{"id":18216,"date":"2014-11-28T12:55:35","date_gmt":"2014-11-28T17:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=18216"},"modified":"2014-11-28T12:55:35","modified_gmt":"2014-11-28T17:55:35","slug":"finding-value-plastic-waste-plastic-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/finding-value-plastic-waste-plastic-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding the Value in Plastic Waste: the Plastic Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"plastic<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the ideas that pushed me towards a focus on waste issues was that power of the word “waste” itself: when we attach it to an item – or a class of items or materials – we render it valueless. But as we’ve seen time<\/a> and time<\/a> again, just a little innovative thinking can (re)discover the value in that material. That’s especially important for plastic waste, which we’re literally swimming in at this point: this “waste” isn’t just providing an eyesore, but draining the value from other resources in marine ecosystems<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Social enterprise The Plastic Bank<\/a> launched with a mission to not only “revalue” plastic that ends up in our oceans, but to do so in a manner that provides economic opportunity to some of the world’s poorest people. As we’ve seen before, poverty and ocean plastic often end up in the same places; creating value for that plastic creates a resource for people who desperately need one. The Plastic Bank refers to this process as “turning waste plastic into currency,” and the resulting recycled material as “Social Plastic.”<\/p>\n

So far, the young company’s had success in terms of selling its product: LUSH Cosmetics<\/a> purchased Social Plastic pellets to manufacture their Sea Spray bottles; other companies are also showing interest. But founders David Katz and Shaun Frankson want to put\u00a0as much of the whole process as possible into the hands of the people its designed to serve. Their first innovation on this front: an open-source extruder that makes #D printing filament from waste plastic. Take a look:<\/p>\n