![\"\"](\"\/skin\/firstclass\/images\/ecover-feature-150.jpg\")
\nOcean plastic has become, in recent years, an ever-growing and serious problem for our planet. The ocean’s ecosystem is very delicate, and is being severely damaged by the abundance of plastic waste being dumped into the seas.<\/p>\n
\nOcean plastic has become, in recent years, an ever-growing and serious problem for our planet. The ocean’s ecosystem is very delicate, and is being severely damaged by the abundance of plastic waste being dumped into the seas.<\/p>\n
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Thousands of creatures are being made vulnerable by the multitude of rubbish, and the problem is never going to diminish as plastic is not biodegradable \u2013 the only way for the oceans to recover is for humans to get out there ourselves and collect it.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, not a lot of people are aware of the severity of the issue, as it is not something that affects most people on a daily basis. This is what Ecover are trying to change, and this is where their new and innovative product comes into the limelight.<\/p>\n
They have created a bottle for their washing-up liquid which is made out of 10% recycled ocean plastic, which they have collected and re-used to demonstrate the utility of recycled plastic and also raise awareness of the necessity of its collection.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"\/skin\/firstclass\/images\/ecover-bottles-on-beach-600.jpg\")
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By using initiatives with local fishermen, Waste Free Oceans, who partnered with Ecover on this project, are offering money to people for catching certain amounts of plastic waste with their fish, which is then sent to recycling plants and made into products like the Ecover bottle.<\/p>\n
This is a fantastic scheme which is rewarding fishermen for cleaning up waste and also allowing for cleaner recycling production, and raising awareness through the creation and use of consumer products which advertise the collection of recycled ocean plastic, and how it can help our planet.<\/p>\n
Ecover alone are using one tonne of retrieved ocean plastic this year, which they hope to increase to three tonnes next year. Anything that is collected will be used, as if the plastic is too low-quality to be made into bottles it can be used as by-products for other things such as asphalt.<\/p>\n Of course, Ecover are well-known for being a company that specialises in eco-friendly packaging. They make household cleaning products, but have also invested in innovation concerning the plastic they use for containers; most of what they produce is packaged in their own creation, Plant-astic, which is a kind of eco-friendly plastic made entirely from sugar cane.<\/p>\n Quite apart from the implications in terms of reduction of production waste, the plastic itself is entirely biodegradable.<\/p>\n Ecover have always been focused on using plastic that is ‘less bad’ for the planet, but now, they have changed their mindset and are trying to actively do some ‘good’ for the planet instead.<\/p>\n They hope that their bottles will be refilled and re-used, and every one that they create means a little less plastic left drifting around the seas.<\/p>\n The company hopes that due to its efforts in collecting and recycling plastic, that other firms and governments will follow suit and begin to effect real change. The words of Philip Malmberg, CEO of Ecover, sum up the very essence of what the company, and its new product, are about: "We want to be the catalyst for a cleaner ocean \u2013 it’s that simple." <\/p>\n \nIf you want to find out more about this bottle visit Ecover<\/a> and if you have a comment or idea on how to stop our oceans filling with plastic then leave a comment below or on FCS\u2019 Facebook<\/a> or Google+<\/a> pages.<\/p>\n The Ecover Ocean Bottle, photo by Andrew Hughes. Used with permission<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ocean plastic has become, in recent years, an ever-growing and serious problem for our planet. The ocean’s ecosystem is very delicate, and is being severely damaged by the abundance of plastic waste being dumped into the seas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eco-blogs"],"views":3453,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1530"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1568,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions\/1568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.firstclasssailing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/ecover-bottle-408.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/skin\/firstclass\/images\/ecover-rubbish-on-beach-600.jpg\")
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