10 key success factors for Ocean Plastic Collection & Recycling projects.

It’s only our 4 th year of operations at Second Life ( Second Life , www.secondlife.earth ) , so a bit early to be “lesson-givers”, yet, there are already key elements we have learnt from our experience in the field, that we think are worth sharing to contribute to raise the bar of our industry standards. 

Here are to us, 10 key considerations to take into account to ensure ocean collection and recycling projects are useful and successful. 

1) Identify and work in priority in deficient areas and Biodiversity hotspots which most need support. That’s why we focus on Asian remote coastal areas and islands, supporting the local informal collectors and aggregators and their communities who lack funding and infrastructures, to engage for circularity. 

2) Ensuring funding and support will bring an actual additional impact in terms of volumes collected and quality of the recycling. The notion of additionality is key and too many projects in the field of plastic recycling lack guarantees on it. Additionality means activities would not happen without the help given. Too often, collection and recycling project are not additional, the activities would have happened anyway, like the recycling of plastics collected from garbage bins in touristic and urban areas. Thanks to a diagnostic prior to project start, its certification by a third party under Verra standard and our traceability of volumes collected, we can guarantee the additionality of the volumes we collect and recycle.

We give guarantees as well on how well we recycle (80 to 90%) and value these wastes for reuse.

3) Identify, understand and empower local communities and stakeholders, formal and informal collectors in the first place together with local authorities. At Second Life, we start by gathering all local stakeholders in a public appraisal meeting, to understand the vision and views of the community on wastes management, the current operations and where there are funding gaps in the supply chain, to have circularity. That is why we support the local collectors with incentives and technical help, to empower them to collect and recycle more and better.

Mobilizing volunteers to organize beach cleanups is a great way to raise awareness in the community on the issue of marine debris. We organize every year beach clean-ups where we operate, but only to raise awareness.  The use of volunteers can’t be considered as a sustainable and systemic solution to circularity. We would need to mobilize many more people on much more regular occasion to work at scale. And volunteers compete with the collectors’ work, while they are usually very disadvantaged people.  

For us it is key to support the informal collectors first.

4) Raising Awareness first on avoiding and reducing plastic use. Whether with Corporate partners or communities in the field, our mindset and priority shall be focused first on plastic use avoidance and reduction. Contributing to the circular project or developing it, doesn’t give a right to pollute. It is rather a call to reconsider our overall relation with plastics use and misuse. We always emphasize on this vision first, we invite all stakeholders to a Second Life, with minimum or no plastic use. 

5) Managing closely the traceability of volumes collected and incentives given is key to keep additionality and maximize projects impacts in the field for the beneficiaries most in need of support. We observed, as volumes and incentives grow, that it is key to keep monitoring the exact origins of wastes and adjust regularly. It is key as well to ensure the incentives continue to reach the informal collectors at the origin of the supply chain.  This guarantees maximum social and environmental impacts per dollar invested in the supply chain. These supply chains are dynamic, conditions vary along the year based on market prices, weather conditions and social or political context, so we need to be adaptive on volumes purchases and collectors retribution. 

6) Develop the project as a partnership including all local, regional and national stakeholders in place. To be inclusive with existing stakeholders is key to reach scale and transform the industry towards circularity. We partner with the local organizations in place, and strengthen them with circularity funding to help transform them. We do not compete with them by setting up an alternative supply chain. We collaborate as well with local and national authorities to coordinate efforts. This is key to help transform the industry and reach scale faster, by partnering with people, companies and institutions already managing some volumes.  

7) Transforming the industry players from recyclers to social enterprises. We empower the local and regional recyclers to integrate the project vision and methodology in their core business. We help them transform their business from recycling to a social enterprise with a focus on ocean plastics. This transformative approach helps value our partners and gives them full ownership over the project.  This gives strong dynamics in the field, encouraging innovation, motivation and giving a strong sense of purpose.

8) Following a methodology (Verra Standard), ensures project compliance in terms of labor, health and safety, transparency, traceability and overall project additionality and impacts.  The certification of the project by a third party auditor (Control Union), gives a guarantee on these key elements. They encourage us to regularly review and validate our project activities and adjust where needed. We contribute as well to improving the methodology and project operations, via regular feedback to Verra and stakeholders. 

9) It is key that volumes collected thanks to the project are registered in a unique registry, with both the names of the collectors and areas of collection, and the names of the corresponding clients who contributed to it. We monitor all volumes sold via this unique transparent registry, ensuring traceability of volumes sold, clients contribution, and avoiding any risk of double counting. Very few projects today have adopted this, while it shall be a key requirement, as is the case in the Climate industry. 

10) Behind and Beyond Circularity : We need to support the recycling and circularity standards to shape, to give a framework for all to engage. This is key as the circular industry counts for now only a handful of scalable projects globally. Without industry standards like in Climate, the sector can’t develop at scale. 

We stand behind circularity, and invite all stakeholders to engage beyond. We value collectors, their cultural and social background and invite the public to a lifestyle change. We call for a consciousness change and invite all for a more circular life. This is key and maybe the starting point to any system change. 

Big thanks to our partners in this endeavor: Wongpanit Krabi CO., LTD. , Fondation Jan et Oscar #tide® , Asia Green Roads, and sponsors : Caudalie , Groupe Clarins , Societe Generale , Mars , Symrise AG , PUR , ClimeCo , Greenprint Partners , South Pole , PCX ,..

Second Life / www.secondlife.earth