Plastiskul
So Science
Conserve India
Precious Plastic
Fablabs

Plastic pollution is killing wildlife, strangling our waterways and ruining our beaches and is now seeping up through the food chain and, voila, being served with our food.
This is the Pristine Ocean Podcast. My name is Peter Hall. Each episode, we hear from change makers fighting the scourge of plastic pollution.

Let's talk about the circular economy. I think most people understand that if we are going to continue to benefit from the usefulness of plastic, that burning, burying or dumping is simply not sustainable. We need to feed plastic waste back into the plastic production chain, ideally to the point where we need little or no new plastic material to be created.

An interesting player in the circular economy space is Plastiskul. Plastiskul provides the tools and knowhow for entrepreneurs to create business models around upcycling plastic waste into useful products like furniture and tiles. The fascinating thing about Plastiskul, is that it is run by young professionals with experience in the waste industry and who live in the countries heavily impacted by plastic pollution.

We spoke to Kanika Ahuja about Plastiskul.

Transcript of interview with Kanika Ahuja, Co-founder of Plastiskul

Environmental Investigation Agency
United Nations Treaty to End Plastic Pollution

Get in contact
peter.hall@pristineocean.global


You are probably aware of some of the challenges in finding a solution to the plastic crisis the world is facing. 

3 challenges in no particular order come to mind:

Challenge 1: Data. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” which certainly applies to  plastic waste management. But we can’t measure it because we don’t have the data about how much plastic is being produced, how much waste is exported, how much imported and after that it becomes a guessing game about how much actually lands in the ocean. 

Challenge 2: Laws. Packaging companies need a level playing field so that if they improve the environmental friendliness of their products, that this does not put them at a commercial disadvantage. 

Challenge 3: Finance. Waste management infrastructure will have to be expanded in the countries that can least afford it.

All these challenges would be complicated enough for one country. But to be effective, all countries need to be aboard. These challenges have to be addressed globally.

Did you know, that the United Nations is working on a treaty to solve these issues? In March 2022, the UN Member States endorsed the UN Environment Programme 5 which is a resolution to End Plastic Pollution with the intention to have a full resolution in 2024.

Today we are talking to someone who is deeply involved in the negotiations to formulate that resolution. She is Christina Dixon from the Environmental Investigation Agency or EIA. She is fighting for the planet.

We talked about the urgency of the treaty and the similarities to efforts to manage the climate crisis and whether the treaty can be thought of a type of Paris for Plastics.

Full Interview

Plastics For Change
Hasiru Dala


One day, a waste worker  collecting plastic in his neighborhood in Bangalore in Southern India, was bitten by a dog. He fell ill and was not able to work for the following two weeks.

His only income was what the local scrap shop paid for what he collected. Without any savings, he was unable to put food on the table placing his family in a precarious position.

On the other side of the world, brands such as The Body Shop, are willing to pay for recovered plastic to include in their products. But they want plastic to be collected under fair conditions.

Today we were talking to. Almac from the organization, Plastics for Change.

He is making a change by applying fair trade principles to the collection of plastic waste in Bangalore.

Full transcript

Net Your Problem
Nicole Baker

Dutch Harbor is located in the Aleutian islands, which reach out in an arc into the Bering sea in the north Pacific west of Alaska. It is the home of a fishing industry, which harvests over a billion dollars worth of fish each year.

Nicole Baker was walking the docks in Dutch Harbor, when she got into a conversation with a fishermen

Her job as government fish scientist was to monitor fish stocks to ensure that the industry could have a sustainable future.

The conversation she had with the fishermen was about the problem he was having disposing of the fishing nets that had reached the end of their useful life.

Now, if we're going to live with plastic, we need to get better at collecting it and getting it to the recycler.

The recycling rate worldwide is about 8% This is something that we're not very good at. but it's not entirely our fault.

Recycling is either not available or getting it to the recycler is complicated. Think, for example, that time when you tried to get that Tetra Pak back to the recycling.

When it comes to fishing gear made of synthetic materials, well, the options are very limited

After the conversation with the fisherman, Nicole decided to be in the business of collecting fishing nets and bringing them to the recycler.

I sat down with Nicole and talked with her about her business "Net Your Problem".

Full transcript.

Nurdle Free Lanka Campaign

X-Press Pearl

On the 20th of May 2021, a ship called the MV X-Press Pearl, carrying a range of toxic goods, including nitric acid and over 1000 tonnes of plastic pellets, caught fire off the coast of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The world watched in horror. 

As the crisis unfolded, I remember the feeling of powerlessness as the reports
came in of a bad situation getting worse and worse. 

Ultimately, the ship sank while spewing thousands of tonnes of plastic pellets that will
lurk in the environment for years. 

With each monsoon,  pellets will pollute the beaches like a bad dream, recurring over
and over again. 

To better understand the disaster I had the fortune of meeting Muditha from the Sri Lankan Pearl Protectors. The Pearl Protectors is an advocacy for the ocean. 

I spoke to Muditha to guide me through the details of what happened and what the
situation is on the coast today. 

Full transcription

RiverRecycle

What happens when an entrepreneur with a backgroundin shipbuilding watches, a documentary about rivers transporting trash into theocean and then goes to bed?  

Well, nothing, actually. Certainly notsleep. Opportunities, problems, solutions swirl around in the entrepreneur'sbrain until finally sleep comes. In the morning, the world is different. In thecase of NC Mikkeller from the company, he rivers recycled that entrepreneur,woke up with a mission to rid the world of plastic pollution.   

The price tag, a mere $2.5 billion.That seems a lot, but compared to the planned investment in new plasticinfrastructure, a drop in the bucket. I talked to Ansii about when he started, where they are now and what plans he has for the future.   

Full transcript

Take 3 ForTheSea

This is the Pristine Ocean Podcast. I am your host, Peter Hall.  In the podcast, I talk to people about the fight against marine plastic litter.

How do you talk about the environment without feeling totally powerless in the face of the enormous pressures on the ocean, on the climate on the environment generally?

Today we are talking to Sarah Beard. She is the chief storyteller at the  environmental  organization - take3 for the sea.

She is an environmental advocate, an educationalist and a filmmaker. She believes, actions, even small actions remind people that they possess the power to make real change.

She talks about the importance of hope and emotion in any story about the environment. 

Here is the conversation I had with Sarah. 

 Beach Token

The relationship between the economy and the environment is not an easy one. 

Most modern economies are based around the profit principle. 

But this doesn't work well for environmental projects.

You can put a price on environmental degradation. 

But without the intensive international deal-making and haggling over environmental pricing, it is difficult to place a dollar value on a clean beach or an intact coral reef. 

What is the value of a kilo of rubbish removed from a beach compared to a kilo removed from the river that empties near that beach? 

What is the value of that kilo of waste plastic that put in a land fill compared to the kilo burnt in a cement kiln?

What is the difference whether that kilo is in India or is in Africa?

These values are difficult to agree on just for a particular location. And they can be completely different from one location to the next.

Maybe the problem is not the economic value but the currency itself.  

Maybe we need a currency more suited to the demands of environmental projects which are typically international and highly local.

Sounds like a crypto-currency right?

This week we're talking to Rob from the crypto token Beach which is designed to fill the needs of groups of people such as digital nomads moving through different locations exchanging services. These services may be delivered over the internet or locally. 

Currently the organization behind the Beach token has funding available for ocean preservation projects and I applaud that.

Script of conversation with Rob Cobbold.