PLASTICS FOR CHANGE
These days, companies and individuals alike are working hard to reduce plastic production and usage, but what about the plastic that already exists? Or the plastic that’s inevitable until we find a better solution? If you spend time sorting and organising your recycling, I’m sure when putting the bins you’ve often thought, “where does this go?” Whilst in the UK, we have recycling systems and centres in places, in developing countries this is often not the case.
I recently discovered Plastics For Change, an organisation that’s imagining a solution, through meeting Shifrah Jacobs, the chief impact officer. I was so inspired by the work of this initiative, which turns a huge health problem into an industry, that I wanted to share it.
The main idea behind Plastics for Change is to utilise plastic waste as a means to reduce world poverty. Working predominantly in India, PFC work with “informal waste collectors” (in India alone there are 1.5 million of these collectors) who collect and sell the litter from the streets. In 2015, the price informal waste collectors received for the plastic they collected dropped by 60% and has recently dropped even further. PFC work with this community to provide a more stable income, healthier livelihoods and better opportunities.
PFC’s ethical sourcing platform connects informal waste collectors to global markets, ensuring the brands they work with have a consistent supply of high-quality recycled plastic, making it both more profitable for manufacturers to use recycled plastic as opposed to virgin plastic and saving dizzying amounts of Co2.
This supply chain system is a step towards creating a circular economy, to improve the health of people and the planet, all through recycling initiatives. Brands involved so far include The Body Shop, who turn recycled plastic into beauty packaging. PFC have also partnered with Garnier on the holistic development of waste collector communities in India.
At the end of the day, when it comes to performance, plastic is fantastic, which is why we have ended up with such a rampant plastic waste problem: it's convenient, cheap, easy to reuse and lightweight to ship — the problem comes with the amount we’re using, the speed we’re using it at and how it's being disposed of — in the Western World just because it’s collected doesn't mean it is being recycled. For example, every year the average US consumer throws away 109kg of plastic, of which only 9% is recycled. Here in the UK, we’re in much the same boat and sent 64,786 tonnes of plastic waste to non-OECD countries in the first seven months of 2020, more than 300 tonnes a day.
So far we are without a “like for like” alternative that can truly compete with all of the “pluses” of plastic, so if we can find a way to use the plastic we already have at our disposal in a smarter way, we would all be much better for it. That is why I wanted to promote the work Plastics For Change are doing — reducing plastic pollution, working with those on the frontline of that pollution and encouraging big brands to lower their production of virgin plastic.
To read more on Plastics for Change and learn how to offset your own consumption, visit their website here.
