Source: inhabitat.com
Published: May 12, 2014
Right now there are about 46,000 pieces of trash floating around in every square mile of the ocean, which is why Belgian company Ecover is now making their cleaning product packaging from plastic fished out of the sea. Taking plastic right out of the ocean, the company then processes it into detergent and dish soap containers. They are calling their new product the Ocean Bottle in an effort to bring attention to the problem of plastic pollution in our precious waterways
Ocean waste is a major issue in all parts of the globe. Fish in the northern Pacific alone ingest up to 24,000 tons of plastic waste and every year at least one million sea animals die from ingesting sea waste. Once waste gets into the ocean environment, it can take thousands of years to degrade. Ecover wants to draw attention to the issue while making its own impact on the problem, so they have teamed up with Logoplaste to create their packaging, which will be made out of sugarcane and recycled plastic.
To get the plastic supply, the company will use waste retrieved by fishermen and brought into collection areas or it will rely on boats fitted with special equipment to trawl the sea for waste. These will bring back two to eight tons of trash per trip, which is then sorted and recycled. To begin with, each bottle will be made with 10 percent ocean plastic waste, because the variability in the quality of retrieved plastic makes it hard to guarantee that it is quality enough to stand up to the ingredients that make up cleaning products, but the company hopes to make that number higher in the future.
Here’s what Ecover say about their products:
You probably already know that there’s lots of plastic in our seas. It’s ugly, it’s bad for aquatic life and could eventually harm us humans as it breaks down and finds its way into the food chain.
That’s why we’re fully on board with Waste Free Oceans (WFO), an initiative that is committed to taking plastic out of the sea and bringing it back to land for recycling and sorting. We then take it one step further by turning it into recyclable packaging. We can’t help but be excited about it.
So how does it work? Through a dedicated combined effort.
It starts with the fishing crews, who are encouraged to save any plastic rubbish they catch in their nets. They also keep a keen eye out for hotspots where the concentration of plastic is particularly high.
When they return to dry shores, they deliver the plastics they’ve caught and report any hotspots to HQ. WFO then arranges for a special fishing expedition to trawl the worst areas and clean up as much floating junk as possible. Each participating trawler spends up to 12 days per year fishing for nothing but plastic rubbish, focusing on the hotspots to make the best use of the fishermen’s time and resources.
When it gets back to land, it’s whizzed away to the nearest recycling and recovery plant where it’s sorted into plastics and other waste. We then take the recyclables and work our scientific magic to turn them into not-at-all-fishy recyclable packaging.
Of course, the sea is rather large, which means we’ve got a big job ahead of us. It’s one that we’re extremely passionate about and our dream is that more companies will get on board to help make our oceans clean again.