Seabin Project | Pete Ceglinski
Conversation with Pete Ceglinski
The Seabin Project is a simple concept with a big mission - to achieve “pollution free oceans for our future generations.” One Seabin alone does some pretty incredible work, clearing about 4kg of debris a day, mounting up to 1.4 tonnes of debris each year. Pete Ceglinski is Co-Founder of the Seabin Project. He’s always been an avid water lover that grew up in Northern NSW, we chat to him about his own wild adventures travelling the world, and eventually finding a place where his passion met purpose in designing the first Seabin.
“The Seabin can collect 90,000 shopping bags, 50,000 water bottles, 35,700 disposable cups and 117,647 plastic utensils. Plus cigarette butts, micro plastics and fibres.”
From these very humble beginnings you can now find Seabins right across the world, hard at work in cleaning our waterways.
But what we love about the Seabin Project, is that it’s not just that it’s cleaning up our waterways. Along the way the team realised that what truly needs to change to keep our oceans clean is Education. So they’re actively getting about educating children and corporations alike on how to keep the junk out of the waterways in the first place.
Pete is a really cool guy. The second you meet him you can tell that he’s the real deal. He’s not in this for fame or fortune, he’s just genuinely trying to make a positive impact on the world.
The day that we sat down to record this interview with Pete, the Seabin Project had literally just launched their Public for Purpose campaign. This is a equity crowdfunding campaign where they hope to engage their community to invest into the project, so that they can ramp up their impact.
Now to do this they could have just gone and got a handful of investors to input some big dollars. But instead, they set the minimum buy in to be just $250. Off air Pete spoke really passionately about the reason behind this, in that Seabin have a BIG mission, and they wanted to set a price where all of us could get involved, and the more the better, because as Pete pointed out, when you have everyday people invested in a project like this, they’re also more vocal and passionate about campaigning and grass-roots led change.
Pru has personally invested, and if you want to check it out you’ve got until March 19th. This is a pretty inspiring story, from a project that started out in a windowless shed. We hope you enjoy!
Mentioned in conversation…
The story of Seabin, what it aims to catch and achieve
Pollution in general and a look at our perception on ‘plastics.’
The business model, the hurdles and challenges the project has faced along the way.
The Seabin Foundation and further plans for future projects.
The world media and how Seabin got noticed in the early days from 11,000 views - to 168 million.
What’s next for this small but mighty business.
Follow Seabin Project here:
Seabin Project Website
Seabin Project Investment
Seabin Project Instagram
Seabin Project Facebook
Seabin Project Vimeo
Seabin Project Twitter
Full Podcast Transcript - Pete Ceglinski, Seabin Project
Pru Chapman:
Hey Pete, welcome to the show.
Pete:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Pru Chapman:
Brilliant to have you here, and you've got an incredibly exciting project which is, like I said, I'm seeing everywhere at the moment, so I wanted to get you on and fill us in, and also hear the backstory of the Seabin's Project. But I think it'd probably be best for us to kick off if you could actually tell our listeners, what is a Seabin?
Pete:
Yeah, well, first off, apologies for spamming everyone. We've been getting a bit of media over the last few years, and it's just ramping up, but in a good way. So, yeah, Seabin is literally just a garbage bin crossed with a pool skimmer, and then we put it in the water in marinas, ports, and yacht clubs.
Pete:
We put in rivers and lakes, and we skim the surface of the water to collect micro-plastics, oil, surface pollutants, plastic bags, straws. All sorts of nasties, and yeah, that's literally what a Seabin is. And it was the most obvious thing in the world that no one had thought about, and yeah.
Pete:
We got quite a lot of attention from that end of 2015, early 2016, and the video went viral, and I stopped counting in 2018 at about 880 million views-
Pru Chapman:
Wow.
Pete:
... across... it was only Facebook, as well, and I never counted anything less than a mil. And so, we anticipate that probably currently it's like 1.2 to 1.3 billion people had seen our video-
Pru Chapman:
That's incredible.
Pete:
... of the garbage bin crossed with a pool skimmer.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah, garbage bin crossed with a pool skimmer. And, I mean, to do it justice, it is probably a little bit more sophisticated than that, but I love the simplicity of it, which is probably what people were just able to grab onto right at that early time. Like you say, the simplest things are often the best.
Pete:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah, so take us back a little bit. Now, you kind of kicked off... I mean, you're a water man by absolute self proclamation. Did you grow up on the coast? You grew up around here, didn't you?
Pete:
Yeah. I grew up in Goonengerry and went to school and... Well primary, preschool, high school in Mullumbimby. And I was the first guy out of here at 18. I just wanted a career and you couldn't have that in the late '90s back here unless you wanted to be a chippie or a farmer or a few other things, because Facebook hadn't really kicked off and the internet was just getting it's legs.
Pete:
There was no connectivity. You couldn't run an international business, what you can do now in the late '90s. So yeah, I was finished high school and I was out of here. I went to Sydney and done a degree in Industrial Design, and then finished that off over in Perth, and kind of split.
Pete:
I haven't actually lived here for about 23 years, so yeah. It's changed a bit, but at the same time it hasn't. But then going back to if you live on the coast and your parents are obviously worried that you're so close to the water you need to start learning how to swim, and we got stuck into swimming at the Mullum pool, and I was pretty fortunate, I was pretty good at it.
Pete:
And then we got into the Brunswick Surf Lifesaving Club, and did nippers from about eight years old until about 17 or 18 when I bailed. And just from that, the natural progression when we were kids, like eight or nine years old was to grab surfboards and go and try to get barrelled on close outs, and just led to a natural respect, I think, for the environment.
Pete:
And something I never even knew I had that in me, because I just took it for granted. It was just a given, because when you live in a nice area like this, you don't have that much pollution, and when you do have it, it's pretty much first world problem, compared to other places.
Pete:
And it was only when I left Australia that I realized the extent of the problems, because it was only in the last 12 or 14 years that we started to see ocean plastics pop up on our Facebook feeds, and unless you went to Bali or some other developing world, go surfing or a bit of tourism, that was when they started to see the extent of the problem.
Pete:
So yeah, I guess you've got to leave paradise to really appreciate what you got.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah, I remember having the same experience. It was probably about 15 years in Asia. 15 years ago, sorry in Asia. And the same thing just coming from this area as well, and growing up all along the east coast, pollution wasn't really... it wasn't something that we saw every single day. But just from when it started, when we started seeing those first bits of plastic in the water to now, it's insane, isn't it?
Pete:
Absolutely. But anyway, every problem brings a solution.
Pru Chapman:
You're here to bring it to us Pete. So, you moved to Sydney, you did Industrial Design, then over to Perth, and then you became a Product Designer, right?
Pete:
Yeah, I specialized in building the same shitty products that are in the water. I specialized in plastic injection molding. A farmer would come in, he's got an idea for something, and he's just got this crappy sketch on a napkin or a bit of paper.
Pete:
And so, I would 3D model this, I would develop it, I would engineer it. And then I would help manufacture it over in China, and then bring it back and put it on the shelf for sale. It was an awesome job.
Pete:
We designed a lot of shit that we didn't need, and that was one of the niggling problems that I had. And the other one was when we design things, they were over complicated. And they weren't designed to be repaired, and they had short shelf-lifes, but we designed a lot of crap that wasn't needed, in my opinion.
Pete:
In other people's opinions, maybe it was, but it was all pretty frivolous stuff. And so, I bailed and just went overseas and just took my surfboard and my backpack. And then I just got a call when I was in Brazil.
Pete:
An email and then a call, to go to Italy, because a bunch of mates I had were in Italy building these boats, and they said, "Well come over and give us a hand." And Italy was on my next stop. And it turns out that I was building racing yachts for the America's Cup, with team Prada. One of the biggest brands in the world.
Pete:
And that kind of snowballed for the next 12 years, of being paid to travel the world and build these high performance, fast racing yachts for teams. I'd get flown around the world probably two or three times a year. For 12 years, I didn't pay for a single flight or a hotel or a house. I didn't even pay for meals, it was all paid for.
Pru Chapman:
This is insane, Pete.
Pete:
It was pretty sick. It was amazing.
Pru Chapman:
12 years. And then this kind of love of the ocean and product design come together for you.
Pete:
Not for 12 years, but I met my business partner, Andrew, through boat building and yacht racing, and then one thing led to another, and one morning he told me about his idea that he'd invented a Seabin, and he didn't know what to do.
Pete:
He'd literally just built this sort of prototype that was pretty shitty, but at least it worked, and it was proof of concept. And that was my light-bulb moment. So I could have purpose. I could do good for other people and the environment. I could use all my other life skills, and still be on the water.
Pete:
Doing the boats was amazing, but they're probably the most toxic thing on the water. They're all epoxy, and carbon fiber, and kevlar, and titanium and all this shit that doesn't break down, and it only gets used for one regatta or one year, and then you know, what happens to it? And it was just rich people's fast toys.
Pru Chapman:
Right.
Pete:
So, there wasn't much purpose in there except for myself. And when the Seabin thing came around, I could help others, I could support a family one day. I could still use my life skills and still be on the water.
Pete:
And I don't actually have a house, and I used all my deposit and life savings to start this project. And we chose to be a for-profit because I want to buy a house and I want to support my kids, and you need money for that, because money's not evil
Pru Chapman:
Money's a good thing.
Pete:
That's what makes the world turn around, and that's what turns the wheels for what we do. So, that was my, "Ah-ha" moment.
Pru Chapman:
I love it. So you've got your business partner, Andrew, who's come to you with this concept. You've had the ah-ha moment, gone, "Right, this is a really good thing." Grabbed your life savings. I mean, what comes next, from having this shitty prototype? As a product designer, where do you go next with that?
Pete:
Well, we didn't really do anything for the next two years because we had cushy jobs and we were getting paid heaps of money and we didn't have too much responsibility other than keep the boat afloat and don't let it break.
Pete:
And so, it was really hard to switch out of that into something totally alien, which was starting a business. Something that I've never done.
Pru Chapman:
It's basically the opposite of that. Like really cushy, nothing to worry about.
Pete:
Yeah, striking yourself out of your comfort zone.
Pru Chapman:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Pete:
And putting yourself in the deep end. It's pretty hard to do when [crosstalk 00:09:32].
Pru Chapman:
Yeah, so when did the day come when you decided to?
Pete:
Kind of a couple of years later I was living in just below the Alps in Italy building another racing yacht and while it was snowing on the hills, because we're in the valley, it was overcast and riding every day.
Pete:
And I was just over there, but six months before that, I'd already knew that I was going to quit, but I just didn't know when. And so, I just started to save my money for six months and then it just came to a point in this rainy gloomy, shitty day in Italy where I'd just had enough and I just told the boys I was done and sort of grabbed my stuff and walked away.
Pru Chapman:
And where did you do?
Pete:
I went up into the hills on a snowboard for two weeks.
Pru Chapman:
But I did exactly the day I left uni. I was like, they're like, "What are you going to do a PhD or more uni study?" I was like, I'm going snowboarding.
Pete:
Yeah. And then I had my van and I just drove up into the alps where I parked up for two weeks and lived in my van at minus 10 degrees and had fun snowboarding and then-
Pru Chapman:
[inaudible 00:10:39].
Pete:
... went and got serious. Yeah.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah. Awesome. So when did you... you'd taken that plunge then into the Seabin Project. So, I mean, how did the first you had this prototype, how did the first, where did you go in terms of developing and starting to produce from there?
Pete:
Well after I'd finished two weeks of snowboarding and just having fun and coming to terms with well, I guess I was like not coming to terms with quitting because I was off snowboarding. I'd saved up about 60 grand.
Pete:
And so, I thought that was a pretty sizable chunk. But then I went to the mentor was for 10 days, on a boat trip and just had the most amazing time. And when I got back that was when I registered the business. I was living in Spain. I started to register the IP.
Pete:
And yeah, pretty much realized that 60 grand doesn't get you very far. Once lawyers get involved in especially intellectual property lawyers. And so, in November 2015, we used our last, well, I use my last 10 grand to go to the world's biggest boat show in Amsterdam.
Pete:
And we use $10,000 to get a three meter by three meter square bit of floor space and we set up a Kickstarter campaign, and we went there without a product, without anything. We had a video. And that was the start, and it was the world's biggest boat show.
Pete:
And we didn't make a single cent. We got a lot of interest and a lot of support. Like, "Oh, you have a good gourment." But yeah, nobody gave us a dollar. And then that was okay, but wasn't too bad. It could have been better for sure. But then I guess in two weeks later we'd made like maybe 15 or 20 grand.
Pete:
We actually got kicked off Kickstarter at the start as well, because we had a prototype and some guy had built a laser riser and raised $4 million and then got caught out because it wasn't actually a laser, it was like just a hotwire.
Pete:
And inside the fallout from that was that Kickstarter kicked off every single prototype on the campaign. And we raised like 17 grand or something and we had to start from scratch. So, we followed that laser guy over to Indiegogo. And then we had a four week campaign and in the first two weeks we only raised like 50 grand and it was all or nothing and we needed to raise 150,000 euros.
Pete:
And so yeah, it was pretty shitty at the start. And I'd reached out to all the non-profits, the big names, the small names, all the celebrities, all the people that were kicking off about plastics in the ocean and all the people that were squealing about how we need to find a solution.
Pete:
And we got blocked, we got told never to speak to them again. We got ignored, we got nothing off all those sort of people you expect to be helping you.
Pru Chapman:
Wow.
Pete:
And we could work it out and we never asked for any money. We just asked for share or a luck or a comment on Facebook and then one nonprofit said, "Well, you're a conflict of interest so we can't help you." And I was like, well, what's a conflict of interest? And they go, "You're trying to raise money and we are as well. And if they give you money, we don't get money, so we can't talk to you, good luck, but go away."
Pete:
And so, we got sort of dumped into this political bullshit of like all these nonprofits squealing for solutions, but didn't really want them because it would upset their business model.
Pete:
And that was okay. Like we have to respect that as well. But I was like, one day for a business or not for profit, we're going to be the opposite of that.We're going to be good people and do the right thing.
Pete:
And then we got really lucky, little French blog showed our video and then we got like 11,000 views on it and he emailed us, he's all stoked. We've got 11,000 views, the next day it was 3 million. The next day it was 11 million.
Pete:
And then we started to work out how the media kind of operates, which is, they don't really do anything unless someone else has. And I said this guy got 11 million views and then all of a sudden the Huffington post wants to, they've re-shared the video.
Pete:
Now, this Bored Panda, the weather channel, Disney, every mainstream social media platform you can imagine shared it. And they had individual video views of 168 million.
Pru Chapman:
Wow.
Pete:
I just went ballistic, and it just snowballed and from that obviously gave us a lot of attention. And that's how we kind of started on our business model of not for profit and for profit. And it all started was there was this one social media channel that had 167 million views on it.
Pete:
And there was a lot of comments and a lot of the comments were Seabins are going to save the world. Seabins are going to clean up the shit we throw in the water, now we can feel good about throwing our crap in the water, Seabins will sort it-
Pru Chapman:
Oh, no.
Pete:
... out. Just really stupid shit.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah.
Pete:
But like my initial instinct was to lash out and be like, "That's stupid, why do you say that." And then my partner was like, "Oh" she's like, "Be nice and be diplomatic and obviously they have a concern, but they're not that aware of how things work." And so, we realized that they had concerns and they needed addressing. And then I realized that technology is not a solution.
Pete:
Seabins are not going to save the world. Shouldn't even need to have a Seabin because we shouldn't have a lot shit in the water, and everything that I thought about and tried to boil down to find a solution, it all came back to education because plastic is an amazing thing.
Pete:
It's not the enemy. The message is not "fuck plastic." Plastic makes everything work, what the microphone I was speaking into my phone, even the reusable cup that I have at the moment its got plastic in it.
Pete:
If we were smarter, we wouldn't be throwing plastic away. And we'd be using a lot better. And so it all came back to education. And then I realized I'd read the Patagonia book a few years before "Let My People Go Surfing." And I only understood about half of what he was talking about because I'd never had a business.
Pete:
And, but I just knew that he was successful and he could do full profit conservation, and he could buy his house, and he could go surfing or fishing. And I was like, well, if ever wonder have a business known to be a [inaudible 00:17:33] And so, it was just out of self-interest, of not being a hypocrite that we said that we use the power of our media attention to say that education is the solution.
Pete:
And then from that, we backed it with a business model that we copied off Patagonia, out of the book it's all written out. If anyone ever wants to do it, go and read the book.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah. And it's a brilliant book. It's called Let My People Go Surfing. It's actually my favorite book. My coffee is goodness, torn and dog-eared and it's just brilliant for those people that haven't come across it yet.
Pru Chapman:
It was written by Yvon Chouinard and it was written originally as a handbook for his staff internally. And it then, I don't know, it got leaked somehow. It got out, I don't know how it got out, but it really, as you say, Pete, it really lays out how to run a really great ethically responsible business that has positive impact on the planet.
Pru Chapman:
And similar to what you're saying here is that Patagonia they make stuff and that inherently isn't good for planning, but it's using that as a platform for education.
Pru Chapman:
And something guys just saying before we went live was me, I teach people how to run businesses and I have used Patagonia as a model for all of the businesses as a way of doing good business because like you say, money makes the world go round. So, does business and for me.
Pete:
Yeah. And for most of our stuff and they need stuff, so might as well buy good quality and sustainable and the best that you can find for the time.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah. And business will change the world, I have no doubt about that. I think our governments, which are just talking about as well, our governments can be very slow to move on things and business can be really fast and can really implement solutions really quickly.
Pete:
Yeah, when you got no money and you're looking to put food on the table or pay the rent for whatever your office, you don't rely on the government to give you handouts, have to make your own destiny.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah. Okay. So you got all this attention now. So, I mean, I've got to ask, did you buy that guy with the blog in France A beer?
Pete:
No.
Pru Chapman:
You owe him one.
Pete:
Yeah. We send him multiple thank yous. And over the time we've always sort of checked up on him and said thanks and expressed our gratitude, and he was stoked, just exponentially sent him into the stars with his blog. I don't know.
Pru Chapman:
So cool.
Pete:
Yeah.
Pru Chapman:
Awesome. Okay, so you've still got the Seabins as a product, but then the education is kind of emerging. So now, are you running both things simultaneously or is there more of a focus on education? Or is there more of a focus on the actual Seabin or you're just doing both?
Pete:
Well, we're just doing both. We made $362,000 from our first crowdfunding campaign, and that for us was all the money in the world but in the bigger picture it was bugger all. And I made that stretch out for two years.
Pete:
I was living on $1,200 a month, living in a factory with no windows or anything and not quite living on a bowl of rice, but pretty close to it. But yeah, so from there even if I had an accounts and at the time, he would have just said to me like, "Pete, you're an idiot. Why are you focusing on this not for profit stuff."
Pete:
And we never had an accountant. We do now. But it was quite fortunate and naivety on my end was our greatest success. We had bugger all money and yet we were spending on not-for-profit stuff that would never give us a return.
Pete:
And fast forward three years later we are starting to see return on spending money on stuff that we would never expect to get a return on. So, we focused on talking to school kids. We focused on science and data.
Pete:
I mean, like I was a Scruff and I sort of still am and I didn't think people would take me seriously. But if we had a spreadsheet of data, it's pretty hard to argue with numbers, if you can back that up and have the credibility in the process and protocol in place regardless of who was delivering it.
Pete:
And so, for people to take us seriously, we started a science program which we found out that there was no base data on micro-plastics upstream. So, APA, California, APA new South Wales, all these cities, a lot starting to sniff around and hey, what about this data collection, this program you got?
Pete:
And it's really paying off. But the biggest payoff, we had no idea what would happen. We didn't have a strategy. We sort of do now. And so, we just knew the right thing to do is focus on education, but we had a chicken or the egg situation where we needed to sell Seabins, we need to sell stuff to then fund the other stuff.
Pete:
So focus, make money, second focus, tell the right message which is education. And then third is to back our shit up and make sure we do it properly. And we built a community and a tribe and we build a loyal bunch of supporters who really enjoyed the fact that while we're doing this prevention and awareness stuff, we're actually cleaning it up at the same time.
Pete:
And we're not just doing one thing or the other, which is probably the most obvious thing that no one was really doing as well. You read the focus on awareness and prevention or you focus on cleanup and there was no one that was doing both. And there's the bickering and the bullshit that goes on between those two parties is insane.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah, right.
Pete:
And we just thought we'll do both and see what happens.
Pru Chapman:
Get in there and get it done. So, big focus for you early on was, and still is focusing on marinas. Why did you choose marinas?
Pete:
We focused on marinas because like I don't know if you grew up on the coast and you'd go to the beach and someday it's calm, and it's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. And then one week later it's like 10 to 12 foot with just heinous destruction.
Pru Chapman:
Like right now?
Pete:
Yeah. And it's like the ocean is the last place to start a clean up, but the story's great, sensational, but it's probably the worst place in the world to start with given that it destroys everything that we put in there from the salt water to the waves to the storms to even shipping.
Pete:
And yeah, we started upstream, we started close to the source of the problem because we needed to sell stuff. And the quickest to market was in a marina where they'd build infrastructure to withstand storms and waves. In the Marina they got staff who scoop net every day.
Pru Chapman:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Pete:
The marinas have electricity because the Seabin's are not magic. They need electricity to run the pump. We can run them off solar. But where we are in the world right now solar is not an everyday option everywhere, whereas electricity is.
Pete:
And so, we started there. We also started there in the marinas and stayed away from the government because the decision making of a private marina could be one week to three weeks, and the decision making of a government could be two to five years and we needed to sell stuff. So, we just found the path of least resistance and started there.
Pru Chapman:
Awesome. Who was the first Marina to pick you up?
Pete:
French Mariner actually, we made a deal with them if they paid for the tooling and the funding for the manufacturing, we would give them six Seabins and a bit of media attention.
Pete:
And so yeah, it's a city called La Grande Motte in the South of France and it kind of looks like you're gone back in time to the '70s where there's like just the craziest buildings that are now heritage listed and it's this amazing '70s swinger town looking thing. They're not all swingers that I recon-
Pru Chapman:
Never know.
Pete:
... but yeah, so it was this little French village that had sustainability and the environment is one of the key focuses. And then from there it just sort of spread out around the world.
Pru Chapman:
And particularly around Europe, didn't it? When I've had to look at kind of your map, it looks like there's a lot of Seabins in place in Europe.
Pete:
Yeah. We focused on Europe. We were living in Spain and if I jumped on a plane within an hour and a half or two hours, it's like 14,000 marinas that we could go to. And I'm not talking about like Brunswick Boat Harbor sort of shit. I'm talking like-
Pru Chapman:
A proper stuff.
Pete:
... 160, Meda, super yachts, parking up into a Marina, the size of barn, these type of things. And we just figured the marina market was just the biggest in the world in Europe.
Pete:
And what we never factored into the equation is, I guess the level of respect for the environment and the consumer culture verse say Spain and compare that to Australia and New Zealand or California.
Pete:
And so, whilst the Australia marina market is just insignificant compared to the European one, I don't know the people that live here in Australia, New Zealand, California, we don't use the plastic bags as much as we did before.
Pete:
We're reusing things, whereas the Spanish triple bag and Apple. And then they struggled on the street and I think someone else will pick it up. And so, what we found was while we got more marina sales in Europe, we have more buy-in from decision makers in Australia.
Pete:
Except for that buy-ins, just like glycine or speed. Probably two or three years in the making for a decision, but it's getting there. So yeah. It really balances out.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah, absolutely. And how many Seabins are out there on the [inaudible 00:27:58] at the moment?
Pete:
As of six weeks ago, there was 860 units. And so, it must be close to 950 to 1,000 units maybe today. And we're operational in 52 countries.
Pru Chapman:
That's amazing Pete.
Pete:
Yeah, it's not bad.
Pru Chapman:
Pretty cool.
Pete:
We got a team of sales and distribution agents. There's 32 of them. They operate commission based and so, we're not out of pocket every month, but yeah, they're looking after 52 countries and the goal is to scale into 192 countries.
Pru Chapman:
That's incredible. Do you ever have those flashbacks of you in that warehouse with no windows? Just thinking, what on earth am I doing here to kind of just seeing what it's grow and... not what it's growing to now, but what it's growing to now.
Pete:
Yeah, all the time. And when I flash back, it's like there was a lot less stress in those days than now. But not as great though. I've got heaps of photos and stuff and it's pretty funny just sort of seeing us blasting around with no shoes on. And I don't know, just making shit happen and yeah, I mean, now I've still got no shoes on.
Pru Chapman:
I was just about to say that.
Pete:
And, sort of yeah, we got a little office in Mullumbimby and we're a bit more streamlined I guess, and optimized and then in terms of business, but yeah, getting there.
Pru Chapman:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And tell us about the education arm now, because as you said, there was kind of the two you were, definitely going down those two paths, you wanted to hit both of those. So, how did the education start to play out?
Pete:
It was awesome. We kind of strong armed a lot of people with that as well.
Pru Chapman:
Excellent.
Pete:
So, because we had all these media attention, people want to align themselves with a brand that's getting attention and we knew that and we're fine with that. And so we used it to our advantage. And so corporations would come in, they're like, oh, we want to sponsor Seabins. I'm like, cool.
Pete:
We're going charge you two and a half times the price. And they're like, "What for?" I said, well, because, you can afford it and it's the right thing to do because half of that money that we're charging you, will go to bringing school kids down and writing educational programs and sites programs.
Pete:
And I said, that's the only way you're going to get your hands on a Seabin is if you do this. And some of them, we never heard from again. And the majority of them were cool with it, because they wanted to boost their PR program, they wanted to boost the corporate sustainable, the CSR or sustainability programs. And to do that, kind of involves building communities. And that was what we could do. And that was-
Pru Chapman:
That's awesome.
Pete:
... kind of how we strong arms corporations with $7 billion kind of annual turnovers to their names. And realize this scruffy little outfit with, I don't know 60 grand turnover.
Pete:
That was something that no one had seen and everybody wanted. And that's how we kind of use that to our advantage and really boosted the education and the science and community awareness.
Pru Chapman:
And how is that roll out now?
Pete:
We made it official probably eight months ago and set up Seabin Foundation which is an Australian registered charity. And we have Mahi who lives up at South Garden Beach. She runs it for us part time and yeah, she's got a pretty big volunteer, database and we put on events.
Pete:
I mean, today we're up at Tweed heads, installing a Seabin, which we'd got the funding from Justine Elliot, member of Richmond. And the key focus on that is to bring local schools down to it. And yeah, it's going off.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah, I think that's so cool. And is it true, the first one that you ran, was it the first? I forget where I read about it or heard about it, but you'd written a program for kids and then you went in and I think you had a corporate booking or something. Can you just end up running exactly the same program for them?
Pete:
Yeah. So, the first program that we wrote was just a PDF or an ebook on lessons based around the Seabin and lessons based around if you don't have a Seabin and what you can do at home.
Pete:
It's pretty simple stuff, sort of swapping out single use plastics for re-usables and this and that. And then we had that published now in three or four school curriculums around the world.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah, cool.
Pete:
Universities as well. And then from that we wrote, we didn't even write it. We just sort of set up a STEM workshop, just shot from the hip. And then we wrote afterwards the protocol. And we literally just sort of spoke to six year olds and eight year olds because we found that if we wanted to get a message out there, that's going to change the world, don't talk to adults talk to the children.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah.
Pete:
And we found that the children were much more, I guess, open to these ideas about saving the world. And we realized that the children haggle, harass and niggle their parents at the supermarket with the message that you give to them and the right message.
Pete:
Mom, how come you're using a disposable coffee cup? How come you haven't got a reusable? And you got to live with your kid and the 24, their full time job and you can't switch off and if they're harassing you, you're going to go out and buy a reusable coffee cup for sure.
Pete:
So, yeah, we just spoke to the kids and then we got approached by National Geographic in Sydney to do the STEM workshop and we'd never done it with adults. We focused on six year olds and eight year olds. And I was getting pretty stressed because I had to rewrite this workshop, STEM workshop and my partner Sasha was like, "Just use the six year old one on the adults."
Pete:
And I was like, no, that's dumb, no it'd be disaster. And she's like, "Just do it." And because I left it so last minute I just did it. And it was amazing because you kind of breaking down an adults way of thinking into a six year olds and taking the blinkers off of them and using lateral thought process because this whole thing started with lateral thought.
Pete:
If you have a rubbish bin on land, how come we don't put one in the water? That was the lateral thought. And we figured if that worked for us, it might work for other people. And so, yeah, we started doing it with National Geographic, the Facebook Executives are in California, Tesla Executives just down the road.
Pete:
We did it with so many corporates and then probably the coolest one was when we went back to Patagonia, if we'd done a presentation the year before and then we went back and did another one. But we got all the kids out of daycare, and we took them up into the boardroom and we put them in the director's chairs. We did a STEM workshop with the daycare kids, and yeah.
Pru Chapman:
Wow, so cool.
Pete:
Yeah. So, it's really fun and it's the right thing to do as well. Yeah. Essentially you can help support and build the foundations of a better future through the kids.
Pru Chapman:
I love that. So true. Oh goodness. Good work Pete, good work. So, with the Seabins how much, I mean, per year, kind of how much gunky you're pulling out per Seabin. Let's give everyone a bit of a [crosstalk 00:35:55] bigger picture.
Pete:
In the bigger picture? Not much like when people think about, you hear about eco anxiety and all this sort of stuff, and there's 8 million tons of shit going into the oceans.
Pete:
There's 15 million tons and it's pretty heavy stuff. So, in the bigger picture, we're not doing bugger all. But in our picture, and in reality, we started off pulling out four kilos a day out of the water, which has now scowled up to 3.6 tons per day that we're removing just by using each Seabin and one at a time.
Pete:
Just little steps because we never had any big state funding or we didn't have millions of dollars. We just did what we could and, one step at a time. So, each day, there's 3.6 tons of litter being removed. And every day it's 500 million liters of water that we're filtering for micro-plastics, oil, plastic fibers, big stuff, little stuff, all sorts.
Pru Chapman:
It's incredible.
Pete:
So, times that by a year and, yeah, it's pretty, it started add up. We've removed 500, I think it's about 500 tons of litter or something so far. And literally being plastic and leafs and twigs and stuff, which doesn't, weigh much.
Pete:
So, it's quite a bit in the bigger picture. So, with the data program that we set up four years ago, we found that a Seabin in Spain will get maybe between 20 to 50 kilos a day of gunk out of the water.
Pete:
But the Seabin that we have up at the bronze boat Harbor, it won't get anything in a day. It might get something over three or four days. But then after a flood, it'll start to pull out like heaps and it's all variable. But for four years of the data program, we found that the global average per day is 3.9 kilos.
Pete:
And then times that per year. So, each unit is pulling out minimum estimated at 1.4 tons. But in reality it's probably three or four times that by 1,000, and then you start to see the incremental scaling, which is still not fixing the problem and it never will.
Pete:
And we never climbed to this is not the solution. But while we're raising prevention and awareness solutions, we're still cleaning up because that crap still going in the water every day.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah. Very cool. So, talking about scaling up, you've just had some pretty exciting news happen kind of yesterday. You want to talk us through?
Pete:
Yeah. Exciting, scary nervous. All of the above. It's a bit of an emotional roller coaster for the team at the moment. We decided that it was time to step up a little bit and basically out, this milestone that we've now set ourselves is to do an equity crowdfunding rise of up to $3 million.
Pete:
And so, essentially we're taking the company public but not listing on the stock exchange. And so, we set up a campaign four weeks ago for expressions of interest to say who would like to buy shares in Seabin Project. And we got about 2,500 people, investors registered, investors.
Pete:
We set the minimum buy in at 250 bucks because it was affordable, and it's low risk, because as a startup in a emerging economy with a disruptive technology where essentially classified as a high risk investment and that's fine. Like we got high risk, you got reward or failure. And we've gone for reward, not failure, but-
Pru Chapman:
All cards are on the table.
Pete:
Yeah. And so, we got about 2,500 investors that are lined up. And then last night at 5:00 PM we opened up the business where you could actually register and purchase shares in Seabin.
Pete:
And then, I don't know, it's 7:30 this morning, those like five or six investors, because everyone was sleeping and then an hour later we got 50 investors and I think we must be nearly 40 or 50 grand just in a couple of hours.
Pete:
And it's just regular people that have never invested before. It's regular people that really want to have a bit more purpose or building a bit more purpose into their lives by, it's just regular people that are walking around with reusable water bottles and trying to work out how they can do that a little bit more.
Pete:
And by literally purchasing shares in Seabin, that's kind of furthering the mission for us and for themselves as well. And we figured that if we left a minimum buy-in at 250 bucks, hopefully it's affordable and it's not going to break the bank if things do go belly up.
Pete:
And so yeah, it's the next four weeks we're looking to raise the three mil and we got people kind of registered with big chunks of money and small chunks of money and yeah, we'll see how we go.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah, and I love also, we were talking just before we went on air here about the kind of two ways that you're looking at this. So it's definitely, it's to raise capital, absolutely. But also having that kind of army of regular people who are really engaged because they're going to be the ones lobbying and talking and being the voices for Seabin as well.
Pete:
Yeah. Well, I've been pushing our finance officer for and fellow director for maybe 10 months to do this and he's like, no, no, no and I finally I got him through and the strategy for us is to have power by the people.
Pete:
So, the more people we have with a financial interest in a solution to something like ocean plastics, the better because we can use our shareholders passively to help lobby local councils, state government and federal government, to look at solutions for the crap floating around the waterways.
Pete:
And we got 70 people that support us without even trying to do this equity rise on a daily basis when we are still have a debt of gratitude to the people that helped us four years ago on the first Crowdfunding where we handed out stickers, and hats, and tee shirts and thank yous.
Pete:
And so, now we're in a position where we can give back to the people that support us. We can potentially get them a return on investment, and we can clean up the waterways and essentially we are all working towards a better value of life.
Pete:
So yeah, it's pretty cool situation. And we could have looked at it like, if you do have some fat cat investor that wants to drop a couple of mil, that's amazing, but then it's only one extra voice that's helping us.
Pete:
But if we got 3000 people at smaller little monies, and we still make the goal, then we're doing better than getting that one investor, because we have the power through the people and the lobbying and the voices.
Pete:
So yeah, it's a little bit of strange way of looking at it, but we just figured the more people rallying or lobbying for solutions, the faster we'll find the end goal of cleaner oceans.
Pru Chapman:
I love this model, because people inherently want to do good. And if they can do good and also get a positive return on investment financially from it, as well as Goodwill, and as well as through their activism and living out their values, and being a solution to the problem. There's really no one's losing here. Everyone's just hanging out there.
Pete:
Yeah. I mean, if we play our cards right and it all goes as we plan, it's just a win, win, win. And we're kind of using this equity crowdsource funding round is a bit of a test to say, does this work, will it work?
Pete:
And if it does, what's the next stage, which is a proper IPO and a proper listing on the stock exchange with for rising three mil now, let's look at on an it might be 30 mil next time or something. And in everything we do gets invested back into the company, it gets invested back into the technology.
Pete:
And we use the money that we raise properly in fast track solutions and cleaner oceans. And at the same time we have a 1% for the planet membership through the not-for-profit. And yeah, we channel a lot of time and energy and money into the education and we built that into our company constitution.
Pete:
So, even if some guy comes in and wants to invest, doesn't like it, he's just got to suck it up. Because that's how we roll. So yeah, pretty interesting stage of our life, I guess.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah. It feels, I can just say that kind of exponential growth in front of you in the... and growth not always a good thing for companies, but in your case it really is.
Pru Chapman:
And what you can do and the impact that you can have, like you say, through the technology, through the education, and through just activating people as well, putting this more on their agenda.
Pete:
Yeah, we kind of figured, my pet hate is I guess kind of blaming other people for problems because plastics is in everybody's problem. Nobody is plastic free. And if you were, maybe you're living in a cave with a hessian bag or something, but if you living in the modern world, like we all have plastic in our lives and obviously some of them have less than others, but it's built into everything we do.
Pete:
And so, we figured everyone has a responsibility. Corporates, manufacturing, all this sort of stuff. They have a much larger responsibility, but we're still the consumers. We buy their shit, we're buying their stuff. So, we have a responsibility as well.
Pete:
And so, we just figured that everybody has a role to play, some are smaller than others, some are much more substantial. So, let's just get everybody involved and try and find a solution and coexist.
Pru Chapman:
So, how can people get involved Pete?
Pete:
If anyone wants to get involved, they can visit our website and there's links, if you'd want to become a shareholder, there's a link for that. If you would like to volunteer your time through the foundation for the events, you can also register there.
Pete:
Send us an email on the contact and even if you just want to ask a question, just send us an email or follow our social media. It's pretty easy. It's Seabin Project through Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook. Yeah.
Pru Chapman:
And I'd highly recommend everyone take a trip to your website as well because there's so much great information, and videos, and just all sorts of things on there. It's a real hub where people can really upskill, and learn, and get engaged.
Pete:
Yeah. I mean there's something for everyone and if you don't like it, no worries, but.
Pru Chapman:
They do like it, I'm telling you. So, awesome. All right Pete. Well, I'm going to wrap this up in just a minute, but we do have a bunch of questions that we ask all of our... they're rapid fire questions that we ask our one wild ride interviewees here. So, side kick us off. Tea or coffee?
Pete:
I haven't actually drank coffee for three years because that first Crowdfunding gave me this new thing Coding zoadi. So, I'm back on the coffee now, which means that I'm slightly less stressed. I'm kind of both.
Pru Chapman:
Both, we'll give you both.
Pete:
Oh, great black cappuccino, no sugar. Just depends on the stress at the time.
Pru Chapman:
Maybe hit some of that on peppermint tea for today.
Pete:
Yeah. I will.
Pru Chapman:
Fight or freewill?
Pete:
Fight or freewill. It's the same thing.
Pru Chapman:
I like that. Do you have any kickoff daily habits in place?
Pete:
:No, I'm really lazy. I do try and show gratitude to my family and the others around me. Doesn't happen every day, but, I'm quite conscious of trying to be a better person as well, whether that translates into actual actions everyday or not, I'm working on it.
Pru Chapman:
Nice. All right. If you could jump on a plane tomorrow and go anywhere in the world with anyone, where would you go and who would you go with?
Pete:
I would go with Sasha my partner, and two little boys Cower and Ziggy. And we would definitely head to some kind of remote Tropical Island with Palm trees and amazing surf out the front. And yeah, just dial things back a bit and live simply. That's pretty much what I dream of every day.
Pru Chapman:
I could see that in you actually. Is there anyone else or who else would you like to see me interview on podcast?
Pete:
Get Yvon.
Pru Chapman:
Yes, Yvon, if anyone can hook me up with Yvon.
Pete:
He's awesome is just this powerhouse, amazing human who is setting a benchmark for the entire planet of how you can be a business and use that for good. That would be the guy.
Pru Chapman:
He's my guy. He's number one on the list other than you of course Pete. All right. And finally, how can people connect with you on Seabin Project?
Pete:
Just visit www.seabinproject.com or just have a look on Facebook for Seabin Project and yeah, just flick us a message through there, or Instagram or Twitter or something. But yeah, the website's probably the best one.
Pete:
And apologies if we don't get back to you, we got I think the average is two or 3 million e-interactions every month with comments and messaging and just all sorts. So, we just tried it. We've only got four of us full time, and so, we are a bit strapped for time, so I apologies to anyone. But we will do our best to get back to you.
Pru Chapman:
Yeah, that's saying good vibes to you guys. Awesome, Pete. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been awesome.
Pete:
No worries. Thanks for having me. It's been great.