What better way to help clear the oceans of plastic than to make products from the very plastic trash we are collecting! That’s what we thought when we were trying to think of a way to help with the huge problem of plastic waste in our oceans.
At Plastic Oceanic we come from many different walks of life. We are surfers, deep sea divers, fishermen and marine biologists, to name but a few and have all seen close up the devastating problem of plastic waste in our ocean.
We decided that we can no longer sit by and watch as our oceans are destroyed, and that we must do something, no matter how small, to help out.
We started to clean a few beaches around Cornwall in the UK, quickly realising that we must do something with the rubbish we collect as much of it is almost impossible to recycle in a conventional way.
After collecting the plastic rubbish from the seas and beaches around Cornwall we send it off to recycling. The problem is that much of the plastic waste cannot be recycled. We decided that if we can finely process this waste into tiny granules it could be used as an aggregate/filler with a binder to make solid products. We use a resin made from plant oils which also means these products help lock up CO2. All our packaging is made from biodegradable materials and 100% recycled card.
We also decided that if we sell these products it means we can make money to employ people to clean more and more plastic. We will also come up with new products that will use more waste plastic. The way we see it is that if people can make a living out of cleaning plastic from the ocean, it will encourage them to clean even more!
Although we believe its important to clean up what’s already there, we also know that the real issue is stopping plastics from entering the ocean in the first place, – banning the use of unnecessary single use plastics.
To this end we will donate a percentage of all sales profits to charities working on these causes. We are currently supporting Surfers against sewage for all the great campaigning work they do on the cause that we both hold dear.
We are also exploring novel techniques in Cryomilling* to hopefully allow us to use up only the plastic without the use of any resin at all and are already working on much larger products to utilise far larger amounts of plastic. Watch this space!
Hopefully soon our business will not be needed as the flow of plastic to the oceans will stop but until then do your bit, buy our beautiful products and help us clean up the seas!
Plastic Oceanic promises to donate 5% of total sales profits to SAS on an annual basis. The way we see it our business can help clean up some of what is in our oceans, but stemming the flow of plastic into the oceans will only come through changes in the law. Pressure from campaigning groups like yourselves is a great way to make change happen at the source – this requires funding. We look forward to supporting and promoting your cause.
Visit the Surfers Against Sewage website
