Keep Sea Blue, a non-profit NGO based in Athens, has chosen Oracle Blockchain and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to support its mission: to save the Mediterranean Sea from plastic. Thanks to Oracle Cloud, Keep Sea Blue promotes the introduction of plastic that pollutes the coasts into a circular economy process, and guarantees maximum traceability with transparency, throughout its supply chain.
Each year, eight million tons of plastic are lost in the oceans globally. The emergency of plastic pollution has not spared the Mediterranean Sea, one of the most vulnerable ecosystems in the world. It is estimated that 229,000 tonnes of plastic end up in the Mediterranean each year, endangering marine and terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity.
Keep Sea Blue collects about 150 tons of plastic per month, which is equivalent to about 5 million plastic bottles. Following the end of travel restrictions and based on positive growth estimates for the tourism sector for the current year, Keep Sea Blue expects a + 50% increase in plastic waste on the Mediterranean coasts by 2022.
How does it work?
- Keep Sea Blue works closely with volunteers, nonprofits, the private sector and local authorities to collect plastic waste from beaches – for example, materials such as bottles, nylon and fishing nets.
- The collected waste is carefully sorted and transformed into “Recovered Seaside Plastic”, a certified recycled raw material that can be used by companies for the manufacture of new products or packaging.
- Through a platform based on Oracle’s blockchain technology, certified partners record information and track the plastic back to its point of origin – that is, to the specific coastal area where it was collected.
- Companies using recycled packaging can add the “Recovered Seaside Plastic” logo to their products or packaging, providing customers with proof of the product’s circular path and its sustainability credentials.
For example, Keep Sea Blue’s partners include Klöckner Pentaplast, a global company that produces sustainable packaging. and that it will use recycled material from the plastics collected by Keep Sea Blue to create fresh food packaging in the UK, Italy, Portugal, Germany and Turkey.
“The good thing about what we have created is that now everyone can monitor and see what happens with the waste they have collected. If a team of volunteers or a local community collects 200 pounds of plastic, they can check where it goes and how it was used to create a new product. And this is incredibly stimulating for everyone. ”, Said the founder of Keep Sea Blue, Lefteris Bastakis .
“Advanced technologies are powerful tools in the fight against climate change. Oracle helps address sustainability challenges with solutions that can be easily integrated with any organization’s core businesses. Keep Sea Blue’s blockchain-based platform uses our technology in an extremely innovative way and we are very proud to contribute to their success. We hope this practical circular economy model will encourage more organizations to harness the power of technology to create business value in a sustainable way, ”added Stefanos Dionysopoulos, Oracle Greece Country Leader.