Director of Portsmouth based company “Turtle Straws” paves the way for environmental entrepreneurship
With the coastal city vastly changing year-by-year whether from innovative urban planning to eccentric spaces popping up. It’s fair to say the landscape of Portsmouth and Southsea is somewhat transitioning into a hub for “go-getters and creatives”.
Being the change he wanted to see in the world, the former biomedical student Alex Bruce had left pursuing a career in medicine to become an advocate for environmental action.
April 2018 saw Alex initiate the start-up “Turtle Straws” with the first goal in mind, to produce sustainable drinking straws for the hospitality sector and beyond.
In a conversation with Alex, he hadn’t considered himself to be an entrepreneur but simply wanted to do something that he felt needed to be done. Turtle Straws raises the question of how sustainable paper straws actually are. Yes, they solve the problem of plastics in marine life habitats but also draw emphasis on the increasing concern of deforestation.
Recently, Alex had the honour of being a guest speaker at the University of Portsmouth Hult Prize impact summit. The summit included the best and brightest globally, in the challenge to create environmentally viable and sustainable methods for food waste.
When asked about how Turtle Straws differentiates itself from other organizations/company with similar approaches Alex said: The messages are all the same, you must do this, why are you still doing that.
Did you know that… nobody cares, my approach has just been to encourage people to make small changes to their lives that they can maintain and bring as many people who might not have thought about what they are doing and their impact on the environment into the fold as possible.
