Stemming the tide on ocean-bound plastic

A consortium of companies and organizations is stepping up efforts to tackle the pandemic of ocean plastic pollution, which is forecast to triple by 2040. Other firms, meanwhile, are aiming to contribute to the cause with projects of their own.

NextWave Plastics (www.nextwaveplastics.org), a group founded by Dell Technologies and the nonprofit Lonely Whale (www.lonelywhale.org, says it has collectively diverted 20,479 metric tons of ocean-bound plastic – or the equivalent of 2.27 billion single-use water bottles – from waterways since 2017. NextWave’s members include brands, converters, recyclers, and other plastic supply chain stakeholders.

That amount puts NextWave at just over 80 percent of its stated target to divert 25,000 metric tons of ocean-bound plastic (OBP) by 2025. The goal is in alignment with UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14.1 (www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/oceans). OBP typically is defined as trash that’s recovered within 50 km from a water body.

The group – which describes itself as “a member-led, collaborative and open-source initiative” – counts diverse multinational consumer brands such as Dell Technologies, Humanscale, HP Inc., IKEA, Logitech, and MillerKnoll among its current members. The Circulate Initiative (www.thecirculateinitiative.org) convened the effort,  which co-founder Lonely Whale amplifies.

NextWave says its members have made more than 330 products from the ocean-bound plastic waste. Since its launch, NextWave member companies have developed product use cases to showcase the viability of integrating into their supply chains ocean-bound plastics found in areas such as Indonesia, Chile, Philippines, Haiti, and Denmark.

It cites the following items as among those produced by its member companies from the recovered trash – a water bottle cage sold by Trek Bikes, office chairs from Herman Miller, various components in Dell’s and HP’s computers and technology portfolios, as well as packaging from Coca-Cola and Unilever, to name a few.

While not part of NextWave, the Saudi Arabia-based chemical giant SABIC (www.sabic.com) continues to actively develop and promote its TRUCIRCLE™ portfolio of circular resins, some of which have OBP content. SABIC recently reported that B!POD (https://bipod.it), the consumer innovations division of Milan, Italy-based SAES Getters SpA (www.saesgetters.com), had selected a grade of its OBP-based polypropylene resin as the material for its containers.

With this application, SAES Getters aims to help consumers meet the challenge of improving food preservation with a powerful vacuum system that uses containers molded in OBP-based resin. The partners selected SABIC® PP 576P, a high-gloss grade from the company’s TRUCIRCLE portfolio. The container material has an OBP feedstock content of roughly 50 percent.

SABIC sources the OBP in its material from regions within 50 km of shorelines and then converts it to plastic feedstock by means of advanced recycling. It supplies the PP resin produced with this recycle in natural color to C.E.L. (Costruzioni Elettromeccaniche Legnaghesi), a leading Italian player specializing in the processing of thermoplastic resins. C.E.L. adds special masterbatches to mold the B!POD containers in different sizes and several distinct custom colors. At the end of their service life, the reusable containers are fully recyclable in existing PP material streams.

Ginevra della Porta, Chief Innovation Officer at SAES Getters and co-founder of B!POD, said: “This innovation embraces sustainability from the very concept to end use – with an advanced vacuum technology to minimize food waste, with SABIC’s OBP-based material that prevents used plastic from polluting our oceans.” She added that they chose to produce these containers in a range of colors each dedicated to an endangered species, such as orangutan orange or whale grey, it is designed to raise the awareness of consumers.

“Moreover,” she said, “our market research has indicated that reusable rigid containers for food preservation can potentially eliminate the consumption of more than 300 non-recyclable plastic bags per person and year, which corresponds to a per capita release of 30 kg of CO₂ to the atmosphere.”

The OPB-based SABIC grade being used in this project is a food-contact-approved resin that is  free of PFAS and BPA. SABIC claims it offers ease of processing and delivers dimensionally stable parts with low warpage, good impact strength and high gloss as molded. The International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC) PLUS organization has fully certified this as a legitimate OBP-based solution under its chain of custody.

“The decision to replace standard virgin PP by our OBP material in the containers also marks a significant step toward greater sustainability, as it supports the transformation of the plastics economy towards circularity,” stated Khaled Al-Jalawi, SABIC’s Global Director of Circular Economy Business. 

B!POD says it has fully rolled out these sustainable B!POD containers across the European Union, in Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and aims to introduce them across Asia in 2025.