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Available on Apple and Spotify.
In this episode of Imagine If, we sit down with Amanda Runkel, founder of Me Mother Earth, a company built on one simple idea: Small, everyday changes can create real impact.
Amanda shares how a single product, a collapsible straw, grew into a mission-driven business helping households reduce plastic in practical, approachable ways. But this conversation goes deeper than products.
We explore the hidden ways plastic shows up in our daily lives, from dental floss to packaging, and how those exposures impact not just the planet, but also our health.
You’ll also hear an honest take on what sustainability looks like in real life, from running a business to navigating motherhood, and why “progress over perfection” isn’t just a phrase, it’s a necessity.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The surprising health implications of everyday plastic use
- How to identify greenwashing (and shop more intentionally)
- Why reusable and sustainable products often cost more, and why they matter
- Simple, high-impact swaps for your kitchen, bathroom, and daily routine
- The role of small businesses in driving environmental change
- How to think about sustainability without getting overwhelmed
About Amanda Runkle
Amanda Runkle is the founder of Me Mother Earth, a company born from a simple but powerful realization: that our daily habits have a profound impact on the future of our planet. Alongside her husband, Amanda launched the brand in 2018 to solve a problem we desperately need to address: the crisis of single-use plastic.
Meet the Hosts:
- Janet Kraus: I’m Janet, a serial start-up founder and CEO, twin-girl mom, and wife to a fun and funny guy. I am on a mission to build healthier thinking in young people, stop toxic division, spotlight hopeful climate action, and advocate for safe AI.
- Ally Giebutowski: I’m Ally, a freshman at Lafayette College. I believe that a sustainable life is a happier life and that human connection is at the heart of it all. Every day, I try to weave greener, more intentional living into every part of my life, whether that’s in the college classroom, in the kitchen, or through meaningful conversations with others.
Transcript
Victoria Riskin: Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Bluedot Living podcast. I’m Victoria Riskin, and I’m the founder of Bluedot Living. Here on Imagine If, we’re telling stories of people who are living a healthier and more sustainable life, because so many people are.
Ally Giebutowski: I'm really excited about today's podcast and today's guest because this guest specifically brought me back to when I was a kid and I was first getting into the environmental world and understanding the big issues of the plastic problem. You know, as a kid you have high expectations for what you can do, and your mind is bringing you to places of ambition. I had this idea as a kid that I single-handedly could fix the problem, or at least come up with the idea to fix the problem, and that was to take a giant plane and giant nets and go into the ocean and grab all the plastic, then chop it up really small and put it back into the soil.
That's not entirely how we go about the issue, but there are people in the world just like myself with big ideas and big imaginations who are changemakers and want to see real change in this issue. That brings me to our guest today. This is Amanda Runkle. She is the founder of a brilliant company called Me Mother Earth. The company strives to make a plastic-free world, and while it started with the collapsible straw kit, it has become so much more. So, I am personally excited to dive in, and I know the inner child in me is just as excited to see how other changemakers in the world have answered the plastic problem. Without further ado, welcome, Amanda.
Amanda Runkle: Hi. Thanks for having me.
Ally Giebutowski: So, just jumping right in. I would love for you to take us back to that moment when Me Mother Earth was born — to that moment where you asked the very same questions that I was asking myself as a young girl. What do we do about all this plastic? Take it away.
Amanda Runkle: My husband and I started our company in 2018, and we were really looking for a change in our lifestyle. We wanted more freedom to work for ourselves. And so we came upon the idea to start an e-commerce business, even though we didn't know anything about that. But I didn't want to just sell stuff that doesn't have any kind of meaning. I wanted to sell something that people need and that will solve a problem we so desperately need to solve in the world right now.
Our first product was a collapsible straw kit because my husband and I love to travel. We've been all over the world, and just doing some little thing everywhere we go is something that's so attainable, that everybody can do. So we started with that product. We don't really sell it anymore, sadly.
Janet Kraus: It's all right. Sometimes you pivot from the first product.
Amanda Runkle: We'll relaunch it. Yeah, maybe we'll relaunch it again in the next year or so. But it was a collapsible straw and cutlery set that fits in your pocket. It is TSA-friendly; you could take it anywhere you go and do just a little bit every single day to reduce plastic waste. From there, it just kind of snowballed. It always starts with one thing that you notice and that you can easily do, and then you see all these things in your house that you want to switch out yourself. At the time that we started in 2018, I felt like there weren't a lot of options readily available. Now there are because people are jumping on the trend of solving the plastic crisis, but there's a lot of greenwashing out there. We can talk about that later.
But yeah, from there we launched bamboo toothbrushes and refillable floss that is biodegradable. Just every single year, we're like, “What other solution can we offer — that I need myself — to the public at an affordable, attainable price so that more people can jump on board with reducing plastic in their lives?” As you mentioned, it's not just for reducing the waste that's in the ocean, but it also benefits our health and our livelihood too. So not only just the health of the planet, but the health of our bodies.
Janet Kraus: Yeah.
Ally Giebutowski: Absolutely. It's an everyone problem, and it's an everyone issue. I'm curious, in those first years, you started with one product and you shared it with the world at craft fairs, which is really cool. I'm curious if you could just tell us a little bit about those early face-to-face conversations. How were people struggling when it came to reducing single-use plastic?
Amanda Runkle: I am originally from Washington state. It's a lot more eco-minded. I mean, everybody recycles. We have compost bins for yard waste and things like that. I think the bag ban was a million years ago there.
Janet Kraus: You've always been way ahead of the curve.
Amanda Runkle: I grew up using reusable bags, and then I moved to Las Vegas. Here it's just a very new concept for a lot of people. When you start an e-commerce business, it's not just like a million people are going to your website instantly. So you have to get your name out there. Our product, unfortunately, doesn't just sell itself to this community. There's a lot of education needed because people are like, “Why would I need that? Why would I spend $7 on this item versus this item I can get for $2 at the grocery store?” First off, it involves sustainable material, sustainable packaging, and it's made sustainably. We make sure there are fair wages along the manufacturing process. All those little costs add up, but also when you switch to a reusable product or a more sustainable product, they typically last longer, depending on what it is.
Ally Giebutowski: That is exactly leading into the next question that I was curious about. You talk about how there are all these problems that we have in our kitchens and our bathrooms and our cleaning closets. What are some of your favorite examples of things that someone wouldn't think they can swap out to be more sustainable and also benefit their health? What are some of your favorite examples of products that you have?
Amanda Runkle: Yeah, our oral care line, because our dental floss is one of our No. 1 sellers.
Janet Kraus: I just learned, I literally just learned, that dental floss is yet another source. I didn't think of it ever.
Amanda Runkle: Yeah, most typical dental floss — well, I mean, you get it free from the dentist most of the time so you're just using up that stuff — but you're literally scraping plastic in between your teeth every time you floss and then ingesting it.
Janet Kraus: Right, straight into your gums. I mean.
Amanda Runkle: Yes, exactly.
Janet Kraus: Making them slightly bloody and it's absorbing those microplastics.
Amanda Runkle: Yeah.
Ally Giebutowski: Oh yeah.
Amanda Runkle: Just swallowing that. Regarding our oral care line, like our dental floss.
Janet Kraus: What is your dental floss made of?
Amanda Runkle: It's made out of bamboo charcoal fiber.
Janet Kraus: Oh!
Ally Giebutowski: Bamboo sounds like a really good product. Bamboo fixes everything.
Amanda Runkle: Yeah, it's super sustainable. It's grass, so it's actually super fast-growing. Unlike trees and wood, which are a sustainable material, but they absorb carbon if they're alive. If you chop that down, you know … and it takes them a long time to grow, but bamboo is really fast-growing and completely compostable, so it's a great material to work with.
We have a lot of products made of bamboo, including our toothbrushes. Even our bristles are castor oil instead of petroleum-based, so they're bio-based bristles. These are things that you're using literally in your mouth every single day, so just reducing the toxins that come from the plastic and the microplastics that would be in your mouth is important. Now we just launched toothpaste tablets, which are absolutely amazing. So just like your whole morning routine, you can make it plastic-free and toxin-free. It's something you do from the time that you're a baby and have your first teeth to the end of your life twice a day, and that is so impactful. Think about all the packaging that comes from oral care products, too. It's not just the product itself, but all the packaging waste. All of our packaging is craft paper, compostable and recyclable.That's a huge impact. If everyone made those little switches, what kind of impact would we have on the planet?
Ally Giebutowski: We're all about that here at Bluedot, for sure. All the little things we can be doing in our days. I'm curious as well: Your mission centers on helping people to #StopPlastic, and you embrace the idea of progress, not perfection. This is huge because people get so overwhelmed by the idea that every moment of their life has to be perfect, or it's nothing. There's a spectrum, and you're showing that. I'm curious, what does that philosophy look like in practice for your everyday human, your everyday household?
Amanda Runkle: Well, it ebbs and flows, right? Motherhood was very humbling. This past year, I have a little one who is almost one, and I know I've consumed a lot more plastic than I normally would. I do cloth diapers, and I do what I can, but sometimes it's just survival to get through the day. I understand everybody else is going through their own journeys. It's just about recognizing the little things that we can do. It's not an all-or-nothing mentality. We can do little things every single day that have a huge impact on our health, on our bodies, and on our home, which is this planet that we all share. We can't get hung up on being perfect because nobody is. I go through waves where I'm like, “Oh, I'm only going to bulk shop. I'm going to get all my grains and everything not in a package.” Right now, it's just like, “I'm going to go to Costco and the bulk shop.”
Janet Kraus: The thing that gives me such hope is that all innovation starts with little companies. What we're discovering as we do these conversations is that the problems that you've solved, someone else is solving another problem. As little companies become medium companies because we buy from them, then they become big companies. I just talked to a woman who started a company called Kent, and she just had a baby, too. She's making incredibly organic underwear. She said, “I couldn't find an organic nursing bra.” So now they're making a nursing bra because until she had that problem, she didn't even think of that problem.
Amanda Runkle: Yeah, it's not all or nothing, but we can vote with our dollars and choose sustainable if we have that option. That's why I feel like Mother Earth has been such a huge asset for myself and my home because now we have all these products that I can go shop in my own store and fill my house. Those are things that I don't have to worry about. I already know that they're good, they're going to work, and they are safe for my family and myself.
Janet Kraus: Yeah. Well, you know, it's also interesting. You were just talking about how these products are right at your fingertips. But I'm having another thought about this, which is that I'm always the person who is looking for unique and different gifts to give people, and I like surprises. You would never give people a toothbrush — that would be weird — but you could give them an oral care product.
Amanda Runkle: Yeah.
Janet Kraus: It's coming with so much intention and meaning, like, “I love you and I want your health to be better,” and you're helping kickstart someone's new practice.
Amanda Runkle: Absolutely. I mean, I do it with my family too. My 92-year-old grandmother loves our silicone bowl covers. I don't think she really knows or cares about plastic pollution, but she likes those because they function well.
Janet Kraus: And you can feel good giving them.
Amanda Runkle: Yes, exactly. There are things that I have gifted family members. I think if they reach for convenience, maybe our biodegradable floss picks are a better fit for them. So I sent those to my dad. I just want him to use a healthier option for the planet.
Janet Kraus: Yeah, and for himself.
Amanda Runkle: He would never buy them for himself.
Janet Kraus: I know it went from one product to 15, to a couple hundred. You personally test all of them. What does testing look like? How do you decide what is at the level of quality for Me Mother Earth? What are your criteria?
Amanda Runkle: Well, fair labor and fair wages. Usually certifications, like if the manufacturer has certifications such as GOTS for cotton. They have to be GOTS organic cotton for anything that is cotton. Just the pesticide used with cotton — cotton is a really dirty crop, if you don't already know. So we try to do organic cotton. I try to ask for information on the labor. Bamboo doesn't really need to be organic; it's already a crop that doesn't use pesticides in its growth. It's already a fast-growing crop; you don't need pesticides to make it grow faster, it just grows like crazy. And then just: Do I like it? Do I like to use it? Will I use it in my home? Does this solve a problem, or is this just something similar to something we already sell?
Janet Kraus: I did want to ask a question. You had brought it up earlier: greenwashing.
Amanda Runkle: Oh, yeah.
Ally Giebutowski: Oh yeah. I learned just recently that sometimes that little triangle with three arrows that people say is a recyclable symbol — sometimes you're allowed to just slap that on there for decoration. I was a little upset about that, and I felt a little blindsided. I was like, “Oh, I thought this was actually something that I was doing in my day to help the world,” but it's not always the case. So this is a big issue: greenwashing in our everyday lives.
Amanda Runkle: I think the recycle symbol is not actually a recycle symbol in most plastics; it's actually a plastic identifying symbol. That's what gets really tricky, too, because it just tells you the type of plastic that product is, but it's not necessarily recyclable. I know one, two, and fives are recyclable in my local area, but that differs across the board.
Janet Kraus: Everywhere you go.
Amanda Runkle: Yeah, everywhere you go. So it can be really complicated.
Janet Kraus: So what are the top three things the regular person should look out for? What should you look at and think, “Yeah, that's greenwashing”?
Amanda Runkle: A lot of huge corporations started to just change their packaging to green and brown, but they didn't actually change the product inside. It's a completely plastic product inside, but the packaging is just kind of green and brown, so it makes you think that it's eco-conscious.
Janet Kraus: Interesting. I’ve seen that a lot, actually. Now that you say it, I do see a lot of green and brown packaging.
Amanda Runkle: Yeah, you can get really in-depth with it. Follow the money: Who owns this brand? If this huge corporation starts launching a more sustainable product, I don't know if they're trying to jump on the bandwagon or if they're actually trying to make sustainable swaps within their corporation. So, who owns that company is one thing to look out for. That's a little bit more in-depth. But if you're just in the grocery aisle, I would just say check out the packaging. I know we use “eco-friendly” a lot on our packaging, and it is obviously eco-friendly, but a lot of companies will just throw that out there and say “eco” in front, like it's an “eco-tool,” but nothing about it is sustainable, or it's just made from recycled plastic, which is really doing the bare minimum.
Janet Kraus: OK. So you also said early on that you never just wanted to be about selling stuff. Ally and I were doing our homework, and on your website, you have a variety of different initiatives that you support and organizations. Can you just tell us about that part of your company's mission for us?
Amanda Runkle: Well, we are a cause partner with 5 Gyres. They are science-based, so they do a lot of data collection. They have this “Plastic Free Parks” initiative, where they have an app called TrashBlitz. You download the app TrashBlitz, and if you're going on a hike in a national park this summer and you're picking up trash, you can actually log every piece of trash or litter that you picked up by a corporation. So it holds corporations accountable for the waste that they are inevitably creating that's ending up in our public lands. They're science-based, so they do a lot. I think they just sent one of their scientists to Antarctica to check to see if there are microplastics in our glaciers in Antarctica, to see if they've made it that far. And of course, spoiler alert, there are. So we're partners with them, and they're a small team. They do such wonderful things, and they're really trying to get policy change. So we love them.
Ally Giebutowski: I love examples like that because that shows that the CEO or the people who had that idea were once children who had this ambition and this imagination, and they actually made that a possibility. I love hearing examples like that because I'm reminded there's an inner child in there that's like, “There's a problem we need to solve.” And they did that. I think that's so cool.
Amanda Runkle: Yeah, and they're a great team of people who just really care about the planet, too, which is awesome. It feels really good being able to donate to them. We were partners with Repurpose Global; they do initiatives around the globe for waste management. It's about preventing the plastic from going into the ocean because, in the U.S., we ship all of our plastic waste to other underdeveloped nations. Most of it's not getting recycled; it's getting shipped elsewhere to become someone else's problem. And those nations get a little bit of money for it, so they're like, “OK, cool, we'll take it,” and then it becomes an issue because they don't have proper waste management. They don't necessarily have trash collectors everywhere. The Repurpose Global initiative that we are particularly sponsoring right now creates waste workers, and they literally create jobs for people in that area to collect and dispose of waste properly, which is something that we need around the world to really prevent plastic from entering the ocean.
Janet Kraus: We were both talking earlier about sort of the personal side of the Me Mother Earth story.
Ally Giebutowski: Yeah. I'm curious. I know that you started this company with your husband, and so now that you've had this baby, I'm curious, how has that changed your commitment to this problem? How do you see that in growing up for your child, to grow up in a plastic-free household?
Amanda Runkle: Well, it makes me realize even more how big of a problem it is because now I have toys and all these things that he's literally putting in his mouth. I'm really concerned about the health aspect. I don't know if you guys have watched the documentary The Plastic Detox, but it really goes into our health. It's one of the first documentaries that I think really talks about how endocrine-disrupting plastic is to our bodies. Especially since I have a little boy, I think about his future. Is he going to have difficulty having a family? And what can I do? Because there's carpet in my house, he crawls on the floor. How do I reduce his exposure to these things that I don't really have control of? I'm not just going to rip out all my flooring.
Janet Kraus: Yeah, no, exactly. We actually did it. We were lucky enough that we actually interviewed the director, so you can check out our podcast on that. And we also got to interview one of the couples. You're right to be thinking about all these things because as you start to think about all the things in your house that are plastic, it does make you think about how you can incrementally make more swaps. Because there is carpet now that's out there that is made with other things. Not that you're looking to change your carpet today, but when that does come to be a thing, there are more alternatives. And I do think that with what you're doing and everyone is doing more of the connection between the environmental effects and the health effects that will force change. As we push that more and more as a part of the benefit, that will create more change faster.
Amanda Runkle: Yeah. When it affects you personally and your health personally, then it's personal. Then you have to start doing things and taking steps. Hopefully, that documentary opens people's eyes. Hopefully, people that need to see it will watch it.
Ally Giebutowski: Yes.
Janet Kraus: It's sort of like how An Inconvenient Truth brought our eyes open to the fact that the climate was changing. I think that documentary is bringing awareness.
Amanda Runkle: I stopped eating beef after that documentary, and then I went vegan after The Game Changers. Documentaries can literally change your life and your outlook on life. So I hope everybody watches that. If you haven't watched it, watch it.
Ally Giebutowski: One of our first podcasts was with Adam Leipzig, and he was an incredible storyteller. He had all of these incredible ideas, and we talked about how important storytelling is in the climate movement and making issues relatable to everyone.
Amanda Runkle: Yeah. And hopefully more and more people are going to start moving toward making those changes.
Janet Kraus: And that's what all of this is about. Like you started with “progress, not perfection.” If we all make little changes, if we all begin to understand this, it's about changing the zeitgeist. I mean, there was a day when people smoked and nobody thought a thing about it, right? And then the zeitgeist changed because we realized it wasn't just a stinky habit, it was killing us. And so this is basically the same as that. So I want to say — and I know Ally feels the same way — thank you for what you're doing. I know for you it's freedom and it's the way to live your life, but it's part of the movement, and every single part of the movement is needed.
Ally Giebutowski: So, at the end of all of our podcasts here at Bluedot, we like to ask a final question. That question comes in the form of a prompt. It starts with the idea: imagine if. And then you insert the world in which your values that you've brought to your company or your life reframe the world that we're living in today. So it would go, “Imagine if…”, and you can take it away.
Amanda Runkle: All right. Imagine if everybody cared about the environment. Imagine if you went to the beach and there's not a single piece of trash because if there was trash, people would pick it up and dispose of it properly. Imagine if everybody cared enough that we had clean air, clean water, and trees everywhere. What would our world look like? I think we would be a lot more compassionate for one another in addition to our planet, because we were really caring about this place we call home. I think that would be a beautiful world.
Ally Giebutowski: Beautiful. Because just to add on to that, if we care about our Earth, the place where we all live, we are inherently caring for each other, because this is our only Earth, and we all live on it together. I think that's beautiful. I think that just heightens the compassion that we have for each other in heightening our care for the Earth. So thank you so much, Amanda.
Amanda Runkle: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Ally Giebutowski: I loved talking to you. I loved talking to you with my mom. I love the entrepreneurial side that you guys have, and it's really, truly inspiring for what I could possibly do with my life and how I could satisfy that inner child and that imagination and her ambition to fix huge problems the way that you've been doing. So thank you.
Amanda Runkle: Thank you so much.
Victoria Riskin:Thank you for joining us on Imagine If from Bluedot Living. If you want to explore our recipes, products for your home and lifestyle, and read interesting stories, you can find us at bluedotliving.com. And for daily inspiration, you can follow us at Bluedot Living on Instagram. If you enjoyed this conversation, share it and please add your thoughts in the comments on YouTube. I’m Victoria Riskin, and we’ll be back next week with more stories from great people doing amazing things in their little corner of the planet.
