Sustainable Packaging

The Connors! / meet my family

August 05, 2022 Cory Connors Season 2 Episode 100
Sustainable Packaging
The Connors! / meet my family
Show Notes Transcript

Episode 100 , Meet the Connors family! What an honor and amazing time getting to interview and be interviewed by my family!

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

What's it like having a dad that talks about sustainable packaging all of the time? 
What's it like being married to a podcaster? 
What's our favorite kind of packaging? 

Check out our sponsor Orora Packaging Solutions 
https://ororapackagingsolutions.com/

https://specright.com/ 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1329820053/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=corygat

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.

Welcome to sustainable packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guests are the Connors. This is episode 100 and due to an error on my part where I didn't push the right button on this thing before we didn't record the last time we did this. So we are trying again. Welcome everyone. How are you today? I'm good. Very good. It actually happens to be father's day, which makes this very appropriate and let's start by going around the room and doing some introductions. So let's start with the youngest. Ms. Mae Connors. Okay. What do I do? Say I'm Mae Connors. And I'm. How old are you me? Oh, I'm seven years old. All right. And Mr. Declan Connors, how old are you? I'm 10. Are you not sure? No. And I won't ask you the same question, but what's your name? My name is Angela Connors. And I wanna thank you guys for all of your amazing support of this crazy podcast that just has grown and grown and grown and grown and grown and so much fun in this industry. I'm thankful, I'm appreciative. I am overwhelmed by the audience and by the response in the industry. I mean, I just interview. Tom Szaky I can't even believe it. He's one of my heroes in the sustainability world and is just honored and people like Frederick Dreux and so many great guests. And I'm just thankful. So thank you all , for listening. Thank you all for paying attention to the show. But they have for the first time ever, I'm gonna have someone interview me in my own podcast. So , let's start with some questions here. How did you get into sustainable packaging? Oh, that's a great question. I, I totally fell backwards into packaging. I did not intend to be in the packaging world. I graduated high school and applied for two jobs, one at Weyerhaeuser and one at Les Schwab. They offered me both jobs and Weyerhaeuser told me I didn't have to shave my go. So I went with that one and I stayed with that for five years and paid my way through college. And then when I graduated college with a degree in advertising, I found out no one in the advertising world was hiring. So I went to work for a local packaging company called Landsberg, and I've been there for 20 years. so that's how I got into Beck. Thank you. You're welcome. Next. Did you wanna ask this one? What's your favorite packaging? My favorite packaging. Oh, I have lots that I like a lot. The, the one that I've really been enjoying lately is called flexi hex . I think that's the one where I dropped the bottle from way up on the ladder and, and it survived. Oh, that was the bottle of wine. Yeah. Filmed Vegas, one episode Declan filmed most of those episodes and I've gotten more feedback, positive and negative from that series of packaging tests than anything else I've ever done. So thank you. Declan I really appreciate it. You're welcome. Go ahead. I was gonna ask why that's your favorite packaging, but. Why is it because it's very versatile. It's a hundred percent recycled. It's a hundred percent curbside recyclable. It's totally paper, which is awesome. It is in my opinion, one of the most diverse kinds of packaging in the industry, there's so much that can be done with it. And super strong and super strong get strong. We dropped it from 10 feet in the air and it survived. It, it didn't, it didn't break until 11 feet. It's crazy. It's crazy. I still can't believe it. Yeah. so weird. Yeah. Tape on the shot. yeah, we still have those marks on the shop where we did all the drops, so we might need to do more drop testing. Yeah. Who knows?. The kids wanna know, why did you start a podcast? What made you get into this? Well, my friend Adam Peek and my other friend, Mr. Evelio Mattos said, Hey man, we need more podcasts in the world of packaging. And I said, I don't wanna do a podcast. And they said, well, we need more. And I said, okay, I'll make one. What should I call it? Sustainable packaging. Okay. That sounds interesting. And, and then Mr. Kyle Kaplanis , who is a podcast wizard? Showed me and Angela what to do and how to edit and how to start the whole thing. And we fumbled through it. And here we are, this will be episode 100, but I've already recorded more than this. So it's very exciting. It's working. We're getting attention. We're getting positive attention. We're teaching people the good news about sustainability and how to be more sustainable with your packaging, which is the whole point of this yeah, it's gotta start there. It has to start there. It has to start with education. It has to start with, this is possible. We can be sustainable with packaging. We can, we can do things that are better for the planet. then just cheap alternatives. There are options that, and not always will sustainable packaging be less money or even equal. Yeah. Sometimes it's more, but it's, it's worth it. The value is there, the customer acquisition is there, the customer retention is there. Yeah. You guys know what that means. Customer retention. Yeah. You keep a, keep a customer. Yeah. Very, very important. Very important. Any other questions or any things that you guys wanna talk about? We have a whole more let we have whole nother side, whole nother side. Do you wanna ask this one? Or that MAED that's mine. Can you recycle coins? can you recycle coins? That's what may, may I ask that question? Yeah, you can recycle coins. You did. They melt 'em down and turn 'em into new coins. Yeah, that happens actually. Who knew this is not packaging related, but that's OK. This is episode. We can do whatever we want. May ask, should plastic be thrown away? No, no. Most plastic is very recyclable. Now here's the caveat though. You can't just put it in your It has to go oftentimes to the grocery store. Remember how we go to the grocery store and we drop off , at the store, in the bin there mm-hmm and in, and that gets turned into Trex decking. What is track TRX is the, the plastic decking wood replacement material. Oh, okay. And they turn they've recycled over 5 billion pounds of plastic. Billion with a B with a, B, and we're helping we're helping out. Right? My goodness. What is the most recycled? Item or type of good question. I think there's some debate there, but the number one most recycled consumer item is the car battery. Really car battery. And I actually learned that from your dad, Mr. John Perdue, who is a brilliant man. And he taught me that that the reason why it's recycled so much is because it's so valuable, it has a huge core charge. So you bring it back to the auto parts store and say, I need a new car battery. They're gonna give you $25. and that's worth it to people to take the old one out and bring it back in. So that leads me to my new philosophy, which is deposit systems work. Yeah. And I think that was the impetus for a lot of this discussion. And the more I learned about deposit systems, the more I learned that they work, Oregon has. Double the recycle rates for aluminum cans and bottles and things with deposits mm-hmm of states that don't use a deposit system. And that's a massive difference. It's from 35 to over 70%. We need a national bottle deposit in my opinion. Yeah. Incentive to bring your stuff back. Yeah, basically. Yeah. You're just saying, Hey, I'm gonna bring this back next time. Well, here's my nickel or here's the dime? It works. Let's do it. I remember when Oregon went up to 10 cents, I was like, whoa. Yeah. Okay. that's a big deal. And people, a lot of people don't know that. Yeah. Oregon has a law. When the rates drop below a certain number, they double the rate or the, the price. So it's, it's from 5 cents to 10 cents. Say that again, our recycling rates, when our recycling rates dip below a certain number. Okay. We go back up to 10 cents. Got it. So it can go to from five to 10. So that's why the increase. Yeah. Interesting. Does it go back to five if it goes below that number? Maybe, maybe I'm not sure. I'll have to look that up. That's a great question. Definitely. yeah. We'll we'll study that and we'll get back to the audience. Yeah. Study, study study. Maybe we could do another episode for 200. Yes. Episode 200. Shall be the Connors back again . Yes. I love it. Well, they come back every hundred episode. That's it? Best? Which is a year or three months. depends. Yeah. Depends on maybe three months. Make sure to follow. Yeah. Or like and share, right? Yeah. Mae and Declan future YouTubers. That's right. And uh, Maybe, yeah, lots, lots coming from them. It's gonna be exciting to watch their careers in the podcasting and social media worlds. Yeah. Someday people will watch this episode say, remember when Mae didn't have a million followers. Remember when Declan didn't have million follow. Crazy.. Yeah. What do you like most about packaging? Oh, man, I like to solve problems. I like to help companies that I work with be more sustainable. I like to. Help them sell their products more. And then I like to help the consumer have a really cool experience. That's important to me. You like the cool pack? Yeah, I've seen the cool package. What is this? A consumer? What's a consumer. A consumer is anybody that buys something. Oh, I'm a consumer. You're a consumer ma is a consumer. Mom's a consumer. Okay. Basically when you went to Columbia and you bought that. You consumed that shirt, you bought it, you purchased it. it's not like ate it, but it's I consumed these pajamas. Yeah. PJs. No numb numb. so sorry. The kids also came up with what's the difference between corrugated and cardboard? Yes. Corrugated has the squigly line in the middle, the flute, right? It's it's what gives its thickness and its strength. But I have a couple questions for you. Yes. What's it like to have a dad? That's a sustainable packaging podcaster?. Hmm. Can I answer that? Yeah. We have a lot of packaging in our house. there's a, every time there's like a cool packaging. Every time we go shopping. Or if something comes and it's in a cool, hold on, I gotta, I gotta do it video. Gotta make a video. Gotta make, well, I love you guys. Appreciate you. Thank you for being amazing and supportive. You're welcome. Thank you. Landsberg , Orora for sponsoring this podcast. We do appreciate you. You have been amazing partners and thank you all for listening. If you're listening, make sure you subscribe. So you don't miss episode 200 when it comes out with this great family again. Yeah. Great. And give us a review, give us a five star reviews are always appreciated. 5 5, 5. Yeah. Yeah. really 555 star five make really? Yes. There you go. Thank you all. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye.