Plastic Collective has been in operation since 2016 as a social enterprise–a for-profit business with the purpose of preventing plastic pollution. By creating innovative systems we have explored and worked within the fields of education, economics, community development, creative arts and manufacturing.
From the beginning, my siblings (Steve and Dianne Hardman) and I created a vision for the company to explore a range of possibilities and later expanded our company to the UK. We’ve built an incredible international team based in France, Germany, Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, England, and the USA. Our plastic recovery and recycling projects have also spanned many continents, including Australia, Vanuatu, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Africa, and the Philippines.
We love working with grassroots communities, as well as brands and companies to make the world a better, cleaner place by supporting the development of circular economies and developing better ways to turn plastics into resources, not waste.
Over the past six months, we’ve worked hard to establish the Plastic Collective Foundation—an internationally recognised charity and registered DGR (Deductible Gift Recipient). Its focus is to deliver education programs, training workshops, and mentorship initiatives. The Foundation will operate alongside our for-profit entity, Plastic Collective, forming a hybrid enterprise model.
Tax-deductible donations to the Foundation will go towards plastic waste education and training programs, along with direct support for the Heroes of our supply chains—waste-pickers living in harsh and often unsafe conditions. These essential workers are the backbone of recycling in many emerging countries and often do not earn a basic living wage.
Waste-pickers are often referred to as scavengers, trash-pickers and other degrading names. However we feel these are the true heroes of the communities that find value in discarded materials – Circularity Heroes or Wasteprenueurs.
A few years ago, I met one of these heroes in Indonesia while delivering programs in Bali. Nenek Widi is an 80-year-old grandmother who works at Suwung Trash Mountain with her daughter and grandchildren. She earns around $3 per day sorting through PET bottles collected from the 15-hectare landfill where half of Bali’s plastic waste is dumped. Nenek lives with her family in a makeshift home built entirely from salvaged materials found in the landfill.
Nenek was the most beautiful and sweet woman, with a gentle smile, kind eyes and huge heart. Despite the conditions she lives in, her warmth and energy were infectious. I think about her often. I have returned a number of times to visit her and the wonderful crew at Bali Life Foundation who run a school nearby for the children of the approximately 200 waste-picker families who live here.
Now the PC Foundation is set up, we aim to work with ‘waste-pickers’ and other community Heroes who are so essential to the entire recycling supply chain, recovering and sorting materials for recycling, and ultimately reducing pollution for all of us.
We want to honor them by providing essential knowledge, skills and enterprise qualifications which will build pride and dignity as true community heroes who are so vital for the transition to a circular economy ‘waste-free’ world. We believe these essential workers should be receiving a minimal ‘living’ wage and not working in poverty like conditions.
Stay tuned for more information about our new initiative – Global Heroes Mentoring program, sharing amazing stories and supporting our unsung Heroes.
