BLOG
News and Stories
Latest news from Plastic Collective, where we talk about Plastic Recycling, Ocean Waste Plastic & tackling the current climate crisis. Also view events and get answers to common questions for those interested in becoming plastic neutral.
The Plastic Impact on Climate Change
Climate change is a topic that is currently garnering a lot of attention in the media, especially with reports of unseasonal and extreme weather events that are taking place around the world. With this increased scrutiny there is a focus on the various contributing...
Social-Plus: A new Standard for improving waste picker conditions
The estimated 20 million waste pickers operating around the world [1] provide around 60 percent of the global collection volume for plastic recycled material [2]. However, waste pickers receive little to no recognition for their essential contribution to circular...
Plastic Collective’s Plastic Leadership Labels
Plastic Collective's Plastic Leadership Labels Plastic Collective offers the following plastic leadership labels to brands. The labels are awarded based on a brand’s achievements in the key circularity actions of collecting and recycling equivalent volumes of the...
What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is a vast area in the North Pacific Ocean where marine debris, primarily plastics, has accumulated due to ocean currents. What we have come to know as the great pacific garbage patch was first discovered by Captain Charles Moore...
Mitigation of Plastic Pollution – Climate Action on Plastic Waste, Mitigation Checklist
Mitigation of Plastic Pollution This blog is the second in our blog mini series focused on Plastic Collective’s Plastic Pathways for Corporates which help corporates address plastic pollution as part of taking action on climate change and achieving their...
Plastic Pollution Facts & Statistics
Plastic pollution is a problem has quickly become one of the most important environmental issues in recent years. It is a global problem that affects every corner of the planet, from the deepest ocean trenches to the most remote mountain ranges. The ubiquity of...
Net Zero vs. Carbon Neutral
In recent years, the phrases "net zero" and "carbon neutral" have become buzzwords in the climate change and sustainability discussion. Governments, businesses, and individuals are increasingly encouraged to reduce their carbon footprint and instead adopt green...
Global Partnership on Plastic Pollution & Marine Litter (GPML)
Recently (in April 2023) we proudly became an official member of the Global Partnership on Plastic Pollution and Marine Litter (GPML), a multi-stakeholder partnership working together to find solutions to prevent marine litter and plastic pollution. This global...
How Effective Is Plastic Recycling?
Is Plastic Recycling Effective? Most of us have come to understand that plastic is bad for the environment and can have a negative impact on our health. This is why in many countries plastic recycling schemes have been implemented and many people, at an individual...
The Plastic Waste Problem and its Solutions
We’ve all come across plastic waste in some form or other. You can find it in our homes, in our streets, and in our oceans. Plastic pollution has become a global issue that needs to be addressed urgently. While there have been some inroads over the years in terms of...
Extended Producer Responsibility – How Can It Drive Global Circularity and Sustainability?
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is the concept that producers and importers should take responsibility for the products they put into a market across their entire lifecycle - the polluter pays principle. We are now seeing a ‘third wave’ in the development and...
How Can Businesses Reduce Plastic Use and Improve Their Plastic Footprint
Every day, thousands of tons of plastic are produced, used once, and then just thrown away. This plastic pollution is causing massive problems in the environment and is directly contributing to climate change. Businesses, in particular, are major contributors to the...
What Are Plastic Offsetting Schemes for Business
Contact us today to learn more about our plastic neutral scheme. As a business it is almost inevitable that you will use a certain amount of plastic in either the products you supply or as a by-product of carrying out commerce. Many organizations have set themselves...
Sustainable Development: Challenges and Opportunities
Sustainable development has been on the agenda since the late 1980s and over that time much progress has been made in moving towards a world that is more sustainable. However, with population growth and issues surrounding climate change the challenges of sustainable...
How to Become a Net Zero or Zero Carbon Business
Today more than ever there is a lot of reasons why it is a good idea for a business to become a zero carbon. However, this does raise the question on how this is to be achieved and what are the steps that need to be taken. Here we will discuss the reasons why it is a...
What is Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) & How do Plastic Credits Fit In?
What is EPR? Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is the concept that brands, plastic packaging producers and importers should take responsibility for the plastic they put into a market across its entire lifecycle. EPR policies are based on the “polluter pays”...
Guide to the Effects of Plastic Pollution in the Ocean
It is hard to miss the news reports on television and in the press showing the effects of plastic waste and the amount of plastic debris in the ocean. From single-use plastic bags to fishing nets there is a vast quantity of plastics that end up in the sea. Most...
Benefits of Reducing Plastic Waste for Business
When plastic was first introduced it was thought of as a miracle and flexible material but as the world has come to realize this material comes at a cost to the environment and health. Businesses have relied on plastic not only as one of the raw materials in the...
Lower Gulf Indigenous Recycling Centre Kicks Off
In August 2022, Plastic Collective delivered the final stage of an Indigenous Recycling Centre in the Gulf of Carpentaria. In response to the largest die-back of mangroves witnessed in the Lower Gulf region in 2016, a project focusing on mangrove health and plastic...
Recycled PET Market – Supply & Demand Market Issues
The recycled PET market: many large buyers, but not enough collection We know that of the 460 million tonnes of plastic consumed globally each year, just 9 per cent is recycled (1). Roughly 50 percent of plastic waste generated globally ends up in landfill; 19...
Global Plastic Treaty – The Lowdown
The OECD’s latest report on plastic pollution is not exactly ‘beach read’ material. It projects that plastic leakage into the environment will double to 44 million tonnes a year by 2060, while the build-up of plastics in aquatic environments will more than triple,...
Cosmetic Industries Join For Planetary Health
The cosmetic industry is a thriving growth sector worth a staggering $511 billion in 2022, and growing at a rate of 4.75%. By 2025 it is expected to reach $785 billion. The cosmetic industry can be divided into four broad categories Cosmetics (or makeup) ...
How to Avoid Greenwashing for Business
Businesses examining ways they can improve their eco-credentials and sustainability efforts might have come across the phrase, ‘greenwashing’ or ‘green sheen’. Often this phrase is highlighted because of bad publicity. Brands may have wondered how they too can avoid...
ABC News Article : “Louise Hardman’s Shruder invention recycles plastic cleaned from ocean”
[ABC ARTICLE - By Halina Baczkowski Posted Fri 15 Jul 2022 at 6:43am, updated Mon 18 Jul 2022 at 10:48am] Louise Hardman is a water person, she loves anything to do with it, be it leisure, sport or work. It was her specialisation in marine turtles and birds while...
Plastic Pathway – Guidelines for Corporate Plastic Stewardship: Intro
Corporates and their customers are increasingly aware of the challenges that plastic pollution poses to our environment and of the need to collectively rethink our approach to plastic use and management as part of climate action. The question for corporates is then -...
Carbon Credits & Offsetting Explained
There are many important reasons why carbon emissions should be reduced. Such emissions from carbon dioxide and methane are heat-trapping gases (or greenhouse gases) and an excessive amount of these cause global warming and climate change. Greenhouse gases are a...
Plastic Credits: Safeguarding against “greenwashing” and false company eco-friendly / ESG claims
“Greenwashing”, or the exaggeration of claims by companies about their environmental, social and governance (ESG) achievements, is a growing problem in the ESG industry. Under pressure from consumers, shareholder and environmental groups, regulators are now looking...
Response to “Three problems’ with Verra’s first plastic waste reduction credits” by Madeleine Jenkins
I’d like to respond to Madeleine Jenkins' article “Three problems' with Verra's first plastic waste reduction credits”. I’m Steve Hardman, Director of Plastic Collective, which is a developer of plastic collection and recycling projects that advises businesses on...
How Does Plastic Pollution Affect Climate Change
From plastic straws to microbeads contained in body scrubs, it is fair to say that plastic use is widespread. Once hailed as a miracle material that revolutionized the manufacturing industry, time has shown that there are significant downsides to plastic use. From...
Plastic Collective Joins UN Sea of Solutions 2021
Plastic Collective’s Steve Hardman recently joined the United Nations Environment Programme’s Sea of Solutions annual plastic waste conference organized in conjunction with COBSEA, to talk about Sustainable Financing for a Waste-free Future. This session showcased...
Oyster Farmers Tackle Waste in Nambucca River
On Tuesday 22nd February, local oyster farmers will descend onto the foreshore of the Nambucca River on Gumbaynggirr Country for the mass industry led clean-up event “Tide to Tip”. This is the third year of the event, which is organised by OceanWatch Australia, that...
What Does Plastic Net Zero Mean?
Keeping up with the ever-growing green glossaryAs a CSR professional or a responsible consumer, it’s difficult and even frustrating to keep up with the green glossary of sustainability jargon. In the plastic space, it is no different. We are bombarded by terms like:...
History of Plastic Pollution: Solving the Pollution Problem
History of Plastic Pollution How we're Solving the Problem Humans have been polluting our earth since the beginning of the 19th century, however, it wasn't until the late 1960’s when we released we actually had a problem. Plastic Collective and other world non...
History of Plastic Production
History of Plastic Production: How Long has Plastic Pollution been a Problem? Scientists studying plankton first noticed plastic pollution in the ocean in the early 1930’s. This was regarded as the first recorded incident of plastic pollution. The scientists were...
Australia’s first Indigenous-run marine plastic recycling enterprise
A whale preservation charity will fund Australia’s first Indigenous-run marine plastic recycling enterprise, transforming waste plastic into objects of desire. Gowings Whale Trust, the NFP environmental organisation started by Gowings, is financing the MiiMi...
The Plastic Collective System – Designing a Framework to Recycle Fugitive Plastic
What is the Plastic Collective System?Louise is a strong believer in resource not waste. We refer to something that cannot be recycled as waste - dirty nappies for example. Plastic however, has this incredible ability where it can be cleaned, reused and recycled...
Certified Standard Logos for Biodegradable & Compostable Plastics
The Home Compostable verification logo helps consumers clearly identify and differentiate packaging materials as home compostable and biodegradable. Since the demands for environmentally friendly packaging increases, companies are ambitiously developing new packaging...
What’s the Link Between Plastic and Climate Change?
Image sourced from GreenBizThe perils of plastic are well known to businesses and their consumers. Yet, often at times the link between plastic pollution and carbon emissions is overlooked. Tackling these challenges requires a holistic understanding of their...
Plastic Collective’s Digital Solution: Using Data to Ensure Transparency and Impact
Image sourced from Plastic Collective.We take a deeper look with Aly Khalifa into how Plastic Collective’s recycling software is integrated into its wider system to support communities with their plastic waste management.Software origin – a need for good dataSo, what...
How is plastic pollution affecting Indonesia communities
We talked to founder and CEO Louise Hardman about Plastic Collective’s latest community project in Java, Indonesia. Like many places across the globe, discarded plastics are putting extreme stress on the natural environment, local communities and surrounding wildlife....
Environmental Standard Setter Verra Names Plastic Collective to Plastic Program Advisory Group
Image sourced from Verra.Plastic Collective’s Steve Hardman was recently invited to join Verra’s Plastic Program Advisory Group (PPAG). He, alongside eighteen other cross-sector stakeholders, will guide the development of the Plastic Waste Reduction Program. The...
India Plastics Pact Launches with Plastic Collective as a Founding Member
Image sourced from India Plastics Pact.THE INDIA PLASTICS PACT & ITS 2030 TARGETS September 3, 2021 marks the official launch of India Plastics Pact - collaboratively developed by WWF India and the Confederation of Indian Industry. Plastic Collective is...
How are Marine Megafauna Impacted by Plastic Pollution?
Photograph by Jordi Chias sourced from National Geographic. “Marine litter has become a pervasive pollution problem affecting all of the world's seas. It is widely documented that marine litter, in particular plastic, has negative impacts on marine wildlife, primarily...
New Technology to Identify Plastics is Helping to Recycle Ghost Nets
Imagine shooting infrared beams at a material to work out what type of plastic material it is made from - that is what a ‘Spectro-photo-scope’ does for plastic! This Near Infrared Device (NIR) is also called BASF trinamix. One of the problems with recycling discarded...
Surfing towards Sustainability: Diving into WAW’s Ocean Plastic Supply Chain
Dreaming Big: Australia’s first Ocean Plastic Supply Chain Before WAW became a household name in the Australian surf industry, Rikki Gilbey was just another person dreaming big. What was driving him? Giving a new generation of bodysurfers a way to get barreled, while...
Land Management and Resource Recovery in the Gulf of Carpentaria
Indigenous Rangers Caring for CountyWetlands Not Wastelands - Southern Gulf Kickoff In April, 2021 Plastic Collective (PC) and Earthwatch Australia (EW) made their way to northern Queensland to meet with Carpentaria Land Council Aboriginal Corporation (CLCAC) in...
What is Plastic Rain? Amount of Microplastics in the Sky
Plastic degrades; we know this because we hear it and see it ALL the time. But, are you aware of how much degraded plastic there actually is? Recently a new study has shown evidence for rain containing microplastic particles. But how is this possible? How can there be...
3 Questions Every Sustainability Professional Should Ask: Getting a Holistic View of your Products’ Impact
As a sustainability professional, we see more and more frameworks being introduced - each promises a direct path to positive impact. But which, out of hundreds of options, is the right path forward for your unique brand? We hear such questions a lot in the plastic...
ANZPAC Plastic Pact to Reduce Plastic Waste
ANZPAC Plastic Pact setting plastic waste reduction targets for huge retailers including Coles and Woolworths by 2025Louise Hardman was recently interviewed by ABC News Australia regarding the new ‘ANZPAC’ Plastic Pact. More than 60 Australian and New Zealand...
Plastic or Carbon Neutral? We say Both!
Next Generation Plastic/Carbon Combo CreditsCreating a Circular EconomyBusinesses and investors are lining up to commit to plastic neutral and net zero carbon targets. A perfect storm of concerned consumers with government legislation and non-profit pressures are...
Seaspiracy Fact Check: The Inaccuracies and Controversy Explained
Plastic Collective and Marine Biology Students React to the Hit Netflix Documentary and Provide Insight into the Inaccuracies Outlined by the Media The new Netflix documentary “Seaspiracy” has gained a lot of attention following its release this week. The film,...
How do Plastic Credits Work?
Plastic Credits are a mechanism to incentivise the removal of plastic from the environment and the recycling of plastic into new products and packaging. There are two key participants in plastic credits. One is companies who use plastic in their products and...
Making plastic credits credible: WWF latest paper critiques potential crediting shortfalls
Is your company considering or currently using Plastic Credits? If so, WWF's latest position paper on plastic crediting is a MUST read. The report pre-dates the February 2021 launch of Verra's Plastic Waste Reduction Standard (Plastic Standard). Therefore, while the...
Your Roadmap to the Global Plastic Credit Market
An Official Plastic Credit Market is BornThe plastic problem is not new, yet the slew of corporate pledges driven by legislation and stakeholder pressures are. With corporates avidly searching for solutions, a plastic credit market was born. Like the carbon credit...
Plastic Waste Initiatives with Plastic Collective’s Les Village Program in Bali, Indonesia
Plastic Collective’s Les Village Program, Pilots the Plastic Waste Reduction StandardPlastic Waste Initiatives: The Pilot ProgramThe Reduce, Recover, Recycle (3R) Initiative, aims to increase the value of global plastic waste by transforming societal perceptions from...
Plastics! The Essential Guide to Repurposing, Reusing and Recycling
Importance of Repurposing PlasticsOver the past decade the importance of repurposing plastic materials has become imperative as the world transitions to more sustainable options. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), analysed the...
Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Plastic Pollution
Plastic Collective talks about the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and how they’re leading the discussion on sustainability through reinventing systematic operations and innovation in resource management. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) is a UK based charity,...
SEA of Solutions – Plastic Collective’s Contribution
SEA of Solutions is a globally recognized partnership event targeting plastic pollution. The event was originally organised by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and Coordinating Body on the Seas of East Asia (COBSEA), through the SEA circular project....
Plastic Credits – Helpful or Harmful?
Are Plastic Credits Encouraging Businesses to Avoid Responsibility for Plastic Pollution? How Plastic Collective Tackles the Plastic Waste Problem The Plastic Waste Reduction program backed by the 3R Initiative, is a market based crediting system, intended to drive...
Christmas Time, COVID-19, and How to Avoid the Excessive Plastic! – Plastic Collective Reducing Pollution Through ‘Plastic Neutral Citizenship’ Gifts
Christmas Time, COVID-19, and How to Avoid the Excessive Plastic! Plastic Collective Reducing Pollution Through ‘Plastic Neutral Citizenship’ GiftsChristmas is a time for joy and celebration. It’s a time when family comes together to share gifts, stories and laughter....
