At the beginning of the month, we sent our second but much more significant amount of funds to Plastic Bank.
In total, we will be collecting 193,562.94 kg of plastic, the equivalent to 17,027,000.4 plastic bottles. Holy mackerel! This is quite something and we're only just getting going.
We delivered bottles to 88 countries and learned so much from this process and are hugely grateful to the many who have backed us from the beginning. We couldn't have done it without the help of our community, thousands of folks believing in the mission and product without ever seeing the actual bottle. With our sights now set on the future, we aim to sell 30,000 Ocean Bottles by Christmas, this will fund the collection of enough plastic bottles to cover the distance between London and New York!
We were also lucky enough to deliver some talks at the Royal Geographic Society and Our Ocean Conference in Norway alongside some serious heavy-weights. Partnerships with brands are also continuing to gain momentum- we teamed up with Airbnb, Maison Margiela, Hulu Films, Vestiaire Collective, Smith Bucklin and many other cool companies all passionate about turning the tap off ocean plastic with a long term, people-focused solution. Thousands of kilograms of plastic will be collected and many lives given access to healthcare, tuition, micro-finance and tech goods as a result.
Taking a dive into the bigger picture of Ocean preservation
Love or hate him Boris Johnson recently confirmed the government has set up a global alliance with ten other contributing countries to help boost the protection of our oceans.
The UK Government has also announced they will support the target to protect 30% of the oceans by 2030. Although these steps are a positive start it is by no means an excuse to sit back and believe it’s been a good day at the office.
As we know that according to the IEA the amount of plastic will double by 2030 on our current trajectory.
Presently, around 5% of the world’s oceans are protected. With treaty negotiations around the corner, it’s essential that discussing (and/or fighting) for the strongest Global Ocean Treaty is of utmost importance, if we want to give our oceans and its inhabitants a REAL break anything less than the strongest treaty is not going to cut it. It’ll provide the framework for management, production and protection of sanctuaries that make up this 30%. These areas will be off-limit and hopefully, through an effective treaty will show signs of recovery and health.
