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 polluting the environment, harming marine life, and impacting global warming and climate change, […]
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 sees oyster growers lead marine debris clean-ups in estuaries across the […]
What Does Plastic Net Zero Mean?
Keeping up with the ever-growing green glossary As 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: Plastic Neutral, Plastic Negative, Ocean Bound Plastic and, more recently, Plastic Net […]
History of Plastic Pollution: Solving the Pollution 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 government operations, global leaders and companies banded together to put an end to global plastic pollution. Developing initiates and standards, to […]
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 testing a new piece of equipment known as Continuous Plankton Recorders (CRPs), when they ensnared a single-use plastic […]
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 Aboriginal Corporation to run a recycling operation for the Plastic Collective, giving recycled plastic a new life – out of our […]
What’s the Link Between Plastic and Climate Change?
The 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 relationship. We forget that our plastic beverages, take-out containers, cosmetics and so much more are synonymous with fossil fuels. Today, 99% […]
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. Working with Plastic Collective’s collaborative partners, Louise and her team are currently designing and delivering a project […]
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 due to ingestion and entanglement. Most cetacean species (more than 66%) are adversely affected by this […]
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 plastics is knowing what type of plastic they are made […]