CAYENNE, France, June 8, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Ocean protection is a vital matter for the planet that deserves much more than one day a year. The urgency is that plastic pollution destroys marine ecosystems and requires finding and sharing solutions that are in everyone's hands every day.
About 20 tons of plastic waste is dumped into the oceans and seas every minute, 99% of which eventually sink and break up into unrecoverable microparticles. It's therefore essential to act at the source, meaning on land, to solve this problem.
Since leaving Marseille, France, in October 2022, Plastic Odyssey undertook an expedition around the world to develop concrete solutions to plastic pollution. This expedition included stops in the 30 countries most affected by the scourge, and focuses on two priority topics: reducing plastic consumption and production, as well as recycling and recovering plastic waste.
The Plastic Odyssey ship, a real laboratory for solutions, has already sailed the coasts of the Mediterranean and Africa, making seven of the 30 stops. The results were very encouraging in the first phase. Plastic Odyssey successfully built an active recycling community of more than 130 entrepreneurs who share their knowledge and challenges. At each stop, project leaders are selected to develop their local recycling initiatives, which has already helped more than 65 of them. In addition, over 200 local initiatives to manage plastic waste were explored.
The expedition also developed a turnkey solution of recycling micro-plants equipped with robust low-tech machines capable of handling more than 200 tons of plastic waste per year. Three micro-plants have been installed in Africa so far, creating 20 local jobs. The larger scale development of these micro-plants is underway with a pilot project in Dakar, Senegal. In addition, the ship documented more than 30 plastic alternatives, and over 2,200 students visited it during the port stops, helping educate younger generations.
The second phase of Plastic Odyssey's expedition will continue in Central America in 2023 and Asia-Pacific in 2024. The next stops will be in the Caribbean, Latin America, the Pacific Islands, Asia, and finally East Africa in 2025.
For more information on Plastic Odyssey and its projects, please visit their website at https://plasticodyssey.org/en/.
CONTACT: Alexandre Dechelotte press@plasticodyssey.org
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