Forever Chemicals No More: One Company's Mission to Destroy PFAS
Nigel Sharp, a British-Armenian serial tech entrepreneur, is one of the co-founders of Aquagga, a company dedicated to solving the world's PFAS problem. With a background in engineering and business development, he has grown multiple technology startups and mentored over 460 companies globally. Passionate about technology in the water and environment sectors, he thrives in diverse, critically-minded teams working towards a sustainable future.
Sho Links:
https://www.aquagga.com/
https://socapglobal.com/
Imperfect Show Notes
While these notes are not perfect (AI translation is still improving), they give you the gist of the conversation. Enjoy!
My conversation with Nigel:
Morgan Bailey 0:02
Hello, and welcome to the profit meets impact Podcast where we explore the intersection of doing well and doing good in the world. I'm your host Morgan Bailey, and I'm excited to bring you the wisdom of entrepreneurs and thought leaders that are using business to create sustainable and meaningful change across the globe. excited to bring you this conversation with Nigel sharp we met at SOCAP, which is an amazing conference. For those who haven't been one of many great introductions I had there. Nigel is a British Armenian serial tech entrepreneur. He is one of the cofounders of a Quagga, a company dedicated to solving the world's PFAs problem. And we'll talk about what PFAs are in just a second. He's got a background in engineering and business development. He's grown multiple technology startups and mentored over 460 companies globally. Passionate about technology in the water environment sectors, he thrives in diverse, critically minded teams working towards a sustainable future.
Nigel Sharp 1:10
Morgan, it's great to see you again, appreciate being here. And it was a delightful conversation to soak up and it's really great to be to continue it with someone whose last illustrious as yourself.
Morgan Bailey 1:01
I've really been looked Nigel been looking for this conversation ever since you and I met it. So cap. So thanks for being on the show.
You flatter me as
Nigel Sharp 1:22
well. All right.
Morgan Bailey 1:23
So let's let's get right into it. Obviously, in your intro, we mentioned PFAs. Now, I'm sure by this time most of our listeners have heard of PFAs. But let's just start really quickly, what are P FAS and how big is the problem?
Nigel Sharp 1:39
Yeah, so, especially describe what this acronym stands for Right. So P S A S P fast pieces are the parent poly floral Alco substances, better known by some of the brand names and commonly utilized to help great things to they're both water resistant, sometimes flame retardant, as well as a nonstick. So these have been key active ingredients in brands in historically such as Teflon GoreTex re next scotch guard. And as we've sort of grown our various consumer products, these are sort of the miracle. You know, coatings that we can put on all sorts of different consumer goods as well as used as key ingredients and firefighting foams and applications around firefighting at every airport, Air Force Base, and oil and gas facility pretty much worldwide. So invented as a sort of miracle chemical compound back in the 19, sort of 40s and 50s. And then in the last 2530 years, we've started discovering just how toxic they are, especially the last 10 years of really understanding around the challenges to the PFS, and the unfortunately, public health challenge that comes with it.
Morgan Bailey 2:58
All right, so they're everywhere, is what it sounds like. And these are also known as you know, if people have called them forever chemicals. So what could just talk to us really briefly, what does it mean to be a forever chemical? And what do we find out about the health effects?
Nigel Sharp 3:17
Yes, being more than just being everywhere they are the last forever, what is forever mean? Well, it means that the core P FES molecular structure is very, very stable. And it's stable in such a sense that even under high temperature and high pressure scenarios, right? These pee fast ponds don't break down. And the reason why is because some of the core ingredient there is these carbon fluorine bonds that exist. And so carbon fluorine bond is one of the toughest bonds and organic chemistry is what makes the stuff such a great flame retardant. It makes these things work in nonstick frying pans, for example. Unfortunately, because that bond doesn't naturally occur. Often in the sort of organic world. We've created these bonds and they do last pretty much forever. They are one of the toughest bonds to break. And for that reason, a lot of PFS compounds will last for 1000s of years. So although the contamination can be cleaned up and moved around and dealt with, once we put it in a place, we've got to then think about how we're gonna manage for 1000s of years. And that can be likened to sort of a nuclear waste scale problem, but one that is everywhere, as opposed to very definitive locations.
Morgan Bailey 4:28
And why are people so bad? Even beyond that, the fact that they last forever,
Nigel Sharp 4:36
unfortunately, and this is where it gets into a bit of a darker story, and I use that word intentionally. There was a couple of movies that came out around this but most notably in 2019 there was a Hollywood movie called dark waters, starring Mark ruffler which you know, really highlighted this but it came from a book that Rob bilott had put out around called exposure, bro broadly speaking, what was sort of found out is that through some very large liability cases, the company to originally produce PFS companies such as Dupont, originally were found to be creating impact to communities nearby these sort of factory and production areas that this is working through. They start noticing it if you've watched the movie, you know, initially like cows had, you know, rotting Tea, tea, had rotting teeth and, you know, challenges with the skin and sort of reproductive issues. And then as it sort of grew is that it become very noticeable actually, the community was heavily impacted. So one of the largest human health studies was completed around this topic that really touched on I think about 12,000 people were surveyed and founding number of both chronic and acute illnesses tied back to PFS exposure. Specifically, at that time, they were looking at PFOA which is one of the PFS compounds out of this like, you know, broader umbrella of six or 8000 different compounds that exist. And what they found out is that, you know, people were suffering from challenges such as pancreatic cancers, testicular cancers and men, liver damages and diseases, thyroid damages and diseases. And then unfortunately, it does cross over the you know, it does cross cross the placenta, and impacts, you know, babies as well with all sorts of sort of early development challenges. Well sort of goes there. That's what we know of and we've shown causative data to now with some of these PFS compounds, and that's what's in current health studies. But right now, there are probably over another, you know, 500 to 1000 other active health studies going on around the PFS compounds, attributing PFS other major chronic challenges with news articles just in the last few months coming around like sort of obesity challenges and other areas that you know pee fast really impacts unfortunately, they have a really nasty impact on humans and many other creatures animals simply because they are bio accumulative. And that fluorine in the PFS often is by accumulating and does not have a it does not work well with a large body like ours.
Morgan Bailey 7:14
So is it safe to assume that most of us probably have PFAs enough,
Nigel Sharp 7:18
not beyond safe to assume it's been measured and studied now and communities across the US, for example, that about 98.5% of population have measurable noticeable amounts of PII first and then. So we've all been exposed very, really to this contaminant. And depending on where you live, and how you're consuming and engaging by accumulating this, and what age you are sort of primarily exposed to another this compound, and how often you're continually repeatedly exposed, does have some determination upon yourself, like your life expectancy and like health concerns. So it is very, very real, a very real problem.
Morgan Bailey 7:54
You know, since our since we met, I've stopped using any nonstick Teflon pans. So and I've just become aware that this stuff is everywhere. So it is, you know, it takes a considerable effort to actually root these things out because they are everywhere. So
Nigel Sharp 8:10
I mean, it's funny, because like, I think I'm in the same boat, I feel that most people that I end up speaking to on the streets now it's just like, oh, well, you know, I got rid of my nonstick pans, or, you know, I found out about the scotch guard on my on my fabric, you know, protecting on my sofa when I got rid of that particular piece. But then you sort of exposed you know, you sort of talk about the exposure that people are having from things they aren't aware of, like certain dental flosses, or maybe, you know, their, their 24 hour mascara and lipsticks they're exposed to or whatever else it might be. And then they go like, Oh my goodness, I had no idea. I remember talking to one person and this person was being environmentalists super concerned about this already was pretty familiar with it, but also really avid skier and just hadn't tracks that when they were applying, you know, the old fashioned sort of ski x back to the skis. That stuff was almost pure pee fast, you know, going there. And so, you know, it's it's fascinating that a lot of people in lots of different walks of life are being exposed and have various knowledge about this, but that broader umbrella of this PFS compound is starting to sort of like, you know, become a consensus understanding of this stuff is bad, and we've let Pandora really out of the box on this one.
Morgan Bailey 9:17
I hear that you know, when you mentioned Gortex, I'm just thinking of everything in my closet, you know, covered in all my outdoor gear. Great. All right. Next question I have for you is, is a this is a big issue, obviously. And they I mean, a lot of people say these compounds couldn't have been destroyed, so on and so forth. They call them forever chemicals. How did you decide that you were going to create a company destroy these chemicals and what gave you the experience and ultimately the audacity to really try to tackle this?
Nigel Sharp 9:52
Well, I love that question. Morgan. I think there is. I guess it relates back to a little bit My own personal history here. So having the audacity or not, I have responsibility, right. So there's a certain professional responsibility that comes with being a trained engineer. And one of our duties is select train better humanity through the work and systems and tools we build, I think there's some truth to that. I think it gets lost as you sort of develop your career, sometimes you sort of forget some of your moral and social responsibility that comes down to like help him build and develop systems, tools, technologies. But over the last few years, I've spent a lot more time engaged in sort of talking about impacts and the opportunity that we can have positive social and environmental impact through the technical work that you know, startups and other technology development companies work on. And we have more than that we have a sort of social moral responsibility, especially when we, you know, given the ability to work on these kinds of tools and develop out because it has such an impactful change to our overall civilization. None of that necessarily gets me to a density, though, honestly, like, there's always an element of foolishness with all of this stuff, which is that, you know, I was excited about a completely different technology. When I first fell into this, I was looking at a waste to energy technology, through the University of Alaska, where they wanted to take sewage sludge, and basically, you know, sewage waste and turn it into electricity. And learning about the technology set that could potentially do that, which seemed very exciting to me, took me to a bunch of sort of water and wastewater conferences and funded by the National Science Foundation, was able to go out there and do a process called customer discovery, which is a common process used in sort of startup land to validate whether or not customers need this. And what was really fascinating by doing customer discovery is that although lots of people have lost challenges with search based, they aren't having a big enough problems really there were nobody really cared that much about the solution at the time. But while being at this conferences and sort of walking down and seeing this hall was one of the sessions that was so super busy, than the room only people kind of like, you know, at the walls and doors of these sessions, were the ones centered around sort of this PFS, emerging contaminant that people were expressing a lot of concern around without clear solutions in place. And so the application of trying to understand what was being done there and realizing this was the hair on fire issue right now across an entire industry. And this is one of the largest industries in the world, right, when we talk about water, wastewater, you know, a multi trillion dollar industry set, one that is absolutely central for our entire survival rate was was fascinating to see all these professionals without real clear indications of what they were going to do, and that I didn't have any identity that I was necessary going to be to help fix or engaged in this problem. Other than, you know, a little bit of serendipity that ties in there, with bumping into some of the right people with technologies they thought could have some application, and then willing to go on a bit of a science quest to see if there was an application there. And then there was definitely a limit of some luck that tied into that, that allowed for this project to really kick off and begin.
Morgan Bailey 12:56
One, I one thing I'm really hearing from you is just your ability to adapt, right, you came in with one perspective about generating electricity, you came out by identifying, hey, you know, this is a greater need. And I'm just really appreciating this idea, I guess, this belief that kind of with minimal, you know, with kind of starting from scratch in many ways in terms of building this into a business, you're able to take some some research and some ideas and say, You know what, let's, let's build something out of this. So talk talk to me, they're like, you imagine I see you at a conference, you're talking to people, they're probably looking at you being like, sure, yeah, this is this is a possibility. Your years later now you're actually have a business that's actually destroying PFAs. Fill us in on the story there.
Nigel Sharp 13:47
Yeah, well, you know, me, it's funny, because that, that chasm can seem huge, right? It can seem like you're trying to cross the Grand Canyon for some people in their mental model in mind. But the more you do startups and the more you do entrepreneurship, the more you realize, you know, a lot of this stuff is just tackled one step at a time. And often, the first steps are not steps towards sort of glory and success, but actually steps down into sort of a pool of learning and listening. And so what I've learned sort of doing entrepreneurship, from the early days, when I started my first tech company, where a lot of it was like, I got this great idea, let me throw this against the wall and see who wants to buy it actually is such a great idea. It's so sexy, it's so cool. Everyone's gonna want this to realize that the AI will build it, they will come mentality or the classic sort of mistakes that a lot of people profess nowadays, which luckily, there's so much great information on the web now, and through YouTube channels and tic TOCs and whatever that hopefully these mistakes are getting made as much as they used to be to now where it's like, oh, there's actually like a methodical systematic process here that I can sort of like you know, follow and adapt, but it takes discipline, right, where it's like, I have biases, I can get it. It's important for insurance to get excited. So I got excited to buy this waste energy technology set right. And I was I slept somewhat enamored with the inventor behind some of the stuff who had like, you know, a lot of exuberance for this technology and excitement around that as well. But all that excitement, energy is great to sort of take you on the journey. But then you have to check your own biases, right and like recognize, recognize there's a lot of cognitive bias that occurs when going out there seeking information. So they're moving into much more of a detective mode of like, Let me listen, let me really hear what people's pains and problems are. And it's very deflating to hear a bunch of people go, Nope, don't really care about that. Like, you know, it'd be nice, right? It'd be a nice to have, but not absolute must have. But by the way, here's this other thing that we are all super, super concerned by. And actually, I can share specifics of our story was, there was a moment where the two worlds crossed, I was sitting on a bus, talking to actually another British guy. And he was in the hallway at Westwood. He's like, Well, over in the UK, we might need something to destroy sewage sludge in a few years. And he mentioned this in passing, I took it my notebook and I look back at it now it's like funny because I had his first indication he said, in a few years to do something, because we might not be apt to dispose of the sewage sludge anymore. I'm like, you know, bio bio solids applications on fields anymore, because there's pee fast stuff that people are starting to get worried about. Right? And he mentioned, speed us up and then and then during the conversation, I didn't even ask him what his pee fast. I didn't know anything about it that time. So four and a half years ago, I'd never heard of this stuff. It didn't seem like a relevant piece. Right. But that thread was actually implanted that moment where he was like, Oh, that can be some change. Now let's fast forward. Like, you know, three years, the state of Maine has banned biosolids application onto like agricultural premises because of PFS entrained. And like, you know, biocides, there's now a need for destroying sewage sludge and maybe turning it energy that didn't exist because PFS had driven a market need, right fascinating to be in that world listening to a thing, you know, and just hearing one data point. But again, it's only when you hear it a few times and hear a few synergistic pieces. You go like, Oh, here's something worth exploring and going on further. I know you're trying to sort of get out how do you go from that to the rest can be done, you can build a technology, but a company around it. And honestly, Morgan, like at this point in my life and career, it feels like it's all very just systematic, like, you know, you just have to keep taking those little steps, it's totally normal that the first step will be a tiny beaker in some lab with some university scientists to then show we'll get some more funding, it will be slightly bigger one. When people look at where we are now, right, with one of the world's largest pee fast destruction systems operational, they go like, Wait, it's a huge leap. You guys have taken us like, No, I can show you all the systems along the way. Like, you know, that system was, you know, a little tiny thing, they got bigger, they got bigger, and so on, so forth.
Morgan Bailey 17:40
That's I mean, that makes sense. Right? That makes sense. It makes sense. When you break it down like that. I mean, my mind is still like, wow, that does. I mean, obviously, you're talking about years worth of work. And so, so many small iterative steps. One of the things I always get really curious about is so you know, from that inception, like, what was it? What was it like to initially sell this idea, right? I mean, you had to get funding somehow, right? To start those initial experiments, as an initial step, talk to us a little about what that looked like.
Nigel Sharp 18:08
And this is where I think there's been so much change in the broader sort of startup that's got a startup industry as a as a broader whole, I think, you know, there's been a greater understanding that what people are looking to invest in his teams, right and less about like ideas and market solutions up front. And if you can put together a meaningful team, with some new technology, people are willing to give you a little bit of a betting goal. A Cago was started with like a couple of competition winning, so we pitched it tiny little sort of startup competitions, I'm gonna give you some sense that, I think, in our first year, while we're out there pitching, there's a prior to the company really forming just kind of in that inception phase of exploring this area. And this is about four and a half years ago, we probably brought in about $25,000 worth of like competition winnings and fun, you know, finding and we weren't necessarily first place winners, but we're kind of like winning surprise, money. It's missing pieces. And so it's like, you know, I remember the first five grand that we got wasn't enough to like you couldn't do any technical investment or development. So the first thing you do is like, well, we're going to spend it on a little bit of like, you know, branding and design, but mostly on, you know, can we explore and like help create a better visualization of what it is we think this thing can be right just help basically build the tools to tell a better story. And so much of the early phases, it's just a really about sort of that early storytelling where you can project a vision of what you think a future world could look like, where you can back it with some data is pretty key. The other big part of our growth story, because we've been a US based startup company, and this is deep technology and trying to work on a national imperative problem is we've heavily leveraged programs like Small Business Innovation Research program, the SBIR program, and so SBIR is like, you know, lovingly called America Seed Fund and American Seed Fund, as you know, where they want to be taking some of his very first bets. The government effectively will put money into companies without taking ownership in those companies. is, which is very notable. So basically providing companies with grants to get themselves started to improve and mitigate some technical risk in an area if they think there's specific value there. So, wow.
Morgan Bailey 20:12
You know, one, I think I think it's fantastic being able to leverage all those programs. And I'll put in the show notes as well about SPI IR. So what I'm hearing is really, I mean, you started with this idea, you were able to identify some technology, you started just pitching in these these small competitions to get a little bit of funding. When did when did you feel like oh, you know, this is actually starting to take hold?
Nigel Sharp 20:40
Yeah, it was a very key moment. I mean, two key things happened for us. So and again, I know that, you know, so hard now looking back at the timeline a few years ago, and trying to remember exactly the order of all these little audits operations exactly how they came about. But, broadly speaking, I remember that we had, at that point, gone far enough along that we had an a hypothesis, that if we took some chemistry that was being projected from the Colorado School of Mines, that we're actually talking about this PFS destruction, chemistry. And we applied some equipment and technology that the University of Washington had had developed and built out for the US Army for completely different application. It was actually for chemical warfare agent disposal at that point. And I want to remind you, like I didn't start with either of those two technologies at the beginning of this journey, right. But we had sort of like met people along the way and engaged with differences of experts that suddenly the synergy of these two technologies is like if you can make that and this in a sort of system that could be something exciting and potentially could destroy PFS. And the current School of Mines has shown some efficacy there. But it was really important to see if these these things can be paired. We got a very small Washington Research Foundation Study Grant, I think it was about $50,000 total, right? We applied for it going after this piece. And we're able to go out and buy a secondhand piece of equipment from like Amsterdam, I think and like get it imported into the US because we couldn't afford the new lab piece of equipment to run this experiment. And I really want to emphasize like this whole thing, I think was processing around 50 milliliters worth of liquid right like I mean, you know, a tiny you know, a thimble full right of liquid. We didn't have any liquid at the time, like pee fast contaminate liquid to hand we hadn't worked with the stuff. So we were able to reach out to a landfill and ask them if we could have some landfill leachate which we assumed had some PFS in it and they said yeah, we got pretty good PFS in our landfill leachate, you guys know that not realizing the landfill leachate is one of the toughest things to actually be processing or dealing with. We just didn't have that, like knowledge set, we didn't come from the industry, right? So we're other people we like no, you just start with water and add some pee fast into it. You know, we got some landfill leachate and started working there, which is really, really complicated stuff. I mean, you're talking about the nastiness of the bottom dregs of a landfill. And then sort of taking that forward to running that study, but we need to run a calibration test. And I remember that was the moment we ran a calibration test. And we needed to see like, you know, however, you know, just just to see what the rough chemistry would look like to see you start like optimizing it. And at that point in the world, or the published studies, the biggest publications, the biggest conferences, the best P fest destruction, anyone already achieved was somewhere between 60 and 70%, you know, pee fast destruction. And on our very first calibration run, which we had to send off to a lab wait a couple of weeks to get the results back, the results came in, and we hit 98.9% on our very first run, right. And at that moment, I think we knew we had something special, like we had hit not only had we been able to replicate results out, you know, achieve some of these things, and I get to build this, especially if you had to do it ourselves was pretty magical moment, right? The amount of PFS destroyed is miniscule, right. But the process of believing it can be done was great. Taking that data, taking that result, then pitching it to the National Science Foundation to get some further funding and get our first SBIR award of about I think it's about a quarter million dollars was the moment that I jumped in full time along with my co founder. And even then, like, you know, we were hesitant in the midst of the pandemic. And I really want emphasize like there was a lot of uncertainty in life and other things going on right in the heart of all that time, somewhere in sort of early 2021. And it's really scary to be sort of talking now. 2024 saying like, Oh, in 2021 I made this leap out and do this stuff. And it feels like a lifetime ago, you know, when it's really only three years that we've had systems developed and things built. So
Morgan Bailey 24:28
yeah, I mean, three years, the world's obviously gone through a lot in that timeframe. And, you know, I mean, I think it is a really interesting journey there. And I'm just I feel that that moments are like really palpable. And I'm curious, now fast forward a little bit to where you are right now. Now since that moment, how has acquired grown and grown and and where's it going?
Nigel Sharp 24:55
Yeah, there's been a few key growth points, some moments along the along the way and I think So, for us, acqua has been a two sides to this, I think one side is really relevant is that recognizing that if you have a mission that other people can get behind, and very rarely can you inspire other people with a mission that is going to have an impact for the next 1000 generations. We've managed to draw and like have talent join us, that is like truly world class, passionate people that are driven by purpose, right. And the purpose to make water cleaner forever, right? Like this is this is something that is pretty unique as an opportunity, ready to get to work on any technology that's going to be around or have an impact for, you know, generation, never mind 1000 generations, right? Like, this is just what happens when you get to destroy wastes that are so prolific and harmful, right. So something really, really meaningful about that. And I think we've had moments along that journey, where we've been able to sort of demonstrate, you know, that this isn't just a lab scale technology. And I think that was a key moment for us when we moved out of the lab out of fume hood sized equipment and into our own like, you know, container based space where we, you know, we had this thing and it's ready for shipping container outside, plugged into the wall, and to go like, Oh, wait a minute, we've destroyed gallons, right measuring things in gallons, as opposed to milliliters was a was a real moment for us. And the other thing is that that system, going from a batch like small reaction like system where it's basically a pipe with a couple of spreads on it, where you know, you have a fixed volume, we do some processing to a continuous flowing system, which is actually a pipe that you're continuously pushing stuff through was another key moment because been able to show that we can continuously process and destroy PFS, and in one end goes constant concentrated contaminated PFS waste, and out the other end comes, you know, no pee fast, clean water and some safe sorts coming out the back end was a huge sort of like, you know, moment of like, oh, this thing works. And unfortunately, I wish it was like as exciting as you know, you get to turn it on. And then you see the thing dripping out the back. And going back to that we're done. Unfortunately, the reality of our work is you have to then take that sample, send it off to the lab, wait two or three weeks, and then you get like the most exciting moment actually at our in our work is often you get an email back from the lab with the results. And then you see like people sort of break out into like, the hurrah moment, right? That's all like NASA landing on the moon moment. And acquirer is the email comes in with the lab results going like we did it, you know, and we did it in a big way. Which is really funny, but it's kind of the reality of our award. It
Morgan Bailey 27:26
truly is, it truly is. Um, yeah, I'm gonna imagine everyone in the office, you know, jumping up at once, and
Nigel Sharp 27:36
the moments are some pretty, pretty, pretty cool, high fives around the team for sure. Like, where, where all that work goes into it, and you're not quite sure, you know, you have strong suspicions good hypotheses, right? We're never quite sure. And so you deal with it. And then, you know, the next key moments for us has just been in the sort of last year. So you know, where we've taken the system. And now we're getting beyond like the technical validation stage, to be able to then start doing project delivery and like working out on a real site and looking for real customers and real projects that's been sort of, you know, a world changing for our company, as well, in getting our systems out of our area and out of like, you know, the sort of constrained facilities out to a field, you know, and your specific biggest one that got made national press was I was taking our unit up to Fairbanks International Airport and Alaska, in a beautiful part of Alaska, you know, with this contaminated pit that they had there that would have caused problems potentially, for the community for many, many generations to come and be able to, like completely see that pit run dry, you know, by pumping it all out, and then destroying that PFS has been hugely, hugely uplifting for the whole team. So and knowing that it was a community, which makes the site which makes the story full circle is the same community that I worked at that university in Fairbanks, Alaska, having gone back to the same community that I used to work for, and like knowing that those are the people that you open serve, and then it's etc. has been hugely rewarding to sort of see that come full circle. Although we didn't destroy any sewage sludge into anything, it's energy. So
Morgan Bailey 29:04
I'm sure there's still opportunity in time for that in the future. How, what sort of volumes, are you talking about how you went from milliliters to gallons? What sort of volumes was the size of the customers that you're working with?
Nigel Sharp 29:18
Yeah, I mean moment, like on a larger scale system serves about, you know, honestly, it's scaled up big enough to like, serve about 80% of the market, like, you know, actually all systems now have hit like, industrial scale. May be a couple of you know, larger industries will need two or three systems gonna pair together, but we've actually sort of like already got to commercial scale sized units. What does that really mean? Well, it all comes down to like understanding a little bit P FeS and like concentrations and water and regulations and so it gets a bit nuanced here. I think it's important for folks listening though, that when we talk about PFS one of the things that makes this such a unique contaminant, is that in the smallest measurable amounts, this stuff is still shown to be potente She's dangerous and the health advisories and the regulations are coming in, in the single digits part per trillion realm, which we've rarely ever done for any other contaminant out there. parts per trillion is like one drop of this stuff in 20 Olympic sized swimming pools. So when we're having a process water, we're you know, we're, we're searching to destroy that one drop in those 20 Olympic sized swimming pools worth of water, right. And so the way that works isn't the run all of that through our system. But actually, you run all of that stuff, you run, you know, 200 Olympic sized swimming pools worth of water through, you know, through a filtration technology. So an activated carbon or an ion exchange resin or foam fractionation unit, and out of that, you'll be able to pull this five drops of PFS, right. And that five drops is what ends up going through our system. Right? Now the scales are working out, though, are in the millions of gallons, right with some of these industrial clients, they got millions of gallons to process. And in those millions of gallons, you end up with 10s of gallons, hundreds of gallons of concentrated waste that comes out of it, right concentrated filter waste, and that's what we're processing. So our systems, you know, one of our midsize system right now processes around 10 to 20 gallons an hour as an example. And that means that we can get through like a barrel of concentrated P first and just you know, two or three hours or in a day we can like process, you know, something more like, you know, three to 400 gallons a day like a totes worth of concentrated PFS in a day. But paired with one of those filtration technologies, we're now approaching, like dealing with hundreds of 1000s if not millions of gallons of waste water in a day. So
Morgan Bailey 31:39
I mean, there's we're talking about some big volumes there. I'm curious for for our listeners who are now hopefully not, you know, having a panic attack about all the pieces in their home. What advice do you would you have for consumers on how to reduce their exposure to PFAs?
Nigel Sharp 31:59
Yeah, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxies, keywords, don't panic, probably a good approach. But maybe mildly panic, right? Like, it's an approach you want to take here. Like with any of these contaminants, this is so funny. I talk to people all the time, and everyone's like, Oh, you know, well, something's gonna kill me, everything's gonna kill me. There's Everything's bad for me. Right? And so it's kind of a bit of an apathy, because it's almost like it's uncontrollable, what do we do, but there are things as consumers we can do. But there's also things as voters we can do. And then there's also things that we can demand of others responsible positions to do for us. What I will say, and I'm excited to say is that as I've got more engaged in the water and wastewater industry, what I will say the majority of people that I've met in this industry, are very much in it, because it's not a glamorous industry, it's dealing with people's waste, and water and stuff just isn't very glamorous. A lot of people are really dedicated towards providing people with safe and clean drinking water, you know, dealing with the waste safely and trying to find good ways to mitigate some of the challenges, sanitation challenges and public health challenges that come from those things. There's a lot of good people working on this, right. And they're driven by the regulations that are put upon them to try and meet certain standards. And yet, those standards can be very, very hard to meet with the budgets they have, because unfortunately, generally speaking, it's funny how many of us will spend a couple of bucks and happily spend a couple of bucks on a bottle of water when we're thirsty somewhere. But we will cough if we have to, like deal with a $20 water bill like, you know, a month for a frat house or something, right? Like, it's fascinating how we don't really value what a very highly we kind of expect this stuff to be clean, and perfect. And then you know, it's amazing how we use it, right? That will take drinking water level quality water in our houses, and then we'll flush it to use it to flush the toilet. Right. And so coming back to your question, Morgan, what can sort of average person do? Well, luckily, you know, you shouldn't have to do a whole lot, right, like in a normal situation, once something's identified to be toxic regulations will come about, and there will be regulations in place to try and drive your drinking water to become safe. And then the foods that are grown without water also become safe. And also the products that are containing these compounds to get removed from the shelves. The reality is that stuff takes a bit of time. And that's where I say mildly panic, in this process. So there's a time lag. And in depending on what state you live in, or where you're in the world you live in, obviously, these things roll out at different stages in different times. And so there are some things you can do that are probably more prominent than others. And I can I can, I mean, I'm happy to dive in. If you're interested. I'm interested, like, you know, more than what, what drove you to get rid of your nonstick pans. And like, what else are you thinking about doing now? Because I think that's, that's probably like, you know, where I would take this conversation, as opposed to one of the questions you have, you know, whatever changes you want to make. Yeah,
Morgan Bailey 34:46
well, that's, that's a great, it's a great question. So one thing that I'm just becoming aware of, because this conversation is just the ubiquity of it. And I'll admit, I didn't know it was in GoreTex. Now you say that I'm like, Yeah, that makes sense. Right? So I think part of it is its consumer being aware of where these films are? And are there ways that I can avoid other alternative products and to do a little bit of research, frankly, right on that, obviously, when it comes to certain things, particularly when it comes to ingesting food is is to be, because that, you know, that's the easiest way to get it in your body, both in terms of my water sources, and in terms of ingesting food, where are the most likely forms contamination that that's going to come in? You know, can I choose? Can I choose alternative products for that? And I'm just, I mean, all of us have not had nonstick pans, right? And a certain point, you see that, you know, a little NIC on the bottom of the pan or a scratch, you know, and just looking at that scene, like, Oh, God, that's that's probably my body somewhere still hanging out. I think those sorts of things that really, really prompted me. You know, obviously, what I'm curious about is like, where my greatest exposure is coming from? Obviously, thing a lot of us like, like nonstick pans are the obvious, like, the obvious thing that people are going to see. Right. But yeah, I guess my curiosity is where is our greatest level of exposure for beef is coming from.
Nigel Sharp 36:08
So a lot of studies out there right now, Consumer Reports put out some pretty good studies, The Guardian keeps posting stuff that's been stuff in just this last week. And so you know, you'll find new studies, it feels like almost weekly. Now, there's a new study coming out with PFS exposure from x y&z ingestion is definitely a big part of like how we buy accumulate and exposed to this. And so ingestion takes two parts, right water, and also the foods that we eat. And so the foods are grown in what is, you know, areas. And so what I'm glad to say is that a lot of like, plants and vegetables, luckily don't generally uptake a lot of the pee fast into them. And that's not universally true, most of them don't. So luckily, we don't get a whole lot of it through stuff that's grown out there. But unfortunately, like the meats that we do manage to accumulate it so like, you know, just this last week, there's been a big study on like pork and pork being a big factor of this. And in certain areas, like certain fish, which we already know about, like heavy metal exposure, they bioaccumulate. So certain, certain meats and seafood, definitely routes to exposure from the food side of things. And so what can we do, where we can make the water cleaner, because that's really where they're getting, you know, that all their exposure from. And so, a lot of it comes back to the water. And so I think as a consumer, being mindful that like, generally you're being served pretty safe and clean drinking water is very key. But you can go a step further and you can definitely thought of that. And the gold standard for filtration at a consumer level is reverse osmosis, sort of under the counter filtration systems. But there are also other filters out there now probably, you know, advertising PFS, you know, reduction. I know that like for example, the pure water filters are trying to do this, but I think zero water is putting a lot of their branding around the PFS free component that so that's, that's a brand and, and Britta filters, unfortunately, like you know, may or may not be that effective, simply because like the water flows through them too fast. I think they capture some of the PFS, just not as much of it. So there's definitely but you can have a water filtration front, but the products that we engage with and utilize, those are some of the ones that worry putting me the most some of the ones I've made personal choices around. Mostly what I'm gifting to other people now I'm very much more cognizant. So again, by accumulation if you're a young baby, right, and you're rolling around on stain proof fabrics and other things that have been promoted for that, like, you know, some sort of stain proof kid carpeting or something like that. Those kind of things. Why because you know, pee fast will flake off but you know, and kids will breed that stuff in and be putting themselves everywhere. So I worry about that kind of stuff. Right? I do worry about things like nonstick pans as well because we're we're taking PFS up to like higher temperatures, none of us use those pens properly. Like practically speaking, none of us ever use a nonstick pan on low to moderate heat, right? We always turn these things up maximum and heat them up. And then like we call them off afterwards when they start misbehaving. And so we see that and unfortunately, like I think that's a challenge. I got a bit paranoid about my air fryer and not so long ago like you know, he's air fryer is running at temperatures that will you know, absolutely, I can tell you from experience that will absolutely volatilized PFS off of the surfaces with a 400 degree. You know, temperatures on these air fryers like that stuff worries me, right, a contained environment where you just like spray palletizing foods, how much pee first you have in your total airfryer. It's tiny amounts, but again, potential routes for like ingestion and concerns. So you know, I switched to get an on stainless steel one because I didn't want to have like the nonstick component to it. It's things you can do another consumer fronts, but I'm also really excited to see what the companies are doing. Morgan like to respond to you like the companies like REI and Patagonia, announcing big public emissions that they're going to get rid of p versus their entire product lines, all within the coming couple of years and they're very close to getting there already is really exciting, right? Like so as an outdoor person, you know, you don't have to worry about cortex that are safer alternatives coming about and we do have alternatives to a lot of these types of applications. But if you're a firefighter and yes They're working in an airport haven't put out like, you know, airport fires, there's still a very real risk that you're going to have to like, you know, fight a fire with like, you know, heavily induced pee fast firefighting foams. And the real risks there are like, you know, make sure you're wearing the proper PPE and like taking the decontamination seriously. And that stuff is like education that is getting put out there. But it's, you know, there's real risks for obviously, some people in certain industries through exposure. Yeah,
Morgan Bailey 40:23
absolutely. Unfortunately, this is this is the way of progress in a sense, like we have to have, you know, I don't know if we have to, but you know, it's, it's the sequence we take of failing, figuring out what what things are harmful, and ultimately phasing them out, and hopefully not replacing them with something else that is equally as harmful. So, as you know, really grateful for this conversation, I feel consuming or knowledgeable, perhaps a little more mild panic. And think I'm gonna go raid my closet after we talk. It's a couple more questions as we come into close here. One, I'm curious for any, you've mentored a lot of companies. You've worked with a lot and a lot of people and leaders in the impact space. What advice do you have for impact leaders out there anyone interested in becoming an impact leader within the business space, I
Nigel Sharp 41:18
think to see not come in, I think the biggest advice I probably taken on is that sometimes you have folks that come in, and they try and promote just some sort of utopian idealism around some sort of impacts they want to achieve and have and lose sight of sometimes the business value there. So like, you know, impact often makes good business sense, right. And sometimes you come across, like, you know, things like Quagga, where, you know, our direct work has direct and positive social and environmental impact. Great. That isn't always the case, though. And so therefore, not too convoluted, like, you know, that running a business that, you know, gives people good, well, paying jobs, and, you know, can hopefully can contribute towards the community, in itself is a level of impact that is very notable and very noteworthy in itself, adding in some additional values around that, and the things that you care about, and the trade offs you want to make, as far as, like, the development and delivery of products or services becomes really relevant in that realm as well. And so it's just like, you know, being intentional around impact is like, kind of the key piece of advice here, right? There's some intentionality, but not to go into it with this, you know, high hope of like, Oh, we're gonna do everything perfectly, because, you know, I would be lying if I said that a quote that doesn't ever utilize a plastic bottle, or doesn't like contribute towards any other types of waste, or like, you know, that we are completely an environmentally friendly company. Simply because, like I call impact work is what drives us right now. And as we can kind of improve on his other pieces, it's great. And sometimes people just set a really, really hard and high bar for themselves, where you have to work competitively in a market, right. And so the marketplace is in itself competitive. And if you can create a competitive advantage around some of that impact consumers out there much to your point, reading, closets, looking for buy alternative products will make choices and their opportunities in that realm. But also, if you can solve problems, they're going to have social and environmental consequences. Pick some of the biggest problems out there, you know, challenges around housing, or water, or food security, or whatever else it might be. You know, there are industries and organizations that want to pay to help get this problem solved and like make the make the world and our civilization a better and healthier place.
Morgan Bailey 43:39
Thanks. Sounds very, very sound advice. As we move in here. Close. Last couple questions for you around. What are your asking offers that you might have for audience? Either, it could be another piece of advice could be a call to action or any form of offer? Yeah,
Nigel Sharp 44:01
I think my asked everyone, broadly speaking, is to not get so disenfranchised by the thing. I think one of the things I'm most inspired by, by being an entrepreneur and an impact entrepreneur, is that there are a generation of new entrepreneurs out there wanting to do good by doing business. And that you can be part of that, too. And so then when you hear about something as prolific as horrible as PFS, so not go like, Oh, my God, he has another terrible reason why, you know, greed and corporate culture is bad, but to instead tell the positive story of like, okay, we've made mistakes, but we're now able to sort of start working towards a better and cleaner and more productive future and to feel part of that mission. I mean, if I could get everybody on this podcast and listen in and go like, yeah, if this other guy can randomly walk into the water industry and suddenly be, you know, helping run a company in that space, so could I and what we're, as far as the generational challenge right now is maybe one of the biggest ones that we Gonna space, you know, across the whole of humanity, and therefore bring your skills and bring your talents and like, you know, engage in these industries that are, you know, working towards the betterment of humankind be it in the food space, or the water space or, you know, dealing with these challenges around housing or climate change, or whatever else it might be. You can engage in these industries and you don't have to be doing that that's my ask is right, you know, take your effort and your time that you have in your days and like try and engage in these positive pieces. That's how it gets done incrementally, day by day, little steps, and we make a make a positive difference and change. And my offer is very much likewise, I still continue to mentor and engage in programs and therefore if someone is inspired, wants to go down that journey is looking for resources or places to start. I'm always happy to try and be a guidepost guideposts and like, you know, easy to reach out to me, I get people to reach out to me all the time on LinkedIn, or via email, and just say like, look, this is where I am. I'm looking for resources, XY and Z. And I think I can probably point you in a good direction if I can't help myself. So
Morgan Bailey 46:01
Nigel really appreciate that, that those those offers and and those asks there. And just generally appreciate the size of the problem that you're tackling. As a former water engineer myself, I appreciate the challenges that you're facing. And you know, the benefits, I think, for all of us, as well as the leadership that you're showing with our organizations. So just honestly, just really appreciate your putting out the world. And thanks for taking the time for this conversation.
Nigel Sharp 46:30
Thank you, Morgan. It's been great.
Morgan Bailey 46:32
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