From Red Party Cups to Green Innovations
Raegan Kelly, head of product and sustainability at Better for All, joins We Are Not Doomed to discuss how her company is tackling the plastic waste crisis by creating compostable, eco-friendly cups. Motivated by the environmental damage caused by traditional petroleum-based plastics, Raegan and her team developed cups made from PHA, a biomaterial that breaks down naturally without leaving microplastics or harmful chemicals behind. Her innovative approach transforms a cultural icon—the red party cup—into a sustainable solution, blending environmental consciousness with practicality.
In this engaging episode, Raegan shares insights into the science behind PHA biomaterials, the challenges of scaling sustainable production, and the broader implications of reducing single-use plastics. She also highlights the role of consumer demand, corporate responsibility, and policy in driving change, emphasizing that innovation is key to solving our environmental crises. From her personal connection to nature to her company’s partnerships with festivals and events, Raegan’s story inspires optimism for a greener future.
Topics Discussed:
Raegan’s career path from filmmaking to sustainability.
The decision to focus on compostable cups instead of other products.
The environmental harm caused by petroleum-based plastics.
Challenges with recycling and waste management systems in the U.S.
How PHA biomaterials are created and why they’re eco-friendly.
Designing cups to be compostable yet durable for practical use.
The influence of Gen Z and millennials on sustainable product demand.
The need for corporate and policy action to support green innovations.
Plans for new cup sizes and potential product expansions.
Partnerships with festivals to reduce plastic waste at events.
Raegan’s connection to nature as motivation for her work.
Positive consumer feedback as a source of optimism for the future.
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Episode Transcript:
Raegan Kelly (00:00):
Most of the time when you're drinking something out of a cup, especially like a disposable cup, you're in a situation where you're celebrating, you're outside, maybe you're listening to music, you're watching a sporting event. So there's a really nice energy around that. There are a number of cups out there that are being used by the hundreds of millions that are not even recyclable. So I didn't know that at the time, but the red party cup that's so ubiquitous is not even recyclable. It's a styrofoam derivative. And then of course there's styrofoam, which we all know is really a problem. Paper cups lined with plastic are a problem. Paper cups themselves or trees. So we thought, you know what, let's take on the cup.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (00:45):
Hello and welcome to We Are Not Doomed. Interviews with industry leaders, authors, journalists, and entrepreneurs who are making impact on climate change every day We are Not Doomed is produced by Puddle Creative. We're a full service podcast production agency. And I'm Jonah Geil-Neufeld, the executive producer. Today, Our guest is Raegan Kelly. Raegan. Kelly is the head of product and sustainability for Better, for All, better for All manufacturers, a unique line of home, compostable party and event cups. And they've been trying to develop this product for a long time and have come up with a unique solution that is really great for the environment as well as the people using it. We talked to Raegan about how the company came about, how much petroleum and plastic goes into the products that we use currently, and how these cups actually break down and mitigate the damage to the environment. We also talk about how she got involved in this work and why she cares about climate change. We'd love if you'd follow the podcast on Apple Podcast or Spotify. And without further ado, here's our interview with Raegan Kelly. So Raegan, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Raegan Kelly (02:03):
It's my pleasure. Happy to be here.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (02:05):
So I want to talk before we talk about Better For All, which makes these great compostable cups that disintegrate in compost, I want to talk a little bit first about just how you got here. So tell me a little bit about your career journey into this field.
Raegan Kelly (02:22):
Yeah, so my background a long, long time ago is film. I was a documentary filmmaker and frankly was mostly concerned with social equity issues, so labor union organizing. And at the time that I was in grad school, two things happened. We had the riots around the Rodney King verdict in Los Angeles, and we had the first North American free trade agreement was being penned and it had no sort of social equity clause. So whatever the labor union or non-labor friendly practices were happening on the Mexican side of the border or the Canadian side of the border, that was not part of the agreement. And so I spent some time shooting films with labor union organizers from the United States trying to get those clauses written into the agreement. So that's my background. And then I spent, I don't know, 20 years working on projects and products, essentially multimedia coding for the web design, mostly at a creative direction and production level.
(03:34):
Eventually found my, always had a passion for printing, screen printing, and it was a hobby. And then it became my primary gig for about four years. I was in apparel and spent a lot of time in factories looking at production of textiles, clothing, printing, and I was really shocked by the amount of chemical contact and also just the amount of waste was really amazing to me in apparel. I think we're now increasingly aware of this, but I really wasn't at the time, and I was always, I'm from California, I was always recycling and worried about pesticides and all of that good stuff, but it started to all come together in my head and I really thought it would be great to be able to practice what I believed in work. So about six years ago, I found myself in the same city as my family, and we talked about starting something together and we looked at restaurant plays, all kinds of plays, and we finally stumbled upon compostable utensils actually at a drink show. And at the time my stepfather was like, what if this became the business? And it sounded really a great idea. So that got us on the path to where we are today.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (05:06):
So kind of keeping following that path, starting with compostable or sustainable utensils, tell me the story about Better For All. How do you decided to go with making a Cup and how is this, tell me about what the cup is made out of, how the whole story there.
Raegan Kelly (05:25):
Sure. Yeah. So we started out with a broader scope. We were really looking actually at apparel since a number of us had a background in apparel. We looked at apparel bags and all kinds of, how do we take plastic packaging that was getting ripped off the product and thrown away within a matter of seconds, but then persisting in the environment for a hundred years. So we started there. It was very difficult to find a way, one, to be profitable with such low margin material, but also how do you build a brand around something that no one really pays any attention to. I mean, they all know it's a problem, but they don't really, nobody's riveted by the plastic bag. They're throwing in the trash. So we looked for a product that we felt would address a big problem in this space that wasn't being addressed and also might have a way of connecting to the end consumer.
(06:23):
And cups are just magical that way. I mean, most of the time when you're drinking something out of a cup, especially like a disposable cup, you're in a situation where you're celebrating or you're gathering with people that you may not otherwise gather with. You're outside, maybe you're listening to music, you're watching a sporting event. So there's a really nice energy around that. And so we've decided to zero in on one product, which was the cup. Also, the more we looked at cups, we realized that there are a number of cups out there that are being used by the hundreds of millions that are not even recyclable. So I didn't know that at the time, but the red party cup that's so ubiquitous is not even recyclable. It's a styrofoam derivative. And then of course there's styrofoam, which we all know is really a problem. Paper cups lined with plastic are a problem, paper cups themselves or trees. So we thought, you know what, let's take on the cup. And then at that point we'd been working with PLA lot, which is a terrific biomaterial that is made from corn or sugar and is commercially compostable. But part of the journey was discovering the issues around waste management. And especially in the United States, there's a broken recycling system and there's just a nascent, barely existing commercial composting System.
(07:54):
So we wanted a material that if the product were to escape into the environment, it would biodegrade and it would not leave chemicals or microplastics in the environment. So at the time, this was maybe four years ago, I started interviewing companies that were making PHAs. PHA is a relatively new biomaterial. A lot of these have been around for decades, but available at scale is the issue. Are these things commercially available at the kind of scales that you would need to address the scope of the problem? So I started interviewing PHA companies and found one headquartered in Houston called Konica. They make a PHA called PHBH. And they were game to work with a very small family owned business to figure out how to develop a compostable. And the goal was to make a cup that was home compostable could be certified home compostable. To be certified commercially compostable, you have to compost in 10 weeks or less in commercial composting conditions. And to be certified home compostable, you need to fully compost in six months or less. So we built a cup that was thin, walled enough to be home compostable, but durable enough to be usable in venues, music festivals, et cetera.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (09:29):
Yeah, just before we go in, I want to talk about what it's made out of, but when you mentioned the red party cups, when I was doing my research on you guys, I was like, oh yeah, doing a cup is such a good idea because it is such weirdly an American cultural thing. These red party cups are very ubiquitous throughout our culture. And in movies too. I think I read somewhere about people coming from abroad and seeing them in real life and being like, oh, it's not just in the movies. You guys actually use these throw away cups for all your gatherings. And it's such a weird thing that we do, But It's very much like a cultural touchstone. So to try to replace that with something that is biodegradable is awesome.
Raegan Kelly (10:23):
So when we first started out developing the cup, some people would say, oh, well you obviously need to make it red. And I was like, that's a little weird. First of all, because you don't want something that looks exactly like the problem. And also don't you want to replace that cultural signifier with a newer, better cultural signifier. So you need something that looks different, which is why we stayed with the natural color of the material.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (10:55):
So explain to me what these cups are made out of. So you said originally you had something that was made like corn and sugar derivatives. So what is this cup made out of?
Raegan Kelly (11:07):
Yeah, so this cup can be made with sugar as a feedstock. It can be made with seed oils as a feedstock. The material itself is made through fermentation. So it's a naturally occurring material that exists in soil. It exists in our bodies, it exists in the environment. Anyway, bacteria make this material as a nutritional store depot, sort of like fat, like body fat is how I think of it. But they ingest carbon rich feed socks, and they package some of it for use for later, if
(11:44):
That helps. And the way that the best setting for them is a nice warm watery bath. It's sort of like making wine or beer or any kind of these fermentation processes, kombucha. There's all kinds of foods that we make using these processes. So the companies that are making PHAs at scale often are just repurposing equipment that they were using to make, say, supple nutritional supplements or something through fermentation. So anyway, you put these microorganisms into this bath, you feed it with a sugar or an oil, and then they convert naturally through their metabolic processes, convert the feedstocks into, in part PHAs. PHAs can be used to make all kinds of things, but they can also be used to make the basis for bioplastic resin. So there's more and more companies all the time emerging with different versions of PHAs. There's about a hundred plus strains of PHA so far. We are working currently with one which is called PHBH, and it's very stable and it's amenable to the manufacturing process that we need to use to make the cups that we make.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (13:08):
We've talked about it a little bit, but maybe what's the problem that these cups are trying to solve?
Raegan Kelly (13:13):
Yes. So I think there's a threefold three-pronged problem that our current use consumption of petroleum-based plastic has created for us. One is toxins, right? We're exposing ourselves to all kinds of chemical additives and toxins both in the workplace. I've done all this reading on what it takes to work in a place that makes the plastic that we use for plastic water bottles, for example. And it's super toxic for the workers. It's toxic for everyone. I'm sure you've heard of Cancer Alley in Louisiana. Anyone living close to these plants is exposed to really terrible cancer causing toxins. So that's one issue that I take very seriously as a mom and as a person. And then once you create these things and introduce them into the environment, they are persistent petroleum plastics. They're made from petroleum, which is a hugely inherently stable, complex chemical, and it can last for decades and hundreds of years in the environment once you make it into something.
(14:27):
So making it into something that's used for a very short period of time doesn't make a lot of sense. We have been trying for what, 70 years to recycle, and we're still at five to 9% regardless, but the amount of petroleum plastic that's being created and pumped into the world is growing exponentially. So I truly believe we to get off this material one, you know that it's contributing to climate change. So I believe that switching to a bio-based material is addressing climate change. It's addressing persistent plastic pollution, and it's addressing the amount of chemicals that we're introducing into our bodies and into the environment just by using these things to consume or store our food, for example.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (15:21):
And then the other part of this is looking ahead to the future. The consumer, I think is changing. And Bob Meers is the founder, right?
Raegan Kelly (15:32):
Yeah. He's a co Co-founder? Yes.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (15:33):
Co-founder. Yeah. You're one of the co-founders too.
Raegan Kelly (15:36):
Yes.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (15:36):
I know that he's written an article or two about kind of Gen Z consumers and how they are kind of changing or demanding that these single use plastics not be used anymore. So can you talk to me a little bit about consumers today and how they're changing what companies are using to ship and package their products?
Raegan Kelly (15:58):
Yes, I think I would say, I really hope that it's true. I mean, I know this is what I know. I have two Gen Z kids of my own. And what I understand is this is a generation, and probably young millennials as well have been raised on plastic. They have been raised with plastic as the default convenience item. They have been raised to think that you can't drink the water out of the faucet, you have to drink it out of a water bottle. It's through no fault of their own that everywhere they turn, someone's handing them plastic and they don't know what to do with it because we still haven't resolved kind of the waste management side of the picture. So I do believe that young people, one, there's two things they're raised with. They're raised with a really difficult and consistent message in school that everything's going into the shitter. And it's not their fault. It is not their fault, but somehow they're tasked with fixing it.
(17:04):
So I have a pretty complex point of view when it comes to saying Gen Z is going to solve the problem. I think, honestly, I'm Gen X. I'm like, we created this problem and we should be fixing it. So I think that yes, I do believe that if we offer products that address these problems to young millennials and up and coming Gen Z, that they will adopt and happily use these products. But I don't think that it's their responsibility to fix the problem. I think that it's our responsibility to fix the problem or to at least start fixing the problem immediately.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (17:47):
Yeah, totally. I talk a lot in this podcast about how it's going to take, all the levers need to be pulled. So consumers I think are getting more and more demanding of companies to be more sustainable, but also we need policies. It would be great if there were policies in place where like, Hey, you can't use single use plastics for these events or something like that, that governments should get involved. And also, of course, companies should be doing this of their own free will. And then maybe also in certain industries, and I don't know if this is true in your industry, is that the economics change in such a way that it's actually cheaper to buy something, buy your product rather than the plastic product. And that might not be true right now, but part of that also might be that petroleum products are subsidized and much the same way that lots of petroleum is.
Raegan Kelly (18:45):
Yes, yes. We are definitely not at the point at which the economics make it an easy switch for especially large companies. And I do understand, especially if you have shareholders and you're deciding to switch hundreds of millions of something, hundreds of millions of pennies adds up. So new materials are expensive, right? They're new, they're not available readily available in every port in the world. But yes, companies need to switch. What I hear regularly is there's this tug of war between policy and private industry. I would say what you can definitely see in the United States is that private industry is not really going to make, they're already shifting. I just read Nestle and Pepsi and a couple of these companies have just switched their 2025 commitments in terms of plastic consumption to 20, 30 commitments. And a big part of that is because the policy just isn't there. We don't have policy in the United States that's consistent, and that requires companies to shift.
(19:55):
But if you look at Europe or the uk, you can see that when policy is implemented, even a McDonald's or a Burger King, et cetera, will modify the way that they act and the materials they use in at least those regions. So I think we need a combination of policy, and then we need a few early adopters willing to just commit money to back their mission to make the change. And I think the leaders will one benefit hugely, but two will pave the way for everyone else to follow. We have had a few customers that are definitely at this point, okay, it's time. We keep going back to the drawing board. We keep talking to each other about what's the best solution we first go through and say, okay, this isn't going to work. This isn't going to work, this isn't going to work. They have to go through recycle it, right? Recycled petroleum plastic paper, they tick through it all. Now we've decided home compostable pha. So we're right at that point. We feel like we're at an inflection point right now. We pha one, people are aware of it. Two, they're ready to commit even if it is more expensive. So let's hope.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (21:11):
Yeah, totally. And I feel like there's just more and more companies realizing that even if it is more expensive, there's a certain amount of we're all going to have to eventually realize that we're so dependent on the world, the environment for our lives and our businesses,
Raegan Kelly (21:28):
Everything
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (21:28):
That if you make an investment now to do something that is sustainable, that your whole business is predicated on the assumption that our world in a decade or more, it's going to be relatively the same. And as we can see now, we can't just bank on that and keep going about our normal ways.
Raegan Kelly (21:53):
Yep. I agree.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (21:54):
So better for all makes compostable cups right now in two sizes, I think, right?
Raegan Kelly (22:01):
Yep.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (22:01):
What are your plans for the future? Are you just kind of focusing on cups right now? Do you have other plans? What does the next couple of years look like for you guys?
Raegan Kelly (22:09):
Yeah, so we have a pilot third, a size, a 20 ounce, which is in sort of high demand and stadium settings, et cetera. And then there's a few. So we have an eight ounce, which is relatively small. It's for wine, water. We have this classic 16 ounce party cup size. And then we have a 20 ounce stadium cup, and we're working on a 12 ounce right in the middle, which is kind of the sweet spot for restaurants, hospitality, mixed drinks, and then base, depending on sort of demand and where we're at, there's quite a bit of CapEx that goes into building up the capacity to make these things. It's steel. So we could make, for example, lids, bowls, smaller containers, sample size for trade shows and things like that. We get inquiries about that stuff all the time. The material itself would be perfect for all kinds of pharmaceutical applications. Health industry, it's totally nontoxic and it's in the body. So in some instances, PHBs are used for sutures, bone replacements and so forth. So it's a super healthy material. So there's all kinds of directions that a company like ours could go in if we were to focus on, say, expertise in the area of making things out of PHAs or if we were to just grow as a cup company. And I think right now we're really looking at ourselves as a cup company and our line extensions will be natural extensions of the cup.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (23:54):
So I guess this is a couple of these last questions I like to ask, just sort of on the personal side of things. What makes you care about climate change?
Raegan Kelly (24:05):
I think primarily the things that give me huge joy are going outside animals, plants, the natural world. I know so many human beings just feel healed, well supported at peace when they connect with, I guess, for lack of a better word, nature. I mean, just looking out, I can be stressed out. It happened this morning, stressed out about all the things I have to do with my day, look outside, see two birds doing something on a bush in my backyard, and I pause. It's just like I don't want that to go away. I'm really concerned about what's happening to the natural world, and I want my kids to have access to that. I want their kids to have access to that. I think that there's so much beyond just that It makes you feel good to see a way all breach or something. There's so much information and knowledge and benefit that we can't even really describe or understand. I think there's so much about the world around us that we are not yet equipped to understand. That could disappear if we don't address it now. And that would be that kind of, we are not, are doomed thing that flips back and forth in my hand, right?
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (25:38):
Yeah.
Raegan Kelly (25:39):
So yeah, that's really what motivates me in the morning.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (25:43):
Oh, that's a beautiful response to that question. And you mentioned the we are not doomed, we are doomed. Kind of flipping in your head in the morning. And another question that I ask just to show people that this is maybe 10, 20 years ago when you talked about climate change, you thought of the polar bear, right? Or we got to save the animals in the north, the ice is melting. But I think today almost everyone has a personal story of being affected by climate change. Do you have, in your mind, would you say, oh, my life has been affected by climate change already?
Raegan Kelly (26:19):
Absolutely. I live in Pasadena, California and we've had two really nice winters the last two winters because of El Nino, which is just coming to an end and before that and coming soon is wildfire season. And I don't think there's a person in California who hasn't had days on end without wildfire smoke in the air and ashes raining down on your patio. I mean, we've had family vacation going to Tahoe and the entire area is on fire and we literally have to get in the car and flee. And I'm not exaggerating. It's wildfire is just terrifying. And then I would say what I see all around us, we work with people in Florida, so there's flooding. I don't have direct experience with flooding, but people around me have direct experience with flooding all the time now, which is another climate change results.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (27:23):
It seems very much as I talk to people, a lot of people on the east coast or on that side of the country have experience with flooding or big storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, things like that. And then, yeah, I'm in Portland, Oregon, so everyone like us on the West coast is like wildfires smoke. Everyone knows what a QI is now. We all are very well versed during the summer months now. Checking the weather forecast in that regard totally can relate to that. That was part of the reason wanting to start this podcast. I have a three-year-old son who was born in 2020, and we did the same thing in sort of as you mentioned, literally fleeing. We had this super horrible few days of smoke when he was really young and we drove to Seattle just to escape the smoke for a few days. We were living in an apartment that was pretty leaky and it wasn't.
Raegan Kelly (28:26):
Yeah,
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (28:27):
It was just literally for the health of our family, we had to leave. Yeah. And I think more and just everyday people have stories like that now so that we don't end on a doom and gloom note. My last question to you is what does make you feel hopeful for the future? We've talked about a few things, but when you get out of bed in the morning, what makes you stay optimistic?
Raegan Kelly (28:55):
Well, so the response to the product and the general engagement and interest with solutions, I feel like it's growing all the time. I mean, six years ago I would talk about what I was doing and oh, it was really distant for people. And now we provided the cups for this very cool festival in Fort Lauderdale in April called Tortuga. And they really walk the walk. I mean, everything they do, they think about 10 times over. And they chose our cups for the official cup for the festival. And the response from people who were just at the festival having a blast has been so wonderful. I mean, they just were so excited to be holding something they knew because it looked different. And there was some signage at the festival, what it was, and they're like, this is so cool and we really hope you're back next year. And what an amazing festival. And we love Tortuga. And I just felt like, oh, this is really cool. This is like a hundred plus thousand people coming for three days to party on the beach and listen to country music. And their experience was made that much better because they didn't have any stress about creating toxic pollution getting anything. It was cool. It was really cool. It made me feel really happy.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (30:20):
That's a great note to end on. Is there anything else about Better for All or anything that I missed that you wanted to talk about?
Raegan Kelly (30:28):
No. We've got cups online and we're ready to supply you with a non-toxic compostable party cup for your next party.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (30:38):
Yeah, I guess maybe you can where to find better for all the website and the best places to reach out.
Raegan Kelly (30:46):
So our website is better for all.co and our shop is at betterforall.shop, so you can find us, Instagram or online, reach out, email me.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (30:58):
And even if you aren't the organizer of a large outdoor music festival, you can go and just buy a sleeve of cups for your party.
Raegan Kelly (31:05):
That's right.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (31:06):
Cool. Well, Raegan, thanks you so much for being on the podcast. It was great to chat with you and we'll have to have you back on again sometime to see how you guys are doing.
Raegan Kelly (31:15):
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Jonah Geil-Neufeld (31:20):
Thanks so much for listening to We Are Not Doomed. And thanks to Raegan for being on the podcast. If you want to learn more about Better For All, you can go to Better for all.co. That's dot co. And if you want to find more episodes of our podcast, you can go to, we Are Not doomed.com. Find our podcast on all your favorite podcast apps, Spotify, apple, and all the rest. Until next week, I'm Jonah Geil-Neufeld. Thank you so much for listening.