This article is not about plastic pollution

It is obvious now that we are not going to recyclerecycleTransform a product or component into its basic materials or substances and reprocessing them into new materials. our way out of this problem and we cannot pull plastic out of the ocean at the rate we are putting it in. Burying it in the ground is not a long-term solution and burning it is just plain wasteful — not to mention highly polluting. So, we need to look at this problem in a different way. Instead of trying to work out how to deal with a pile of waste, we need to stop that waste being created in the first place.

The answer — spoiler alert! — is the circular economycircular economyA systems solution framework that tackles global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution. It is based on three principles, driven by design: eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials (at their highest value), and regenerate nature.. For plastics, that means eliminating all the plastic we can do without, reusing as much as we can through new business models, and circulating all the rest. There is no doubt that plastic is a useful and versatile material, but we currently throw away USD 80–120 billion of it every year — let’s keep hold of it. If we keep plastic in the economy, we keep it out of the environment.

To achieve this, we need to rethink the way we make and use plastic. This means channeling our innovation efforts upstream, to the design stage. Design is the key word here. We need to design out waste and pollution.

To achieve this, we need to move beyond incremental tweaks to single-use packaging and be prepared to rethink every part of the plastics system, throw out the rule book, and dare to reshape the economy — all through upstream innovation. This means rethinking products, packaging, and business models in order to achieve the key circular economy strategies of elimination, reusereuseThe repeated use of a product or component for its intended purpose without significant modification., and material circulation.

Designing out waste by rethinking the product could mean reimagining the very concept of the product, looking at the way it is made, or whether the same value can be delivered in a different size or shape. Innovating at the product design level can change the packaging needs, while maintaining or even improving the user experience. It could eliminate the need for packaging or it could change the kind of packaging required so that it can be made reusable, recyclable, or compostable.

As a real-world example, Lush Cosmetics employed upstream innovation to rethink its products to design out packaging waste. By designing cosmetics and personal care products like shampoo and soap in solid form, rather than liquid, Lush eliminated the need for bottles, containers, and tubes for many of its products. Since , Lush has sold over 38 million naked shampoo bars globally, saving more than 90 million plastic shampoo bottles.

However, rethinking the product doesn’t have to be so fundamental, it can be simply a common-sense approach to eliminate the need for packaging. For example, designers at Samsung realised if they redesigned their chargers with a matte finish, rather than glossy, they wouldn’t need to package them with a protective film.

Moving on to rethinking the packaging itself could mean looking at the packaging concept, its format, components, or material choice. This can be another way to design out waste through upstream innovation, while providing the same essential function. It could mean moving to recyclable formats or using new innovative materials, such as edible coatings on fresh food or dissolvable packaging.

Pioneering project HolyGrail has come up with an innovative packaging solution that can help in the circulation of materials. The innovation allows for the incorporation of imperceptible watermarks onto packaging, which can cover the entire surface of the package without affecting the artwork or labels. The watermarks can be detected by high resolution cameras, delivering digital information, such as material composition. This is an upstream innovation that enables downstream collection, sorting, and recycling technologies to work more efficiently and produce higher quality recycled material.

The Coca-Cola Company in Latin America utilised upstream innovation at the packaging level to design reusable bottles. By creating a reusable PET bottle with a standardised design across multiple Coca-Cola brands, the company can collect a multi-branded mix of used bottles, take them back to bottling facilities, remove the paper labels and clean the bottles, before refilling and rebranding with a new label. Designing the bottle to enable reuse , avoided the production of 1.8 billion single-use bottles in Latin America in .

A good example is Opendesk Furniture. By rethinking the traditional furniture retailer’s business model, Opendesk created a global company with localised production — it sells designs, rather than physical furniture. Opendesk is a global platform, collaborating with independent designers all over the world to create shareable, downloadable designs. The online platform connects customers to local professional makers, who make the furniture on demand. This means no extensive shipping, quicker lead times, and only a short last-mile delivery using reusable blanket wraps wherever possible and eliminating the need for plastic film and cardboard used in a traditional model for transport and storage.

Another example of an innovative business model eliminating transport packaging is Infarm — a hyperlocal production model for providing fresh produce, such as herbs and leafy greens. The produce is grown directly in-store in smart, modular ‘farms’. Infarm installs the farms and remotely controls and monitors each one through cloud-based technology. The hyperlocal supply chain strategy allows customers to buy just-harvested produce, which stays fresh for longer, meaning food waste is reduced as well as packaging being eliminated. There are already more than 900 farms in stores, restaurants, and distribution centres across Japan, the US, Canada, and Europe.

Finally, as efforts to tackle plastic waste are swiftly gathering momentum, it is becoming increasingly important for businesses to make visible efforts in the area — far better to be seen as a pioneer than a laggard. More than 1,000 organisations around the world, including companies responsible for more than 20% of the world’s plastic packaging, have already united behind the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s common vision for a circular economy for plastic, through the Global Commitment and the Plastic Pact network.

 Tuesday, August 6,

Plastic pollution has become one of the most severe environmental issues, as rapidly increasing production of disposable plastic products overwhelms the world’s ability to deal with them. The developed world, especially in countries with low recycling rates, also has trouble properly collecting discarded plastics. Plastic trash has become so ubiquitous it has prompted efforts to write a global treaty negotiated by the United Nations.

Plastic waste is polluting lakes, rivers, canals and seas across the globe. To help tackle the problem of plastic soup, Dutch organisation Plastic Whale and Dutch furniture manufacturer Vepa have launched Plastic Whale Circular Furniture by Vepa – high-end office furniture made from plastic waste from the canals of Amsterdam. The collection is formed of a boardroom table, a chair, lamps and acoustic wall panels. Plastic Whale is a social enterprise with a mission – we want plastic-free waters. Worldwide. They achieve this by showing others that economic value can be created from plastic waste, involving as many people and businesses as possible within the pillars. Their motto is: We Collect, We Create, We Educate. Every year, thousands of people, businesses, tourists and kids roll-up their sleeves and take to the Amsterdam canals to come plastic fishing with Plastic Whale. They all want to make the world a better, cleaner place and support our mission for plastic-free waters. Without them, Plastic Whale’s mission is impossible.

According to Plastic Whale, “Plastic soup is a growing global problem. This year another 8 billion kilos of plastic waste will enter the world’s rivers, lakes and oceans, creating a hazard to sea life and humans. We have two options: do nothing or do something. At Plastic Whale and Vepa we’ve decided to do something, joining forces to turn a problem into a solution: Plastic Whale Circular Furniture by Vepa.”

Turning plastic waste into something useful
Marius Smit, the founder of Plastic Whale, came up with the idea of turning plastic waste into something useful while he was on holiday with his family. He came across huge quantities of plastic debris on the beach. He thought about what could be created from the waste: a boat, for instance.

So without further ado, Smit founded Plastic Whale. A few months later, he got together with friends to fish his first plastic bottles out of Amsterdam’s canals to make his first “plastic boat”. Years after that family holiday, the organisation now collects several hundred PET bottles each day in its twelve “rubbish boats” with the help of tourists and Amsterdam residents.

More than 46,000 plastic bottles were fished out of the waters in thanks to their collective actions. “Our mission is to create economic value from plastic waste and to involve as many people as possible in the process,” explains Smit. And that’s exactly what he does.

Smit’s team has expanded so much in recent years that his dining table is no longer big enough for meetings. Smit made a virtue of necessity: “We thought that, if you can make boats out of waste, then you must also be able to make a table from it.” And so the idea for the first furniture collection was conceived.

Made in the Netherlands
Together with Vepa they create beautiful furniture right here in the Netherlands. Besides using recycled PET bottles, Vepa also makes optimal use of other waste streams at their factory. Nothing goes to waste. At the end of a product’s life, parts are reused and recycled to give it another lease of life.

Plastic Whale’s furniture is a part of a collection including
• Whale boardroom table
• Whale Tail Chair
• Whale panel
• The ‘BARNACLE’ Chair

All made from recycled PET bottles fished out of the Amsterdam Canals.

Vepa, a pioneer in sustainable innovation, oversees the technical development and production of the furniture collection. “To guarantee sustainability, we made a conscious decision to have full control over production and to keep it in the Netherlands, which is unique,” explains Janwillem de Kam, Managing Director of Vepa.

Part of the profits from sales of the furniture collection is invested, via the Plastic Whale Foundation, in local projects that are tackling the problem of plastic soup where action is needed most urgently. A first collaboration has been agreed with SweepSmart, a provider of professional waste management solutions in India.

“This plastic can no longer be described as waste because it has economic value. By recycling PET bottles into office furniture and finding like-minded customers to buy it, we can make a collective global contribution,” says Smit with pride.