There has been much press recently relating to ocean plastics being retrieved from the ocean. However, there is a more efficient solution to this growing problem. The majority of these ocean plastics enter our oceans through river tributaries, which is much easier to prevent than trying to extract the plastic directly from the ocean.
Recent studies have shown that over 8 million tons of plastic enters our oceans each year. Much of which is plastic bottles that have been discarded as waste rather than recycled. The world’s population discarded over 480,000,000,000 PET bottles last year and this figure increases with each passing year. The world consumption of bottles is on course to top half a trillion by 2021. (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/28/a-million-a-minute-worlds-plastic-bottle-binge-as-dangerous-as-climate-change)
These bottles and other plastics have accumulated for years and have finally received much-needed press to bring home the point to the consumer. We believe to tackle this problem effectively we must focus our efforts on preventing bottles being discarded in these river tributaries that will eventually lead the bottles into the ocean. This will give us a much higher chance of reducing the amount of ocean plastics, particularly plastic bottles.
Our technology is scalable, with our current plant located in Nashik, India currently converting approximately 2 million PET plastic bottles per day into high-quality sustainable filament yarns. Our next plant being planned will be capable of processing up to 10 million bottles a day. We are also looking for additional partners to help us build more plants globally.
You too can also contribute towards tackling this growing ocean plastics problem at a home level, by ensuring that you recycle your plastic instead of throwing them away as rubbish. Currently, 91% of plastic (including bottles) is not being recycled, a worrying statistic. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2017/07/26/million-plastic-bottles-minute-91-not-recycled/#40287ded292c)
You may think that one plastic bottle will not hurt, but with us all joining together and adopting the same ethos of seeing plastic bottles as a valuable resource rather than waste, a little recycling will go a long way in our quest to make a material difference to the world we live in.
