The source of marine pollution
If you go into the kitchen, you find that the water has long been out of the pool, the floor is full of water, and the walls are soaked. What will you do if you panic? Of course it's time to turn off the tap! If we don't close the tap first, It is meaningless to pass through sewers or drowning water. The same applies to marine pollution. Although there are marine clean-up projects, it is actually limited.
This year, humans are expected to produce more than 300 million tons of plastic. About 8 million tons of plastic waste will flow into the ocean. About 150 million tons of garbage already exist in the ocean. 80% of the plastics in the ocean come from extremely poor countries. Imagine, If you are living in hardships, eating accommodation is not yet a good solution. Even personal safety is a problem. How could you worry about throwing garbage at recycling sites today? How can the government free up funds to build more garbage collection stations?
The birth of Plastic Bank
Every year, a large amount of plastic waste rushes into the ocean. It is Plastics Bank founder David Katz who founded the Plastics Bank. Plastics Bank was founded in 2013 and is the world's largest chain store for the extremely poor. Originally in Haiti and the Philippines. Open, then expand to Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, Panama, etc. Any items in the store can be exchanged through plastic waste, even tuition medical insurance, Wi-Fi, mobile phone packages.
For recycled plastics, Plastics Bank created a brand for these recycled plastics - Social Plastic, and sold to well-known companies, such as Marks & Spencer, etc., for new product manufacturing.
'Now, when you are buying things like Social shampoo or detergent that are wrapped in Social Plastic, you indirectly contribute to reducing marine plastic pollution and alleviating poverty in a third country, killing two birds with one stone,' Katz said. The ultimate goal of Plastics Bank is to 'build an ecological improvement system in which all the poor people in the world can participate.'
Plastic 'bitcoin'
The original Plastics Bank was a solar-powered waste recycling market in Haiti. People can only use plastic products to exchange basic household items in this market, such as using solar energy to charge mobile phones and cooking fuels. However, plastics banks have developed rapidly. Ritz wants to give collectors more, so that they can better improve their lives. However, paying cash is not appropriate and may make them a target for bad people.
Sean Frankson, co-founder and CSO of Plastics Bank, said, 'We need a secure trading system that has excellent scalability and can serve both powerful companies and vulnerable people.'
So Plastics Bank launched a banking application created by IBM that uses blockchain technology to create a secure 'super book'. The super book is aimed at plastic collectors and can not only track how much they currently trade for plastic. Income, digital wallets are also provided for their income. This is very important for those who do not have a bank account and are in high crime areas. Plastics Bank’s stores also support payment methods from such digital wallets when selling merchandise. .
Katz said, 'We have turned plastic into a currency that can be used for trading currency. Humans have now produced more than 8 trillion kilograms of plastic, and most of them are still in the form of waste. This eight trillion kilograms, With a valuation of 50 cents per kilogram, we now have a potential total value of $400 billion in wealth, so I see Social Plastic as Earth's bitcoin - and everyone can get it.
Since its inception, Plastics Bank has also achieved excellent results. Its partners are increasing every year. They promise to use more than 1 kilogram of recycled plastics each year. Only this one can make the poor get hundreds of millions of dollars and benefit them at the same time. Marine ecosystem.
In a TED talk, Katz said sincerely, 'I hope all of us can be a member of solving pollution instead of making pollution. Cleaning up the ocean has little effect, but preventing the ocean from continuing to be polluted by plastics, perhaps It is the most precious opportunity for humans. '
The ocean is the place where Earth’s life originated. It is also the habitat of countless species. Hope everyone can care for the ocean and treasure the ocean.