Earth Day 2024 - Planet Against Plastics

🌍 On this Earth Day 2024, we return to the theme chosen this year: The Planet against plastics.

💯 Plastic in figures:

→ Plastic production has exploded over the past 50 years, multiplying twentyfold, and counting!

→ It's found absolutely everywhere: in all our packaging (a million plastic bottles are sold worldwide every minute, a huge record), on our beaches, on our plates—and in our water, which is sold in plastic, by the way 🔁

→ It's immortal: its lifespan is estimated to be between 450 years and... infinity!

Absolutely incredible figures, aren't they? Sarcasm or not, they are.

And the problem is that when it comes to recycling, the numbers don't add up: only 9% of the world's plastic waste is recycled.

12% is incinerated, and therefore 79% accumulates in nature, degrading it and dispersing microplastics into the oceans.

♻️ Fortunately, there are ways to improve:

→ Reduce plastic production and consumption

→ Promote eco-design with bio-sourced, biodegradable, and/or monoplastic materials to facilitate recycling

→ Improve sorting and recycling capacity

🔦 Spotlight on 3 companies contributing to this:

CORAIL°: Shoes made from recycled plastic from waste collected by fishermen in Marseille.

Circle Sportswear: Sportswear made from recycled, bio-sourced, and recyclable materials!

La vie est Belt: Upcycled accessories made in solidarity workshops in France, such as bicycle tire belts.

Neo-Eco and plastic…

We are primarily known for our expertise in recovering mineral materials, but we are also familiar with plastic.

SOPHIE HEYMANS-BLOT, our R&D manager, has led several projects on this topic: recycling plastics from electronic equipment, reusing tennis ball boxes, using recycled plastics for 3D printing, etc.

We plan to share more about these types of projects with you soon, so don't hesitate to let us know if there's a material that particularly interests you!

Thanks to Emilien Vasmer, materials engineer on the Île-de-France team, for this insight into a well-known material whose challenges are often underestimated.