Corporate Social Responsibility writer for Justmeans, Antonio Pasolini is a journalist based in Brazil who writes about alternative energy, green living and sustainability. He also edits Energyrefuge.com, a top web destination for news and comment on renewable energy and Elpis.org, a recycled paper bag/magazine distributed from health food stores in London, formerly his hometown for over a decade....
Removing Plastic Out of the Ocean
Plastic is one of the most ubiquitous products in the world, and for that same reason it has become an environmental hazard, due to the very resistance qualities of the material. Often it ends up in landfills and the ocean, choking animals and creating plastic islands such as the North Pacific Gyre, also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is the size of the state of Texas.
It's a global problem. New research by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science shows that it doesn't matter where in the world plastic garbage enters the ocean because it can end up in any of the five ocean basins. Therefore, avoiding plastic and recycling what's unavoidable is of paramount importance.
Method is a cleaning product company that has incorporated ocean plastic into its production loop. The result: an edition of bottles made of post-consumer plastic that are available at Whole Foods Market stores across the U.S.
The company teamed up with Envision Plastics to develop a new recycling process to make the bottles. The process allows rigid, opaque plastics recovered from the ocean to be cleaned, blended and then re-manufactured into high quality recycled plastic that is the same quality as virgin high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic.
"Our goal with ocean plastic packaging is to show that the most viable solution to our plastic pollution problem is using the plastic that's already on the planet. Method's ocean plastic bottle demonstrates in the extreme that recycling is possible," said Method co-founder Adam Lowry.
Method is not the only company concerned with ocean plastic. In 2010 Electrolux launched its Vac from the Sea project also aimed at raising awareness about the need to remove plastic from the ocean. The company's aim is to eventually incorporate ocean plastics into vacuum cleaners since plastic is the main raw material used to make the products. Electrolux hopes to migrate to an increased global supply of recycled plastic.
Image credit: Method
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