BC Plant Helps Repurpose Ocean Plastic Waste Into Useful Products

Billions of plastic bottles are tossed each year into the garbage and in general it’s estimated that Americans throw away over 100 lb of plastic waste each year.

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There is a great deal of plastic waste that needs to be dealt with and increasingly we are seeing innovative solutions conjured up that are designed to address this problem. It is a problem that many people around the world have a passion and interest for addressing, that much is clear with the number of ocean-cleaning efforts that go on worldwide today.

A number of those ocean cleaning efforts are also engaged in by volunteers who are giving their time to the cause because of their intrinsic interest in trying to address what they see as a big problem facing the world today.

What to do about plastic waste in the ocean

One company from Steveston, British Columbia is helping on that front. A plastics processing plant located in the region is aiming to turn plastic ocean waste into useful products? But how? By using a special recycling facility and turning the ocean plastic waste into useful pellets that can then go on to be repurposed into clothing or furniture.

The plastics processing plant in BC just recently opened and is going to be operated by the Ocean Legacy Foundation. This new plastic recycling facility is reportedly the first of its kind in Canada and is going to play a critical role in getting started on addressing that ocean plastic waste problem.

The facility will enable more recycling of that ocean plastic waste and provide opportunity to addressing this problem.

It’s estimated that there are some 200+ million tons of plastic every year that get produced and millions of tons of that plastic that we use ends up in the ocean. It isn’t uncommon to go to the beach today and to see one piece of plastic or another littering the area.

Cleaning up oceans and recycling plastic waste

Around the world today we can find one project or another that is designed toward helping to clean up the ocean and to repurpose and recycle that plastic waste that has ended up on our beaches and throughout our beautiful oceans.

The pellets that are going to be made at this Canadian plant alone in BC now are going to help to repurpose some of that plastic ocean waste into new items that have new value, such as clothing or new furniture goods.

This is a plant that is going to help to create a cleaner environment and address a problem that is a serious issue facing the world today which is what we can do about the plastics that are littering out oceans and environments.

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Aside from companies doing their part there are many individuals who also are looking at how they might be able to help in their own small way from where they might be in the world.

Personal steps to decreasing that plastic waste can have profound ripple effects when millions of people decide to slowly start getting rid of the plastic waste in their life. Opting for reusable water bottles, bags, straws, and other goods, can be a great first place to get started. And the best part about it is that you can get started at any time, you don’t need permission from anyone to start making those choices or adapting a more minimalist and mindful lifestyle.

This new plastic processing plant could help to go on to repurpose and recycle thousands of tonnes of ocean plastic waste.

Already they have been able to collect thousands of kilograms of waste from the shoreline around the province. There is certainly more to come from this endeavor and this is great news for the province and brings one more opportunity to the market in the way of creating useful products today from what would be just ocean plastic garbage.

Now we will see those plastic ocean waste items being turned into things like baskets, clothing, rope, floats, and much more.

The Charge To Recycle Millions of Masks

A Huge Waste Problem With Masks

It is estimated that Vancouver residents are responsible for disposing of around 528 million masks or more throughout the pandemic year and are still now using and disposing of them.

That is a lot of waste that needs to be dealt with and that is just in the Vancouver region alone.

Now more than ever communities are in need of solutions to deal with that trash. And one company close to home is doing a lot to help. That company from Burnaby is leading the charge when it comes to offering solutions.

They’ve come up with a way to recycle those masks and try to solve some of the problem of tremendous waste that has been created from everyone wearing them.

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

The Burnaby company, known as Vitacore Industries, has been able to do the innovative work of stopping many masks from ending up in B.C. landfills.

They are able to sterilize the masks, after that they then melt them down, and then they are able to turn the material into another product that can be used.

They’ve recently held a pilot program where they were accepting used masks in collection bins at different care clinics. They were collecting thousands of masks every month.

Vitacore has also allegedly been looking to expand the project around the nation, we might see masks also being recycled in other regions, thousands of them.

The innovation and problem-solving initiative here cannot come too soon as there are millions of masks around the country that are expected to land up in landfills unless they can be repurposed and recycled in some manner, instead of wasting away in one community or another.

Still today millions of face masks are being thrown away and left on the street, to inevitably end up in a landfill, collectively contributing to thousands of tonnes of waste.

There are a variety of projects already underway around the world that are trying to solve that problem of mask waste and bring some recycling tactics to the forefront to try and address the issue.

Those efforts by Vitacore and others to recycle the face masks are going to play a tremendous role in keeping thousands of those millions of masks out of landfills. They already are and have already made that difference in recycling thousands of face masks that otherwise would’ve just been considered garbage that had no value to be offered.

Growing Demand for Electric Vehicles in Canada

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  Photo by Raduz on Pexels.com

Vancouver is considered to be the greenest city in the country, and overall there are many people in the nation who are looking to make the transition to an electric vehicle.

Already, there are thousands of electric vehicles which have been sold, with many of them in areas like B.C. and Quebec. For example, Quebec has previously been seen as a leader for electric vehicle registration though the prevalence of these vehicles across other regions is now gaining traction.

One of the most popular electric vehicles in Canada is also considered to be the Chevy Volt.

Other top selling electric vehicles in Canada have been Teslas, the Kia Soul EV, Nissan Leaf, and more.

Some other options for the cheapest electric cars in Canada are considered to be cars like the Hyundai KONA, Kia Niro EV, Volkswagen e-Golf, Chevy Bolt, and BMW i3.

B.C. has had the highest per-capita EV sales in not only Canada but all of North America. Already there are more than 30,000 electric vehicles in the province.

B.C. Comes In 1st

There are now more electric vehicles in B.C. than there are in Quebec and California, showing an impressive trend that is growing on the West Coast.

It isn’t only thousands of individuals who are willing to buy in B.C. or Quebec either, recent surveys show that many Canadians plan to purchase an electric vehicle in the future.

One recent survey by KPMG discovered that about 68 percent of those in Canada had plans to make the switch to EV eventually. Sales in this area can be expected to increase over the years to come as more charging stations become available and it becomes easier to travel, along with more vehicle options in the market too at different price points.

A great number of Canadians will be looking for a cost effective option, according to that KPMG survey which showed that about 42 percent would like to keep it between $30-49k that they spend on the EV they go with.