One of the most exciting developments in eco-friendly promotional products market is the use of ‘Prevented Ocean Plastics’. That means that not only is the product made from recycled plastic but that the plastic has been collected from countries without formal waste management structures and used for recycling. Thus the recycled plastic has been prevented from entering the oceans with the resultant devastating effect on marine wild life
There is an urgent need to protect our oceans from plastic waste. If we carry on as we are now, the annual flow of plastic entering them will triple by 2040 to 29 million tons. Our oceans – and the wildlife within it – are already being harmed by plastic pollution and any increase would be awful. The program has already stopped more than one billion plastic bottles from entering the ocean and we should all be determined to do more. Every bottle counts.
What is Prevented Ocean Plastic?
The plastic collection is not from the ocean itself generally, because the salt water and sunlight creates just enough surface degradation so as to make the plastic difficult to recycle – there is however a strict definition of what constitutes Prevented Ocean bound plastic, namely
• It is found within 50km (30mi) distance of an ocean coastline or major waterway that feeds into the ocean.
• The country or region lacks waste management infrastructure and collection incentives.
• The infrastructure is being overwhelmed by population growth or tourism.
• There is a significant risk to wildlife if plastic contaminates their ecosystem.
Jambeck, J.R., Andrady, A., Geyer, R., Narayan, R., Perryman, M., Siegler, T., Wilcox, C., Lavender Law, K., (2015). Plastic Waste inputs from land into the ocean, Science, 347, p. 768-771.
Pavilion Earth work with an organisation called Bantam Materials which supplies the recycled polymer used in the bottle products you see below. Bantam, working with the international Ethical Trading Initiative remove over 1,000 tons per month of plastic from being Ocean Bound. They also provide $100,000 per day back into coastal communities for the recycling of what now amounts to billions of bottles. Bantam work in South East Asia, South America and the Galapagos Islands, Central America & Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and East Africa.
So what does the merchandise look like?
A typical product looks like this:
