When UrthPact was founded, we set a goal — to create a world where consumption leaves no footprint. We wanted to provide society with a solution to plastic pollution, with all the functionality needed, but without the environmental guilt and negative impacts of petroleum-based plastics. And while we set out with our abstract goal in mind, we wanted to also make our results qualitative and trackable; how many pieces of plastic could we prevent from reaching landfills and oceans by replacing them with a compostable solution? That goal was set at 1 billion. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could do something like a billion pieces, we thought. Little did we know that 1 billion pieces would simply become a blip on our radar.
Eventually, that goal was increased to 2.5 billion pieces. UrthPact was growing, and we were finding new and innovative solutions to a variety of plastic pollution problems (coffee pods, cutlery, etc.). But 2.5 billion wasn’t good enough for CEO Paul Boudreau. “I had probably put more than 2.5 billion pieces of plastic on this planet during my time working in petroleum-based plastics,” he said. “I want to completely make-up for what I created in the past.”
Then came the challenge. Paul’s business coach brought up the idea of multiplying all of his goals by 10. The idea was to drive business and development forward by setting lofty goals, rather than smaller goals that could easily be achieved. This drove the goal up to 25 billion pieces of plastic kept from oceans and landfills by 2028. That’s when our eyes were truly opened to the possibilities of what we could create, what type of legacy we could leave. As pioneers in the compostable bioplastics field, UrthPact was uniquely positioned to leave a mark on society and the planet.
It’s been 2 years since we upped the goal to 25 billion. As of August 2020, we had already reached the 8 billion pieces mark (check out our homepage for the current count). And we can only go up from here. As we expand current product lines and find new solutions, the number will only rise faster than it already is. We truly have found the solution to the single-use plastics problem. Soon enough, even the 25 billion mark will just be another milestone. We will create a world where consumption truly leaves no footprint.
