Partnership empowers collection communities to stop coastal plastic and combat poverty
Plastic Bank collection community member in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 2, 2023: SC Johnson, an industry-leading manufacturer of household consumer brands such as Windex®, Mr. Muscle®, Glade® and OFF!® celebrates its milestone of stopping 40 million kilograms of coastal plastic – the equivalent of 2 billion single-use bottles – from entering the ocean, in partnership with Plastic Bank.
For decades, SC Johnson has been at work for a better world by driving sustainability initiatives that will positively impact generations to come. Since 2018, SC Johnson and Plastic Bank have partnered to stop ocean plastic and provide disadvantaged communities new economic opportunities. The partnership has created over 500 collection branches across Indonesia, the Philippines, and Brazil, supporting more than 19,000 collection community members to achieve this milestone.
“We’re proud to partner with Plastic Bank and support recycling infrastructure to stop plastic before it reaches the ocean or landfill,” said Fisk Johnson, Chairman and CEO of SC Johnson. “Reintroducing the captured plastic into products and packaging is key to addressing the ocean plastics crisis. I’m particularly pleased that this program with Plastic Bank helps to address poverty and create a closed-loop supply chain at the same time. It is vital that we continue to find new ways to keep our oceans clean for the sake of future generations.”
Plastic Bank empowers a social recycling movement that stops plastic waste from reaching the oceans and uses it as currency to help alleviate poverty. It identifies vulnerable coastlines across the world that need plastic collection infrastructure and supports local entrepreneurs to establish collection branches. It gathers recycling communities to collect plastic on land — within 31 miles of a coastline or an ocean-bound waterway — that might otherwise end up in oceans or landfills. Collected plastic is exchanged at the branches by community members for secure income and life-improving benefits that help them find a path out of poverty. Collected material is processed into Social Plastic® feedstock for reuse in products and packaging.
“Plastic pollution and poverty are two of the world’s most pressing issues. Our collaboration with SC Johnson enables us to make great strides in tackling these challenges. But we must understand that our milestone is just the dust of the massive amount of plastic left in the environment. We all need to take part in building a world where no material is wasted and no human is wasteful. It is only then that we succeed,” said David Katz, Founder, Plastic Bank.
Since 2019, SC Johnson has been integrating Plastic Bank’s Social [coastal] Plastic® into the packaging of its Windex brand in North America and Mr. Muscle in the UK.