P&&G launches bottle made from ocean plastic

At the Our Ocean Conference 2017 in Malta, Procter & Gamble Co. launched the Fairy Ocean Plastic bottle made completely from post-consumer recycled plastic and ocean plastic. The launch aims to raise awareness of the issue of ocean plastic and what can be done to prevent plastic waste from reaching the ocean.

The first-ever Fairy Ocean Plastic Bottle has been created in partnership with recycling expert TerraCycle and will reach British consumers in 2018. The U.K. launch will include 320,000 bottles, the largest production run of recyclable dish soap bottles in the world made using ocean plastic. The innovative bottle will be made from 10 percent ocean plastic, collected from the ocean and beaches around the world, and 90 percent post-consumer plastic.

The project aims to drive awareness of the issue of ocean plastic pollution, inspire consumers to physically participate in beach clean-ups and recycle household waste.

Virginie Helias, vice president of global sustainability at Cincinnati, Ohio-based P&G, explained: “As the world's No. 1 dishwashing liquid globally and a much-loved brand in the U.K., we want to use Fairy to raise awareness about the plight of our ocean and raise awareness about the importance of recycling.”

Stemming the flow of plastic into the ocean is crucial to preserving the health of our ocean. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) 95 percent of the value of plastic packaging material, worth $80 billion to $120 billion annually, is lost to the economy and on the current track, there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean (by weight) by 2050.

“The issue of ocean pollution is a pertinent one, we hope other brands will be inspired to think creatively about waste and make the circular economy a reality,'' said Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle.

To divert plastic waste from landfill and the ocean, P&G brands, including Fairy, Dawn, Yes, Dreft and Joy, will continue to divert 8,000 metric tonnes of plastic from landfill for use in transparent plastic bottles, using an average of 40 percent post-consumer recycled plastic content across 481 million transparent dish care bottles globally. If stacked, these bottles would be 11 times the height of Mount Everest.

Ocean Conservancy is very pleased that P&G is raising awareness of ocean plastic pollution amongst their consumers, and P&G's leadership on this issue is critical to solving the ocean plastic crisis, managing director Susan Ruffo said.

The organization has set up an initiative to raise over $150 million over the next five years to improve waste collection, sorting and recycling in key ocean plastic economies, which P&G is also supporting.

Improving waste management in these places can help cut the flow of plastic going into the ocean by half by 2025, according to Ruffo.