It’s often out of sight, out of mind - but we decided to tackle the issue...
The very definition of waste is “unwanted or unusable material”. A few years ago, the idea of a product made from rubbish would, at best, raise eyebrows and, at worst, be derided.
Thankfully, that’s nowhere near the case now!
So what changed? Well, as it turns out: plenty. Elevated consumer awareness, thanks to thought leadership from charities and media outlets, has led to an increased focus from governments around the world. Here in the UK, the 2017 report Future of the sea: plastic pollution pointed out that recycling in its many guises has multiple benefits:
“If more end-of-life material can be recycled it not only reduces the quantity of waste that needs to be managed via other approaches such as landfill, or that has the potential to enter the environment as litter, it also reduces the requirement for fossil oil and gas to manufacture new plastics”
Personally, we have our own ocean plastics story. It involves a part of our honeymoon being ruined! You can read more about that here. A few years on, we created the ecomb: a surfboard wax comb made entirely from reclaimed ocean waste.
We’re aware of the wider issues at play here - societally, economically, environmentally. We know, appreciate, and understand that turning plastic into surfboard combs doesn’t entirely solve the problem of plastics in the first place.
But plastics are incredibly important to life in 2020: you only have to look at the PPE being used in medical care scenarios to see that.
What needs to change is how our society views plastic: as a forgettable commodity, ready to chuck in a bin, possibly to end up in our oceans.
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