Ocean pollution is one of the world’s largest environmental problems. They account for 70% of the surface of the earth and yet it costs the world about $8billion per year to take care of the waste.
And it was also discovered that about 60% of marine plastic originates from south-east Asia especially Vietnam, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, China, Indonesia and Thailand.
To provide a safe solution in the Philippines, a company called The Plastic Flamingo, or “The Plaf”, comes together to collect all kinds of marine waste pollution by collecting plastics (in schools, buildings, factories and communities). The company was founded in 2019 and they are known for transforming collected wastes and plastics into better products.
They are known for turning sachets, plastics and bottles into planks that can be used as building materials. When they collect these materials, they clean, dry and shred them. They get plastic flakes in return – which is the main ingredient used in the upcycled product – which is then put into planks called eco-lumbers. They can be used for fences, decks and also relief shelters.
The flakes gotten from the cleaning, drying and shredding of plastics are mixed with a formulation that undergoes an extrusion process. It is then moulded into various shapes. About 500,000 metric tons of plastic waste ends up in the Philippines every year, The Plastic Flamingo is determined to collect and transform plastic waste into diverse building materials to create a circular economy that attends to the issue of marine waste.
