Understanding plastic capture companies

Introduction

Solutions to pollution is one of the targeted areas of marine protection and the ocean economy as stated in the Ocean Impact Navigator. It is also a critical part of SDG 14.

There are many ways to approach plastic pollution, such as improving packaging, reducing consumption, and changing how plastics are processed.

In recent years we have seen the rise of very cool plastic capture companies. This article takes a look at the most successful plastic capture companies, what they're doing, and how they're keeping their operations going.

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Seven Clean Seas

https://www.sevencleanseas.com/

Overview: "At Seven Clean Seas, our philosophy embodies a holistic approach to combating plastic pollution, intertwining environmental restoration with social empowerment. Beyond removing plastic debris, we believe in generating fairly paid formal jobs to uplift impacted coastal communities and nurture a sense of environmental stewardship. Our commitment to marine ecosystems, education and gender equality, underscores our mission, reflecting our belief in sustainability, compassion, and the transformative power of informed and empowered communities."

Plastic capture method:

River barrier
HIPPO (high Impact Plastic Pollution remOver) - built in partnership with a Thai Buddhist temple in Bangkok
Human collectors

What they do with the plastic:

What their impact is + the measurement:

3 main pillars of social impact: Formal employment, Gender equality, and Education.
- Formal employment is measured in number of jobs and salaries paid.
- Not clear how gender equality and education are measured at this time.
1 pillar of environmental impact - environmental impact is measured in kilograms of plastic removed from the ocean.
There are further impacts related to using recycled materials, and the energy saved by burning waste to create electricity.

Size of team:

Office and management: ~10 people
Front line cleaners: ~85 people

Year started: 2019

Revenue sources:

Major partners such as The Economist, FIFA World Cup, Howden, Soulfresh, and the Salt Brewery
- Sale of plastic credits to major companies so they can meet their ESG requirements
Merch sales

Corporate structure:

Privately owned

Funding:

Received a $20,000 grant, according to Crunchbase

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End Plastic Waste

https://endplasticwaste.org/

Overview: The Alliance to End Plastic Waste is an industry-founded and funded non-governmental and non-profit organization based in Singapore. Founding members include BASF, Chevron Phillips Chemical, ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, Procter & Gamble and Shell.

Interesting notes:

Playbook to enable plastic circularity can be found here‍
While reading their website I felt frustrated that I couldn't see more impact measurements, such as "number of people employed", or "new circular packaging used for 100 products". However, their report on the improvement of plastic recycling here: https://endplasticwaste.org/en/our-stories/feedstock-for-pyrolysis illustrates to me how much work needs to be done to make plastic recycling more circular, and it is likely that an organization like this is best suited to do that research. It is likely they aren't incentivized enough to work faster to build this infrastructure.

Plastic capture method:

There are more than 50 different projects happening under the umbrella of the Alliance.
Most of the projects are education or new materials innovation. It doesn't seem like there are any plastic capture projects in this Alliance, so this company probably doesn't fit this article.

What they do with the plastic:

Recycle into new materials
Divert from landfills
Research how to improve plastic recycling

Size of team: big - many hundreds of people

Year started: 2019

"Since 2019, we have allocated US$225 million, through our Solution Accelerator Fund, to develop more than 50 projects in eight geographies, as we build a set of solutions applicable to solving unique local challenges."

Revenue source:

Driven by industry funding by major oil, chemical, and other industrial companies
Some of their plastic processing methods generate revenue, for example the production and sales of recycled materials.

Corporate structure:

Singapore based nonprofit

Funding:

Industry funded
US$225 Million so far

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4Ocean

https://www.4ocean.com/collections/bracelets

Overview: Founded by two surfers on a mission to end the ocean plastic crisis. From the 4Ocean website:

“When my friend and I first started this company, we were just two surfers trying to clean the ocean. We never imagined that our scrappy little startup would become a global cleanup operation that recovers millions of pounds of trash from the world’s oceans, rivers, and coastlines every year. But we did it like we’ve always done it… one pound of trash at a time.”

Interesting notes:

The picture below shows some accreditation services for social impact and ocean impact organizations:

Plastic capture method:

Full time crews with captains to go out and get the plastic
They purchase and own all of the vessels for the capturing of plastic
They operate out of various facilities around the world

What they do with the plastic:

Make bracelets
35,300,608 pounds of plastic removed from the ocean at the time of writing this article (March 2024)

Size of team: 300 people around the world

Year started: 2017

Revenue source:

Bracelet sales
Monthly subscriptions (Targeting B2B and B2C)
Sustainable products: https://www.4ocean.com/collections/sustainable-gifts-swaps
Corporate partners
- Sale of "ocean plastic neutral" certification
- Become an ocean cleanup sponsor to help generate buzz about products/companies
- Set up a "Buy One, Pull One" partnership (if you sell products, you can attribute pounds of plastic pulled from the ocean for each sale of your products)
- Custom plastic ocean bracelets for corporate events or gifting
4Ocean PBC's estimated annual revenue is currently $81.9M per year. Source: https://growjo.com/company/4ocean_PBC

Here are their partners, as of the time of writing of this article:

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Here is the current pricing and subscription model as seen on the subscriptions page: https://www.4ocean.com/pages/plastic-offset-program

Corporate structure:

Certified B Corp

Funding:

None known

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The Ocean Cleanup

https://theoceancleanup.com/

Overview: From the Ocean Cleanup site: "The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization developing and scaling technologies to rid the oceans of plastic. To achieve this objective, we use a dual strategy: intercepting plastic in rivers to cut the inflow of pollution, and cleaning up what has already accumulated in the ocean and won’t go away by itself. When the oceans are clean, we can put ourselves out of business."

Plastic capture method:

The interceptor: the river interceptor technology

Kingston Harbour, Jamaica, Barnes Gully barrier and tender

The other method collects floating ocean plastic. Here is how it works:

What they do with the plastic:

Recycle, depending on the team that owns trash. Each locality and project has different rules surrounding who owns the trash pulled out of the rivers/ocean.
- Trash collected from international waters is owned by Ocean Cleanup
- Trash collected from the rivers is owned by the local interceptor owner

Size of team:

HQ in Rotterdam is over 120 people.
Global: many more franchises and franchise employees.

Year started: 2013

Revenue source:

"We are fully reliant on donations from individuals, corporations, governments and institutions."

Fundraising
Partners (funding)
Institutional fundraisers
Sale of sun glasses

Corporate structure: nonprofit, Netherlands

Funding:

"The Ocean Cleanup raised over 2 million USD with the help of a crowdfunding campaign in 2014".
"In 2019, it received a 10 million AUD award from the Macquarie Group Foundation as part of its 50^th anniversary celebration."
There has also been several other smaller fundraising campaigns.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ocean_Cleanup

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The Great Bubble Barrier

https://thegreatbubblebarrier.com/

Overview:

A project that uses innovative air-bubble technology to push waste into a collector. This enables them to have a waste-barrier that allows for boats to still pass through while collecting plastic.

Plastic capture method:

They are using river barriers to capture plastic. The river barriers cross the full width and depth of the rivers. They use an air-bubble method to push plastics up from the bottom of the river. This "bubble curtain" pushes plastics into a catchment system.

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There are three bubble barriers currently built, and 5 total projects in the pipeline.

Interesting notes:

Each bubble barrier is initiated, paid for, and implemented by a different group of people. Depending on where the bubble barrier is installed, it could be under the jurisdiction of the municipality, the national government, or a private owner.

What they do with the plastic:

There's not a lot of information about what they will do with the plastic on their website, however two pieces of information were found:

Recycling: https://thegreatbubblebarrier.com/plastic-recycling/
All plastic waste will be investigated by the Plastic Soup Foundation: https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/plastic-problem/bogus-solutions/recycling-myth/

Size of team: ~around 20-50 people "in-house"

Year started:

2016

Revenue sources:

It seems as though each project of a bubble barrier implementation is commissioned by a government, or a private entity, and paid for by that commissioner. Prize money and investments have been used to build the technology to a point where the price of implementation of the bubble barrier is attainable for governments and private entities.

Other funding partners may include:

Corporate structure:

Non-profit, based in Netherlands

Funding:

Through partnerships and grants.

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River Cleaning

https://rivercleaning.com/projects/

Overview: An Italian company with 5 installed projects.

Plastic capture method:

Proprietary technology that can collect plastic as it flows through the river. Each floating disk supports a small waterwheel that pushes plastic down the barrier into a catchment. Their cleaners can also clean oil out of water - something that none of the other cleaners are doing (Seabin.io may be doing it too). A floating cleaner such as these are excellent for cleaning oil as it's on the surface.

The river oil cleaner, as seen below, can plug in to the above catchment wheels to collect oil flowing through rivers:

What they do with the plastic/oil:

Not indicated on their website.

Size of team: ~10

Year started: First project implementation completed in 2021. Founded in 2015.

Revenue source: Partnerships

Corporate structure: Unknown, appears to be privately owned.

Funding: Partnerships. Startup funding unknown (could be written somewhere in Italian).

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Sea Bin

https://seabin.io/home/

Overview:

This is an Australian based company, with a pilot that launched in 2020. Here is their incredible impact report: https://7a3d0758.flowpaper.com/Seabin2022AnnualImpactReport/#page=1 Their technology provides data on the water quality, amount of water filtered, amount of plastic captured, and creates dashboards for their corporate customers. The major strength of this type of filter is collecting small pieces of plastic.

Plastic capture method: floating bins that sit on top of the water, with water flowing down into them.

What they do with the plastic:

Size of team: ~10 people

Year started: 2015

Revenue source:

Very successful crowdfunding campaigns
Donations
School programs
Corporate programs/events
Corporate sponsorship programs
Merchandise
Partnerships, as seen in the image below:

Corporate structure:

Two separate corporate structures:

1. Seabin Pty Ltd. For Profit

Responsibilities

Services and maintenance
Impact Data
New technologies
Marketing IP

2. Seabin Foundation Ltd. Not-For-Profit

Responsibilities

Data
Prevention
Community
Educational Programs

More information here: https://seabin.io/the-model/

Funding:

Different sources say different amounts. It seems there has been an equity fundraise and a standard donations-based fundraise.

They've raised at least $1M through equity crowdfunding, according to Crunchbase. Several other sources indicate further equity crowdfunding raises have happened, reaching up to a possible $3M. Their ARR was over $1M in 2023.

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Plastic Bank

https://plasticbank.com/

Overview: Plastic Bank is a social recycling company. Humans on the shore go and collect plastics and then bring them to the "plastic banks" where they can exchange them for money. The collected plastic is recycled into feedstock and manufacturers purchase the feedstock, there by funding the collection of the plastic. The brands that are manufacturing with the recycled feedstock get the opportunity to advertise their brand as a brand with a purpose, increasing their likelihood of sale. The plastics collection and recycling plants provide decent work to many people who would have otherwise been impoverished. Corporations can also buy plastic credits. The plastic bank measures the plastic and uses a block-chain supported app to make sure the plastic recycling is properly counted.

Plastic capture method: humans at the shoreline.

What they do with the plastic: Recycle it into Social Plastic^R feedstock, a material that can be purchased by manufacturers to create new products.

Size of team:

‍47,457 plastic collectors in 528 communities. 50-200 employees in the HQ.

Year started:

2013

Revenue source:

Sales of Social Plastic Feedstock
Sales of plastic credits
Merch sales
Partnerships

Corporate structure: Private, based in Vancouver, BC

Funding: 1 round of fundraising from Ethos Asset Management

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Conclusion

The work these groups are doing is impressive and is paving the way to building the circularity into plastics. It's fantastic to see this and I can't wait to see how I can get more involved with people who are doing work like this. Next, I'm interested to read about microplastics capture.

More interesting reading about microplastics below:

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