After seeing the plastic problem with his own eyes in 2011, Marius Smit decided to start doing and to set himself the challenge to build a boat from plastic waste. In that year, he started the Dutch movement called ‘the Plastic Whale’. Smit’s ambition is to show people that plastic is not a valueless waste product. Rather, it is valuable raw material. ‘The whalers’ started to organize plastic fishing events, which were very successful and even attracted big companies that joined (e.g. Starbucks, Nike, and Tommy Hilfiger). The movement soon became an actual company, making boats and even furniture from plastic found in the canals of Amsterdam.
The ‘Plastic Whale’ tries to inspire companies to take action, by convincing them that creating a cleaner world makes good business sense. Their main message is ‘stop talking, let’s start doing’, with which they try to show people the urgency of the plastic waste problem. The movement also provides education by creating the ‘Plastic Whale Foundation’, which has a school program to inform and involve children as well.
The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization, founded by Boyan Slat in 2013. The team develops technologies to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is estimated that their systems will clean up half of the patch in 5 years’ time. Their technology is very innovative: they use a passive design, to make it less energy-intensive and costly. This means that the systems rely on natural forces: the wind, the waves, and the current. After concentrating the plastic with a long floater, the plastic can be retained and captured. Both small pieces of plastic and large debris, like massive fishing nets, can be removed from the ocean using this method. The goal of the organization is to have 90% of all the plastic floating in the ocean removed in 2040.
Using the same method, Boyan Slat now also wants to tackle the debris found in the Dutch rivers, to prevent plastic reaching the ocean in the first place. The river version of the Ocean Cleanup system is called the Interceptor. It consists of a vessel that is anchored to a riverbed with floating arms. These leave space for animals and river traffic to pass, but divert the waste into collection systems. The Interceptor has already been tested in Indonesia and Malaysia, but the rollout phase needs to be completed first, for it to be implemented in the Netherlands too.
UPP: upcycling plastic
UPP is a social enterprise that has the mission to save plastic waste from landfills, oceans and incineration. It wants to work towards a circular and plastic waste-free future. Their circular plastic factories are trying to achieve this goal in at least five countries. In these factories, they are making 100% recyclable products from plastic waste. They do this locally, to minimize the transport of waste and maximize the use of plastic waste as feedstock for production. The products that are made are ensured to fit the needs of the local community.
One of their projects is in Phu Quoc, a tourist destination in Vietnam. UPP will close the plastic loop here by building a Circular Plastic Factory. They will use plastic waste from the beaches to make materials that can be used in the construction of hotels and resorts: 500 tons in 2019 and by scaling up, 3000 tons in 2020. Moreover, in Hanoi, UPP is producing building materials from recycled plastic waste.