Method Ocean Plastic Initiative

Method is known as an indus­try inno­va­tor with its eco-con­scious line of house­hold and per­son­al care prod­ucts. The company’s lat­est inno­va­tion in sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing is a bot­tle made out of plas­tic that washed up on beach­es from the North Pacif­ic Gyre, often referred to as the Great Pacif­ic Garbage Patch or the Pacif­ic Trash Vor­tex.

For those unfa­mil­iar with the Garbage Patch, the info­graph­ic below gives a great expla­na­tion. I’ve always cringed when I thought about ani­mals get­ting caught in the float­ing debris, but what I didn’t real­ize before is that the patch is not made up of plas­tic bags and emp­ty bot­tles. It’s made up of bil­lions of tiny pieces of plas­tic, and it’s prac­ti­cal­ly invis­i­ble unless you’re float­ing in it. This may sound bet­ter, but it’s actu­al­ly much worse for the envi­ron­ment.

Graph­ic Illus­tra­tion by Jacob Magraw-Mick­el­son via GOOD – Trans­paren­cy: The Great Pacif­ic Garbage Patch

Method’s new bot­tle is 100 per­cent post-con­sumer poly­eth­yl­ene — 25 per­cent of which is plas­tic from the Gyre. Part­ner­ing with Envi­sion Plas­tics, Method was able to make bot­tles out of a new plas­tic mate­r­i­al — Ocean PCR.

This new mate­r­i­al required Method and Envi­sion to devel­op a new recy­cling process that allows the plas­tic to be cleaned, unwant­ed con­t­a­m­i­nants removed com­plete­ly, blend­ed, and then reman­u­fac­tured into high qual­i­ty plas­tic. This cre­ates Ocean PCR plas­tic that is the same qual­i­ty as vir­gin HDPE plas­tic.

“We’ve cre­at­ed a usable bot­tle from ocean plas­tic and upcy­cled it into some­thing use­ful that can be recy­cled again and again. Our ulti­mate goal is to raise aware­ness that the real solu­tion to plas­tic pol­lu­tion lies in reusing and recy­cling the plas­tic that’s already on the plan­et.”
     – Adam Lowry, Method co-founder and chief greenskeep­er

If you hap­pen to be in Oahu on either Novem­ber 19th or Decem­ber 3rd, you can vol­un­teer to help Method col­lect plas­tic for the ini­tial pro­duc­tion run of bot­tles made of ocean plas­tic. Con­tact oceanplastic@methodhome.com for details on loca­tion and time.

You can read more about the bot­tles here: Method Ocean Plas­tic Ini­tia­tive — TheDieline.com.