Microplastic Edition

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Today's Outline:
🏥 Plastic Free IV Tubing
👕 Plastic Free Clothing
💡 3 Other Plastic Free Ideas

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You’re probably eating a credit card per week. (Or at least, the average person does).

You’ve probably seen it in the news.

Microplastics are everywhere. And they can lead to scary thing like heart disease, cancer, hormone imbalances, and development issues.

So in the spirit of BizBrainstorms, here are 5 ideas you can steal to build a plastic-free business to take advantage of this trend.

🏥  Plastic Free IV Tubing

Around 70% of IV bags and tubes used in hospitals contain a plastic chemical called DEHP.

It’s been clearly linked to cancer, been banned from kids’ toys since 2008, and definitely isn’t something you want going directly into your bloodstream.

California recently passed a bill banning IV tubing with DEHP in it by 2030, and other states are expected to follow suit. That means a massive market shift is coming.

90% of hospital patients are given an IV. Since IV tubing and bags are single-use and replaced every 3-4 days, the U.S. alone goes through a estimated 50 million IV tubes and bags every year.

DEHP free tubes already exist, typically made from polyolefin (a type of plastic). Selling them to hospitals, IV therapy clinics, and more could easily be a multi-million dollar business.

But if you can figure out a way to make completely plastic free IV tubing… that’s a billion dollar business.

👕  Plastic Free Clothes  

Any synthetic fiber in clothing is made of plastic.

Every time you wash and dry these clothes, the microplastics are released which then could be absorbed by your skin, or even worse, inhaled and put directly into our blood stream.

Most clothing today contains plastic fibers, even pieces marketed as “natural” like cotton or wool. Plastic is often hidden in stitching, buttons, zippers, and dyes.

A clothing store centered around truly plastic-free fabrics would definitely stand out in the growing sustainable fashion market.

Brands like Nads, Ryker, and Pact have found success focusing on plastic-free clothing, but their offerings are limited.

On r/ZeroWaste and r/PlasticFreeLiving contributors talk about how, while some brands focus on plastic-free clothing, there’s no single store that carries multiple plastic-free brands in one place.

The demand is there—just no one has stepped up to solve it.

💡  Additional Plastic Free Ideas

Plastic Free Tea Bags: tea bags made with plastic release 11.6 billion microplastics into a single cup. (that just sounds bad and would create an incredible ad hook)

Plastic Free Container/Tupperware Store: anytime you’re heating something up in plastic, you’re releasing microplastics into your food… not good. Caraway sells $300+ ceramic Tupperware kits.

Plastic Free Dental Care (toothbrush, floss): If its going in your mouth, you’re ingesting it to some extent.

Plastic Free Salt: the ocean has become so much of a microplastic soup, that 90% of table brand sea salts contain plastic. Mined salts, like Himalayan Pink Salts are pure and plastic free.

Plastic Free Diapers: Start em young!

That’s all for this send – what did you think?

-Connor

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