How Sustainable Packaging Can Transform the Toy Industry: Insights from Mark Nathan’s 30 Years of Experience

EP047_08-29-24_Mark Nathan

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Toy Business Unboxed, your gateway to the secrets of the toy industry. Here, Jason Hsieh, a toy entrepreneur and expert in the field. “Every product we develop is really inspired by some of the real life experience that we have with our son.” “60 percent of all toys last year were sold on Amazon.”

“Be passionate about it. Because it’s a road. It’s a journey.” “Like when you have an idea that you think is gonna somewhat change the world, make things better, I’d say go for it.“

Jason Hsieh: Hello, welcome to another episode of Toy Business Unboxed. I’m your host, Jason Hsieh. Today, I’m thrilled to have Mark, a seasoned executive and managing partner of PlasTechFree, Inc. with us. Mark’s impressive career spans over 30 years in marketing, business leadership, and product development. Now, he’s leading the [00:01:00] charges in sustainable packaging and aiming to replace traditional plastic with 100 percent compostable plastic plan based alternative. Today we’ll be discussing all the different projects that he’s working on and the potential impact, not only in the toy industry, but also on our planet’s health. Thank you so much to join us on the podcast today, Mark.

Mark Nathan: Thank you, Jason, for having.

Jason Hsieh: What inspired you your kind of career journey leading to the current company that you operate?

Mark Nathan: So we started, PlasTech, last year, actually last, August. So it’s been about a year and I had thought I had been retired, but this opportunity after we saw, I’m in New Jersey. The plastic bag ban for the single use plastic bags, which has affected many states so far, a lot to go obviously affected the way we live here in our daily life. So I thought there had to be an alternative. And it turns out there actually are a few [00:02:00] alternatives, but I didn’t see anyone doing it at a real great level or speed or, too much complaining out there about people saying that they have to use these reusable bags now and all that. So we did some digging my partner and I and found that there are alternatives that are available that we were able to access and actually now have exclusive rights in North America and starting to build that across internationally, but we are replacing. We started with plastic bags and we’re replacing those with our home compostable materials, mostly corn. We also make other products and packaging out of that as well as that are sugar cane where the stocks of the sugar cane are thrown away after the sugar is stripped from them and we now repurpose those and make pulp out of it and form it into packaging.

So we obviously in the toy business that’s been doing that for 35 years. I’ve been involved in that. There’s obviously a [00:03:00] huge opportunity for us to use our solutions and reduce or eliminate the plastic that’s being used in the toy packaging and even the paper. While paper people think is home compostable and degradable and all that it is. But to make paper is extremely environmentally unfriendly, costly, and paper does not degrade as quickly as our product that’s made from sugar cane. So our products made from sugar cane, you would think it feels, it looks exactly like cardboard to most people, but it’s not. It’s made of sugar cane. So it degrades extremely quickly. Within 90 days, 180 the most in the ground leaves zero plastics. The chemicals, there are no chemicals that are used and are nothing pumped into the atmosphere like paper or obviously not cutting down trees which are a big problem. [00:04:00] And it’s affecting global warning by cutting our forests down. We’re using sugarcane, which is grown on an annual basis. We’re using corn, which is grown on an annual basis. So these are seasonal products and not cutting down trees that have taken 10 to 20, 30 years to grow.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, for sure. For sure. And I think this is definitely a very hot topic with the climate changes happening right now. We are always thinking about how can we still have a future for the future generation when we leave this earth, hopefully we still have a planet for our kids.

Mark Nathan: There’s a lot of, and it’s all true about recycling isn’t real. In fact, ABC just, this just came out two days ago. They put tracking devices in plastic bottles that went to recycle, that were supposed to be recycled. Either people put them out at the end of their driveways, or they were picked up by walmart or, whatever. And these were all targeted to go recycling. Consumers are trying to do what they believe is right. Of the 15 [00:05:00] trackers that they put in these bottles over half of them ended up overseas in landfills.

Jason Hsieh: Oh, that’s horrible.

Mark Nathan: So, the consumer is being duped into believing that recycling is doing something, but the truth of the matter, less than 5 percent is actually ever recycled that you try to recycle again, we all, even knowing this there’s been articles for years about it, but the fact is that, most of the recycling that we all think is being recycled is not, it just goes to labor. So it’s a big scam. So we’re trying to alleviate that with our products. It doesn’t need to go be recycled. It doesn’t need any industrial facilities to compose decompose or to disintegrate. It’s all natural products. And, it’s every bit as strong and even stronger than certain plastics.

100 percent plant based product. There’s zero nanoplastics, zero microplastics left behind, which is another issue because now they’re finding that the human body Absorbs about a credit card amount of [00:06:00] plastic a week.

Jason Hsieh: That’s crazy. Yeah

Mark Nathan: So it’s coming from the food, it’s coming from the water supplies, it’s coming from the air that we breathe. It’s becoming a huge health issue as well. So our goal is to eliminate it.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah. And I think as a toy industry as a whole, how can we be part of the solution and hopefully not part of the problem because toy also have a lot of packaging. And if you buy any toys for Christmas, you will notice after you unbox the box, there’s another box inside the box, there’s a bag inside the box. It’s like sometimes over package.

Mark Nathan: You’re right. You’re absolutely right. And so we work very closely with some of the largest garment companies in the world. And so when you buy something online, clothing, it comes in a plastic bag. They’re starting to switch over now to our home compostable bags and that same thought process bags. There’s tons of bags inside toy products, right? Those all can be replaced with home compostable products. A lot of times are the home [00:07:00] composable product is not more than the plastic. It could be a little more, but you’re talking about small percentages.

So the companies that truly want to go green and want to market themselves as being green and being sustainable. Those are management choices and if they want to market themselves that way we have the solutions. Whether it’s packaging that replacing the cardboard inside the packaging, whether it’s the plastic bags being replaced. We can offer all home compostable materials.

Jason Hsieh: I see. I think what you just mentioned, it’s going to be the one of the biggest objection when you’re talking to other toy business owner or toy entrepreneurs, I like the idea of having a compostable packaging, but how much more it’s going to cost me and already running a very low margin as a toy business? So that’s definitely one of the biggest.

Mark Nathan: That is true. It depends on the item. It depends on the quantities being purchased and all that, and our prices literally weekly come down as we build up our business. [00:08:00] Our obviously, our costs are coming down, but there is another thought process there. So there’s two management decisions, right? And philosophies that we’re seeing now in the market. So we work a lot of grocers and we work with a lot of other manufacturers and if the company wants to be green and go green and market themselves as green, that’s a phenomenal direction. There are management out there that are saying if we don’t need to make a change yet. Why would we so it really depends on how you want to be for facing as a company? So Walmart and Target for instance, they say by 20 while the original goal was 2025 But now it’s 2030 that they want to be a hundred percent green in all their packaging in the next five years and we’re already working with them.

So we have products in 2, 600 Walmarts already. In the pet section. And, so it’s happening already and we’re working with the top levels in these organizations. And [00:09:00] so therefore we’re thinking they want to promote themselves as being green. And other companies don’t. So yes, there is costs involved sometimes. Some, as I said, sometimes not. So sometimes we’re the same price where we’re finding out some of our products were places where we’re less actually than, so we make a compostable straw and it’s not the paper straws that everybody despises. These are actually look, feel, act like plastic. And they can even go in your dishwasher and their home compost. Oh, they’re actually less expensive than plastic straws.

Jason Hsieh: Oh,

Mark Nathan: yeah so we’re working with some of the top, food companies and food distributors and food retailers in the world on this with them now on this. It really depends, as I said on, the product and what it’s being used for and the quantities being purchased. The concern really isn’t the price.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah.

Mark Nathan: It’s more of the mindset. And interestingly most consumers, most manufacturers, most retailers, most buyers are not aware that this [00:10:00] product exists. So we work with some of the top senators in New Jersey that are the sustainability experts and they were even unaware until we came along that this kind of product is available.

Jason Hsieh: Based on your journey building this company, what are some of the biggest challenge that you have faced so far in convincing or transitioning from conventional packaging to your solution, which is 100 percent more environmental friendly?

Mark Nathan: The education because of the, what they call greenwashing. Meaning there’s a lot of companies out there that are selling products that they say are environmentally friendly. Their company name may be eco friendly, environmentally friendly, earth friendly. And it’s not, and it really isn’t. If you look on the back of the packaging, it says made of plastic. So for us to get into for us to get into some of these major retailers, Walmart for one.

It took us it took us a while because the buyers had said, we don’t need you. We’re covered. We’re already buying environmentally friendly product. [00:11:00] And as we get into the meeting and I start showing them, okay show me what you think you’re buying. That’s environmentally friendly. And they say, here it is. I said did you ever this is says eco friendly or environmentally, purposed or whatever it is. I said, did you ever look on the back of the box to see what the products made out of it and they turn over and they say, oh my God, it says made of plastic I say, yeah.

So there’s a lot and there’s a lot. There’s no regulation right now, or very little regulation, but there are states now that are banning the use of the word biodegradable.

Jason Hsieh: Oh, really?

Mark Nathan: So biodegradable doesn’t mean anything anymore. Your, car is biodegradable. It may take 200, 000 years. It will be. So biodegradable is a passive and there’s some retailers. I don’t want to list them, but there are a few retailers that as of January of this year, I’ve already advised made the company eat it there. They are not allowing their buyers to buy any product that has the word biodegradable in the packaging.

These are major top 10 retailers. The word biodegradable doesn’t mean anything anymore. And the consumer [00:12:00] doesn’t understand that. So biodegradable, you can have plastic that’s biodegradable. They’re a lot of these companies are coming out well we’re 25% less or using 25% recycled pla. Who cares? It’s plastic is plastic. It’s still gonna leave nanoplastics in the ground and the environment and the soil and the earth. So compostable is the new word. And if something is truly compostable, it will leave zero nanoplastics, zero microplastics in the ground when it degrades. Our product 90 percent of our product is home compostable, which means it degrades within 90 to 180 days, completely gone. Actually adding rich nutrients to the soil. And about 10 percent of our product is industrial compostable. So still compostable, still no plastics. That product needs to go to an industrial facility to get to, to compose needs the right atmosphere that makes the right pressure, temperature, heat, all that kind of stuff.

So, when we’re talking about whether it’s a [00:13:00] bag that could be home compostable if you’re talking about something that’s more of a clamshell or something that’s a harder plastic that we’re replacing, that would be something that easily we can make, but it would be considered at this point, industrial compostable, which is still great. Whether it gets to the industrial facility or not, it will decompose. It just won’t do it in a timely manner. Timely means within days. So even if an industrial compostable product doesn’t make it to an industrial facility, eventually, and it could be hundreds of years, but eventually it will decompose, but it will not leave plastics.

That’s the key. It’s the fact that nanoplastics are in the ground, the plants are growing and we’re eating the plants, reading the vegetables. The animals are eating the plants. We’re eating the animals. It’s getting into the water supply. We’re eating the fish. That’s how we’re getting so much plastic in our bodies. It occurred about a week. It’s a lot of plastic. Our products alleviate that a hundred percent. Completely terminate the use of plastic.

Jason Hsieh: What is your vision for the company for [00:14:00] the upcoming years? You’re trying to grow and bring more awareness to multiple industry, not just in the toy industry. Do you have a specific like project?

Mark Nathan: Yeah, we are right now we are working in multiple industries. Consumer products. We’re working with grocers, as I said, we’re working with retailers, we’re working with manufacturers, clothing industry, we’re working with fast food restaurant business distributors in the food industry, hospitality, cannabis industry, you name it. We’re there, anywhere where there is, just take a plastic bag, for instance. Anywhere there is a bag, I don’t care what size, shape, form, we, can replace it with our product. And any industry.

Jason Hsieh: Can you share your vision for the toy industry on what some, of course, there’s packaging itself, what other thing that you see the toy industry can improve on to reduce the carbon footprint?

Mark Nathan: Absolutely. So as I said, we’ve only been in business for a year and we’ve [00:15:00] already made these great strides. And obviously my background for 35 years was in the toy industry. Our goal is now that we really finessed our product, that we are now targeting specific industries, toys, as you said, is one of them. There’s an enormous amount. First of all, there’s an enormous amount of plastic in the toys themselves. But if we just concentrate on the packaging itself, the amount of reduction of plastic and paper, as I said, even the paper is, people think, oh that’s environmentally friendly. It’s not, and the inks that are used in the paper are also very toxic. So everything we do, including our inks, are all plant based. And there’s a huge opportunity there for, the toy industry to replace all the paper and all the plastic that’s being used, to more environmentally friendly products. And it really is endless. Our company is growing rapidly and much faster than we all thought and it’s just, it really keeps compounding every day for sure with companies that are reaching out to us and saying, hey can you, [00:16:00] do this? Can you do this? Can you do this?

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, and with the amount of talk about AIs and the latest technology, what role do you see AI and different technology play in the future of sustainable packaging?

Mark Nathan: That’s a great question. I cannot answer that right now. We’re watching that every day. Right now, all our product is made overseas. We are in the middle of capital raised to bring all production into the United States. So we’re already talking with certain states about moving our production there that’ll help with a lot of different things. On the AI side I’m sure it’ll help with the production and how the machinery is, made.

I don’t know how it will affect it, but I’m sure it will in some way, and we’re really watching it very closely and looking at all the technology on a daily basis because things are because of this trend to be more sustainable. And it’s not just the United States. It’s the world.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah.

Mark Nathan: [00:17:00] Everybody is involved in some way, shape or form. So I’m sure that with the AI right, new technology, less expensive ways to produce things. Obviously we’re looking at all that.

Jason Hsieh: There’s also a lot of other company that kind of focusing on eco friendly and environmental friendly packaging. What would you say that make your company’s material or the particular way you do it stand apart from some of the other people in the marketplace?

Mark Nathan: So we have patents and you’re right. There are other companies that do what we do. We have not found anyone that does it as well or at the lowest costs that we are at. So we go to trade shows all the time in different industries and we’re finding every single time that our product is higher quality and lower price. We do have patents and the patents are while you can’t patent the ingredients you can patent the process. How it’s made, how it’s cured all this kind of stuff and that’s what we have our patents on.

Jason Hsieh: That’s [00:18:00] a big advantage. Yeah,

Mark Nathan: it’s huge. It’s, absolutely huge. And it definitely helps us get a, step up on others that are trying to recreate what we’re doing. So we displaced the national brand in the pet section. Walmart, company’s been around for years and here we are two guys that just came out of nowhere and we displaced them. They kicked them out and they put a no name, Brandon and now we’re already in 2600, Walmart’s, as I said. We’ve passed all the tests and you can imagine what Walmart made us jump through tens of thousands of dollars of testing and things. And then they even brought our products and paired it with the competition to their customers. And overwhelmingly we won there as well, but, there’s a lot of opportunities there really is. It’s overwhelming what is available. And one of the things that we’re working on is trying to focus. Because literally it calls every day. Can you do this? Can you do this? And the answer is most of the time. Yes, but we just can’t, we don’t have the breath to do that.

Jason Hsieh: Sure. Sure. You only have 24 hours a day, not [00:19:00] 48 hours, right? Yeah. Yeah. I can relate to that. That’s a common problem with most entrepreneurs. We try to do

Mark Nathan: exactly. I love it. And that’s what I’ve been doing all my life and I really don’t mind working the 20 hour days, which is what it’s coming to, but we’re growing our team and it’s exciting.

Jason Hsieh: So as we’re wrapping up today’s interview, what advice would you give to toy company that’s listening to the show looking to make their packaging more environmentally friendly? What would be the first step?

Mark Nathan: The first step is to look at the alternatives that are out there. Plant based products and packaging exist. Some are better than others, some are not real. They say they are and they’re really not. But, if they truly want to be more green and support the world and the planet in terms of becoming more environmentally friendly.

There are definitely opportunities out there where we’re one of them. [00:20:00] We think we’re the best, but we can help whatever company, whatever, what they’re looking for, but the key is that it’s not a pie in the sky thought anymore. It’s here. It’s working. We have product and it’s shipped. They’re not concepts anymore where they were years ago, it exists. It’s available, it exists, and we’re making it every day.

Jason Hsieh: For sure, And where can people find you online?

Mark Nathan: PlasTechFree.Com, PlasTechProducts.com, that is P L A S T E C H, is the way we spell our name. We have Twitter and LinkedIn and they can look under my name, Mark Nathan. They can find me there. Facebook, Instagram. That’s very easy. Find us.

Jason Hsieh: I see. Thank you so much for sharing some of your story and sharing the project and amazing work you’re doing for the planet. Thank you so much,

Mark Nathan: Jason. I appreciate, appreciate you. I know this project we’re gonna be working on and I appreciate the opportunity.

Jason Hsieh: Thank you for tuning into today’s [00:21:00] episode of toy business unboxed podcast. We hope you have enjoyed the conversation and find it insightful and inspiring.

If you like what you heard and be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform. So you’ll never miss an episode. We really appreciate your support and we’d love it if you could leave us a review and share the podcast with your friend or colleague in the toy industry .

For more resource tips and the latest update in the toy industry. Visit our website at toy-launch.Com. Join the conversation and connect with us on social media using hashtag #ToyBusinessUnboxed, and we would love to hear your feedback and suggestion for future episodes. Until next time, keep innovating, keep creating, keep bringing joys to toys.

This is Jason Hsieh signing off on ToyBusinessUnboxed podcast, and I’ll see you in the next episode.