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| For Julianna Keeling '19, a combination of events, interests, and a deep conviction within herself led her to establish a company she first thought of during her time in high school. Her eco-friendly business, Terravive, produces biodegradable products and was a natural extension of her own journey with environmentalism. |
| "I always felt a responsibility towards my community, people in my community, and then also the environment," Keeling said. "So just seeing what was going on with climate change and things like that, I wanted to be able to do something positive in that regard. It was a natural progression throughout my life, just something I always liked to do, and I just kept doing it, and it led me to where I am now." |
| As policymakers and activists continue to have conversations around single-use plastics and work to find solutions that are both convenient and safe for our planet, Keeling believes that single-use biodegradable items could be a panacea to these seemingly conflicting interests. |
| "I really had this conviction or belief that single-use products and materials weren't the problems, for a variety of reasons," Keeling explained. "There's a whole list of reasons to explain why single-use products are needed. It's just not feasible – people need sanitary items, disabled folks need to be able to use single-use products. I also knew that there were better materials out there. By utilizing my knowledge of the materials, I was able to think about how we could design better single-use products using biodegradable materials that are more functional." |
| Keeling worked on research and development for her products for the first three years. Along with developing different product lines, such as a biodegradable blood pressure sleeve, she spent time learning about the market and how she wanted to structure her business. Her product development remains an evolving process. |
| "Even today, our products look wildly different than they did when we first started," she said. "It probably took about six months to design the first prototype and actually put a real prototype out there. But we're constantly trying to work with our customers and our partners to make sure that the products are meeting their needs and accomplishing what they want." |
| When working with 100% biodegradable products that take up to ninety days to fully biodegrade in compost and up to 6 months in other environments like a landfill, it can raise questions about how a product might last in a standard kitchen storage area before being used to serve food to customers. |
| "Essentially, with our products, you can think about it just like pasta or as food," Keeling said. "It's heat, humidity, and microorganisms, like bugs and soil, or any natural environment, which actually cause it to break down. If you just take one of these cups, or one of our straws right here, and you put it in a room and then you close the door and then you came back a hundred years later, those products would be totally intact." |
| Terravive products, such as their to-go containers, forks, spoons, cups, and straws, are manufactured in the United States and are eco-friendly and BPI certified. In comparison with Terravive's competitors, this is a rare move but one that Keeling is proud to do and benefits her business. |
| "Strategically, we decided to manufacture everything in the US for practical, supply-chain-reliability reasons," Keeling explained. "It's hard to reliably bring products all the way from one side of the world to the other, so we decided to keep everything here and decrease the chances of warped or deformed products or late shipments. In terms of the full all-in sustainability picture, the greenhouse gas emissions to get it from one side of the country to here totally outweighs any other benefits that you could be getting on top of providing better working conditions for our employees." |
| As Keeling looks to the future, she hopes to continue to grow her business while replacing more plastic and looking for the right windows of opportunity. When she first considered starting her business, people in her network advised her against it, but Keeling chose to follow her own convictions and hopes to carry that trust in herself to her future endeavors. |
| "There's no one person in particular who told me to do this or told me to do that," she said. "It was just in my gut. I always remind myself that there's windows of opportunity in life that open and close. I thought, 'Are these windows of opportunity going to open back up or are they going to close?' I make choices to jump through those windows, even if it was not the advised thing to do, and that will hopefully chart me in the right direction in life." |
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