The Collection of Plastic: What Is It and Why Is It Important?

Plastic has been a hot topic in the news for a long time. From turtle-killing straws to Garbage Island in the Pacific Ocean, we constantly hear how damaging plastic can be to our environment. But what can we do about it?

As companies, we produce a lot of plastic waste each year. One of the easiest ways to help offset the waste is through plastic collection.

In this article, we’ll take you through the following topics on plastic collection and how it can help our environment:

• Why is plastic recycling important?
• Benefits of having a plastic collection plan

Why Is Plastic Collection Important?

Plastic has a lot of issues. It pollutes the environment, its creation eats up some of our finite resources, and its whole creation process releases greenhouse gasses.

Each year, plastic production releases hundreds of millions of metric tons of these gasses. Unfortunately, this number has been rising sharply in the past decade.

Collecting plastic and recycling them helps mitigate the damage and loss caused by the use of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gas by lowering the market demand for new fossil fuels to be burned in production of new plastic.

Benefits of Having a Plastic Collection Plan

Having a plastic collection plan brings many benefits for yourself and the environment. There are existing plans you can model your practices after, or you can build your own.

At Second Life, we’re dedicated to helping companies offset our plastic footprint through a plastic collection project in Thailand, which has one of the highest volumes of plastics being ‘leaked’ into the ocean. Through our plastic collection projects, we can help reduce the harm these substances have on the ecosystem and environment in the long-run.

Plastic Credits

Plastic credits are a newly implemented incentive to help companies make a positive impact on the environment. You can start accumulating plastic credits from removing a certain amount of plastic from the environment.

Plastic credits are a funding mechanism, similar to carbon credits, that help organisations actively make a positive impact on the environment beyond their value chain. Plastic credits ensure that a significant amount of plastic is collected or recycled from the environment, that would not have been otherwise without support from your organization.

This can help your organization take steps towards a net-zero plastic footprint. As consumers groups and global legislation continue to shed light on plastic producers and plastic-producing brands, taking proactive steps towards a net-zero plastic footprint becomes increasingly important.

Clear Valuable Landfill Space

Plastic makes up a considerable portion of the contents of our landfills, and it can take hundreds of years to decompose. If plastic doesn’t even make it to a landfill, other waste can take its place. As a result, we will need less landfill space to hold all of our trash.

Landfills are not sustainable means of waste disposal, but if recycling means less plastic is getting buried into the earth to sit for hundreds of years, keeping plastic out of a landfill is the better choice.

Plastic collection plans help us identify recycling opportunities, reducing pressure on landfills and instead, giving plastic waste a ‘second life’ in our economy.

Conserve Natural Resources and Energy

Making plastic depletes non-renewable resources. In the meantime, collecting and recycling more plastic means there will be less demand to expend natural resources on the production of new plastic.

It also conserves energy. Large amounts of energy go into making plastic, but recycling plastic uses considerably less energy.

Strengthen Corporate Image

Taking action on plastic collection can also be a positive CSR initiative for your organization. It shows your audience that your organization is taking a stand on reducing your plastic footprint for the betterment of the environment.

As consumers are becoming more aware of the environmental impact our economy has, having a plastic collection plan can also foster trust and loyalty with your target customers.

Conclusion

These steps allow us to help our planet while still supporting our companies. The pollution caused by plastic production is still something we can fight. We can slow our use of non-renewable resources, too, but not without taking actual steps for change.
At Second Life, we support companies in their efforts to reduce plastic waste globally by backing projects with the highest impact and greatest social influence. Learn more about our projects and how we can help you.