ISSUE 01: Plastic Ocean
On the global recycling crisis and giving ocean-bound trash a second chance.
Plastic. We love to hate it.
But it’s everywhere. It’s in the device you’re touching. That thing you just unwrapped. Today’s outfit. Your sanitizer gel and face mask. It’s even in your table salt and your drinking water. Plastic is a part of life, a part of us as modern humans (literally).
To say our relationship with plastic has become toxic is the understatement of the century. The material that helped drive progress is destroying our planet.
Since plastic was invented, we’ve struggled with what to do with it. In 1956, a guy named Llyod Stouffer stood in front of his plastics industry colleagues and said, “your future is in the trash can”. And so the era of single-use, throw-away living was born.
Our linear economy dictates to keep mass-producing more virgin plastic from diminishing natural resources. We consume more of it, hold on to it for shorter periods of time and dispose of it at an increasing pace.
Well, news flash: most of the plastic you’ve consumed in your life has ended up in a landfill, been burnt into the atmosphere or leaked into the ocean.
We, the consumers, tend to think recycling is magic. We believe that putting things in bins for somebody else to deal with means it’ll magically get a second life. We’ve been conditioned to think this by the world’s biggest polluters. It allows us to carry on consuming things guilt-free.
The truth? It’s much uglier. A few years ago, scientists set out to quantify the extent of the global plastic footprint. They were shocked to discover that only 9% of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic produced since the 1950’s has been recycled.
“What eats at me all the time about recycling is, we just keep trying to solve this on the back end, to try to solve the problems that are created upstream. I wish we could take the word ‘recycling’ out of the equation and just talk about consumption and waste as if there was no recycling. Because it has enabled some of the worst behavior I have ever seen.”
- RECYCLING FRONTLINE WORKER, NPR
Over the past quarter-century, nearly half of the world’s recyclable waste went through China. This was the best solution the world’s richest nations could come up with. But in 2018, China realized this recycled materials trade was becoming a dump for contaminated materials and causing environmental problems. So they shut it down and sent Western nations scrambling for what to do with their growing waste problem.
Southeast Asian nations like Malaysia, which lack the infrastructure to deal with their own waste, began receiving the West’s trash on their doorstep, directly increasing health risks for disadvantaged communities. But since this dirty laundry was aired, and the UN set up a treaty to ban the trade of contaminated plastics, recycling programs in the US and Europe have gone into crisis mode.
Meanwhile, waste keeps piling up and leaking into our oceans by the truckload every minute.
We need to stop treating the global plastic problem as an environmental problem. It’s a human problem.
It’s the most overused statistic: by 2050, more plastic in the ocean than fish. This issue is far more vast and complex than choking sea turtles and littered beaches. Marine plastic pollution is firmly considered to be a planetary environmental threat that’s expected to be around for many generations to come. Plus, the more plastic we make, the more fossil fuels we need, the more we exacerbate climate change.
Fortunately, nobody likes plastic pollution. From the EU to the US, governments are waking up and legislation is changing. Businesses of all shapes and sizes are talking about how to be more circular.
Taking notes from how Greta epically dropped the mic in her Earth Day message, are setting ‘ambitious’ targets enough?
The circular economy has the potential to reduce the annual volume of plastics entering our oceans by 80%, according to the Ellen Mcarthur Foundation. A circular approach could also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25%, generate savings of $200 billion per year, and create 700,000 additional jobs by 2040.
Recycled plastic is a growing market in its own right that’s ripe for innovation. But there’s systemic trouble in the water. The solutions we design need to be systemic, too. So where do we go from here?
IN CONVERSATION: MICHEL PARDOS OF RANONG RECYCLE
Transforming ocean-bound waste into a socially responsible resource
What do a small-scale recycling centre, a community of indigenous fishing people and Swiss scientists have in common? They’re working together to transform ocean-bound plastic waste into new jobs, materials and consumer goods. Read the remarkable story of how the devastation of the 2004 tsunami indirectly led this small-scale recycling business with economic and social impact.
FACT CHECK
Your childhood toothbrush still exists on this planet. Plastic takes more than 400 years to degrade. Of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic produced since the 1950’s, 6.3 billion metric tons has become plastic waste. 79% of that waste is in landfills or the natural environment, 12% has been incinerated and just 9% has been recycled.
We are what we eat. There are more microplastics in our oceans than stars in our galaxy. The average human is thought to be ingesting an average of 5 grams of plastic every week, the equivalent of a credit card.
What a dump. A truck load of plastic is dumped into the ocean every minute. 8 million tonnes of plastic winds up in the ocean each year.
Cry me a river. Most of the plastic in our oceans originates on land, brought in from rivers. 10 rivers alone carry about 80-90% of the plastic waste that ends up in the oceans. Roughly 10% comes from fishing fleets.
The weight of 3 million blue whales. Or 600 million tonnes of plastic. That’s the amount of plastic that’s projected to be in our oceans by 2040.
Sources: WWF Report, Plastic Oceans, UN Environment, Nat Geo
CONSUMER CHAT
‘Made from recycled ocean plastic’ is increasingly in fashion. But it’s often not what you think it is.
Your yoga leggings are not made out of plastic rescued from the Great Pacific Ocean patch. Plastic that ends up in the ocean is degraded by saltwater and UV, making it far more difficult to upcycle. ‘Ocean-bound’ technically means retrieved from 50km from the coastline. Intercepting plastic from coastal environments is a worthy cause to combat more plastic from leaking into the oceans. Brands are beginning to realize that real impact must go beyond the recycled material itself.
⌚️ Time for Oceans, made by Swedish watchmakers Triwa in partnership with #Tide, is the world’s first line of watches made entirely from recycled ocean plastics. Read this week’s feature story to understand what lies beneath this circular ocean plastic supply chain.
🌊 Ocean Bottle is an Oslo-based startup that made waves with its Indiegogo campaign claiming that every bottle, made partly of recycled ocean plastic, helps fund the prevention of 1,000 bottles entering the ocean.
👟 Adidas x Parley for Oceans, a partnership that’s been running since 2015, is a brilliant case study of how eco-innovation can be driven across a global brand’s supply chain. Their initial goal was to produce a line of sneakers recycled from Parley Ocean Plastic™. One pair of shoes claims to prevent 11 plastic bottles from entering the ocean. The collection was a hit, selling over 1 million pairs. The partnership has since evolved towards a shared mission to use 100% recycled polyester, a material named Primeblue, in all Adidas products by 2024.
CULTURE CLICKS
Need a bit of comic relief? Let the internet’s favorite British comedian explain the global plastics problem to you.
👉 Over to you John Oliver
Something is happening to America’s recycling system. It’s in a crisis. NPR investigates from the recycling frontlines.
👉 Take 15 to watch the video
Let’s make eco-poetry happen. Parley for the Oceans and Atmos showcases a series of poetry drawing connections between the environment and the human experience.
👉 Get your poetry fix
Help make Circularity Club better. Take 2 min to give your feedback here.
See you next week for Issue 02 - Plastic Footprint. We’ll dive deeper into what consumer brands are doing to tackle their plastic footprint.
Take care,
Lisa ✌️