#tide to join high-profile industry consortium Nextwave Plastics

When you're trying to build a new market from scratch, establishing supply-chains which are scalable on a commercial level is a painstaking process. Especially if you're doing it on your own. The way out: Collaboration. When it comes to building supply-chains for ocean-bound plastics, a lot of this pioneering work has been led by Nextwave Plastics.

This cross industry consortium was convened five years ago by the New York based Lonely Whale Foundation and the founding members included well-known brands such as Dell Inc, Trek Bicycles, General Motors and Humanscale. Their goal: To actively replace virgin plastics with ocean-bound plastics in their products and - in parallel - reduce overall plastic consumption within their companies. Simply put, NextWave keeps plastic in the economy and out of our ocean. Collectively they pledged to avert 25'000 metric tons of plastic from entering the oceans.

Scaling up the global ecosystem

And this work has paid off. Prominent recognition includes Nextwave Plastics joining the "Global Plastic Action Partnership" (GPAP) at the World Economic Forum and the "Sustainable Development Goal Action Award" presented by the United Nations in March 2021. The Consortium also grew and now includes - among others- IKEA, HP, MillerKnoll, Logitech and Shinola. Many products were launched with increasingly higher contents of ocean-bound plastics.

All of this remarkable milestones have pushed the envelope of implementation of ocean-bound plastics at commercial scale. Which is why #tide is proud to officially join Nextwave Plastics as an active member. Being one of only two suppliers of upcycled ocean-bound plastic in the consortium and therefore playing an important role in scaling up the global ecosystem which will enable all of us to close the tab of plastic pollution once and for all.