Laska Paré finds a greener reverse in plastic coffee cup lids

As part of a Serie highlighting youth work to address the climate crisis, interview with writer Patricia Lane Laska Paré that creates beautiful and useful items from recycled plastic.

Laska Paré

Laska Paré turns coffee cup lids into soap dishes. No, she is not a magician. This 33-year-old entrepreneur started Reverse plastics as a circular economic enterprise, recycling plastics on Vancouver Island.

Tell us about your project.

Approximately $ 8 billion a year in plastic is dumped in landfills and will remain there for millennia. Flipside Plastics is a pilot project to see if we can interrupt the common use-waste-pollute plastic life cycle with an endless reuse model, so it never goes to waste and therefore never pollutes.

We started very small in the spring by scooping up disposable coffee cup lids, crushing them, washing them, and turning them into well-designed soap dishes. We have more orders for soap dishes than we can fill and are now looking to expand.

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What inspired you in this direction?

I was haunted by the daily trash cans full of disposable coffee cups and lids at my previous workplace. I started a campaign, which I called “Mugshot”, encouraging my colleagues to “kill the plastics” by taking a “mugshot” of themselves with their own mug. When I started my own business, I wanted to contribute to a healthier planet. Then COVID-19 came along and we were no longer able to use our own to-go cups. The waste really bothered me. Paper coffee cups can be recycled. I was wondering if we could recycle the caps.

I needed something small to test the idea that we could remove the plastic that is already in our economy from the waste stream. Coffee cup lids are easy to wash, lightweight, and small, making the reuse process easy.

With the help of a grant from the British Columbia government, I hired a small team and arranged for a volunteer to use his cargo bike to collect coffee cup lids at four local Victoria coffee shops. We crushed and washed them, and when market research revealed interest in well-designed, premium-priced soap dishes, we started making them from recycled plastic. We are now at the end of the first year sales of our business and have a shortage of source plastic to meet demand. Coffee shops like these products because they can reassure customers concerned about plastic waste. Coffee drinkers who use disposable cups also find them comforting.

What’s next?

Expansion could mean greater specialization. You could outsource the collection and use recycled reusable plastic granules. I don’t know the end products yet, as market research is being done, but there seems to be potential in the things that people see every day, like coasters, high-end bathroom sets, or small multipurpose furniture that lets them see that a sustainable future is possible with your help.

What makes your job difficult?

I cannot sign a standard five year lease if I have not yet tested my concept and must locate my machines in designated light industrial areas. There is very little space available for small manufacturers and it is tremendously expensive. Politicians, bureaucrats, customers and suppliers are in solidarity. But when rubber hits the road, the shifts are alarmingly slow.

What gives you hope?

My volunteers are high-level entrepreneurs who really believe in this concept. My staff is so passionate and motivated and we are all so determined to succeed. His tenacity is contagious. I am participating in a business acceleration program run by the federal government and that is encouraging. We will resolve it.

What attracted you to this job?

I grew up in a small town: Strathroy, Ontario. The community shared the ethic of borrowing rather than buying, and as one of four children in a single-source household, we get on and on. My mother was a genius repurposing finds from yard sales and making art out of junk. Avoiding a high-waste consumer lifestyle is part of who I am.

What do you care about?

The usual uncertainties of starting a small business have been magnified by COVID lockdowns and the cost of it all skyrocketed with supply chain failures. But these concerns are one more reason for us to learn to stop using. Think of the good we could do with that $ 8 billion if it didn’t go to the landfill and pollute.

Do you have any advice for young people?

Trust your ideas, especially if you can’t get rid of them. There were many logical reasons for not doing what I am doing. I kept thinking, “Someone else can do that.” But the concept just stuck with me. Here I am. I have learned a lot and every day I make mistakes and learn more. My skill set is much richer than it would have been. I’m very happy.

What would you like to say to older readers?

Recycled products are often priced higher, and it’s tempting to go for the cheapest option. But not paying the true cost of our things is one of the main ways we got into this mess. You can start changing that now. We can pay now or future generations will pay much more.