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Traditionally, ocean plastic has been thought of as prohibitively difficult to access and retrieve, and comparatively expensive to process. But in reality, this is not the case. Of course, if there was an equitable manufacturing material simply floating in piles in the ocean, it would be plucked and used in manufacturing ad libitum.
The real issue with ocean plastic recycling has more to do with chemistry than capitalism…
Plastic is an extremely delicate material and, once discarded, ocean plastic quickly becomes exposed to UV-rays, damaging the molecular structure of the material and rendering it brittle, unstable and seemingly unusable. Powerful ocean currents then transport this plastic waste piece by piece into giant oceanic trash piles, where they continue irradiating until, eventually, they break apart into smaller and smaller particles and sink into the water column.
As they move through the water column, Larger plastics end up wrapped around larger marine animals, whilst micro-plastics and plastic particles are inadvertently eaten by small, keystone organisms like plankton, before eventually being passed to larger organisms during feeding.
Our partners at the University of Switzerland have developed a biomechanical method to repair the molecular structure of Plastics damaged by the ocean and the sun, affording this seemingly dead, yet abundant material a viable second life.
This is a truely remarkable modern innovation, allowing for the reconstitution of plastic base-materials that are virtually indiscernible from their harmful ‘virgin plastic’ counterparts.
Thread material for polyester textile goods
Injection-moulding material for plastic hard goods
From here, we have developed a global supply chain to provide a sustainable solution to plastic pollution. This proprietary innovation has essentially created a chain of value where there was no chain of value before - so, working with partner organisations in local communities, creating jobs and paying fair wages in the process, ocean plastic is collected, sorted and processed into the base materials, from which our products are built.
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