about us

Who we are, what we do, and why we do it.

Our mission

Make composting second nature. Our mission is to drive organic waste separation by providing certified compostable film products and education to every individual and company that consumes, sells, or processes food.

 

About EcoSafeĀ 

EcoSafe Zero Waste is a manufacturer of certified compostable film products and programs with the express purpose of keeping organic waste out of landfills. EcoSafe provides thoughtful training to simplify the implementation and execution of our programs that serve residential, institutional, and commercial markets.

The EcoSafe Story

1999Ā 

It all started with a diaper. Over twenty years ago, one of our founders, Dick Freeman, worked with a client who developed a new diapering system and had an idea – what if they were able to make the plastic in a diapers biodegradable?

2000

Plastic Solutions Canada Inc. was born. Founded by Jim Brownlee, Scott Hean, and Dick Freeman, the biodegradable diaper project led to developing technology that enabled plastics to become biodegradable. A lot of lessons were learned along the way, but eventually, the diaper concept had to be abandoned after running into patent troubles.

2004

Dick was working with Phil Ragan and had teamed up with Ric Mallett to accelerate our sales efforts of our new product, a compostable doggie bag. With a new product and strong relationships with BASF, our compostable resin supplier, and Dakota Western, a First Nations owned manufacturing facility, the company evolved into EcoSafe Zero Waste and began growing.

2010

More sales and growth meant that a move from our 3000 sq. ft. space to a 5000 sq. ft. office and warehouse was needed ā€“ it was basically a palace! We had made a name for ourselves by focusing on solving the issues of collection and contamination instead of just trying to sell bags. By this time, our reputation had already given us opportunities to work with companies like BC Ferries, UC Berkeley, the LA Coliseum, and even become the official compostable bag at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

2020

With the addition of several new team members, we needed to expand our warehouse and office location once again. In March of 2020, we moved to our current location that had more than enough space in the warehouse and for everyone to have their own office. In that same month, a worldwide pandemic followed shortly by mandatory social distancing meant that instead of working in our glorious new offices, we quickly pivoted to continuing our composting mission from home.

Today

Big time organic growth has meant that our team has continued to grow. We are pushing harder than ever to continue our quest to make separating organic waste easy and clean so that we can keep it out of landfills. With our new team members, we have been able to provide much more education, and have been able to create processes that are sustainable and repeatable for ourselves and our customers. Every day we are working towards providing the best compostable solutions in the most seamless way possible.

Food loss and waste occur at each stage of the supply chain. The biggest proportion (about 37%) happens in the home.

ReFED, 2021