Ikea upcycles Spain's sea plastic: Here's how you can, too
Monday, June 10, 2019 @ 11:07 AM
WE KNOW the statistics, we've seen the pictures, we've signed the petitions and pressured the supermarkets – but the plastic waste problem persists, and it seems it's bigger than any of us.
Bringing our own bags to shops – or hoarding carriers in the cupboard under the sink – asking for water in glasses in bars instead of bottles, opting for products wrapped in paper rather than plastic, and many more great intentions are making a dent on the issue, but only a tiny one. Charges for carrier bags Charges for carrier bags have reduced their consumption, EU rules banning certain disposable plastics will help even more, but the sad fact remains that it costs less to make new plastic than it does to recycle, so there's little incentive for firms who use it to cut down, even when customers lay it on thick and threaten to go elsewhere.
But every little helps, and hopefully, the grim prognosis about how there will be more plastic in the sea than fish by the year 2050 will fail to be realised.
Corporate decisions are crucial to this aim, and one of the most novel to come out of Spain – and Sweden – is that of buying up waste to make into new products to sell in store.
Budget furniture chain Ikea has engaged the help of 1,500 fishermen in Spain and a Comunidad Valenciana-based interior designer, Inma Bermúdez. The former are paid to collect plastic waste from the sea and deliver it to the Ikea factories in Alicante and Valencia, and Inma turns it into brilliant household items that you couldn't help snapping up on a shopping trip even if it wasn't for the impending environmental disaster of this non-biodegradable rubbish floating around in our oceans and rivers.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com