She's muted because she's got kids running around.
Yeah.
Even the husband's running around.
Bloody hell, why is he not at work?
I had a training today [XXX]
Okay, nothing against husbands.
Yeah, I have a couple kids running around with our remote schooling situation as well upstair so... That's the way of the way of life these days.
Yeah, oh boy we're not quite there yet, but we should be there. Anyway, let's not talk about COVID.
Yes, although that is part of the impetus for this package, and today I saw another news story on how restaurant use of single-use plastics is skyrocketing, perhaps due to some misdirected views about the safety associated with single-use plastics as opposed to the normal routine of cleaning tableware and whatnot. So of course, that's part of the impetus for looking at this, for this package, and I have a few different subject areas I wanted to ask you guys about. I don't think we'll need the whole hour, but I thought that half an hour might be a little tight. So, we can start with this database, and this corresponding paper that's pending publication. Do you have any more detail about when that might be available to the public? The brand database is one thing, or the brain commitment, and I was also thinking about the chemical database.
That I can tell you. So the the FCC database there, we've now agreed on publication on the 30th of November. I mean, we were basically ready, but we were told... do you know any [XXX] from the Science Communication Network?
Might ring a bell. What's her last name? [XXX] Oh, yeah. So I've certainly seen it but I've never spoken with her.
Yeah, that's a great group that maybe we should get you in touch with. I know that Victoria is in touch with them already because I connected her. So Amy recommended us to not come out before or during the US elections, and we figured end of November, hopefully it will be over. But who knows?
Yeah. Okay.
So that's the date now. November 30th.
Okay, great, and this package is slated to be available about ten days after that, so we should definitely be able to have a link and to address it, and I did take a look at the almost final paper, I guess, and I was just curious from your own perspective, can you tell me a little bit about kind of the target audience or use of this database? Obviously, I mean, just being in the scientific literature, it can allow other researchers to fill in gaps and pull together databases for them. But is there also a regulatory audience for this? So is there an attempt to streamline; I know the paper mentions that a lot of databases are mismatched. Are you trying to remedy that perhaps?
So I just got feedback from Justin. So he says in two weeks time he is probably going to publish the retailer database, just for your information, in two or three weeks time, so mid-November. So the target audience, that's a good point. Actually, you know, this database is a side product. Sounds a bit odd when I say it like that, because it's such a huge, massive undertaking, but we needed this for a project that we're working on right now. So we figured, you know, if this is potentially of use to others, let's publish it. But we mostly did it for our own research. That's kind of the motivation to put this together. We didn't set out putting this together thinking, oh, the world needs this. It's because we needed it for our own work. And that also, I hope, answers your questions about who are we hoping that it will be useful for. I mean, it's something that we need for our work, I guess other academics will find it useful. We've got quite a lot of feedback already. I get people saying, this is fantastic, and it's going to be incredibly useful.
And I think also industry, we showed them; we talked about it [XXX]. People were eager to see it.
Okay, can you say anything about your own work that it's moving toward? Or that it's a part of?
Yeah, Birgit you wanna?
I didn't get the question so...
What are we using the FCC review for?
So what we are doing now is that we collected; tried to collect all available literature on chemical migration, from food packaging materials from FCMs, and to really extract the data in a systematic way so that we have, in the end, a long list of chemicals that have been shown to migrate from FCM. And we also include those studies which show extraction of chemicals. That's a harsher process. So you put the packaging together with a solvent, for example, and then you see, okay, some chemicals are coming out. So that's usually happening, and food packaging is an indication that it could happen. So we are compiling all this in a systematic way, and in the end, we want to compare the chemicals that are known to migrate, or to be expected with the chemicals that are allowed to be used, in food packaging. So we needed to have the basis showing all the chemicals that are available on the market; that used to be in the packaging. Then we are showing what is actually coming out, and we're pretty certain that we will have many studies for certain chemicals, and for many other chemicals, we won't have any data. But still, it could be the same with the [XXX]. It's done in a systematic way. It's again, a huge project. It's bigger than we expected. So we are looking at more than a thousand scientific studies; many hundreds of chemicals.
So with the question of testing final mixtures, is that actually required or even endorsed by any regulatory bodies? Or are they all still focusing on the ingredients?
It's not required by any regulatory bodies, and the folks at Nestle are doing some of that already. So they have the Nestle Research Center, and I think you've written about that in your Hard not to Crack article.
I spoke with some of them.
Yeah, so they are doing it, and then there's a couple of testing labs over here in Europe that are offering that service. But you'd have to talk to them. I don't know who their clients are. Well, I do know at least one tableware producer who's had their aluminum coated, water bottles tested there. I'm not going to say the brand name, but yeah, it's [XXX] knows. It's definitely something that people are looking into, but it's not regulatory requirements at this point. But I should say, two weeks ago, we got the European Chemical Strategy for Sustainability and that's a big deal here in Europe. I mean, here I say; Switzerland is not part of the European Union. So for the European Union, it's a big deal because that basically mandates that you have to test. It's gonna have to be addressed somehow in the regulation.
What that European Strategy for Chemical or?
Chemical Strategy for Sustainability. I can send you a link.
Yeah, that sounds interesting.
That's a big deal. I'll send you the FLP news on that as well. I've got a talk at our workshop last week about it, I can send you that as well.
So, as far as what you've pulled together in the database, there's a couple problems. As far as the lack of available data, there's not a lot of data on what chemicals are actually used, since companies don't report that or have to, in all cases, and also a lack of toxicity data, particularly with lesser studied chemicals. Correct? So there's kind of two concerns associated that are brought to light when you develop a list like this. Is that fair to say?
Um, yeah, I guess. So first of all, we don't know in which exact; in which products the chemicals are being used. We do have some indication of what material, most likely, they are being used in. So that was that staircase-shaped table. I don't know if you if you got a chance to have a manuscript down. So there you kind of see the overlap of chemicals being used in different kinds of materials, and then there's another pie chart showing; but that is just the presence. What we've also done now, which is a critical piece of information when you do sort of [XXXX] chemical risk assessment, are the levels of these levels, because the paradigm of risk assessment is that risk is large if you have high exposure, if you have high hazard, or if both are high. And so it depends on what levels these chemicals migrate to, and what risks they have, as well as the hazard properties. Now, what we are doing with this table is; we're not even going near the exposure levels because we have no chance of getting that information. That is absolutely way off. So it's really in that sense; it's hazard base. And then you of course, again, have the data gaps. You don't know the hazard properties for all the chemicals in the database. It's really three pieces of information that are kind of important. The presence, levels, and the hazard property.
Yeah, okay, well, that answers I think the big questions I had about that. If I have any others that come up, as I look at it more closely, I might just be back in touch by email later on, perhaps. But just to jump to another area I wanted to ask about; so the work that you released in March with the circular economy; the final mixtures issue kind of relates there as well, when you're talking about recycled goods, because that would be the only way to identify which chemicals are ultimately present in a recycled paper product, for instance, where sourcing might be hard to understand. Is it true that you could understand that with the sort of final mixture test with the solvent?
No, not guaranteed. I mean, it's a step in that direction but the challenge is; I don't know how familiar you are with analytical chemistry; but you know, when you look at these mixtures of chemicals that you extract, or that migrate from paper, for example, you've got a very complex mixture. You've got hundreds or maybe thousands of different chemicals, and you do what we call the bio essays. So that's where you test for hazard properties. So you can, for example, test for cytotoxicity, right; that would be a sort of very generic toxicity type, or you can test for estrogen receptor binding; that's highly specific. But you're testing this whole mixture of chemicals, so you don't know exactly which is the exact chemical that is leading the fact that you're observing. What you can also do in addition to that bio essay, you can do what they call an untargeted chemical analysis. So that means you put your whole mixture into your chemical analytical equipment, and then you get a response, but it doesn't tell you it's chemical A, it's chemical B; you have to figure that out yourself. And so you sort of get something that's more like a fingerprint; a couple of lines together, and then you need to figure out what the individual lines mean. And if you don't know exactly what the chemical composition is, that's a huge challenge. That's a real huge challenge. Normally, when you do analytical chemistry, you have one substance, or kind of a handful of substances, that you're interested in; you know what those chemicals are, and you've got them available as a pure standard, which means you can buy them from a shop as a pharmaceutical-grade chemical. And you can then calibrate your equipment with that chemical so that when you put your unknown sample in there, you will see, okay, I get the signal peak. So I look at my calibration chart, okay, that corresponds to that concentration. If you're doing untargeted, of course, you haven't calibrated your equipment; you don't know what you're looking for, and we cannot quantify the chemicals. So we need to be quite lucky. And I think that may also be a use for our database that people don't know; okay, this is a data set of chemicals that are likely to be found in differentiated contact materials. Let's check here if any of the substances we find in our analysis could be the ones listed in our data set. So I don't know if that makes sense. But chemical analysis is not so trivial. It's actually really complicated.
Yeah, actually, just within the last few months, I wrote something about nontarget analysis of chemicals in the San Francisco Bay here where I am. And yeah, I hadn't made that analogy yet; never that connection in my head. But it's essentially the same process of taking a sample and trying to match up with known chemical signatures and not being able to quantify using that technique necessarily. And then there's also going to be a lot of things that you don't know, and then the environment could be, like contaminants of emerging concern, as they're called, or in products. Who knows; obviously, there's thousands of chemicals, especially recycled...
Millions, millions.
Wait, did you work with Tracey Woodruff? That sounds a bit like Tracey's work?
Gosh, I can't remember the name of the research team. They were based somewhere in the East Coast of the United States. I can't remember which school.
Okay, so wasn't someone from San Francisco. Okay.
Well, here the San Francisco team that participated was the San Francisco Estuary Institute. And then the non-target analysis was done by a lab.
So it was environmental samples then, not humans.
Yeah. It was actually in the San Francisco Bay water. So aquatic pollution.
It is essentially the same, and you know Nate, we're all environmental scientists. So that's why we were familiar with these ways to identify chemicals in the environment, and we're trying to apply those same approaches to the food contact space. Maybe that helps you then to understand what we're trying to do.
Are we also talking about recycled content in these samples? You wanted to make that connection?
Yes.
Because I think then, there's some [XXXXXX] for certain products that you could try to identify and to see, okay, is this inside the packaging or not for paper; they're quite some sort of [VIPN?] that's coming from these carbonless copy papers; they end up in the recycling. And then, if this chemical is found, for example, that includes the indication that you have recycled content and some others and I think the same is true for plastic. Even things for [XXX], they're [XXX] from electronic equipment and flame retardants and so on, and so they are readily found; So that's also something interesting about these things. On the one hand, for paper; at least if we talk about the situation in Europe; on paper, it's not required that you collect only [XXX] paper to make your packaging in the end. So of course it's newspapers mainly, and magazines and all this, and they find chemicals, which shouldn't be in the packaging. And for plastic in Europe, and also in the US, it is required or recommended, depending on the legislation, that you use only food grade materials to produce new food packaging. And if you find, for example, these flame retardants, then for sure it's not [XXXXXXX]. It is interesting even if you do an untargeted analysis to specifically try to identify these compounds.
Interesting. Yeah. It's kind of scary to think about those things being recycled into food contact materials. But at the same time, I think so many people don't even think about that; who are well meaning and they just look at the sourcing or the waste management angle And that's what we're trying to do, in this article, is pull them together, looking at both the sourcing, sustainability and also the human health angle.
Awesome. That's great. That's really something that became clear to me when we were working on our paper about food packaging and the circular economy. I don't know if you've seen that. We published that two years ago already. And that this whole narrative of recycling is good; let's all recycle and so on; it's kind of just; someone once said that it's like, we're shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. You're doing something but it's really not what you need to be doing? What we need to be doing is reducing consumption. And the recycling narrative keeps the whole consumerism machine going. Because people think, oh, you know, I can buy those because I can recycle it. But really, we have to focus much, much more on reducing; reducing these materials; just as a thought. And then also, there was a presentation at our workshop last week, that I will also send you, about a scorecard that we're in the process of putting together with a group of stakeholders, many from the Bay Area...
Maybe even outside the [XXX]
Yeah, exactly outside of there as well; the recycled. So the food packaging scorecard, where we've tried to do exactly what you just described; to integrate the sustainability aspects with the chemicals migrating. It's not finished yet; it's work in progress. It's not going to be finished by the 10th of December. But just maybe for you information; and if you want to talk more about that, let me know, I can put you in contact with some of the stakeholders involved. Google is behind this, just for your information. I don't know if they would [XXX] publicly.
Yeah, that would be great. I think I did see a note on that somewhere and hadn't had a chance to look into it yet, but that could be useful background for us as well, and maybe point to some sources, as you said.
And there's a website also, that's got a very generic name called Green, Brown, Blue, and there are different channels. They're all connected to food in some way, but there's one on single-use materials and so there you get a whole bunch of sort of guides on reusables, case studies, companies for reusables, and then also stuff on [XXXXX} and so on.
Okay. So, yeah, I did want to talk about some of the the single-use issue related to COVID and some of the alternatives that are being developed. But just real quick on you know, over the last seven months, obviously single-use food packaging has; I think there's a lot of data showing, and anecdotal information, from around the world, showing the escalating use, and I'm curious if you guys have a position on what restaurants or consumers should be doing? How do we respond to this? Or what are some safer alternatives when you talk about reducing use of single use. If people are concerned, whether or not that's founded, people are turning to these. So is this something you guys have waded into, or are willing to comment on?
Yeah, I mean, I think in general, sorry, I'm a scientist. So I'm always skeptical when I hear these figures. So I'm kind of, what's the thinking? Okay, maybe there is a surge in plastic packaging, but you also have to think about people who are avoiding going to restaurants to eat. So at least here in Switzerland, a lot of the restaurants have started, doing delivery or takeout and they're, unfortunately, the single-use materials; especially plastics that are sold; the container of choice to get your food from A to B. So it may also have to do with that. I personally had an experience, I went to the Japanese restaurant in the building where we have our office a couple of months ago, and they they wanted to serve me everything in throwaway plastic containers. And I kind of said, guys, I want my money back,. I'm not eating here, and they refunded me and I went back there last week, and now they're back to the ceramics tableware. So they got the message, or well I hope they got it. Now would you have a position on that; we actually worked with Greenpeace. There's a; I need to dig it out; I don't have it right now but Greenpeace International, they published like a statement on that, signed by several health experts, international health experts, and so I co-signed that. Yeah, I need to stick that out. I can send it to you. We also have a page on coronavirus and packaging. Did you see that?
I didn't, no...
Okay the chat's getting full [XXXX]. I did a couple of webinars on that as well, about a year ago. So this... Birgit do you you remember what it's called.? This podcast by Unwrapped; indispensable podcast, something like that, do you know them?
Isn't it on the corona page?
Oh yeah... Greenpeace report on reusables. Okay, we've got it. We've got an article on that. Sending it to you. You can see the chat right now.
Yes. Yeah, I have been seeing these things.
Okay, so not sending it into black hole... Justin from my team actually did a webinar on food packaging, reuse and COVID. So that's something you should watch.
Okay.
A lot FPF videos to watch. Just have a look at the page, I think that's probably the best.
Okay. Yeah, sorry. I didn't even think to look for that on your website. So, apologies for not finding it in advance, but that sounds helpful.
We have so much information on our website. Sometimes we also forget all the stuff we have there.
[XXXX]
That's why we have to search.
Well, great, thank you, I will take a look at that and all the links you send. I imagine that some of the those materials might address my other questions, or area of questions, which is about alternatives. And just to make it more specific to this project, we're hoping to highlight maybe a couple dozen, depending on how we break it into categories - promising innovations in materials or food packaging products - that are promising from both the health and chemical migration standpoint, as well as the materials and end-of-life standpoint. So, various types of plant-based, paper replacements, or plastic replacement, or even like the edible seaweed category. I'm planning to look at a number of those and sort of develop a criteria for evaluating them and highlighting some that we think are most promising. So I'm curious if you guys have any initial thoughts on what's most promising, or perhaps products in that space that are more likely to be problematic from a chemical standpoint, at least? And again, if there's any material in all these links you just mentioned that cover that, I'd be happy to look there, too.
What kind of packaging are you looking for? You talked about paper-based? It can be reconciled on one part but [XXXXXXX] It has to be engineered [XXXX]
Yeah, I'm trying to limit the scope to single use at this point. But within that, pretty much anything we want to cover. Maybe alternative, hard plastics, to-go containers that are made from; there's a number made from sugar cane, other sorts of plant fibers or pulp and there's tableware made from pressed palm leaves. There's a pretty wide range of products that we're looking at so it might be hard to narrow down a response, but just maybe, what do you think about alternatives that are...
So I have two levels of response; I think the first one is packaging. Food packaging is usually not a product on its own, it's usually part of a food product. So, I think the challenge really is that you can't just replace packaging so simply, you have to think about the whole supply chain, the business model, how the food product is made, by whom it's consumed, and so on. So there's a whole level of complexity that adds on to that. Of course, for us, the average consumer, what's visible is the packaging waste, and we want to do something about it. But the challenge actually is further upstream, thinking about the business models. So for example, if you want to have more reusable packaging, sometimes it will be easy just to replace it like in restaurants, for example; maybe you have to make a few investments, but not a big deal. But if you think about products you normally buy and throw away single-use plastic containers, a tub of ice cream, for example, and you want to have that in a reusable packaging, that's basically a completely different product. And so it's not so simple to kind of find drop-in solutions for packaging based on material properties. So that's just one thought. The other point is I think if you really look at the materials, the ones that are better are the ones that have lower migration, obviously; that have less unknown chemicals migrating, that has less or no hazardous chemicals migrating, and that can easily be cleaned and then work in these reusable cycles. You're really looking at exactly two materials. You've got a big choice between two materials. One of them is stainless steel, and the other one is glass. All the other materials don't really; because they release chemicals, they absorb flavor chemicals. There's a couple of businesses that are switching to reusable plastics, for example, and it's just a matter of time, couple of months; and it's going to start smelling. It's going to stink, you have to throw it out.
Did we talk about all these plant-based and paper-based materials. I think they simply don't fulfill the function as they're only plant-based or only paper-based. Of course, it's easy to take a plant-based material and make like polyethylene out of it, then you have the same function as a normal polyethylene. But to give you an example; I don't know if you have these in the US; so they were quite popular one or two years ago, another increasing [XXXX}, [XXXX] and bamboo coffee bottles, coffee cups, which you can use for your coffee to go; reusable ones. So they were marketed as plant-based and natural and clean and all this, but if you look at the chemical migration, they're very, very, very bad. And the German city tourists, [XXX] they have a strong opinion about it. No, it is not suitable for coffee, because it's hot and acidic and they should be [XXXXXXX]; it's used with [malamide?]; it's used with [XXXX], if you use it for a long time. So that, I would say, was a very bad example of making something greener.
Yeah, then maybe just to add, since you mentioned palm leaves. I don't know. We've been talking about that Birgit. I can't remember if we had any studies on that, but potentially you're look at pesticides. Maybe pesticides in these plant-based products. Seaweeds; I haven't seen any studies looking at seaweed-based packaging; what there migrates. Yeah, I don't know about that.
Yeah, I mean, a lot of times, just looking at products, I've had questions that some of the manufacturers seem to address on their website, but most don't about binding agents or liners, or anything that's designed to kind of increase the performance of the plant-based product. Are you just introducing the potentially harmful chemicals at that step, and are there ways to do it without that. With the palm and some others, I did find them advertised as just heat-pressed with no chemical modification, but as you said, there's the pesticide. That's an interesting one I hadn't thought of.
I think [XXXXX] plants for these types of products, we didn't talk about it?
What's that?
I can't remember. I don't know.
I know that he was talking about the [XXXX] recently. They're planning to start. That would be something interesting to [XXX].
I think just in general, the manufacturers of these materials; usually what they will tell you isthat our product complies with regulation. And I mean, that's a very reasonable statement and is absolutely understandable as a manufacturer when you're not into all the technical details of the actual regulations. But from our perspective, the definition of safety, as it is in the regulations; doesn't overlap with our expectation of what should be the definition of safety. And for me, the definition of safety should be that it doesn't contain hazardous chemicals, and it doesn't contain untested chemicals. Because by logic, if you have untested chemicals in your product, you can't say if they're hazardous or not. They're untested. They may be hazardous, they may not; you don't know; they're untested. But with the current definition by regulations, it's absolutely fine to have both hazardous and untested chemicals in the product. So I think that's maybe also an important way to understand what it means when you see this information from the manufacturers; that often times yeah yeah... it complies with the regulations, we've done our due diligence; but really the regulations are what are inadequate. We've written about that.
I get that, and do you have a sense if it's a possibility to; I mean this might be just kind of an idea that this could be a moment that could drive investment toward alternative single-use things, such as for to-go containers, or eating at something on the food place on the street, or open air, food cart, or something like that, that just gives you a quick single-use cutlery or plate or cup. In that sphere, in particular, I think there seems to be a lot of attention right now to developing plant-based, and at least for some of the manufacturers, truly safe products that are designed to be used once and then thrown away, and then composted within a matter of weeks or months. I wonder what you think about that sector? If you've seen anything promising there? Or whether you think that could be an area that could benefit from it in a strange way from COVID driving attention toward it?
Yeah, I mean,it's difficult. I can give you my personal opinion on that, not as an official Food Packaging Forum opinion, but as I said before, I think the focus should be on on reducing, and not replacing with alternatives. So, yeah, obviously; can't always have reusables, everywhere where you are. I think this has to do with societal values. This whole thing of convenience and having fast food out on the street, and so on, is that something that that we need as a society, because it comes with all these issues of producing waste, and so on. So I don't know, I can't really give you smart ideas there. I'm thinking of a very classical takeaway container that's very popular here in Europe, which is the ice cream cone. Some of the people eat ice cream a lot here, and then you have the choice of having it in a single-use throw away plastic-coated paper cup, or you can have it in a cone, and the cone you can actually eat, and so I think solutions like that are good; stuff that are part of the food.
Yeah, but I don't think those many people [XXXXX]; doesn't work. And you don't want to use this pricing in the end. [Hard to decipher]
I don't want to eat french fries, actually. But anyway....
Well that was a great event...[XXXX]
But I've seen the edible forks and stuff. So people are working on that.
So you're gonna eat the fork; I don't think that's appropriate for personal hygiene, especially for takeaway, and especially now. You've touched the end of the fork, I certainly don't want...
Yeah and then you have to wrap it in plastic again.
Yeah, and also I've seen some technically edible drinking straws and some edible sauce packets, sachets. So there is some work there. But yeah, it does raise questions about the handling of that product then, prior to you; because it would have to be handled differently. You can't just have it out in the pile.
I guess. I mean, if it's edible, then at least if you put on a compost, then you should have no problems there; if it's food grade. But I think it's a symptom of a larger problem. This whole convenience culture, and I know it's a big deal in the US but still, I feel like one needs to call that out. It's creating so many problems, and they're not easy to solve. Doesn't really help you, does it?
No that's, I think, an important perspective that's relevant here, even if we're at the same time trying to find some of the better alternatives, but I think that's also something we shouldn't lose sight of. So, appreciate it. I'm just gonna look back here and see if there's anything else.
You know, there was a talk at our workshop on bioplastics. I can send you that as well.
Sure, yeah, that's a big thing still as you guys would know as well. But yeah, I just came across so many different iterations of that, and I know many of them can be problematic from chemicals standpoint, as well as the waste management, depending on where you are.
And the raw material generation; always forget that.
Well, for just the plant feed stock. You mean?
Yeah. Well, you know, if you're producing it with intense agriculture. I mean agriculture, uses 70% of global drinking water resources, freshwater resources, I should say; soils, soil fertility depletion in industrial agricultural practice, and so on. This doesn't come for free either. It's obviously better to use carbon that is not fossil carbon. But you have many downsides. If it's a [XXX} that's made from waste, for example, from waste, like sewage sludge; something that you have and that's unavoidable and that some people are burning now.
Yeah those are chemicals.
Yeah. you may have heavy metals in there.
Yeah, so it's not easy. The devil's in the details.
The ways to generate [XXXXX] not to [XXXX] or anything like this.
Yeah, exactly, like non-avoidable food waste, like orange peels, or I don't know what; [XXXX] I know that people are excited about the seaweed stuff. I'm not too sure if that's just kind of a different flavor to the same problem.
Yeah, I did find food waste people trying to harvest some of those waste streams; like I found some making polymers, I think with olive pits, or some sort of; can't remember what the product was; some sort of fiber polymer out of the olive pits. And even the palm leaves, and those supposedly come from waste leaves that have fallen to the ground. I think that palm plantations have other issues that should be accounted for, but yeah, we're definitely looking at those use of waste streams as a potential bonus, depending on what they do with it, in our kind of methodology for evaluating things.
Do you know Deanna Cohen, from the Plastic Pollution Coalition.
No, but I know the Plastic Pollution Coalition. I know of them.
She's one of the co-founders. I think it would be great if you could chat with her. She's in LA, so you're in the same timezone, so you don't have to get upset early. And Deanna is a part of this scorecard group, and I know that she's part of one of the subgroups of that project that I'm working on. She made these reusable guides, but they're also working on information about reusables in the context of COVID. And I don't exactly know where they stand on that. So it would be great if you could chat with Deanna and get her thoughts on that. She also connected with so many people who've got like alternative, products and so on, so maybe you should pick her friends a little bit as well.
Yeah, that's great, sounds like that could be helpful. And then actually real quick, you mentioned Nestle. I did speak with someone there for my other story, which is more than five years ago now. So I'm not sure if he's still there. I think it was Steven, just looking back at Steven [Clump?].
Oh Steven [XXX?] Yeah he actually left earlier this year; he's with PPG now So he's gone, unfortunately.
Maybe I'll reach out to them. Do you have any more information about the project you mentioned there with... I think that was with the final mixture testing?
Yeah, you should contact [XXXXXXX}. He's the head of food safety there, and he's doing the bio essays where they look at this mixture; toxicity, or at least he can connect you with the people who could help you. So I'll do that as well; connect you with [XXX]
That's great. Well, thank you so much for your time, and all those all the information and links, I really appreciate it, then this will help me move forward; just in the first stages of this now. I'll circle back with you if that's okay, like email, at least to clarify or if any other questions pop up.
Sure, anytime. Cool.
Thank you so much.
Thank you and good luck for your work. I look forward to seeing it.
Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah and it's nice that it's for a general audience so we can introduce these ideas and help bring it to other media markets. It's part of the goal of this as it is you might be aware from seeing the last Orb project. So I think that's great. Thanks so much, both of you, for your time on a Friday afternoon, and I'll be in touch.
