- If you're anything like me,
you've been drinking quite a few Quarantinis
while stuck inside social distancing
because of the coronavirus.
Well according to the World Health Organization,
ethanol, the type of drinking alcohol that's found in vodka,
can also be used at a way higher concentration
for hand sanitizer,
and during this crisis some liquor companies
have made the pivot to making hand sanitizer.
And I was curious how this worked,
so I've decided to reach out to Air Co,
a company that has already made the pivot
from liquor to thousands of bottles of sanitizer.
They view themselves as a technology company,
making products that are sustainable
and carbon negative.
I'm Lucy Biggers and this is One Small Step.
I got to interview Air Co's CEO and co-founder,
Greg Constantine, about how the company pivoted so quickly
from making vodka to hand sanitizer.
And how their process is carbon negative.
How did you guys change your production
when you realized the coronavirus was hitting New York?
- About a month ago we really saw
this pandemic getting progressively worse,
not only in the U.S. but globally.
We made a conscious decision internally in our business,
said, hey, do we have the ability to switch
our production method to actually make it,
one, yes.
Two, is this something that we want to do
and we have the ability to do?
And because we have the ability to do it,
it was almost a no-brainer decision
to actually go ahead and do it
because we knew it was gonna get progressively worse
and eventually it did,
and any small part that we can kind of help
along this road, especially in New York,
given that we are a New York business,
made just, makes sense for us to do,
and here we are.
So yeah, it was a pretty seamless transition.
- And who are you giving your hand sanitizer to?
- Trying to work with those that are really
at the front lines and that really you know,
need it most as well,
because again, unfortunately,
we're unable to create infinite amounts of this stuff,
so trying to be sparing with
it is a big piece of the puzzle.
- And what extra ingredients do you need
to do hand sanitizer versus a vodka?
- They're different, so you know,
hand sanitizer as per the guidelines,
there's some other ingredients that you need
like you know glycerol as well
and hydrogen peroxide as well,
which is another small and they're inactive ingredients,
the only active ingredient is really ethanol
that you put in there.
For vodka on the other hand,
you know ethanol makes up about 40% of the bottle, right,
and the rest is mostly water.
- So what is Air Co?
- We're a technology company based here
in New York City, in the heartland,
and we have technology to make the highest quality
consumer products from carbon dioxide,
and our first product was a vodka product,
and now we're making a little bit of hand sanitizer as well.
- You're making products from carbon dioxide,
which I work in climate change
and cover sustainability,
so I'm like, oh my gosh, what, what is this?
Can you explain how this technology works?
- We take CO2, we take carbon dioxide,
and that carbon dioxide is actually captured
off of traditional alcohol production methods,
so when you traditionally make, you know,
over the fermentation process,
there's a lot of emissions that come with that,
so we take the CO2 that comes off the back of that,
before it's emitted into the atmosphere
and it's delivered to us and we use that CO2
in our warehouse here in Brooklyn,
and we convert the CO2 combined with hydrogen,
and the reaction that's caused creates ethanol,
and we take that ethanol which is a type of alcohol,
and we apply it to various consumer products.
- That sounds super complicated,
so just to reiterate their process,
Air Co takes carbon dioxide from a nearby factory,
then using electricity,
they separate water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Then they combine the carbon dioxide and the hydrogen
to make ethanol, and then they use that ethanol
in their vodka.
they manufacture.
What makes you guys special
that you figured this out?
- A big difference about what separates us apart
is that we're removing CO2
in our alcohol production process, right?
When you traditionally make alcohol,
you're fermenting corn and grain
and there's an abundance of emissions that come
even just from the fertilizer alone,
We're not using any land at all.
Our alcohol is made just from CO2,
so for every bottle of CO2 in our life cycle analysis
that we're creating, we're removing about a pound
of carbon dioxide for every bottle that we create.
There's no other inputs other than renewable solar
electricity, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen
that we create on site as well.
It can absolutely be used industry wide,
and our goal is to really show people
that it can be as well.
- Is that something that you guys enterprised yourself,
to come up with this idea of like creating vodka?
- Technologies like this have existed for a long, long time
and we're definitely standing on the shoulders
of giants and other great innovators
who've tried various ways to take things like CO2
and the rest, you know what our ability is,
is in the fact that the alcohol that we create
off of our process,
is such a high purity,
like it's really, really high in purity
that it's phenomenal for consumption,
it's better for consumption than traditional methods
of making alcohol.
It's a really great way for us to show people
that, hey, you can actually make a product
that's better, that's just high quality period,
and we have the ability because of the nature
of the product.
- Are you putting the hand sanitizer
in your vodka bottles,
or did you get new bottles?
- We had to get new bottles.
Fortunately enough for us,
we have phenomenal partners that just moved so quickly
and that really came to the table,
because you know, we told them,
"Hey guys, we're trying to work
on getting something to market really really quick
that's going to actually help people."
And we worked with an amazing label manufacturer
here in New York actually,
that really just helped out as soon as possible,
and same thing on the bottling side of things
so yeah, we've got a really awesome lean team here
that's able to move quickly and get stuff done.
So it was really great to see.
- So what would be one small step that people can take?
- Just really being aware to what you're doing
and how you're consuming things,
because I think now more so than ever,
we really need to be cautious
of what we're doing, right?
I'm from Australia and this term of, you know,
our house as the world is on fire,
my house literally was on fire, Australia was on fire,
due to severe climate changes and severe climate conditions
as well, so just be conscious about what you're doing,
actually think about the steps that you are taking
as well, and I really understand that
- I think it's amazing to see
an innovative company like Air Co
pivoting their production to help during this crisis.
And I think it's a reminder to all of us
that we can use the resources that are available to us
right now to help in some way,
whether it's during the coronavirus pandemic
or to address climate change moving forward.
Thank you guys so much for watching,
that's all for this episode,
if you liked it please share it, cheers.
Nothing like the refreshing taste
of ice cold water in a martini glass, ah.