Speaker: Kate Bezar, Auckland, New Zealand
How (and why) are you taking action on climate change solutions in, for, and with your community?
Kate Bezar: Hi, my name is Kate Beza. I never thought I would found a packaging company because I really dislike packaging, but that's also what led me to do that. Um My co-founder be Psy and I truly believe that we can do packaging better but packaging can be used as a means for good um to combat pollution, poverty and climate change. Of course. So we work with uh individuals in marginalized communities mostly in Southeast Asia to clean up plastic pollution and prevent it from going into the ocean. We then recycle that plastic pollution into packaging solutions. Um Poly bags, Malas pallet wrap and the like uh it obviously helps combat pollution poverty because we support these individuals with a fair wage. But what we produce is a really low carbon impact packaging option way lower impact than virgin plastic packaging, which has a really high carbon footprint and an environmental impact. Uh It also helps ocean health. So when we prevent plastic from entering the ocean, we stop it from becoming microplastics and interfering with the ocean's ability to act as a super, super important carbon sink.
Who or what inspires/inspired you to care about climate change and climate solutions?
Kate Bezar: Hi, my name is Kate Biza. I am based in Auckland, New Zealand. And I, in fact, I live on an island off the coast of Auckland in New Zealand. Uh and have grown up surrounded by the sea. I swim every week I sail. Um And you know, I take a ferry to work. Uh and so as such, the ocean and its health is super important to me and I truly believe in the ocean's ability to act as an incredible climate sink. So when beasy and I decided to try to make packaging out of ocean bound plastic pollution and thus prevent more plastic from entering the ocean. Uh It was just, I mean, it was just a no brainer to me to see if we could make that happen. And we did and we have now been doing so for a number of years and we're really proud of the fact that we have helped prevent over a million kilos of plastic pollution um from entering the ocean. Um We've kept it out of the environment as well and recycled it into really low carbon packaging solutions uh that um yeah, are fully functional but have a much lower carbon footprint than something made out of virgin plastic or paper even. Uh, and, um, yeah, I, I, it's just, it's really neat to be able to do something that helps us to, I guess so. Yeah, improve the environment, um, combat pollution, poverty and climate change all at the same time.
