How Ikea and HP want to help keep plastic out of the ocean: make stuff from it

If you buy an ink cartridge from HP, some of the plastic might have come from bottles collected on streets and canals in Port-au-Prince, Haiti–intercepted before they could end up in the ocean. Since 2017, the company has worked with local collectors to gather more than half a million pounds of plastic in the area, keeping around 12 million plastic bottles out of the Caribbean. It’s one of a growing number of companies incorporating ocean-bound plastic into its supply chain. Today, HP announced that it is joining a coalition of those companies called NextWave Plastics , founded by Dell and the nonprofit Lonely Whale last year . Ikea also joined today, and plans to make its first prototypes out of ocean-bound plastic by the end of 2019. “Everybody needs to step up [to solve the problem of ocean plastic], including business, and I see no reason why business shouldn’t be leading,” says Ellen Jackowski, global head of sustainability strategy and innovation for HP. [Photo: HP] An estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic ends up in the ocean each year, or the equivalent of a garbage-truck-size load every minute. One piece of the solution is, obviously, putting less plastic […]

Click here to view original web page at How Ikea and HP want to help keep plastic out of the ocean: make stuff from it