Never Give Up with Jess Hodge

Jess Hodge went on her honeymoon to Thailand, found a beautiful beach covered in plastic rubbish, and spent part of her trip cleaning it up. When she got home she tried to find a sustainable coffee table. She couldn't find one anywhere. So she made one. That was the beginning of Resourceful Living – a social enterprise that has now recycled 20 tonnes of plastic and saved enough energy to power 54 homes for a year.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Jess Hodge is the founder of Resourceful Living, a Newcastle-based social enterprise that turns waste plastic into furniture, plant pots, and everyday products. Since launching, Resourceful Living has recycled over 20 tonnes of plastic -- saving enough energy to power 54 homes for a year. Jess is driven by the belief that beautiful, functional products and environmental responsibility are not mutually exclusive.

LINKS

Episode page: https://www.snapper.studio/episodes/jess-hodge-resourceful-living-ep-15

Resourceful Living website: https://resourcefulliving.com.au/

Jess Hodge on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesshodge-resourcefulliving/

Free Sentiment Tracker: https://www.snapper.studio/brand-sentiment-tracker

Book a free Vision Call: https://clients.snapper.studio/discovery

CALL TO ACTION

Want to dig deeper into your own brand? Start with Mini Martin -- a free AI brand strategy tool built by Martin Sully at Snapper Studio. Try it free at https://www.snapper.studio/emotional-branding-ai

Transcript

Martin: Welcome to the Level Up Podcast. Today I'm joined by Jess Hodge, founder of Resourceful Living. Jess, can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and how Resourceful Living came to be?

Jess: Yeah, sure. So the backstory to Resourceful Living actually started on my honeymoon in Thailand in 2017. My husband and I were on this beautiful beach and it was just absolutely covered in plastic rubbish. And it was just, yeah, like, really disheartening. We spent quite a bit of time cleaning it up and I kind of started thinking, what can we actually do about this back home?

And when we got back, I started looking for -- I was after a coffee table, an outdoor coffee table. And I wanted it to be made from recycled plastic. And I just could not find one anywhere. And so I thought, well, if I can't find one, maybe other people can't find one either. And that's kind of how the seed was planted.

Martin: So you went from honeymoon beach to building a business around recycled plastic. What were the early days like?

Jess: It was a steep learning curve. Manufacturing with recycled plastic is actually really challenging. There's a massive range of different plastics and they all have different properties. The outdoor furniture, particularly, we call it the beast. Because it was just really difficult to work with at the start. It took us a long time to find the right manufacturers and the right processes.

Martin: And you mentioned the Hunter New England Health collaboration. How did that come about?

Jess: That actually came from a really serendipitous conversation at Olive Tree Markets in Newcastle. I was just there with a stall and a woman came up and started chatting about what we were doing. Turns out she worked for Hunter New England Health. And they had all this hard plastic waste from things like needle caps and bottles and they didn't know what to do with it. And we said, well, we can take that. So we now take their hard plastic waste and turn it into our plant pots.

Martin: That's incredible. So the pot plants are actually made from hospital plastic?

Jess: Yes, a lot of them are. It's a really good story because it shows the circular economy in action. Waste going back into something useful and beautiful.

Martin: You've recycled 20 tonnes of plastic now. How do you even contextualise that number?

Jess: So 20 tonnes of plastic is equivalent to saving enough energy to power 54 homes for a year. When you think about it in those terms, it feels more real. Because plastic is really energy intensive to produce, and when you recycle it instead of it going to landfill, you're saving all that energy that would have gone into making virgin plastic.

Martin: And what are your best selling products?

Jess: The pot plants are definitely our best sellers. Which is funny because they weren't really on our radar initially -- we were thinking more about furniture. But people just love them. They're a really accessible price point and they make a great gift.

Martin: So what's the vision for Resourceful Living going forward?

Jess: The big vision is a buyback scheme. So we want to eventually take back products at the end of their life and recycle them again. It's the real circular model. We're not quite there yet but it's where we're heading.

Martin: What's one tip you'd give to business owners listening about sustainability in their own practice?

Jess: I'd say look at your packaging first. If you can choose single-material packaging over mixed materials, that makes a huge difference for recyclability. A straight plastic container is so much easier to recycle than something that's plastic, paper, and foil all glued together. And, cucumbers don't need to be wrapped in plastic. She has feelings about this.

Martin: Jess, where can people find you and Resourceful Living?

Jess: Our website is resourcefulliving.com.au -- note the double L in resourcefull. And we're on Facebook and LinkedIn as Resourceful Living. And I'm on LinkedIn as Jess Hodge.