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Did you know that 91% of plastic is not recycled, most of it languishing and landfill where it will take more than 400 years to degrade? Well for one man, Josh White and his two friends it was a holiday to Thailand that drove home the extent of the world's plastic problem when they came across a remote beach covered in it and that they decided to start a side hustle called Cano Water recyclable and reusable can of water which they hope can be part of the solution. Fast forward a few years and then now a multi ��1, 000,000 business are backing from Ricky Gervais Canal water. Co-founder Josh White joins me in the studio. Josh, it's a great story. Thanks so much for coming in. Thank you for having me. I've, I've had a, you know, I've been on beaches in Bali, in Indonesia and seeing the same thing, the plastic washing up, you know, from the seats, absolutely horrifying. I think one question a lot of viewers will have to we see cans of water now is why are cans better? So cans are infinitely recyclable. They're actually the most recyclable material on the planet. And 75% of all aluminum produced in the 1800s is just still in circulation. So one of our Cano water cans could be a Coke. And in 60 days and then Red Bull afterwards, and it's just in constant circulation, whereas unfortunately plastic, it breaks down and it reaches the end of its life cycle. So I mean, we all use, even those of us who carry around big sort of bottles of reusable water, which are quite fashionable now, these big Stanley Cups and everything else, you're often caught short on a train or something. You think I need to get some water. And so you might start seeing more canned water than bottled water in terms of where the business idea came to you from Thailand. Talk to me about that journey from the beach to an office basically, for sure. So that's actually why we started the business. So in 2014, me and my two best friends, Ariel and Perry, went on a trip to Thailand and just came across a huge amount of plastic pollution and just couldn't believe that brands that we grew up loving were ending up on, you know, the other side of the, you know, the planet. Ending up on beaches that we that were pristine, beaches that we loved. And I think that we did some digging and saw that we weren't the only people that were talking about it, mainly environmentalists. We weren't environmentalists. Just sort of three people that saw something and came up with the idea after reading copious amounts of research that said that aluminum is the most recyclable. And in 2016 we were the first people in the world to put water in a can, which was a pretty scary. And we launched with Selfridges who actually removed all of their plastic offering from the shelves in the UK. Wow, that is a big development in terms of being an environmentalist. Would you say you are one now? I don't drink any plastic. I haven't drunk plastic for many, many years And I think that, you know, I always say that. Probably part of the problem, whereas now I'm sort of, I would say part of the solution. I'm completely in love with trying to do good. And I think, you know, the team that we have is on the same mission to just try and remove as much plastic as possible by offering recyclable alternatives. And cans are definitely the, you know, the best one well. So you captured the attention of Selfridges. You also captured the attention of Ricky Gervais indeed. Tell us, tell us about that. So yeah, I think Ricky, you know, if he talks about, you know. Different, especially on on his new Netflix show, he talks about, you know, helping the planet. He obviously is a big animal lover and he was just someone that saw the brand. We were introduced to him and you know, he doesn't invest in a lot of things. And this was something that he became completely in love with and and and invested in the brand, which was super exciting for us and just showed that, you know, we weren't the only ones who believe in the, you know, that cans are better for the planet. When you were thinking about investors. I bet you didn't think we could devise. In this segment on the show we call the C-Suite, we like to speak to CEOs and cofounders and get a bit of business advice for them and learn their journey. Talk to us a little bit about your career journey to cofounder and marketing director these days. But as a young man, you are still a young man. But as a younger man, did you ever see yourself doing this? No. I always say that if I was going to write a book, it would be called The Accidental Entrepreneur because I definitely wasn't the type of individual that I didn't. Believe that I could end up where I am now. You know, I suffer severely with ADHD. I always have. You know I didn't excel in school. I was always sort of more creative. I always sort of went down the unconventional routes on the DJI, been DJing for many, many years, did all over the world and done some incredible things and you know can of water sort of fell in our lap and you know doing something that is mission led, purpose led and is sort of driven by purpose and authenticity of something that I've always wanted to do. I'm a massive advocate for helping and doing good, so I think that no, I didn't really think that this was my my route, but it it has been and I'm I'm completely in love and it's what I sort of get up for everyday and it's something that I can see myself doing forever. What has been your best day in business so far? One of my best days was seeing David Attenborough hold the the product. So in 2018 we were very close to, you know, to bankruptcy. The business wasn't doing very well and we brought in a managing director who basically said that we had six months before we run out of money and BBC and David Attenborough did Blue Planet and overnight we went from selling a few 100,000 cans in a few years to 12 million in 2019, which was absolutely crazy, so. Seeing David Attenberg actually hold a can. He's the catalyst really for this whole business and was something that was incredible and also like launching in Tesco. But the actually the best thing really is just seeing the general public walk around with cans. You know, it's just it's a it's a feeling that it will never ever, you know, it will never disappear. The the sort of the excitement of that you must see it go. That's one of mine. I corrected that. Josh White, cofounder, marketing director, Cano Water, thank you so much.