Ocean plastic pollution, recycling solutions… these are some remarkable things.
Right now, there’s a lot going on in the realm of recycling and ocean pollution. It feels like there’s a lot of energy and smart humans trying to figure out how to make the world less wasteful. When you start searching there’s a big pile of great ideas, interesting solutions, and inspiring people leading projects to make a difference. And there’s also a lot crazy things that put the problem in perspective like uninhabited polluted islands, giant garbage patches in the oceans, marine animals with debilitating plastic diets… it’s a mess. The lack of recycling, is clearly tied to the plastic pollution problem. Here are a few things on the internets that I found recently and I feel more people should know about:
Plastic is a problem, but it’s also a precious resource. Because Dave Hakkens is a smart, problem solving and charming fellow (with a cool accent), he realized the problem and potential for plastic. Currently, he’s leading a community of people all over the globe dedicated to finding creative solutions for plastic pollution — it’s called Precious Plastic. They’re now launching the fourth iteration of their idea, and it’s basically the beginnings of a really sweet company dedicated to solving the plastic problems in the world today. And, get this, they’re hiring! If you care to join their army, you can go here… And if you want to learn more about Dave, and why he’s an awesome human, dig into his YouTube, he’s a wonderfully inspiring designer and storyteller.
If plastic is a valuable and recyclable material, well then, shouldn’t it be worth something? Why do so many people chuck it in the trash or worse, commit the cardinal planetary sin and litter? Maybe because it’s not worth anything to the diligent person doing the recycling deed. It’s a pretty safe bet, that if recycling had a direct return to the person recycling we’d see a massive increase. And that just may be on the horizon — because David Katz and the team at Plastic Bank, are trying to make that happen. By rewarding recyclers with money and valuable forms of currency this could be an exciting solution to the lack of global recycling. And an empowering way to reduce poverty. (There’s also Recyclebank, which rewards for recycling, but with coupons and vouchers for local businesses. Sure. Nice idea, but cash is way better than coupons.)
Launching in September of 2018, The Ocean Clean Up is based on the idea from Boyan Slat, a young design engineer who apparently thought up the plan to create a giant floating boom that collects up the massive patches of garbage and plastic swirling in the ocean. Now this project has major corporate partners and even the government of the Netherlands backing its efforts. While it’s inspiring and they may be on their way to solving a big messy problem, I can’t help but see that there’s so much support behind the cause because of its profitable business opportunities. It’s like the Great Ocean Gold Rush. But it’s being masked in altruism and by an inspiring wonder boy drumming up the hearts of people towards a noble cause, but in truth the plastic is a just a floating mountain of money. There’s a greedy motivation here because they can recover it and reuse it for a highly marketable material to create compelling consumer goods. I guess the lesson learned here, is that you can really solve problems, when you can make them profitable for someone else. While they are cleaning up, we still need more solutions that stop the problem and the plastic from getting into the ocean in the first place. That’s my cynical two cents, anyway.
Parley has had a major widespread impact creating awareness to our ocean plastic problems. Partnering with big commercial brands like Adidas, they have inspired the company to make some incredible strides towards change and some really cool looking gear. Check it out if you haven’t already.
So Sweden has a lot of pride in it’s recycling program… but they also burn off 50% of waste into energy. I’m no scientist with all the answers, but this sounds toxic and may or may not be wise in the long haul (and isn’t technically recycling). But they have some awesome ideas for public bin systems that have underground tubes… and plus, there’s this video.
MORE NOTEWORTHY THINGS…
Henderson Island is a remote island. No people — but tons, and tons of plastic. It makes you think, seriously, what have we done? Also makes you wanna go out and buy a S’well bottle.
Mr. Trash Wheel in Baltimore. He’s a water wheel beast that’s keeping the river in Baltimore clean.
The Scavenger Vessel in Miami. The trashiest yacht you’ll see in Miami. This thing looks vaguely like a lobster and maintains the Miami river.
Single Stream Recycling: While I think it’s an aggressively wasteful and messy system, (and there’s a severe lack of public knowledge on what’s actually recyclable) it’s still impressive to understand what happens to all that recycling we toss into a bin and how it gets sorted and processed.
And again, there’s this Swedish video, which rocks.