you're not. There's no way you're going to do that. You just made that up for the podcast. And I'm like, I absolutely am. And this is the same thing. I'm going to get a bow subscription. So I'm literally like, every time we do an interview on our podcast, I just feel like my house is going to get incrementally, incrementally better. And by the end of it, I'm gonna be like the most reuse refillable household in Bristol. It's just gonna take, like, your podcast.

Nick Torday: Is like your gateway.

James Piper: Exactly. It's just gonna take about 500 episodes before I've completed, so. But, like, right now, we're into refillable pods. I've just got to use up my old ones because it doesn't make any sense to get rid of this. And then I've got to use up. In fact, I know we need some hand wash. So Ellie will be listening to this and telling me, you heard live on.

Nick Torday: Air commitment from James.

James Piper: So I put photos up of all these things I've done.

Nick Torday: So the one way valve, effectively, when the customer extrudes that product into the dispenser, and it's flat. No air or contaminants can get back into the pack unless they compromise it with a biro or whatever. So we conduct a visual QC to ensure that the pack is not compromised. There's no split seams, the valve hasn't been compromised. And then that goes straight back, it's skew separated and it goes straight back into line to be refilled with the next batch of product.

Robbie Staniforth: And so when you say skew separated, you mean you're making sure that the fabric conditioner only has fabric conditioner in a second time?

Nick Torday: Yeah.

Robbie Staniforth: And what about like, flavours and all that kind of stuff? Scent, smells. Are they flavours?

Nick Torday: Fragrances. Fragrances.

James Piper: My mouth actually dropped open as you were saying. I can't believe, because we haven't, we haven't prepped this. You just said an email, we're not washing them. And I just thought, oh my goodness, we're bringing a guy and he's about to tell me he recycles or landfills all these pouches. So you're telling me that the pouch has a valve that means that contaminant can't enter. and it means you are allowed to reuse that without washing it.

Nick Torday: Yep.

James Piper: That is phenomenal.

Nick Torday: Yeah.

James Piper: Genuinely amazing.

Nick Torday: And we conduct randomised microbiological testing and, the test results are, fantastic. Like we are. Ah, you know, because these are naturally antibacterial products.

James Piper: So how.

Robbie: How do you get approval for something like this

That is true. But that is true, yes. How often do you have to do these tests? How do you go, I, just can't even imagine how you go about getting approval for something like that. Well, you're about to tell me you don't have approval.

Nick Torday: I'm about to tell you, James, that in the startup world, the mantra is beg forgiveness, not permission. And as I said, people like the BRC, british retail consortium, they don't have a definition for reuse. So I think it's up to us to be confident that we are selling products to our customers that are safe to use. And we've got test data that proves that. So I can't give you the specifics of the randomised testing protocols that we run, but our, head of MPD is a guy called Doctor Phil Bassendale. He's a PhD grad, ex wreck it Ben Keeser. So he did seven years in innovation with one of the biggest CPG businesses in the world. So we've got some pretty grown up people running, our system here. And, we are belt and braces, confident that we're delivering a system. We're delivering products that are safe for consumers to use.

James Piper: Yeah. As you say, they're naturally antibacterial. So you're gonna have. As long as you don't get contamination in. That is, it's fascinating. I'm genuinely impressed by that.

Nick Torday: And just going back to Robbie's question about fragrance variant. Yes. We skew separate. So, for instance, we have three different laundry fragrances. I think that's right.

Robbie Staniforth: What are they putting you on? The smart.

Nick Torday: We just relaunched our laundry range, Robbie. blossom and bergamot. Or Bergamot, I never know how to pronounce it. Lavender and fresh linen are our, ah, three.

Robbie Staniforth: I'm a fresh linen guy. What are you, James?

James Piper: Well, I was going to ask which one you would recommend for my first purchase.

Nick Torday: I

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Nick Torday: think the, orange blossom and bergamot is our new fragrance and it's really nice. We hired, a fragrance consultant from method. method are, the cleaning brand who were acquired by Ecover and then sold to SC Johnson and are renowned for grey fragrances. been working with us on fragrance consultancy and really optimising how good our products smell.

James Piper: So, shall I just summarise where I think we've got to and you can tell me if I've got any of it wrong because it's just good. Just there's a lot going on with this business. So I am going to join and I will order m a starter kit, which is going to be for the kitchen, bathroom, or laundry or whatever. Yeah. Utility room. and that starter kit is going to come with a, bottle.

Nick Torday: Yep.

James Piper: And a pouch full of product.

Nick Torday: Correct.

James Piper: And I am going to send the envelope. Envelope. And I am going to empty that pouch into that bottle and send the pouch back to you. And I've got four of them. You have this valve.

Nick Torday: Ideally. Ideally, yeah.

James Piper: You have this valve that then reduces, removes the risk of contamination. So you can then refill. And you will send that back to me when I need. It was part of the subscription.

Nick Torday: Yeah, but it's asynchronous, right. We're not sending, and some of our customers do get confused with this. We're not sending you the same packaging back. You're just, you're getting your new products on subscription.

James Piper: Do they test you? Do they just put a little mark on it and go, I look forward to receiving this.

Nick Torday: Just some of our customers do be like, okay, but if I send it back to you, how long does it take for you to refill it and send it back to me. And we're like, no, no, no. It's like, it's. We will just reuse and refill that pack, but you will get a, you will get a. For a filled pack, it may be a different pack, but the other thing, just going back to the technology side of it. Robbie asked about, the QR code on the pack serves two functions for us. The QR code allows us to do the batch tracking and the reuse cycles. And we've built our own proprietary data model. I, can come on to carbon in a moment. but for the consumer, you, James, can scan the QR code on the pack and it'll tell you how many times that pack has been reused, how much plastic waste has been saved, and how much carbon has been saved. So it's got real time impact data built into the packaging.

James Piper: See, now, I love tech, and I'm going to have this all over my house. I'm going to just only buy products now that have QR codes that tell me how many times have been used, and then I'll just have screens everywhere. so how many cycles do you do on an average piece of packaging? Do you have limitations on that?

Nick Torday: Yeah, the only limitation is the base stability, shelf life of the product, which is, on average, 36 months. So it's really how many times we can reuse that pack within three years, which is roughly ten times. And we conducted an independent LCA lifecycle analysis, which shows that if we use the pack up to ten times, that pack is 76% more carbon efficient than one single use, disposable bit of plastic packaging.

Apparently you send the bottles empty, but are expanding into physical retail

James Piper: Okay. And one of the questions I have, just as I was talking through the process, is, presumably you send the bottles empty.

Nick Torday: Yes, we do.

James Piper: Had you considered them being full when they're sent, say, that the pouches are used for that first refill, or was that just not a practical.

Nick Torday: Well, it's sort of part of the whole, like, getting into the refill thing. So you get your box, you open it by your kitchen sink, you line up your dispensers, you open them up, you empty the product in. We have looked at it, and actually were just expanding into physical retail at the moment. And we are now looking at pre filled dispensers for the retail environment, where obviously it makes less sense to be buying an empty dispenser. Although some bigger, CPG brands are starting to sell empty bottles on shelf. the retail customer is not as used to that, but in the DTC environment, it actually is part of the process. Of getting the stuff, filling up, the dispensers, etc, etcetera.

The recycling rates for multi laminate flexible packs is extremely low

Robbie Staniforth: Let's talk a little bit about those pouches, because it's something that we've looked at. James and I have looked at, ah, pouches because of flexible plastics recycling. So rather than reuse, like, the recycling of these pouches, and it's something that people like. Capri sun is a pouch, these kinds of things that gets quite a lot of interest from consumers about how green are the credentials of a pouch. So how are you communicating that to your customers? Because I imagine that's something that probably comes up quite a lot.

Nick Torday: Yeah, good question. look, flexible packs, as you know, you guys are the recycling experts, not me. You'll know that the recycling rates for multi laminate flexible packs is extremely low. Extremely low. I mean, like less than a percentage point. So most of them are shredded, sent to incineration, landfill. Bad things, bad outcomes. but as a packaging technology, they're fantastic. They're super resilient. they're lightweight. Again, we go back to James talking about loop. Loop were designing these enormously heavy, high design, stainless steel containers. No part of that works for the consumer, for the reverse logistics. Flexible packs weigh practically nothing. They're super strong.

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Nick Torday: So our packs are p, p and nylon, and it's the nylon layer which actually gives them that durability, that puncture resistance and that resilience to be reused multiple times. But, yeah, they're not great if they get into the recycling stream, because they're very hard to recycle. And people talk about pyrolysis, people talk about all sorts. We work with a specialist recycler in Yorkshire that converts our, end of life packs into a, material called stormboard, which is then used in construction and infrastructure. So it is kind of end of life down cycling. But stormboard itself can then be recycled six more times, so massively extends the life cycle of those polymers in, in a useful context.

James Piper: Very weirdly, I've got some of those plastic boards just behind you. There you go. So, yeah, it's actually a different brand, but I'm very familiar with the product. So stormboard are basically taking plastic film, shredding it up, melt, extruding it into a board that can then be used for fencing or, advertising material or whatever it is. So it's a replacement for wood, basically, yeah.

Nick Torday: An MDX.

James Piper: Yeah. so that's great.

Tetrapack is replacing something that is widely recycled

I was going to ask you what you do with the, pouches at the end of their life. It's brilliant. And have you had, do you get much customer backlash on it? Or do you think actually customers, because they're coming to you, they sort of know what the product is? Or do you have this kind of. How often do you have to explain yourself that you're using a pouch?

Nick Torday: Yeah, you know, sometimes, like, it's really interesting, we talk about this a lot as a team, that there's so much greenwashing in the reuse and refill space. And you now see brands, like fairy Liquid. Am I allowed to brand highlight?

James Piper: I think we've established that this podcast just doesn't care. I think Robbie is very happy for us to name brands, but fairy Liquid.

Nick Torday: Are now delivering their refills effectively in Tetrapack. Tetrapack, as you know, is highly problematic in the waste stream. Despite the, very bold claims that Tetrapack can now be effectively recycled all over the country. That's just not the case. I think there's, and I don't want to get into the numbers on this because I'll say something wrong.

James Piper: The problem with Tetrapack, which we have, Robbie and I have pencilled in to talk about at some point, but I guess the fundamental problem with it is it's generally replacing something that is widely recycled. So when people move from an HDPE milk bottle, which is entirely HDPE, to Tetrapack, they are moving from something that almost every council collects. HDP milk bottle has a very strong recycling percentage and recycles very easily into a material that is quite hard to recycle. And there's been some amazing studies done that show that, people will think that a product is more environmentally friendly if it has cardboard around it. And it doesn't matter if you're using the same thing. And I often talk about like, toothpaste tubes where you've got, if you were to randomise and say, which one do you think is greener? This toothpaste tube that's in a cardboard box or toothpaste tube that's on its own. People will pick the one in the cardboard box because that's the bit they see and they think the cardboard is better, but it's actually got more packaging. You know, it's still the same tube on the inside. And I guess that's the challenge with things like tetrapak, where what we see is cardboard, but what is inside can include aluminium and plastic.

Nick Torday: What always includes aluminium and plastic.

James Piper: I think the aluminium is, depends, on the product that's on the inside. So you can. It will often include.

Nick Torday: But it has a plastic laminate.

James Piper: It definitely has a plastic laminate. I think the aluminium is kind of depending on what you've got inside and how, sterile you need to keep that. But yes, very few councils, or quite a few councils, collect it. Very few councils then sort it and get it recycled. There are very few places for it to be recycled. So we will come on to touch back. I'd love to get one of those guys on to talk about it because I think it's a. So I think they would be quite keen to defend that product and I think they deserve that opportunity. But I can't see how that is a good replacement for a product that is collected by most councils and recycled effectively.

Nick Torday: I just think that, you know, and again, I'm conscious I'm in a room with two like a grade recycling experts.

James Piper: Where are they?

Nick Torday: They actually left about 20 minutes ago before I started recording. but you know, one of our hypotheses is that recycling is broken. It is broken, it is dysfunctional, and you can't wish cycle our way out of this crisis. And we're not ideological about materials and some customers are. So some customers won't buy Bauer because it is a plastic pouch. But if you look at, we've got 5005 star reviews on Trustpilot, it's not really a humble brag. That's just now brag. Great sales piece. If you could be bothered to read them. You will see so many of our customers say, I love the fact that I send these packs back and they get used

00:35:00

Nick Torday: over and over again. That is why I love Bauer. That is central to our differentiation within the market competitors of ours, both at the startup level and at the CPG, big, global multinational level, that are using cardboard with plastic laminate in what we would say is a deeply disingenuous way. What we have an issue with is the linear design systems that have dominated capital markets and particularly consumer goods for so many years. This stuff that we use, this packaging, is super intelligent, complex materials, complex polymer bonds, creating strong, resilient, durable. You've got to use them again because that's what they've been designed for. Last year, globally, we produced 390 million tonnes of plastic packaging. Over 50% of it was designed to be used once and thrown away. That is just not acceptable.

James Piper: Yeah, and I guess, all of that is true.

Just as you were speaking, I was thinking about the reuse potential of your product

Just as you were speaking, I was thinking about the reuse potential of your product. And I was thinking when we talked about Ocado in the reuse episode, we talked about the fact that their bottles are kind of set up to be reused 60 times, which obviously allows them to have a harder, stronger, bigger format. I guess the downside to the pouch, from what you're saying, is that you've got that 36 month, limitation limitation. And actually, you're in products that aren't used that frequently. So you're only being reused ten times, as opposed to if you were doing something that was used on a weekly basis, you could be using it 150 times. what is the opportunity for you guys to take your technology and the business model you created? Because, just to be clear, I think the pouch is great. I'm a big fan of pouches. I think they work really well in this kind of environment where you can reuse them. I guess the opportunity for your technology and what you've created is that you could be in a format that is used more frequently, and therefore you could be reusing way more than ten times a, improving that business model in other ways. Is that something you guys have explored?

Nick Torday: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And we're actually, you know, we're in conversations with Ocado on a number of, levels. And, you know, I'm also, good mates with Catherine Conway, who I think is someone you should definitely speak to at some point, who runs unpackaged and is, you know, worked on the refill trial with Ocado. So I think there's lots of tensions, at every angle, right? There's lots of balance points. And I worry about big, bulky containers because even though the ocado cadence is probably more regular, because I probably come into your house every week. These are big, big three litre containers. Where are you going to put them? If you live in a big house, happy days. If you live in a one bed, where are you going to put it? Actually, we did. Our team went out on the road, literally went on a road trip a couple of weeks ago to do in home consumer research with some of our long term subscribers. And one of the really interesting things, we've got all these photos of, like, where people store their packaging. And, you know, if you open the cupboard under anyone's sink, generally in your home, your home, my home, it's pretty full, right? So if you've got, like, three stand up packs that can pack pretty flat and just slide in neatly to the side of the cupboard, that's, like, experientially helpful to the consumer. If you've got big, bulky containers, where are you going to put them? We're constantly trying to innovate and understand the consumer dynamics and how people interact with both product and packaging within the home environment.

Robbie Staniforth: And I think it will eventually come down to choice, won't it? Some people with bigger houses, more space, may choose to have the formats that take up more room. And then others where small space, living, etcetera, where the flat pouch is kind of vital to the customer experience. they'll choose that.

James: If you could have any superpower to help the environment, what would it be

I think ultimately that in this, series of podcasts that we're doing, we're exploring refill. This is our third one. Now, on the topic of refill. It's to try and show the plethora of different options. There is no one solution. Silver bullet for all of this. There's going to be different solutions for different use cases.

Nick Torday: But I slightly swerved, James, question. I went off on a bit of a tangent. So, to come back to your question, yes. Obviously, we want to extend the reuse cycles, the longevity of the pack, understand the technical limitations and barriers at a product level, develop the technology further. We're constantly looking to innovate. And look, it may be that the system we have today is not the system we have in 18 months time, because continuous innovation is the only way to survive in this market. And that's what we've been doing for the last few years. And it may be that on the next horizon is some radical development or innovation which helps us deliver, reuse and refill to even more homes. So, we never stand still with our packaging technology.

James Piper: Amazing. And, Nick, I'm asking every person who gets

00:40:00

James Piper: interviewed by us, the same question at the end. so if you could have any superpower to help the environment, what would it be and how would you use it?

Nick Torday: So that is a good question, James, because I do. I watch quite a lot of Marvel universe stuff with my kids. And, I did sort of, I was toying with this idea of, like, plastic man or something, some sort of, you know who, like, doctor, what's he called? Doctor strange. Levitate across the great Pacific garbage patch and sort of like, hover, extrude all of the micro m and nanoplastic waste from the ocean and condense it into a sort of tennis ball of plastic energy, which can then be deployed against our mortal enemies, whoever they might be. so I don't know. Is that all right?

James Piper: Perfectly acceptable, I'd say. Yeah. Great. So, doctor. No, it's not doctor. Plastic.

Nick Torday: What is it? Plastic man.

James Piper: Plastic man?

Nick Torday: I don't know. We can probably, you know, we get that in the writing.

Robbie Staniforth: I think we've got to workshop that a little bit. We can do better than plastic Manda.

Nick Torday: M. We can get that in the writers room and kick it around for a few days before we commit to it.

Robbie: Nick, thank you so much for joining us today

James Piper: Well, thank you so much, Nick, for joining us today. I've learned loads. I think it's been brilliant. So I really appreciate you coming in, and giving us your time. Thank you.

Nick Torday: Absolute pleasure. And, you know, I'm a big fan of the podcast, and, thank you guys for the opportunity to come and have a chat with you. I've really enjoyed it.

James Piper: Of course. So just as a reminder, if you want to follow us on social media, we're rubbishpodcast. And if you want to get in contact with us, with anything we've said, or you just want to talk to me or Robbie, just email us at talkingrubbishpodcast@gmail.com. thank you so much, Nick. Thank you, Robbie. Really great to have you all in the room. I, will say bye bye.

Nick Torday: Goodbye.

00:41:47