Making Recycling Sexy / Kieran White / Lasso Loop

https://www.lassoloop.com/

would you like to have your own recycling center in your house? 
Will Ted Lasso sponsor? 
Do you want to be a tester for Lasso Loop? 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kieran-luke-white/

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https://specright.com/ 
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

Cory Connors: 0:31

Welcome to sustainable packaging with Cory Connors today, my guest is an entrepreneur. I'm excited to introduce you to Mr. Kieran white is the executive in charge of lasso loop recycling. Hey, Kieran. Kieran White: Hey, Cory , how's it going? Good, man. Thank you so much for taking time for us. I was telling the audience or we were talking about before the background that you have that's is this really cool? And if you're, if you're watching on YouTube, that's good for you. But if you're listening, he's got this beautiful cartoon awesome background behind him. Can you tell us about that?

Kieran White: 1:06

Yeah, sure. It's just in our office space. It's by a, it's owned by a gentleman called Tim Draper, if you know who that is. And he is the man in the middle, in a superhero costume., he's a fan of comics and, and putting himself a super, there we go. I love

Cory Connors: 1:19

it. And he's one of your investors,

Kieran White: 1:20

right? Hopeful invest. It's not quite yet, but oh, working on it. Yeah. In progress.

Cory Connors: 1:26

wonderful. Well, tell us about yourself. How'd you get into the, the recycling business. This is incredibly unique product. I can't wait to talk about it.

Kieran White: 1:35

Yeah, thank you so much. And thank you again for having me excited to, to be on long story short, got into sustainability. I was 18 left high school. Didn't wanna go to college to join Tesla, the car company I've heard. Fell in love with the whole concept of obviously sustainable transport and just enabling the Tesla mission. Every employee or X employee will tell you is, is ingrained into your, into your brain, which is accelerating the large transition to sustainable energy and very much fell in love with that. Was there for just, just over two years. Sort of worked on some cool operational projects, including to other rollout of model three in certain areas. Sort of it got exposed to a load of recycling there as well. I, I mean the recycling business was really quite exciting, so I've done that rabbit hole as well. And then from there So athlete sort of on the horizon and sort of talking to oldest, the original founder just before we, we raised our first round and, and decided it was, it was clear, the recycling problem was very real and wanted to, to try and combat it. So yeah, jumped over and sort of been, been going ever since. So yeah, very much been sustainable from when I was younger. So.

Cory Connors: 2:33

Love that. And you're right. Recycling is broken. We need help. We need lots of innovation. We need companies like yourselves. And so tell us about this thing. What is lasso loop? How does it work? It it's this it's this machine you put in your, in your house and it helps you recycle literally

Kieran White: 2:51

the think of a dishwasher, but that recycles things . Yeah. So yeah, long story short lasso is built on the core premise that purity. Is value and value is recyclability. Which means long story short that in a home we're keeping everything separate from the source and not letting it get mixed together to avoid that the obviously processors of like material, current facilities and everything that, that currently doesn't enable everything to be recycled. So like I said, but a dishwasher in your home but that recycles there think of it in chambers. So you put your, your container in lasso and it will scan it. We use some really cool technology, but long story short scan it. So it knows the material. It is. If it's got a label on it, what the barcode is. If it's got a, if it's got a cap on it, if it's got a cap, it last you to take the cap off. If it's got the small little tampering below it it'll cut that off for you. It'll then move it through to cleaning where we'll clean the bottle. Take the label off. Just ensure that it's very pure. So it's down to its purest forms like a PET bottle HDP, et cetera, it's pure and ready to be processed from there. It is processed. It either goes through plastics. Liced metals are shreded and glasses crushed. And then the stored in the bottom. But the really beauty of, of what we're doing with lasso is that everything's kept completely separate. So if it's PT, it's kept only in PT, HCP, only HDP. We process three colors of glass and then two types of metal all kept separate. Wow. So yeah, from there you pop the container out like a suitcase. wheel it to the curb. You can either book an undermine collection or we'll get it for you bricking automatically and then, and then take it off to our facility. Basically just store it for a while. Again, everything kept separate and aim to sort of go for a hundred percent closed recycling where it goes straight back to a co can go to coke for. So, yeah, that's actually the, the concept.

Cory Connors: 4:29

That's incredible. And this is, is starting in California, is that correct?

Kieran White: 4:34

Yes. That's where I am right now. yes, starting in California and then starting to roll out across the us and hopefully beyond yeah.

Cory Connors: 4:42

Excellent. I, I hear an accent in your voice. Where, where are you from originally, sir?

Kieran White: 4:47

originally from London. Oh, I, yeah, I don't quite merge with the, the American , although apparently it's softened over times. I've been in the us, but who knows?

Cory Connors: 4:56

yeah. Before you know it you'll, you'll talk like a surfer, right? I bet. Literally.

Kieran White: 5:02

Are, are you a surfer? I'm not, I wish I was, I grew up in just above London, so away from any sort of coast, even it's like two hours away. Yeah. So, no, I'm not.

Cory Connors: 5:12

No, I'm not, but it's amazing how many people who have been on my podcast have been surfers and, and several from the UK, several from California that they live on the coast. They spend time in the water and they want to be sustainable because you know, they've seen the impact of not. And so a lot of the innovators like yourself are surfers. So that's why I asked.

Kieran White: 5:32

Yeah. A hundred percent. I wish I was. I mean, hopefully in the future. We'll see.

Cory Connors: 5:36

never too late. Never too late. Yeah. My dad's over 70 years old and he just started surfing . Wow.

Kieran White: 5:42

That's amazing. Yeah. Hope for all of us, I guess.

Cory Connors: 5:47

so okay, so let's say. These are all they're in every home, across the country. You, your, your plan has worked. You you've installed one in every house. What are you gonna build facilities around the country to pick up that waste or that recycled recycle material, but that I should say valuable material to recycle, and then you're. Provide it to the different production facilities where they can turn it into new packaging.

Kieran White: 6:17

Yeah, so long, the reason. So we, first of all, just can't sort of plug into the existing sort of collection system and recycling system, because like we said before, everything's separate. So if you, you dumped it into a big recycling track, it's all mixed together and it's. Although, probably easier to sort it's pretty pointless. So we have to do that separately. And because of that once it's collected, it goes to a place called a product on fording Depot, fancy word for a storage facility. So we have we're aiming sort of work. We're just coming to the conclusion of a number of households that would have lasso within a specific region that would a high one on 14 Depot. So the goal would be to have those dotted around the us. As scarcely as possible obviously to reduce the, the footprint and then from there, we would hope for the goal again, to keep the footprint low is to have local semi-local bio. So like we said, if it's Coke, pardon me? If it's Coke, you go straight back to Coke. That's excellent.

Cory Connors: 7:10

Yeah. That's really amazing. How many, any different kinds of plastic can it do? So currently

Kieran White: 7:16

we do PT and HDP. The goal longer term is to add a mixed past extreme and to go for like LDP and, and the films and stuff. So, but yeah, starting with PT and HDP.

Cory Connors: 7:27

So for the listeners P E T is usually like a, a Coke bottle like a plastic water bottle is the most common used for that. And H D P E is your milk jug. And they're those two items are the number one and number two for a reason. They're the most recyclable plastics. As far as I know, And that makes sense that you're starting there. I'm hoping that the number three and four and five and six and seven will slowly disappear. And you know, we'll, we'll make more materials out of the, the one and the two . And I think that, I think that we're trending that way. I think packaging is trending towards mono material, which is good for you guys and fewer materials which is best for you guys. I do see a lot of number four L D P especially in the, the clothes you know, textiles in industry. Yeah. With bags and, and I think Amazon uses number four for their. Cushion mailer bags that they, that they're famous for. but I'm, I'm impressed with this idea. I think it's really cool. Where are you guys at, in the stage or, or do you have some in homes now?

Kieran White: 8:33

Yeah. Sure. Well, thank you very much. And so we, we are currently in, we'll just finished the first prototyping stage. So the next stage from there is we're just closing a funding or we would look we're close to funding around. And then we are just trending towards having a hundred pilot rollout. So a hundred houses in the bay. We'll, we'll get sort of early access to lasso. We'll be monitoring it. It won't be completely luxury, but it'll be tested out. And that will sort of be towards the end of this year. And then training towards the start of next year and probably about 12 months after that as well. We'll slowly start a transition out of the, the pilot into actual homes and start delivering. So we'll be about 18 months from being in the official first home, but hopefully six to 12 for, for the pilot, which is very exciting, but yeah, a idea

Cory Connors: 9:17

that's wonderful. Have you chosen the, the a hundred families or, or houses to fill yet?

Kieran White: 9:23

We haven't we're very open. So if anyone's interested, please, please drop us a message. We'd we'd love you help, but no, not quite yet.

, Cory Connors: 9:29

my company Landsberg Orora is based near there. So we could absolutely recommend some, some of , our coworkers to, to be involved with this and help you guys out.

Kieran White: 9:39

That would be awesome. Thank you. Yeah, we, we would, we'd be super interested.

Cory Connors: 9:43

Yeah, and nice to have a packaging expert you know, work with your machine to see how it works. And so, yeah, that, that makes sense. I'll I'll I'll get with you after this. Awesome. So I have a question and, and don't be offended sure. Will Ted lasso be a sponsor.

Kieran White: 10:00

So we've had talks with Ted lasso he's in, we're not sure if we're in as well. So there's Ted lasso will not be a sponsor yet. Okay. We have had a lot of comparisons so I think eventually we'll have to do something once we launched maybe, but We'll see

Cory Connors: 10:15

what a, what a great show that is. And it just made me think of you guys. That's great.

Kieran White: 10:20

yeah, yeah. Sort of marketing, but some we, we didn't intend to and yeah. Both

Cory Connors: 10:25

ways., that's the best kind of marketing the free ones. Yeah. Yeah.

Kieran White: 10:30

the free unintentional ones. Yeah.

Cory Connors: 10:32

well done. So other than recycling, will you make, will you make another model for composting?

Kieran White: 10:40

Yeah. So the goal, as we sort of add on, we talked about the LTP is the plastic films. We'd love to attack cardboard and paperboard as well, but obviously that's a large in volume and we want to meet lasso as small as possible. So that's how you break that down. We'd love to bring in composting and sort of like the organic side of it. There's companies like CALEA and, and loo slash P that are doing really awesome work with that. Sort of countertop versions. And we, we sort of, we, we had initial talks to Claire a long time ago. So something we potentially look at in the future but we've sort of seen a lot of companies doing some really awesome work around it. Maybe it be more of a, a collaboration to an integrated into LASA rather than us developing it all ourselves. Just noticing notifying of their they're all doing some cool work too. So yeah. But a hundred percent on the roadmap.

Cory Connors: 11:22

That's amazing. So back to the product a little bit, you mentioned a, you pull a suitcase size amount of material out of the lasso to take to the curb or roll it to the curb, or however that works will the person that picks that up sorted at that point. And leave your, your suitcase or do you have like a revolving do you get a new one? How does that work?

Kieran White: 11:47

Yeah. Great question. So as it comes down to the bottom, into the suitcase, the seven individual currently seven individual containers. So one for PT, one for HCP, one for brown, one for clear one for green glass and then one steel tin and one for a mini can. So all sort of with the top layer. So you don't have to touch that stuff. So yeah, out like a suitcase wheel it to the curb. When the big trailer comes, it'll be a trailer pulled by a pickup. And when it comes big, a robot album will come out, tick it in. And then think of in the trailer, the seven shoots sort of matching up with those containers. So there's no sorting down. So as soon as the EMP emptys out, they all goes into the bin. Your containers put back and then you just wheel it back in and connect it again. That's that's the goal. Oh, thank you. So

Cory Connors: 12:28

yeah. Well you need, so you don't you just don't use it while, while it's out at the curb. For, for a few hours. That's how that works. Okay. That's a smart system then you don't need all the extra suitcases

Kieran White: 12:40

yeah. Yeah. We sort of looked at it and it was like carry loads of suitcases around, or just pick one up. And it's probably easy to pick one up and to mention on that, I mean, the, the goal is to, to get under eight pickups a year because everything's so like per assessed and, and condensed. So hopefully we don't have to do that that much either.

Cory Connors: 12:56

That's brilliant. It could be. Yeah. Every other month. Every quarter, probably. I would think as long as you're not using hundreds of glass containers or, you know yeah. You never know, I'm sure everyone's volume is a little bit different. With their,

Kieran White: 13:11

yeah. So you can bowl weekends. I'm sure they've got a lot of, lot of green bottles going in

Cory Connors: 13:17

yeah. Well said, do you think that you'll have a sponsor you know, of maybe a beverage brand or someone like that? Is that possible?

Kieran White: 13:26

It's very possible. We've been in talks with some of them in the past. I think the goal really with lasso is just to enable a hundred percent sort of circular supply and economy. So just, we, we really want to avoid the idea of exclusivity to launch maybe, but eventually the goal is very much just to enable a, a circular economy and overall sort of increase the supply fuel recycled products that can then be remade. So you've explored it and it's something we're interested in and never say never official. And, but so far not yet.

Cory Connors: 13:54

you could almost have one that goes next to your beer fridge. That's just for cans and bottles.

Kieran White: 14:00

yeah, there we go. That's something to consider. Yeah. Our CTO is just opposite me. I'm just shooting him so much.

Cory Connors: 14:08

well, thank you so much for being on our show. Anything else you want to tell the audience about or just send 'em to your website. What's your website. Yeah,

Kieran White: 14:17

websites, lasso loop.com. Feel free to sort of check us out if you've got any questions for me, like you're welcome to email me directly. It's KW lasso loop.com. And yet I'm also LinkedIn. But thank you so much for, for the time. Really, really appreciate it. A big fan of the podcast and I I've listened to it before, so really awesome to be on.

Cory Connors: 14:33

Oh, thank you so much, Karen. And thank you, Landsberg Orora for sponsoring us and supporting us. If you're listening, please take a minute to rate the show and tell your friends about it and make sure you're subscribed. Thank you so much, Karen. We really appreciate this.

Kieran White: 14:45

Yeah. Thank you guys. Bye-bye.