ABOUT US
Our mission is to eliminate the use of plastic wherever practical. Our planet demands it.
Kenai Marketplace™ was founded with the idea that shopping for plastic-free products should be straightforward and inexpensive. It's challenging to search for sustainably marketed products and feel confident in your purchasing decision -- a process that involves filtering through website after website with limited variety and inflated prices. Worse yet, each website promotes a different definition of "sustainable" -- with most ignoring mountains of data showing that the continued use of plastic, particularly for consumer goods and packaging, is not sustainable for our planet.
The EPA estimates that less than 9% of plastic is recycled in the USA. More than 2x that amount is incinerated, and the vast majority winds up in landfills or the natural environment -- where it can take more than a thousand years to break down. Massachusetts, for example, predicts that they will run out of landfill space by 2030 -- a grim outlook that will become increasingly common across other states. There are numerous studies showing the health consequences to humans and marine-life that result from plastic pollution. Despite that, over 8 million metric tons of plastic finds its way into our oceans annually. Stated differently -- every minute, one garbage truck of plastic is dumped into the ocean. By making it easier and less expensive to find plastic-free products -- we are working towards a future without plastic pollution.
THE KENAI DIFFERENCE
Our marketplace model puts you closer to the companies and people actually making products.
Other sustainable and zero-waste "marketplaces" are re-sellers. They buy products through a wholesale website, warehouse them, and ship them to you. While this can work well for some items -- maintaining warehousing infrastructure is expensive and incentivizes re-sellers to stock fewer products. We have a different model. Kenai connects you directly to local manufacturers who list their products on our website, removing two stages of middlemen (or middlewomen) in the process. You get more variety at a lower cost, and manufacturers don't get squeezed.
Our primary goal is to eliminate unnecessary plastic waste stemming from packaging and consumer products -- and every decision we make is made with that goal in mind. Additionally, as we grow we'll do our best to protect your purchasing autonomy by encouraging filtering on personal preference -- instead of pushing our own definition of "sustainable." Wherever helpful, we'll provide peer-reviewed data to help inform your decisions. In short, we'll continue to prioritize enabling you to pick the plastic-free products that work best for you!
