Montreal's O'Land Stations' Founder Rachel Labbe-Bellas On Their Single Use Plastic Solution - Quick, Filtered, Refillable Water Stations for Large Events Helps Companies Go Green While Reducing the Carbon footprint & Simultaneously Providing Economy

Our guest this week is Rachel Labbe-Bellas, founder of Montreal Canada-based O’Land Stations which hydrates the world's largest entertainment events & venues with profit-oriented cylindrical water stations that reduce single use plastic - one of the biggest issues now facing our planet. 

It’s quite the success story, from launching right at the beginning of the pandemic - when most all major events were cancelled, pivoting during that time, and now gaining their stride as they have hit the ground running with a solution for reducing single use plastics, specifically at large events, from sports to music to conferences and events of all types where clean, cold, and quick delivery of water for an attending public is needed, and where it is also an economical tool for the event host or the event organizers. They’re building an economy around an enormous plastics pollution problem. 

Rachel shares her journey from marine biology to entrepreneurship, the challenges faced during the pandemic, and the success of her company in promoting sustainability at large events. The conversation highlights the importance of partnerships and data-driven solutions in creating a more sustainable future. We discuss role of host cities for major events like the FIFA World Cup, the innovative solutions for water dispensing, the impact of their efforts in reducing single-use plastics, logistics of delivering water stations, the dynamics of market demand, and the unique offerings of their business model. The conversation also touches on manufacturing challenges, expansion plans.

Rachel has traveled the world and earned a biology degree from McGill University in Quebec, and a Master’s in ecology degree in Brazil. She’s a quadrilingual and has lived in Panama, Barbados, Italy, Philippines, and Brazil, studying tropical ecology. She worked 7 years at 5 Gyres institute as a science programs and development manager, and a corporate relations manager. She worked as a Development Coordinator for Dr. Sylvia Earle at Mission Blue, and was also a science research associate at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, CA. Dec 2015, she was part of 14 women from around the globe who set sail for 19 days to make the unseen seen, from the toxics in our bodies to the toxics in our seas. Their mission was to explore the issue of plastics, chemicals, endocrine disruptors and carcinogens in our personal and global environment. That was the eXXpedition project along the Amazon

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00.238)
Intro Music

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Welcome to the Resilient Earth podcast where we talk with speakers from the United States and around the world about the critical issues facing our planet and the positive actions people are taking. From the tiniest of actions to the grandest of gestures so that we can continue to thrive and survive for generations to come. I'm Leigh Anne Lindsey, producer and host along with co-hosts and co-producers Scott and Tree Mercer of Mendonoma whale and seal study located on the south Mendocino and north Sonoma coasts.

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Our guest this week is Rochelle Labbe-Bellis, founder of Montreal, Canada based Oland Stations, which hydrates the world's largest entertainment events and venues with a profit-oriented cylindrical water station that reduces single-use plastic, one of the biggest issues now facing our planet.

Speaker 1 (02:30.966)
she grew up in Montreal. Rachel has traveled the world. She has earned a biology degree from McGill University in Quebec and a master's in ecology degree in Brazil. She's a quadri-lingual and has lived in Panama, Barbados, Italy, the Philippines, and Brazil, volunteering and studying tropical ecology.

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She worked seven years at 5 Gyres Institute as a science programs manager and a corporate relations manager. She worked with Dr. Sylvia Earle at Mission Blue as a development coordinator. She was also a science research associate at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. In December 2015, she was part of 14 women from around the globe who set sail

19 days to make the unseen seen, from the toxics in our bodies to the toxics in our seas. Their mission was to explore the issue of plastics, chemicals, endocrine disruptors, and carcinogens in our personal and global environment that can cause disease.

That was the Amazon Expedition Project along the literal Amazon coastline. And it was to raise awareness about ocean plastic pollution and inspire action.

Speaker 1 (04:12.248)
That's her background and now as a young mother of a four-year-old son whose name, Island, was the inspiration for the name of her company, Oland. We talk about that company, their mission, and the success that they have had to date, and where they see themselves going next. It's quite the success story from launching right at the beginning of the pandemic when most all major events were canceled, pivoting during that time. And now, they're gaining their stride as they have hit the ground running with a solution for reducing single-use plastics, specifically at large events, from sports to music to conferences and events of all types, where clean, cold and quick delivery of water for an attending public is needed and where it is also an economical tool for the event host or the event organizers. They're building an economy around an enormous plastics pollution problem. That's just part of what they're doing. There's more that you'll learn from this engaging entrepreneurial spirit right here on Resilient Earth Radio and Podcast.

coming up next.

Speaker 1 (06:02.828)
Welcome to Resilient Earth Radio and Podcast. Rochelle, good to meet you.

Likewise, thank you so much for inviting me and getting to know a little bit about our story and why I'm here today.

Absolutely. One of the main focus of Resilient Earth is talking about critical issues, but the positive actions people are taking. And it seems like that's what you and your company of people are doing. So let's just jump right in and tell us about what your company is doing, where it's located, and some of the people involved.

would love to. Thank you for having me and I think it's always good to start off on a positive note like we just said. We can always look at the down in dark and think we're doomed but we're here to do what we can while we are on this earth, right? So that's a little bit of the reason why I was so propelled to start Oland Station. So what we do is we build for sale and rent water refilling structures, been water fountains, but they are different.

They are not just like caps. They provide data and branding opportunities to monetize them, to bring revenue to them. So we play the same game as the once known single use plastic water bottles, which, you know, at the beginning of time were convenience and a joy to society. And now they become a nuisance. And that's just one single use plastic item. But we chose to start there as a refill point to

Speaker 2 (07:35.948)
you know, tackle one big need and one big pain point.

It's one huge point with all the single use plastics that are out there. And the way that you approach it too is as a for benefit corporation, which I think is really interesting because you're showing how you can assist other companies in this transition to being more green and solving an issue in our world.

Exactly. I actually came from the charitable space. I'm a marine biologist by design, by trade, by academia. And then I spent a couple of years in nonprofit advocacy and ocean research and academia as well for conservation. And when I founded this, said, I think we really need to be a corporation because one, we are building an infrastructure. It's just a little bit harder to like donate these units. think also there's some sort of psychology around when something's free.

and donated, it's not really valued. It's a weird thing. And I think I work in preventing plastic pollution for the longest time. But I'm realizing that in order to combat this, we need to actually work with them. We need to work with the plastic providers, aka the beverage carriers, the Coca-Cola's of the world. For example, FIFA 2026.

It is not a thing. I know.

Speaker 2 (09:05.816)
for Los Angeles 2028. They have North America Olympic Games. If we really want to be a vendor and help drive and reduce impact, if they were to one day say, we're going to distribute our water through your station and get rid of the single use plastic, that to me would be the ultimate win. Like that's when I would exit. Or I would say we've hit the gold button because we're thinking St. Patrick's Day coming up.

We've hit the lucky pot of gold because in the sense of like, no, they see value in it. And they've adopted refill and reuse as a profitable solution that drives marketing, drives data capture, user experience, user data to essentially what they want, right? They want the public eye to see their branding, which is what we were doing for the past 40 years, reading the messaging on a water bottle. Now read it and refill.

Why don't you describe what the stations look like and how events use them and the different types of companies that would use these stations?

Absolutely. So we're primarily B2B in the sense that we serve major businesses that host large events. That's kind of our niche, large events and also event organizers. So boarding and music industry is our first target market. Of course, you can imagine water refilling stations almost anywhere, but that's very hard to kind of tackle. So for the past five years, we've been primarily in the music and music area, trickling now into golf tournaments and

marathons and hopefully getting indoors at entertainment arenas like coffee arenas and football arenas, NBAs. So right now we have an outside version and I call it outside because it's quite large and it's meant to kind of attract you know when you're in the stands or at a big festival 50,000 people you want to see where the water is. Thirsty, you don't want to an hour in line, you want it to be fast, you want it to be filtered and

Speaker 2 (11:15.616)
and freezing, you want it to be efficient. And you want the branding and the sponsor to be happy that they're getting views and usage. So there are six taps and there are 360 degrees. And I'm no engineer, I just listen to the customer. And my first customer who, my first early adopter told me, I've been in this industry 20 years and hosting music festivals and there are all these wall units and they create congestion and lineups.

and they're not efficient, they're not fast. So we created a circular version with six sides. So that's our large polyunit. They're about eight feet tall and they're in stainless steel and galvanized steel.

So eight feet tall, what's the footprint at the base?

Like a standard pallet, four and a half feet.

rather small.

Speaker 2 (12:07.054)
Yeah, it's just like it's six sides. There's about 20 inches per side. So they're large enough to get to gain attraction, but you know, not too large that you can't transport them to have to fit in a truck.

That's what I was wondering, because I was imagining this huge cylinder type tank, but it's transportable and people who are at concerts or football games or golf tournaments, like you were saying, or some kind of festival, these are visible and they can be used quite quickly because of the way it dispenses that it

Yeah, it's just a like a high flow and some water stations out there that exist, they kind of have, you know, seven stage filtration, all these greater technologies in the water treatment. However, you lose, you compensate on speed. And when you're at a festival and you don't, you're dehydrated or you're not going to wait an hour in line. People that do actually, a year ago in South America, someone died of dehydration at a festival in Brazil at a Taylor Swift concert.

Yeah.

You can understand because when the heat is beating down and we need water to sustain ourselves. So let's talk right now about that filtration system, how it works. Do you tie into water systems that are there at the event and where is your company located? How do you get these systems out there?

Speaker 2 (13:39.702)
Yes, I forgot to mention we are based in Montreal, Canada. So we provide primarily services across Canada and into the United States. That's our market. did officially sell a unit to University of West Indies in Belize, but that's our first international reach so far. And the units require a drinking water access. So we're not in the market of like recovery and damage and fire for relief water access points. actually require

cap into the source. We provide the filtration and a water chilling add-on to that in the station. Station essentially is the sensor and it connects to whatever source is near. So whether it be a fire hydrant, an existing fountain that nobody drinks from, because it's really gross, but it can provide the drinking water from the city. And then we add the filter and chiller on it.

What kind of filter are you using?

It's just a standard like Brita style filter, carbon filter, five micron. And that does the job. Any thinner would reduce the seed. And then of course we just maintain them, make sure they're changed often. Cause a lot of people think, I don't use my station. It hasn't been any activity that's actually worse. If stagnant water sits, it becomes bacteria prone and tastes worse. So we make sure that it's always flowing and it's changed every couple of weeks or based on usage.

And you said you have a biology background. Why don't you tell us a bit more about yourself, where you came from and how you came about founding this company.

Speaker 2 (15:14.006)
Sure. It's a weird story. I am a marine biologist and I was a plastic advocate and really obsessed. mean, I started researching sharks. I wanted to save sharks. And then I worked with sea urchins and I realized, okay, well, what else is there to work with? And I went on this expedition about plastic pollution with all females in South America. I raised money for it and

It was so inspiring and so like triggering being out at sea for 21 days and seeing plastics like 200 miles offshore, 200,000 miles offshore and thinking, Jesus, like I'm obsessed now with this topic. It's like when you see worms after rain, you know, you can't unsee them. see them all. So I became obsessed with plastic and I said, that's my new species. Like I'm no longer a shark scientist. I am a plastic scientist. I'm a plastic advocate.

I started the company while living down in San Diego and working at Scripps Oceanography. It's an Institute there in La Jolla. It's a beautiful place. And I realized we didn't even have water refilled infrastructure there. And we were marine scientists and like we had maybe one tap, but all the laboratories were still full of single use plastic bottles. And this was like 2015. So I'm sure things have changed now, but long story short, it just, I had a dream and

I dreamed up a picture. I've never drawn anything in my life. And I drew a picture of our water station. And I had this big, great idea after this trip to install these stations at the beach in San Diego's busy, busy high season of beach. Everyone arrives, you park and you go, I need a water bottle. I forgot it. And then imagine you can refill right there and you could get sunscreen and you could get your own dispense and you don't have to go buy more or you could get

utensils, you don't have to use plastic utensils at the beach. So I had all this big grand plan for the station. And later on, I made it a little simpler and moved back to Canada from where I'm from, and then kind of launched the company here with Festival.

Speaker 1 (17:18.912)
It was a grand idea to have all those things and I could see as a beach goer and I used to live right down there by Scripps. yeah. Even though I'm way up on the Northern California coast now, well, not all the way North, but I'm up about two and a half to three hours North of San Francisco on the coast. But I did live down in the San Diego area in Vista where my son, right.

Many people there were,

I know. And now you're in Montreal. Were you born in Montreal or somewhere else in Canada?

Yes, I was born in Montreal. Like I kind of rekindled with a high school boyfriend and he was Canadian. So we were kind of like, did we go through the visa process and everything to both live here in San Diego and kind of tired of the visa life. So we decided to go back to Canada. And then, you know, a year after I brought Olan to Canada and started an incubator business, I had a baby. So then we never really left. We had our family here. It's always harder when you have a family.

I actually went to Montreal for the Expo 67. That's very cool. I was a little girl of about eight years old back then.

Speaker 2 (18:32.408)
spectacular and still is, but that was a pretty amazing event.

It was. And you just mentioned having a family. You know, I've raised a child while working full time in the Silicon Valley tech industry. And so I can relate to the, you know, the challenges of juggling everything. So you could talk maybe a little bit about that.

Yeah, yeah, I'd love to. mean, it's always, you know, people do business with people. And the story and who you are is really telling of, of it. It's not the business itself. You can't really detach yourself from it because of, yeah, it's what drives you. And, and Oland also has an indirect with my son's name. His name is Island. And I almost named the whole company Island, but I thought I'd give him his own name.

Yeah, for a while I didn't want to even have children. I was one of those environmentalists thinking, no, this is not a good idea. I can't do this. know, we're already, you don't have enough resources. And then someone just kind of told me, well, you will raise them well and to help this planet. And that's kind of what convinced me. And so I have a boy of four and a half years and he came just right after Oland started and got to know him very well since

pandemic pretty much shut down everyone's enterprise. Otherwise, if you were in other, you know, health industry, maybe you would be skyrocketed in business. we did try even making hand washing stations during the peak of the pandemic and thinking the water bottle stations were no longer in need. And we saw like, so much potential and hype and we got so excited. But we, we did sell a water hand washing station, but then they kind of stopped after that because nobody like

Speaker 2 (20:20.428)
wanted to invest in and watching. So like, it's not going to be forever.

What a time to start a company right at the beginning of the pandemic and then all the events worldwide start shutting down. And that's really one of the biggest places you have these water stations and gatherings. But now it is back up and running. There's festivals, there's concerts, there's events of all kinds.

conferences like the UN Treaty on Plastics, is finally going to have another session in August. just heard, yeah, we were talking with Carl Nettleton of OpenOcean's Global, and he's been addressing to the plastic situation for a long time. We've actually talked with a number of experts in marine debris and pollution and plastics.

God.

Speaker 1 (21:21.292)
because it is such a huge issue for everyone. I think that we all have been hearing a lot about the statistics and how bad the situation is. And that's why we really want to get people's minds focused on what some of the solutions are out there. And one of the cool things that we heard about coming out of Japan from the Riken Center, spelled R-I-K-E-N, they developed a monomer that acts like plastic.

And there's different ways that it can be put together, but it dissolves in soil like fertilizer. those are the kinds of, and in water, it dissolves in water and it actually provides nutrients instead of breaking down into microplastics, which is such a bad issue as well. So let's talk more about your company again, Oland Stations and the water stations.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:19.17)
You've got a lot of people working with you too. Why don't you talk about them as well?

Internally, we're a tiny-ish team of seven, but we are large in terms of partners. In Montreal, for example, I had such good early adopters. Speaking of Silicon Valley, the first incubator I joined was the Founder Institute, which actually started there. So don't know if you were in the same startup hub area, but Founder Institute is a Silicon Valley incubator and has world offices.

Yeah, there were a bunch of incubators. Now I started in the tech industry in the mid 80s. So I ended in the early 2000s. But during that time, we saw a lot of incubation firms like that.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it was lovely. was an amazing push. was six months. It was so intense. And with that, of course, being in North America's number one city for free festivals and events, said, okay, I've got like a great testing ground. All I need is, you know, my MVP, my minimal viable products, my prototype and my first client. And we did a 30k crowdfunding campaign, and it was completed and successful. And then with that, I like

captured the data at one of the largest, the city's largest music festival. And they are called Eventco. They kind of do all entertainment in Quebec. They're kind of like the live nation of the French Canadian arm of Canada. And with that, after that, other early adopters came on our Montreal theater district that hosts the Jazz Fest, the International Jazz Fest. They own stations. So from May to October, the main St. Catherine Street, which is like Montreal's main strip.

Speaker 2 (24:00.972)
We have like two stations there all summer. And those are like almost more like the public facing ones. And the Olympic stadium of Montreal acquired some. We've worked with like, yeah, the women and men's golf Canadian Open in Vancouver. We've been to PEI and now we have water stations across major entertainment venues in over 15 states in the United States, about 40 venues now. And we're seeing like our numbers skyrocket. I mean, I was dreaming.

because of pandemic, you know, it didn't really do much. We did a great prototype and then the pandemic shut us down for two years. So we reopened and I was like, oh my God, if we can get to a million refills, I'll be like, so happy. So we, hit a million in 2023. And I was just like, oh my God, can't believe it. It's like, we only have like, you know, 10 water stations and we hit a million. Like that's a lot of refill. And with this, what's unique about us too is like, I don't just give the station and just like.

don't want use from it, I track it. So all the meters, all the stations have a meter with an app that's connected to our dashboard. And we do real time like monitoring and reporting. So every event, like it or not, we're doing an impact report and we're giving it to them. But now we're even seeing companies paying us for the data and brands that are attaching to us pay for it because it's for their ESG goals. they're actually, you like if you're really saying you're doing something, you need legit

backing, right? You need to show that you have numbers behind your statement.

And what a success story after the bottom falls out and look where you are now. Congratulations and thank you. It takes tenacity and persistence and and your network and your network.

Speaker 2 (25:46.296)
Just.

Yeah, your people, your people. mean, I did mention my team, know, my mother and her husband were our installers across the US this year. They recently became Snowbirds and they're like so passionate. And one of them, has, you know, engineering and mechanical backgrounds. So he helped in the assembly of our water stations and he did like 10 installs. He's like 62 years old. And, you know, we've got like an amazing team of passionate people, like really believe in it.

It's not an invention. So like from like the standpoint of tech or startups, like, or even investors in climate tech. So sometimes we'll be like, well, you guys aren't really clean tech. You don't have like a fancy patent in your technology. we kind of get overlooked in that sense of things, but in terms of impact and long-term success on sustainable and innovation in the delivery of the offering, that's where I think is like our secret sauce.

And I'm starting to like believe in it, that our method is being validated by seeing what type of clients are coming to us, what type of brands are wanting to associate and be on our station and showing, okay, there's possibility to bring value to this once neglected infrastructure, like make it beautiful, make it fan centric, make it user centric and sponsors will come to the station. So we'll get their own advertisements and then everyone's happy.

Otherwise, we're never going to transition away from single use and food and beverage will continue to say, well, I need my single use plastic bottle sale. And that's not like we need to kind of either make that leap, you know, show no, no, there's revenue on the other side of it.

Speaker 1 (27:33.634)
That's really important and that's something that Ralph Chamey, who's with the International Monetary Fund, he came on one of our conferences that we held a few years back. My co-hosts and I did through a radio station and we simulcast on YouTube, but he was one of the speakers and we were trying to understand why would he be speaking about the ocean. And then we found out that because of his monetary background and expertise,

He's showing how to protect valuable resources at the same time that you can build an economy around it. So that's what you're doing. You're building an economy around this problem solving situation. And these water stations are that tool and you're working with these partners. I can see how that really can elevate everyone as you work together.

talk about those partners a little bit more.

We have seen some really good wins and insight from our golf championships. For example, they told us they used to spend $15,000 at an event on their water bottles for their staff and volunteers. And instead they just transitioned it to investing in the rental of the station and then get on top of it brand sponsorship money to come in to feature on it. So it's like a no brainer.

So when some of these partners have already kind of made those stance and some people still have limitations, you can't straight out ban something without having an alternative, which I think, you know, the single use plastic ban has been really great. But then sometimes when there's no other alternative in place that's, you know, ample enough and easy to adopt enough, that's where we're kind of, we get stuck and we give up or we want to go back and resort to like the traditional ways.

Speaker 1 (29:30.926)
Absolutely. mean, even from the customer standpoint, you know, when they tell us, well, it's your choices and do this and do that. And then it's hard to make a lot of those choices. Just for instance, going into a grocery store, your options are very, very limited about what is not wrapped in plastic. So as a business, you seek those manufacturers that can give you better solutions.

and affordable, like, or you can't just put it, to the, go to your zero waste grocery store and 10, six times the price because those are unwrapped. like, I can do that sometimes when money's okay, but when money's tight, I can't afford those. And I go back to the grocery store that has all this wrapping and exactly. So the alternatives need to be accessible and affordable. And I think that's what Oland Stations is like good at doing, you know, the users.

who come to the event are kind of guaranteed based on like kind of requirements by the city or by the festival that they need to provide safe drinking water access. So that's the angle to say it's a requirement and also for safety reasons too, right? So we have like two tiers of angles. Like we have safety and then we have the environment and then we also even have marketing. It's three levels of kind of benefits. Sometimes that can be a little complicated, but.

to understand because the customers are kind of like, we already have a water station. Okay, that's great. But you don't have like an impactful water station with a story and with the data and with revenue that's driving you forward. You have a need and it's fulfilled. You have water, but what else? We've seen some really different cases across like our partners. And I think one of the ones I'm most excited about is, well, the optimism around the FIFA game.

Of it's the private organization run by massive brands like Visa and Adidas and Coke, but the host cities have a role to play. Right. all the... Toronto and Vancouver, and then there's 11 cities in the US and this time in Mexico. And they have, even though maybe these are controls kind of who gets water within the stadium at certain mileage.

Speaker 2 (31:47.032)
but they have like an influx of 5 million people coming to watch the game. And where are those people going to fill their bottles? Where are those people in the permitted areas that they need to kind of host this game? It's really interesting that they are starting to stand up and say, well, we want to be like a green city or we want to have these green infrastructure. So it's promising. And I do, I just want to land a host city as the, for the FIFA World Cup. And it'd be great if it's.

you know, in Canada, but we have less host cities. you know, hopefully speaking to other venues, there's some in Boston, there's in Miami and Los Angeles. And, and yeah, I mean, that would be like the, to me, I just don't like right now that's like my focus. But I'd also like I welcome innovation in the space, like, since we're kind of still such a small and nimble company, I'm ready to act. If water is still not

necessarily exciting enough. Let's put it at that, right? Because some people just, it's most valuable and important resource on this planet, but we all know it's like undervalued. And we get last minute all the time, like events call us, they have everything planned. And then they realize three days later, can you ship me a water station? It's like, hello, that's like the number one need. Like, and your staff has been organizing this event for two weeks. You should have probably installed this even two weeks prior to really truly meet, you know, during your setup.

The water refill part of it is great, but in essence, it could be a dispenser of other things. So if somebody is looking to dispense beer, why not? Let's do that. Let's get rid of like, give them a reusable beverage cup at the event or partner during in a VIP section of a game. They're all Budweiser cups and get your Budweiser in the station.

Even wine, the beer and wine.

Speaker 2 (33:40.012)
Margarita, everything. So I mean, could be a place to trial, could be a place to test beverages. mean, beverage companies need so much testing to get so many samples away. We could be like that solution to the sample tester of like your new beverage or your new electrolyte thing or something. I, know, anyone listening that has like a company.

Margarita, I love it.

Speaker 2 (34:04.982)
I mean, we're open to that. We've thought of this. We've played with this idea. We're just looking kind of who we could partner with. At the end of day, like we will dispense what anything as long as it aligns with our mission, which is reducing single use plastics. So if it gets rid of that extra cup or that one time dispense unit, let's do it.

So Rachel, you have so many grand ideas and you have the ability to fulfill on this. We started talking a little bit about some of the people, but I see on your website at Oland Stations that they're nature lovers. How did you come together?

It's one of my values as a business that we all act nice is our core values. And that was one thing that I would encourage that we are all get outside, always reunite together and value our environment and value time towards it and like low impact. So that was one of my core values. And I think, like I said at the beginning, like people do business with people. And when we do work with events, they

They can tell that we're in this for the right reason. We're not in this to sell them some fancy thing that doesn't really work. We're here with a goal and a vision and we're so happy to share their impact and add it towards ours. And we have like a new goal is 5 million refills by 2025. So we're on our way and whoever joins us, whichever events join us or companies, then we will feature and tell their story to get there together. Cause this is a collective effort. It's a complex solution, complex problem.

So, off the top of your head, can you say about how many events and partners that you've worked with so far and how much you've saved in single plastics?

Speaker 2 (35:54.158)
We've 2.5 million resales so far and that's about 500 events, I believe, that we've done. 500 events.

That's incredible. Now how are the stations delivered? How do companies go about contacting you and making this work for their event?

Thank you for asking. So that's the action. We need to do something. we do have inventory here in Montreal and then we sell them. We have a fabrication time. We build on demand or in small batch orders. So that's between anywhere between four and eight weeks. So now's the time finding for your outdoor season to get an order in, but it's not just an outdoor solution because we do have minis, which I didn't mention.

but there are smaller stations that are on wheels that can also go inside that are kind of more like the VIP or the smaller movable unit.

I did not see that one. So you have a smaller mobile indoor unit. Yeah

Speaker 2 (36:54.702)
Yes, like more conference-based, under a thousand people. Our larger units was like if you have a 5,000 plus gathering.

And I was even thinking like film festivals too, indoors and outdoors.

Movie tours, people that, know, temporary movie touring companies, they have bands on bottles and then they're a staff of 500 for a month outside, right? Right. So yeah, there's lots of different markets, but our stations are built on demand so you can order one, purchase your own, a mini or a large, or you can rent them. With rental season, we're trying to grow our inventory, but we're small and we don't sit on thousands of units. We have just a handful.

but they are available for rent and we brand it for you. We deliver it assembled. We have a field tech to arrive that just does the connection. It's pretty simple, but we still offer that service. And then at the end, you get your report at the end of your event.

So let's say a company in California, in San Francisco, is interested in providing for their event. What's the timeline in them thinking ahead of planning when to order it and when it would be delivered?

Speaker 2 (38:05.218)
We actually did the Art and Wine Fair up in Northern California last year near San Jose. But if we know last minute, you know, which shipment, it takes a week to get there from the East Coast. So that's the lead time on the delivery itself is something to consider. But we do have a unit stored in California right now and we are going to have a small inventory there and a distributor working with us. He's actually, he's been working with water station companies for years and he loves our solutions and he wants

to be the installer and offer them to his clients because he's worked for multiple water station companies and he thinks Oland has a really unique offering. So yeah, we're available in California and of course rental just takes a little bit longer because we're farther away.

I spent a lot of years living in Aspen, Colorado before moving to the Silicon Valley area. And these days Aspen has so many events and you mentioned art and wine. Well, they have a huge food and wine festival there. They have so many concerts. That's another great location, but I can just see and envision that any place that has a large gathering up to the Olympics where there are going to be a lot of people.

It could be a tech conference. could be a golf tournament. It can be just about anything where you need a water station that is also helping with the plastics issue at the same time.

Yeah, it's very ample. The opportunities are massive. It's just really aligning properly with that person's budget or timeline or who we're talking to. If it's an ad agency, they get it, they get the branding. But if it's an operations person, they're just like, I just need past. So it always depends on who you're speaking to. And if it's a sustainability manager at a venue, then they're clearly like,

Speaker 2 (40:04.606)
game, they want it, they just know that there's limitations and roadblocks from food and beverage. So I'm learning the landscape of my people and I know how much they have, how much willingness they have to adopt our solutions, but there's limited because it's not like, yeah, like this is a no-brainer. It's ironic because it's water and it's essential need, but yet it's like last thing on the menu for

budget. really is who you speak with. I hadn't thought about that before, but there are different mindsets on this topic.

Speaker 1 (41:38.318)
I want to go back to the part where you said it does not have a patent. So it doesn't have that tech patent component. So there are other companies out there that must be fulfilling some of the same things, but you still have quite the demand.

Yeah, we got a design patent, but we don't have a function and like actually technological patents on the functionality of it. So there's nothing, it's a fountain with a dispenser. And I mean, we could maybe figure something out there, but I don't think it's necessary. think what's unique about us is our design and the innovative offering that we have, like the revenue monetization of the unit. That's the offering that I think is our strength and our look and our aesthetic.

a game changer in terms of quality. And it's fan-centric and it's user-centric, it's brand-centric. So that's kind of our, where we're focusing on and we know we have so much demand because of those reasons.

Describe again how it's brand-centric.

360 degree visibility, quite high. And then if you're refilling in front of the station, that's five seconds that somebody's standing there getting ad view, right? So whether it's a digital screen or just standing looking at your message, like your guaranteed view is brand centric in the sense of like they're reading your message. we can kind of throughout our five years of...

Speaker 2 (43:10.638)
and the numbers I shared with you, like we kind of estimate it guaranteed 71 % of people going to your event will see this face your ads because of everyone's going to drink water because it's like a forgotten ad space. It's like prime traffic.

And let's talk about the bottles themselves. So people are at these events. A lot of people do bring their own bottles now, but maybe they don't. Do you provide a container of any sort? No.

We don't because we know like if the event has created an alternative they have merchandise and they sell bottles

Okay, they can get their bottle from another vendor.

vendor. Right. And you bring your own, you buy a merchandise one there, or you already have a reusable cup vendor. So there's partners up around the United States called our cup, bold reuse in Canada, we have eco cup and cup co tons of cup providers. So like you just, or you have a refillable plastic, the sunny water bottle or resealable the descending metal cans of now they think some of them are metallic and they're twist caps.

Speaker 2 (44:20.504)
So can refill that. So a lot of people, at least they come up from the US to Oceaga and they're like, I didn't know I could bring my own bottle. I thought it was prohibited. And us Canadians, already always have bottles. It's not really a safety hazard here. And then they refill their plastic bottles that they spent one, like once they refill it five, six times.

Yeah, and I can see you partnering with other manufacturers that go to all these events selling bottles. So you provide what goes inside and they provide the container.

Yeah, and we've been branded already by Brita, which is a filter company. And obviously they have Brita bottles at these events. And they ask the Brita fans and influencers to post a picture of drinking from their Brita canisters at our station. So there's an activation already being created there.

Brita is very big in the filter industry. Can you partner with other people even though you've already partnered with Brita?

that happened to be a sponsor that naturally aligned with us because they're water dispenser, but we have banks, we have other merchandise goods. So, you we've even done like corporate company branding and stuff like that of like a construction company. We don't have any partnerships right now that are locked in. So we're still, you know, maybe we could have an exclusive deal where we work with a massive manufacturer reusable can company, a reusable bottle company. That would be really nice for them and for us.

Speaker 1 (45:52.664)
So describe again, Oland Station, your website, how people would get in touch with you and what your offerings are both on the buy and lease side of things.

The land stations build and rent water refilling stations with sustainable revenue opportunities through branding and sponsorship and data capture. We offer fast freezing filtered water and you can get on our website and submit, get a quote and we can assert most North America locations across Canada and the United States. And I think that's it.

So just Canada and the United States right now, are there plans to go further outside of this territory?

simply just franchising kind of the design and creating a manufacturing closer to the source of the demand. So have plans for South America, since there's lots of markets in Brazil, for example, when you have a team member who's based there and I used to study there. So we'd love to go there. And Europe as well would be a lovely other market because they are usually forward in adopting these eco solutions and have had water refills stations since like the Glastonbury Fest and been the first one.

do plastic-free festivals, but we need to kind of change out their infrastructure. So that's next.

Speaker 1 (47:14.094)
You may have started as a marine biologist, but you're a complete entrepreneur at heart.

I know I thank my grandpa for it. I didn't realize it until I Until two weeks ago. It's like well my grandpa was an entrepreneur. guess that's where I like it

Because franchising, of course, that's a way to go. And that would expand much further out when you've got franchisees.

It's really simple. mean, it's a steel frame, a standard sink. We can control the or hold the branding and the service and the maintenance package, let's say, or the data reporting and then outsource all the manufacturing in different continents and then, you know, serve other places.

Can you talk just briefly about how the units are designed, what materials are used, and where you get those materials?

Speaker 2 (48:07.704)
We've designed them here in Quebec. The steel does, I believe, come up from the United States. So of course the trade wars are always hitting everybody on both sides. Isn't it annoying? The steel and our taps, I mean, there's some taps from the United States and they're the best quality taps. So of course we're going to buy those ones. And everything else though is designed here in Quebec and everything is assembled here by myself. One is a small batch manufacturing by my mom, but my father-in-law.

So annoying.

Speaker 2 (48:37.09)
That's it. We build those here and ship kind of with, you know, eight to 10 weeks of expectation for arrival.

You brought up tariffs and I suppose part of my brain was trying to disconnect from the politics of these days, but it is an issue for everyone. Issue of throwing numbers out of, 25%. it's 50%. no, we're not going to do it on this date. No, we're not going to do it. Well, maybe we'll do it. Businesses need to rely on stability, not chaos and tariffs. Well,

Everyone.

Speaker 2 (49:11.073)
Yeah.

There a lot of contentions on both sides. It is quite the game.

We're hopeful that it'll be what it'll be and we'll deal with it when it crosses. It's changing every minute. And yeah, we are made of primarily the steel from the United States, but Canada imports their steel, right? So most of the steel comes from you guys. So we're probably gonna be hit with tax on that. Everyone's saying, well, should we just build in the U.S. because we export to you guys. Like mainly everybody's business is American. we're like, we manufacture in the U.S. instead of manufacturing here?

be to avoid tariffs and also like we were thinking of that eventually to be more sustainable but economically now maybe that's going to be the driving factor.

Well, you were talking anyway of franchising or working with partners in other countries and they would be developed there, correct?

Speaker 2 (50:06.236)
So might as well just thrown us into the fire and say, okay, do it now.

Well, a lot of companies aren't quite so nimble though. It's going to be difficult going forward. So we'll see where everything falls out. But I'm going to leave the discussion there on that. It's been a real pleasure talking with you, Rachel, today. And I'm glad we got connected through one of your own people there.

Good.

Speaker 2 (50:34.892)
Yeah, Maria on marketing, our marketing director. Yeah. She found your podcast and she loved them and she thought it was a great opportunity. And I always admire her, you know, driving it and trying things out. So it's great to just share our story and learn from you and learn from your, your network and followers. And I'm here for any questions and my email, I'm sure. And, and a website you can share out the link as well.

I will, I'll even put some titling on so that they can see it. And this comes at a really good time because of the types of discussions we've been having to date. And Carl Nettleton was last week and he talked about all these organizations around the world doing different things to address different issues. And so I really wanted to dive in deeper with a company that was doing one specific thing.

But even though you're doing one specific thing, it kind of addresses a lot of different categories.

That's true. it's so I used to work with the five jars Institute up until just recently. And they're a massive organization as well in plastic pollution. And one of the most exciting things I think that we've managed to position is that plastic is so complex that the solutions are for all industries are different for every sector. And like you just said, I was in one sector right now or one industry, but it's yet

touches so many departments and so many layers, even within the sector, right? There's so many decisions and depends who you're talking to type thing. I mean, humans are complex and we've created this web of dependence and reliance of ecosystem that we need to kind of get our way out of it to try and clean it up and make sure we can sustain our resources for our future.

Speaker 1 (52:28.494)
You know, you mentioned Five Gyres. That is another connection we've got because I'll tell you the little story behind this. I was at a local art fundraiser for one of our art centers here and I met one of the judges. She is a UC Davis emeritus professor in design. And she was there with a young woman who'd been a student of hers that now works for

North Face and she's doing better design to make a more sustainable planet and lower the impact of design on our planet. So those two were there and I did talk with Anne Sauvageau is the professor's name and she talked about this big plastics installation she did to show what plastic bags are causing in our environment.

And then she said, there's a man I'd like to introduce you to who, along with his wife, started this organization to address plastics in this world. And that was Marcus Erickson of Five Gyres. And that became our episode number 11. And they have a home here in the Sea Ranch where I live. Wow. Wow.

Small world indeed and we didn't even know that. mean, yeah, they were a part of my life for the seven years and they supported Oland's creation, like watching it on the sidelines while I was working for them and building up a business enough to kind of say, okay, now I can live off this and support my employees. So it's multi-layered, multi-faceted. It's such a complex issue. We all need to be collaborating, industry and nonprofit, academic, media.

people like what you're doing now with your work.

Speaker 1 (54:16.21)
At least we can be voices. can do whatever we can to raise the awareness. that was Dr. Sylvia Earle had mentioned that too. She said there's anything that you can do in the way of raising awareness, use that. But Marcus too was the one that had brought up the UN treaty on plastics. And he had just gone to the one in Canada, it was Ottawa. then he was going to the one Busan, South Korea.

for all this year, last year.

Speaker 1 (54:44.658)
And he was worried about the talks not being completed and they weren't. fell through. And that was the fifth one that they'd had. And now this next one they're calling 5.2, even though it's in essence number six, but it's going to be in Geneva, Switzerland, according to Carl Nettleton from last week who was telling us.

Okay, finding out slowly through all your contacts what's going on. I really hope that 5.2 it happens. But yeah, that's, I mean, we're all, we're large, but we're not like we're, we're really, we got to work really closely together to kind of to combat this, this big, big, big mountain of waste that we've created.

I agreed on that note. I'm going to say thank you so much for coming on the show.

Really nice. Thank you so much. I'm so glad to meet you and I hope to see you again or talk to you again. Can't wait to hear. Let me know if you have any questions. We'll talk offline. All right. Bye. Have a good day.

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (55:41.144)
will do. Thanks, Rachel. You too.

Speaker 1 (55:54.286)
Thanks for listening to the Resilient Earth Podcast where we talk about critical issues and positive actions for our planet. Resilient Earth is produced by Planet Centric Media, a 501c3 nonprofit, and Sea Storm Studios Inc., located on the rugged north Sonoma coast of northern California. I'm Leigh Anne Lindsey, producer and host along with

Co-hosts and co-producers Scott and Tree Mercer of Mendenoma Whale and Seal's Study located on the South Mendocino and North Sonoma coasts.

Speaker 1 (56:35.884)
The music for this podcast is by Eric Allaman, an international composer, pianist, and writer living in the Sea Ranch. Discover more of his music, animations, ballet, stage, and film work at EricAllaman.com. You can find Resilient Earth on Spotify, Apple, and Amazon podcasts, iHeartRadio, YouTube, SoundCloud,

and wherever you find your podcasts. Please support us by subscribing or donating to our cause.