Looking at the ocean, have we ever stopped to think that the ecosystem there is being ruined by our water bottles and food containers?
On Twitter, @nowthisnews has posted an interview about plastic recycling with two company representatives; KIAN Group and Heng Hiap Industries.
These volunteers in Malaysia are gathering plastic waste from beaches and turning it into furniture pic.twitter.com/IJVuba6cFy
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) November 16, 2020
Irene Lim, the branding manager for KIAN Group had took the advantage of making office chairs from recycled ocean plastic. “Every product that we made, we know that we are doing something for the environment.”
Over the years, plastic waste has become rampant and is polluting our oceans. In an effort to counter this growing problem, KIAN has taken a step towards sustainability by using recycled ocean plastic to manufacture its first sustainable prototype, the award-winning Louvre Chair by Danny Fang. This news was posted on their Facebook page on Sept. 11, 2019.
“Once these (ocean-bound plastics) are manufactured and recycled with a recycling plant, they’re made into little pellets that are then injected into the chair machine,” Irene explained.
Findings from a study it commissioned said that Malaysia recorded an annual per capita plastic consumption of 16.78kg per person, which was higher than Indonesia (12.5kg), Philippines (12.4kg), Thailand (15.52kg), and Vietnam (12.93kg), though other Southeast Asian countries like Singapore and Myanmar were not included in the study.
As an initiative to reduce the waste on our beaches, volunteers are on the Malaysian island of Tioman gather every weekend to collect plastic from the resort island’s beaches.
Malaysian plastic collector and recycler Heng Hiap Industries Sdn Bhd is the first company in the world to be successfully audited for the Ocean Bound Plastic (OBP) standards, basically opening it up to brands around the world which are looking to incorporate OBP in their products as part of their commitment to keeping waste out of oceans. KIAN Group is one of the brands.
Heng Hiap Industries recycle around 60K metric tons of plastic annually, 1,200 metric tons of that is OBP.
Even though plastic recycling is good as damage control, it still wouldn’t help if the people aren’t educated to reduce plastic usage.
The Sea Monkey Project, an organization that collects and recycles waste is concerned that plastic usage would still sore, contributing more to pollution.
“Recycling is good – but it’s never going to actually stop the situation if you don’t tell people to stop using the plastic in the first place and actually deal with the plastic getting into the environment in the first place,” said Sydney Steenland, the founder.
Source: Twitter @nowthisnews, The Edge Markets, Facebook @Kian Furniture, Coconuts.co
