Over 5 trillion pieces of plastic litter our oceans, a situation that’s only becoming worse as millions of tons of waste plastic continued to be dumped into the sea every year. The horrific reality is that this pollution is killing off marine life and if we don’t act now, our oceans will be dead by 2048.
Oliver Nudds, Managing Director of Ocean Plastic Technologies says that a large part of the ocean pollution problem is due to the fact that globally, plastic recycling is broken.
“The plastic recycling industry has been around for more than 50 years, yet only 9% of the world’s plastic is recycled. Years of dependency on foreign entities to accept our waste and large, expensive material recovery facilities have created an inefficient and costly single stream recycling process that simply doesn’t work.”
Oliver decided to do something about plastic waste and four years ago, he started Ocean Plastic Technologies (OPT). Today, this innovative South African owned and operated business is disrupting conventional plastic recycling on an international scale.
“We’re not eliminating plastic use, we’re rethinking it by creating an emerging economy that will lead to a circular plastic economy and empower industries, consumers and communities across the world to reduce plastic waste,” Oliver explains.
A circular economy is restorative and regenerative by design. This means materials constantly flow around a ‘closed loop’ system, rather than being used once and then discarded. By ensuring that waste plastics is reused and recycled, it never becomes waste or pollution.
For OPT, this circular economy begins with a network of what they have called Micro Recycling Plants (MRP’s), mobile containerised units that process reclaimed ocean, ocean bound and post-consumer or commercial waste plastic on a much smaller, more sustainable scale than large material recovery facilities.
“Our MRP’s are placed strategically in areas that are located as close to the source of waste as possible, whether it’s a beach, a river, a landfill or a harbour. This localisation makes it more convenient for people to recycle the plastic waste as they don’t have to travel long distances to access a recycling facility,” says Oliver.
The plastic collected by the reclaimers is sorted, cleaned and shredded at the MRP and then sold back into the existing supply chain, where it is recycled by manufacturing facilities into new products.
“The MRP’s process all categories of plastics for recycling back into the national economy at cost levels that make using recycled plastics comparable to virgin plastics. The opportunities for using recycled plastic to make new products are endless. Within the FMCG and general retail environment, recycled plastic could easily be used to replace most packaging,” says Oliver.
In addition to driving a circular economy, the Ocean Plastic Technologies’ model is also a social enterprise as it’s creating opportunities for small businesses. The MRP’s are independently operated by entrepreneurs, providing sustainable opportunities for small business owners who directly benefit financially from the success of the unit. In turn, they are stimulating the local economy as each MRP provides direct job opportunities for three people as well as the possibility of sustainable income for the reclaimers in the area.
“The entrepreneurs who operate the MRP’s receive extensive business and operational training as well as structured, ongoing support from a regional project manager. We want to ensure the small businesses operating our MRP’s are successful as this is critical to the continued collection of waste plastic in the community and our circular economy,” says Oliver.
With the demand for plastic products set to double over the next two decades, the world needs to rethink how it recycles plastic and the OPT circular economy model is creating waves not only in South Africa but internationally too. It is proving its worth as a viable and sustainable model that will not only clean up communities but ultimately, it may be the solution the world needs to help the recovery of our world’s water systems and oceans.
Photo: Reclaimers in the community collect waste plastic and deliver it to the Micro Recycling Plant where it is cleaned, sorted and shredded and then sold back into the existing supply chain.
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