Reducing the Plastic Load: Startup Sells Laundry Detergent and Dish Soap Dispensers

When Colin Brown overheard classmate Benjamin Arts discuss the problem of single-use plastics and old laundry detergent containers, he was inspired to team up with him on Arts’ new business model: Mr. Turtle.

Brown thought if he could refill his water bottle, he could refill other goods.

“I had never really thought of that,” said Brown, who graduated from Cal Poly with an economics degree in 2023. “I think I was just born into this age of plastic where you just buy it, you throw it away, buy it and throw it away, and I just thought that was it, I didn’t think there would be an opportunity to refill the containers.”

Mr. Turtle produces laundry detergent and soap dispenser machines that allow customers to refill cleaning products. Arts won $1,000 when he envisioned the business during the Cal Poly Entrepreneurs Startup Launch Weekend.

Brown, who graduated with a business administration degree in 2024, he had been working on a hot dog vending machine with a ketchup dispenser that would have a similar function.  Arts had been working on Mr. Turtle for roughly a couple of months when the two teamed up.

Their startup was recently one of several startups featured during the annual AngelCon event in San Luis Obispo.

Incorporated in September, 2024, Mr. Turtle currently has five machines, four in San Luis Obispo County and one in Silverton, Oregon, according to Arts, and are in the process of building twenty more. There is a machine on campus at the Poly Canyon Village Apartments, which was installed in March, 2025.

The goal of Mr. Turtle is to make an impact on the single-use plastic packaging problem, Arts said.

“You can literally go to any square foot of this Earth, and there’s somehow always some bit of plastic,” Arts said. “It’s so unnatural, so damaging to the environment, you kind of want to do something about it.”

This year, Mr. Turtle has a goal of manufacturing 100 machines, according to Brown, the main engineer on the project.

On May 1, the Mr. Turtle team did a 10-minute pitch on stage in front of investors for AngelCon, an event hosted by the Cal Poly Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CIE) and Small Business Development Center. Held at Rod & Hammer Rock, AngelCon brought six tech-driven startups from the Central California to compete for $100,000 or more in equity-based funding, according to the Small Business Development Center Cal Poly website. A group of angel investors invest in an early stage startup in exchange for ownership equity or convertible debt and help with the evaluation, due diligence and selection process of AngelCon applicants.

Greensight Technologies, a startup that helps simplify the electronic and disposal process, according to their website, won the competition.

While Mr. Turtle did not win the event, the startup had many key takeaways that helped their business grow, including connections.

Colin Brown demonstrates Mr. Turtle’s detergent dispenser. (Photo: Katy Clark)

“Maybe we didn’t walk away with $125,000, but we are most likely walking away with about $75,000 just from the conversations that we had from participating in AngelCon,” Arts said.

It took two months to prepare for the event, according to Arts, and the process entailed one-on-one time with an investor and reviews of every aspect of their business, from legal documents to their facilities.

By the end of AngelCon, the founders had a plan for how to work with investors to get a contract.

“By the time that my pitch was done, I feel like I had done the right thing, I had done the best I could possibly do, and that pitch is going to be used over and over again to see if we can convince other people that Mr. Turtle is the next big thing,” Arts said.

Mr. Turtle operates out of the “Mr. Turtle house,” a home in Pismo Beach where Arts, Brown and Robert Vermeulen, a 2024 Cal Poly computer science graduate, live. The three construct the machines in their garage.

While pursuing his economics degree, Brown became interested in engineering, where his real passion lay. Brown, who oversees the technical aspects of the business, realized he liked the physical side of engineering, finding Excel, software and other computer work tedious and less satisfying than hands-on work. He had considered switching to engineering in his third year but would have had to stay an extra four years, so he just took extra engineering classes instead and taught himself.

Benjamin Arts, left, and Colin Brown hope to eventually have 100 of their machines designed to reduce single-use plastics. (Photo: Katy Clark)

“It’s cool for me to being able to create anything you can dream of,” Brown said. “Really kind of make it an innovative company and not necessarily a one-hit wonder of products kind of thing. We are just trying to learn as much as we can and build really cool things that make the world a better place.”

For the business, Arts has dealt with the marketing and financials and helps Brown with some of the manufacturing and design. Mr. Turtle also receives help from business students completing their senior projects.

“The change of the day-to-day is the thing that keeps being a founder and running a startup fun,” Arts said. “That’s kind of what keeps it exciting and gets me up in the morning.”

Arts, who will pursue an MBA at Cal Poly this fall, credited his undergraduate studies with providing him the skills to become an entrepreneur.

“In the College of Business, I learned how to start my business,” Arts said. “I went out of school with my bachelor’s degree and started a business that now makes money and has real machines with real customers. I am doing something real in the moment.”

The Cal Poly Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship helps startups like Mr. Turtle with financial resources, workspace, tools and connections. By supporting the CIE, you can help students and recent alumni have a positive impact.

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