With Love from Fiji w/ Emma Newland (FB Live)

Last week we spoke to Emma Newland, a Fijian environmental scientist, mom of two and entrepreneur who started her earth-friendly diaper business.

Yes, she lives on the beautiful island of Fiji which is incidentally not just one island but a collection of islands! So Fiji is really an archipelago of 330 islands with 110 permanently inhabited. From Wikipedia, we found out that about 87% of the total population of 883,483 live on the two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. 

In this video replay, Emma even shows us the ocean that she can see from her patio! Lucky woman!

For this episode, we had Shamini of Plumeria Florals who joined us on-screen to ask Emma a question about marketing eco-friendly products and Emma gave her a really good answer!

We had initially planned for her to come on our livestream in January but a cyclone was headed towards Fiji and we didn’t want to risk that we could be cut off halfway if the wifi dropped!

These are some of the new challenges we are learning about as we work with virtual events and virtual guests who are halfway around the world.

Here’s a bit about Emma – she is a Fijian entrepreneur who started her business because she couldn’t bear to see landfills or waterways full of non-biodegradable diapers!

She holds a full-time job as an environmental scientist during the day and in a way, her day job showed her what a devastating effect disposable diapers had on Mother Nature.

Many disposable diapers were being dumped not just in landfills but also clogged up the waterways!

She decided to do something about it, starting from the time her son was born. It wasn’t an easy business as she needed people to help her sew the earth-friendly ones plus she had to research and find the right materials that would last. And Fiji is remote so whatever she needed, she had to source it herself.

Her business, Lalai & Sprout, makes and sells affordable, quality modern cloth nappies or diapers. (She has also extended her range to training pants and cloth pads for women too.)

The products are fully made on the island of Fiji and on their FB page, they call themselves “a family business dedicated to improving the health of other Pacific families and their environment”. Emma says that their one-size-fits-most cloth nappies will last from newborn to potty training and even to the next baby in line!

Their cloth nappies are super cute as they are colourful with whimsy designs – flamingoes, watermelons, sea creatures and tropical foliage just what the Fijian islanders would love. They’re also made for the Fijian weather and for little babes who enjoy toddling outdoors.

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