Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Plastic pollution has become one of the most severe environmental issues, as rapidly increasing production of disposable plastic products overwhelms the world’s ability to deal with them. The developed world, especially in countries with low recycling rates, also has trouble properly collecting discarded plastics. Plastic trash has become so ubiquitous it has prompted efforts to write a global treaty negotiated by the United Nations.
Plastic waste is polluting lakes, rivers, canals and seas across the globe. To help tackle the problem of plastic soup, Dutch organisation Plastic Whale and Dutch furniture manufacturer Vepa have launched Plastic Whale Circular Furniture by Vepa – high-end office furniture made from plastic waste from the canals of Amsterdam. The collection is formed of a boardroom table, a chair, lamps and acoustic wall panels. Plastic Whale is a social enterprise with a mission – we want plastic-free waters. Worldwide. They achieve this by showing others that economic value can be created from plastic waste, involving as many people and businesses as possible within the pillars. Their motto is: We Collect, We Create, We Educate. Every year, thousands of people, businesses, tourists and kids roll-up their sleeves and take to the Amsterdam canals to come plastic fishing with Plastic Whale. They all want to make the world a better, cleaner place and support our mission for plastic-free waters. Without them, Plastic Whale’s mission is impossible.
According to Plastic Whale, “Plastic soup is a growing global problem. This year another 8 billion kilos of plastic waste will enter the world’s rivers, lakes and oceans, creating a hazard to sea life and humans. We have two options: do nothing or do something. At Plastic Whale and Vepa we’ve decided to do something, joining forces to turn a problem into a solution: Plastic Whale Circular Furniture by Vepa.”
Turning plastic waste into something useful
Marius Smit, the founder of Plastic Whale, came up with the idea of turning plastic waste into something useful while he was on holiday with his family. He came across huge quantities of plastic debris on the beach. He thought about what could be created from the waste: a boat, for instance.
So without further ado, Smit founded Plastic Whale. A few months later, he got together with friends to fish his first plastic bottles out of Amsterdam’s canals to make his first “plastic boat”. Years after that family holiday, the organisation now collects several hundred PET bottles each day in its twelve “rubbish boats” with the help of tourists and Amsterdam residents.
More than 46,000 plastic bottles were fished out of the waters in 2018 thanks to their collective actions. “Our mission is to create economic value from plastic waste and to involve as many people as possible in the process,” explains Smit. And that’s exactly what he does.
Smit’s team has expanded so much in recent years that his dining table is no longer big enough for meetings. Smit made a virtue of necessity: “We thought that, if you can make boats out of waste, then you must also be able to make a table from it.” And so the idea for the first furniture collection was conceived.
Made in the Netherlands
Together with Vepa they create beautiful furniture right here in the Netherlands. Besides using recycled PET bottles, Vepa also makes optimal use of other waste streams at their factory. Nothing goes to waste. At the end of a product’s life, parts are reused and recycled to give it another lease of life.
Plastic Whale’s furniture is a part of a collection including
• Whale boardroom table
• Whale Tail Chair
• Whale panel
• The ‘BARNACLE’ Chair
All made from recycled PET bottles fished out of the Amsterdam Canals.
Vepa, a pioneer in sustainable innovation, oversees the technical development and production of the furniture collection. “To guarantee sustainability, we made a conscious decision to have full control over production and to keep it in the Netherlands, which is unique,” explains Janwillem de Kam, Managing Director of Vepa.
Part of the profits from sales of the furniture collection is invested, via the Plastic Whale Foundation, in local projects that are tackling the problem of plastic soup where action is needed most urgently. A first collaboration has been agreed with SweepSmart, a provider of professional waste management solutions in India.
“This plastic can no longer be described as waste because it has economic value. By recycling PET bottles into office furniture and finding like-minded customers to buy it, we can make a collective global contribution,” says Smit with pride.
Tags: association, pioneer, plastic waste furniture products, Plastic Whale, plastic-free waters, social enterprise, sustainable innovation, VEPA
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