Ep. 38 - Making Plastic Disappear with Notpla’s Seaweed Packaging

Apr 1, 2020

When two college students were concerned about the plastic packaging choking our waterways, they wondered if they could invent a better way to contain companies’ liquids. 

Rodrigo Garcia Gonzales and Pierre Paslier began ordering ingredients off Amazon and Alibaba and tinkered away in their kitchen. With a rough prototype in hand, they decided they’d launch a Kickstarter to see if there was interest in a new company that would make alternative packaging from seaweed. The result: A million dollars poured in and Notpla became a reality.

Blown away by the response, the two kept pressing forward, and seven years later, they’ve now raised over $6 million, have dozens of employees, and are working with food giants like Unilever and more to make plastic packaging disappear.

Hear Rodrigo and Pierre’s inspirational tale in this episode!

Discussed in this show

• Mashable video on Notpla’s “edible water” (19 million views)
• New York Times on Rupert Murdoch’s son’s investment in Notpla
• Fast Company on Notpla’s products
• CNBC on Notpla’s work with Just Eat
• Episode 27 with Tom Szaky of TerraCycle on recycling the “un-recyclable”

Paul’s article in Scientific American about factory farming of animals and pandemic risk