The company preventing plastics ending up in the ocean

We had the Bronze Age and the Iron Age: now we have the Plastic Age. We are addicted to plastic. In fact, we are swimming in it. An awful lot of it – as you have almost certainly noticed – ends up in the ocean, jeopardising the lives of its inhabitants. But not if Raffi Schieir has his way. His brainwave, Prevented Ocean Plastic, is trying to stop the rot.

Schieir was born in Montreal, Canada, and studied at McGill University, where he played ice hockey and did improv. He joined the Royal Bank of Canada, but 10 years ago he came to London. “We wanted to bring our daughter to a forward-thinking, innovative mega-city,” he says, very diplomatically.

He set up Bantam Materials UK in November 2011, but his focus quickly became how to prevent plastic winding up in the ocean. Schieir wants everyone to understand one very important thing: “Actual plastic in the ocean cannot be recycled.” The salt water causes the chemical structure to break down, without, alas, ever eliminating plastic. So the only option at this stage of the game is a clean-up operation.

Therefore what he has zeroed in on is “ocean-bound plastic”. Now he is collaborating with 50 recycling factories in 25 different countries. They will deliver recycled materials to your door, providing you have a 20-ton minimum requirement.

Raffi Schieir was outraged and disgusted by Boris Johnson’s recent throwaway comment to the effect that recycling “doesn’t work”. He went to the trouble of publishing (in The Times) an open letter to Johnson trying to set him straight. His main point is that recycling is less to do with chucking stuff in the right bin, far more to do with “what you buy and bring into your home”.

I should point out that it’s not just Boris Johnson that Raffi Schieir is annoyed with. Anyone who is less than transparent about what they’re getting up to ends up in his bad books. “We’re obsessed with telling the truth,” he says.

We know that a lot of companies are making a big song and dance about how green they are. Fact: not one of the top 10 brands use more than 10 per cent recycled plastic in their products. “They tend to pick shiny endeavours,” as Schieir puts it. “But it’s largely a distraction campaign.” He is trying to get them to shift from symbolic actions to real ones.

“It costs a fraction of a penny,” he argues, to make a product 100 per cent recycled. “One tenth of a penny, or one thousandth the cost of a £1 item.” He gives as an example Childs Farm products for children – their bottles are 100 per cent recycled. So too ZenWTR and Treaclemoon shower gel. If they can do it, why not everyone else?

Newsflash for readers: prevented Ocean Plastic NEEDS YOU! This is Schieir’s point: “Consumers need to be aware.” Only if they start regularly buying products that bear the Prevented Ocean Plastic symbol will it be possible to prevent ocean plastics. Only then will the big polluters really sit up and take notice and do something about it.

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“It’s what you select in the first place, not what you throw away,” Schieir stresses. “When you see the symbol you know that recycling has already happened.” Lidl and Aldi have a lot of prevented ocean plastic, notably in the fish/poultry section. So too Waitrose, who have pledged to do more in 2022 – likewise Booths, “the Waitrose of the North”. You can get strawberries in recycled plastic punnets, for example.

Every day Schieir sends $100,000 (£76,000) to developing countries to purchase bottles that have been collected from at-risk coastlines. He reckons that this is “the largest ocean plastic prevention program in the world”.

Around 8 million metric tons of plastic junk ends up afloat every year. On one estimate, if this continues, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. Schieir and his collaborators have now plucked some 10 billion bottles from beaches worldwide, empties that could have ended up polluting the seas, and turned them into new products on the shelf. The key, he insists, is to capture the plastic before you see it floating on a wave. “The idea that it’s ‘ocean plastic’ is just false. It’s ocean-bound. Crucial difference.” So Prevented Ocean Plastic is supporting coastal communities, but it is not fishing stuff out of the ocean, they’re preventing it getting wet.

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“We have had to put up with 30 years of misinformation,” says Schieir. Which explains why he has set up a research centre in Richmond to gather and disseminate the facts. “You would be shocked at how little they know.” “They” being certain supermarkets and their suppliers. “Where it comes from, where it goes… they had no idea. No one was concerned with what was happening.” He is strict about big brand promotions and has rejected some of their press releases: “It has to be credible and real. I don’t need false symbols. We tell the truth even if it’s against our business interests.”

Schieir is collaborating with developing countries to create jobs that will stop thousands of tons of plastic going into the ocean. He argues that there is no need for new plastic at all, everything can be made from old plastic, treated and recycled.

Schieir doesn’t pull any punches about our recycling system. “The system is broken,” he says. “There are so many different types of plastic, no machine can sort it all. Half of our waste simply gets exported somewhere else.”

On the other hand, he is optimistic about the chances of getting the main plastics producers to wise up and join the circular economy. “If company A signs up and uses our logo, then company B will too. As soon as they see it gets market share and has consumer support, they have to follow suit. We’re on the precipice of getting there.”

But in the end he comes back to the consumer – to me and you: “If you don’t see recycled plastic advertised on the product you’re buying, the chances are it’s new plastic, created from petrochemicals, and does not support the recycling supply chain. You have to show companies that if they do the right thing you will prefer their products.” Then there is a chain that ensures you won’t find the bottle that you put in the bin on the beach the next time you go for a swim.

@andymartinink