This TED Talk features entrepreneur Paul Casner, recorded live at TED Residency 2017.

I'd like to take you back about seven years in my life.

Friday afternoon, a few days before Christmas, 2009.

I was the Director of Operations at a consumer products company in San Francisco,

and I was called into a meeting that was already in progress.

That meeting turned out to be my exit interview.

I was fired, along with several others.

I was 64 years old at the time.

It wasn't completely unexpected. I signed a stack of papers, gathered my personal

effects, and left to join my wife, who was waiting for me at a nearby restaurant, completely

unaware. Fast forward, several hours, we both got really silly drunk.

So 40-plus years of continuous employment for a variety of companies, large and small, was over.

I had a good network, a good reputation. I thought I'd be just fine. I was an engineer in manufacturing and packaging. I had a good background. Retirement was like for so many people, simply not an option for me. So I turned to

consulting for the next couple of years without any passion whatsoever.

And then an idea began to take root,

born from my concern for our environment.

I wanted to build my own business,

designing and manufacturing,

biodegradable packaging from waste,

paper, agricultural, even textile waste, replacing the toxic disposable plastic packaging

to which we've all become addicted.

This is called clean technology, and it felt really meaningful to me.

...