.png)
It’s 2025, and the drastic changes in the world might have many of you feeling a bit hopeless. I know I am - but I’m also feeling angry and ready to make some change.
This year is set to bring some big things from our end, so I wanted to give you a heads-up as well as explain why plastic packaging is truly, truly terrible - and why we should be doing much more about it.
Find us online:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nowthatswhaticallgreen/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/now-that-s-what-i-call-podcasts
Follow me on social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briannemwest/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@briannemwest
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briannemwest/
Wanna know more about Incrediballs?
www.incrediballs.com
https://www.instagram.com/incrediballsdrinks/
https://www.tiktok.com/@incrediballsdrinks
Transcript
Kia ora kaitiaki and welcome to Now That's What I Call Green. I'm your host, Brianne West—an environmentalist and entrepreneur trying to get you as excited about our planet as I am. I'm all about taking a scientific approach to making the world a better place without the judgment, making it fun, and of course, chatting about some of the most amazing creatures we share our planet with.
If you're looking to navigate everything green—or not so green—you’ve come to the right place. Kia ora and welcome back to the first episode of season three for 2025. If you're new here, this podcast has always been about science, action, and solutions (and probably some rants along the way). This year, you can definitely expect more of the same, but there’s also some evolution—on brand with science, I suppose.
I’m going to be introducing more business-focused content because, as I’ve always said, if we want to change the world, we need to change business. And we are seeing that play out in real-time—what happens when very powerful but very stupid (and I will stand by that) businesspeople run the world. It’s also timely because this is the year Incrediballs launches—my latest company. If you’ve been listening for a while, you’ll have heard dribs and drabs about it. You may even follow it on social media, and if you don’t, I really don’t know what you’re waiting for.
This is my next big mission after stepping back from Ethique, the brand I founded to tackle plastic waste in the beauty industry. Now, I want to do it for the drinks industry—because, as you’re about to find out, it’s much worse. Oh, and just quickly—we’re on YouTube now, so go check that out (both Incrediballs and the podcast). Please don’t leave me alone on there because the commenters are particularly rabid, and I don’t know why.
But before we crack into business, Incrediballs, and the green side of things, I want to talk about the world at the moment. Last week, President Trump was inaugurated. The world already felt like a mess—politically, environmentally, socially—there are genocides happening, the environment is being destroyed at an unprecedented rate. And while there’s a lot of good happening, the overall mood is low. It’s perfectly normal to feel climate anxiety or just generally overwhelmed.
That’s why the last episode of last season featured Dr. Susie, a psychologist who focuses specifically on climate anxiety (or eco-anxiety, if you like). She shared some fantastic tips for managing those feelings, so if you haven’t listened to it yet, go check it out. It will make you feel a little better, because from what I can see, a lot of you are struggling.
2025 feels different. It feels more urgent. After stepping back from Ethique, I wanted my next venture to tackle a bigger environmental challenge—because, you know, go big or go home, I guess. And that’s where Incrediballs came from.
Now, if you don’t know what Incrediballs is (if you’ve been living under a rock), it’s the world’s first plastic-free drinks range. Instead of buying a can of Coke, you buy a box of Incrediballs, tip some tablets—some little balls, as you’d expect—into a glass of water, and voilà: cola, blackcurrant, orange, or whatever you fancy.
It’s taken years of research and development, loads of trial and error (emphasis on loads of errors), but finally, 2025 is the year we launch. I started this when I stepped down as CEO of Ethique in 2023, so it’s been a little slower than I expected. But there’s a real sense of urgency because plastic pollution isn’t slowing down—it’s doing the opposite. Industries are gearing up to produce more plastic—30% more by 2030, according to forecasts. The drinks industry is a major culprit, as single-use packaging is still king.
Cans are definitely a step up, but plastic bottles remain the preferred packaging. Big corporations keep talking about making changes, but they’ve done sod all about them. A couple of weeks ago on TikTok, I mentioned how Coca-Cola stepped back from its three major environmental pledges. This surprised absolutely no one.
One of those pledges was that 25% of their products would be sold in refillable packaging. That’s gone. The second was that their packaging would be made of 50% recycled materials by 2030—now downgraded to 35–40%. But the worst one? By 2025, they had pledged that 100% of their packaging would be recyclable globally. Now, they’ve changed the wording to say they’ll help ensure that 70–75% of all packaging they put into the market will be collected. Collected—not recycled.
Once again, the burden falls on us, the consumers, to deal with the fallout—more waste, more environmental destruction, and very few truly sustainable alternatives.
That’s why I’m excited about Incrediballs—not just as an alternative, but as proof that tackling single-use plastic is possible in a way that’s practical, scalable, and still enjoyable. Because if you don’t enjoy it, you’re not going to do it.
It’s been a steep learning curve. The drinks industry is quite different, and I still feel like I know nowhere near enough. But if you don’t give it a go, you’ll never know. And all of this ties back to what this podcast is about—science, optimism, action.
That’s why I wanted to kick off the year by talking about one of the biggest issues in the world: single-use plastic packaging. Here’s some perspective—globally, we produce between 500 billion and 1.2 trillion plastic bottles every year just for drinks. That doesn’t even include other single-use plastics. And while companies like Coke love to tell us their bottles are recyclable, most don’t actually get recycled.
We’ve all heard that only 9% of all plastic ever produced has been recycled. But in reality, it’s worse. In the U.S., the plastic recycling rate is around 5%. Even for plastic bottles, it’s only 25–30%. The rest ends up in landfills, incinerators, or polluting ecosystems.
And it’s not just the plastic. Microplastics are everywhere—found in testicles, bloodstreams, arterial walls, dolphins’ breath, even brains. They’re in bottled water, which is ironic because companies push bottled water as safer than tap water, despite having way higher levels of microplastics.
This is why I see the drinks industry as one of the biggest, highest-impact targets for innovation. If we change how we package and consume drinks, we could prevent billions of plastic bottles from being produced and discarded every year.
There are ideas out there—plant-based plastics (mostly nonsense), more efficient recycling (which is still failing us). The fact that companies using virgin plastic aren’t taxed to support recycling infrastructure is mind-blowing. I once asked our former Prime Minister about this, and her response was that it was "too complex." Breathtakingly irritating.
Single-use bottles make up 45% of all plastic waste found in global litter studies. And while glass and aluminum can be better, they have their own massive environmental footprints.
Ultimately, this is why Incrediballs exists. It’s about making sustainable choices fun, convenient, and genuinely better for the planet. It’s been years of research, collaboration with material scientists, and a lot of trial and error—but we’re here. And while it won’t single-handedly fix the problem, I hope it makes people rethink how they consume.
2025 is going to be big. You’ll hear more about this journey on the podcast, and I’ll be talking to genuinely environmentally friendly businesses that aren’t getting the attention they deserve.
And just to be clear—not all plastic is bad. It’s an incredible material. The problem is how we use it.
So that’s the plan for the year ahead—lots of exciting things, and hopefully, some real change. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t keep it to yourself—drop me a rating, hit subscribe, and I’ll see you next week. Mā te wā!
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
