Lo Bros says its “impact-led” drinks brand Not Soda has officially removed 17,000kg of plastic from the ocean.
In a strong effort with Seven Clean Seas, the equivalent weight of one million plastic bottles have been removed from the islands of Batam and Bintan within Indonesia. These islands are said to be some of the worst affected areas globally when it comes to ocean plastic. The two sites were selected based on their severe, and growing, situation of plastic pollution and lack of adequate waste management infrastructure.
The recovered ocean plastic will now be sent for sorting, separating and classification at Seven Clean Sea’s Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), where it’s then recycled and repurposed into the circular economy or sent for secondary processing where necessary. Research and development is conducted on recovered ocean plastic to improve and enhance recyclable methods in future.
The clean-up effort by Not Soda and Seven Clean Seas has also supported hundreds of local jobs in Indonesia, boosted over 60 families across the targeted areas with living wages and fair working conditions.
This is the first chapter in a large-scale clean-up by Not Soda, who last year pledged to remove the equivalent weight of five million plastic bottles in ocean plastic from the seas by 2025.
For every can of Not Soda sold, Lo Bros funds the removal of the equivalent weight of two plastic soft drink bottles from marine environments through its partnership with Seven Clean Seas.
“Plastic pollution continues to rise, and disadvantaged nations remain the ones bearing the brunt of this issue,” says Lo Bros Founder Didi Lo.
“Seven Clean Seas, with the aid of Not Soda, has done exceptionally well to reach this goal of recovering the equivalent weight of one million plastic bottles from these waterways. It’s critical that we acknowledge this achievement, but we also realise how far we have to go to remove all plastic from our oceans to protect them from environmental disaster.”
Ritchies and Drakes have been the first retailers to get behind the effort, with a joint goal to clean up two million plastic bottles from our oceans by 2025.