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The Transition | February 2025
People and progress in solving the ocean plastic crisis
About OpenOceans Global. Our work centers on mapping ocean plastic, curating the best solutions, and linking together a community of ocean plastic experts and leaders. Learn more on the Weather Channel's Pattrn interview, NBC7/39's Down to Earth segment, and ArcNews.
Past issues of The Transition
No meeting date or place yet for plastic treaty talks
No date or place has yet been selected for the next session of the plastic treaty negotiations. According to its website, UNEP “will inform delegations on the dates and venue of the resumed session in due course … Delegations should rely on the information shared through the official channels.” For additional information, contact: unep-incplastic.secretariat@un.org.
OpenOceans at the Esri Ocean Summit
If you are in Washington DC at the Esri Ocean, Weather & Climate Summit on Wednesday, February 26, please look us up! The meetings are being held in the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
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In This Issue: (links to articles below)
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Did you know?
Only 10 US states have container deposit return systems (aka bottle bills).
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Taking a Deeper Dive
Tariffs on aluminum prompt Coke to use more PET
As we have written before, it’s hard to understand why Coca-Cola hasn’t reduced its negative PR image by shifting most of its container production from plastic to aluminum. They have the capability to do that at will, according to a February 12, 2025, story in Plastics News. The recent tariffs on aluminum have caused Coke to shift from aluminum to more PET bottles. The story points out two key facts: “Coke has always had the ability to shift between the two packaging substrates, so this is nothing new for its suppliers and bottlers,” and it won't significantly disrupt the company's multibillion-dollar U.S. business. The beverage giant may also source domestic aluminum and adjust pricing to mitigate costs.
Deposit return systems have the most impact in increasing aluminum recycling rates
Image credit: Troma
If Coke switched to aluminum, the recycling impact could be significant, since aluminum is infinitely recyclable. According to a January 31, 2025, story in Waste Advantage, “the implementation of a national beverage container deposit return system (DRS - aka bottle bill) would result in the recycling of nearly 815,000 more tons of aluminum used beverage cans (UBCs). This would raise the national UBC recycling rate to 85% – an increase of 48 percentage points over the rate in 2021.”
The data comes from a report by the Container Recycling Institute (CRI) titled “Improving Efficiency and Sustainability in Aluminum Beverage Can Recycling.”
CRI says that the recycling of aluminum saves more than 90% of the energy required to make the same amount of aluminum from virgin materials. The report indicates that “aluminum material losses at curbside recycling, materials recovery facilities (MRFs), and secondary melters are financially and environmentally significant enough to warrant discussion on new and expanded methods of aluminum beverage can recycling, sorting, processing, and even design.”
CRI concludes that only 55% of aluminum cans are put in curbside bins or through a deposit return system, available only in 10 states. “The economic value of the more than 1 million tons of wasted aluminum beverage cans in 2021 was approximately $1.6 billion.”
The report suggests the following steps.
- Improve the existing 10 state bottle bill programs that are deficient.
- Implement deposit laws in all states that have introduced DRS legislation since 2021.
- Implement DRS laws in the 10 non-deposit states with the highest populations.
- Implement a national beverage container deposit return system.
An extended producer responsibility (EPR) system in Norway simplifies container recycling, achieves a 95% PET recycling rate, and is a win-win solution for consumers, the government, and corporations.
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 The Top Polluter in U.S. National Parks? Plastic. Image credit: 5Gyres, December 16, 2024
Sea Technology Magazine published “Review & Forecast: The State of Ocean Plastic” in its January 2025 issue. OpenOceans Global provided the story (see page 27).
- Trump's plastic straw order a missed opportunity, even for plastics, Plastics News, February 20, 2025
- Marine litter in the deepest site of the Mediterranean Sea, ScienceDirect, April 2025
- Making Safety a Priority in Recycled Plastic for Personal Care and Food-Contact Products, Plastics Technology. February 12, 2025
- Court rules against plastics industry in Bonta subpoena lawsuit, Plastics News, February 11, 2025
- Innovation is the missing link in CA’s fight against plastic waste, The Sacramento Bee, February 7, 2025
- Antarctic snow harbors microplastics: New technique uncovers hidden pollution, PHYS.ORG, February 7, 2025
- Trump slams paper straws, vows 'back to plastic,' PHYS.ORG, February 7, 2025
- Preventing Plastic Pollution with Location Technology, Esri Podcast, February 4, 2025
- While plastic dominates human consumption, the global economy will remain hooked on fossil fuels, PHYS.ORG, February 3, 2025
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Help Locate Plastic-Fouled Coastlines
Each month we share an image of a beach fouled by plastic. To report a shoreline pervasively fouled by significant amounts of plastic debris, use our online plastic trash reporting app. Thank you!
This Month’s Coastal Hotspot: Kingston Harbour Mangroves, Jamaica
Image credit: Loop News
The Ocean Conservancy’s 2024 International Ocean Cleanup report called Jamaica ”a plastic bottle dump.” Jamaicans have been trying for years to keep up with the piles of plastic that stream out of storm drain channels called “gulleys” and into Kingston Harbour and onto its shoreline mangroves. The 2024 report covers the 2023 cleanup and found 199,000 plastic bottles were collected from Jamaica’s shorelines, equal to 15% of the global total. According to a May 1, 2024, story in Loop News, 300 Scotia Bank staff volunteers participated in the Great Mangrove Cleanup Project, cleaning plastic waste and other garbage. The effort is part of what has been called Jamaica’s relentless battle to restore its mangroves. According to an article in One, “there’s also a problem particular to the Kingston area: a deluge of plastic pollution, which can block the vital flow of water the trees need to survive, or damage their roots.” One cites a 2019 World Bank report estimating that Jamaica had 37,000 acres of mangroves in the 1970s. As of 2020, there are only about 24,574 acres according to remote-sensing data collected by Global Mangrove Watch.
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Solutions to the Ocean Plastic Crisis
See more solutions on our ocean plastic solutions page. Have a solution we should know about? Submit it here.
This Month's Featured Solution: Plastic Fischer
Image credit: Plastic Fischer
In 2019, Plastic Fischer built a swimming barrier to stop river plastic from reaching the ocean in support of Indonesia’s army, which is responsible for cleaning the Citarum River, one of the world’s top polluting rivers. Called the TrashBoom, the barrier is a simple, low-tech design that can be built locally at a low cost using local materials. The TrashBoom allows aquatic life to swim underneath while capturing trash on the surface. It can be used in tributaries, allowing for boat traffic on the main rivers. Plastic Fischer provides open-source blueprints to share the TrashBoom technology, enabling rapid manufacturing in developing countries. Plastic Fischer also developed a walkable barrier and crane system to quickly remove large volumes of river plastic. The social enterprise also has systems for drying the plastic before sorting. Their work is financed through Plastic Fischer Credits, where 1 euro equals 1 kg of river plastic. Corporations support the organization by buying credits through their corporate social responsibility budgets. The process is third-party verified. Plastic Fischer provides permanent employment to 73 locals and has collected 1,943 tons of river plastic from 43 sites in Indonesia and India.
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Meet the Experts and Leaders
OpenOceans Global is identifying ocean plastic experts from around the world. Here is an expert leading efforts to reduce plastic pollution that you should know about.
Karsten Hirsch, Co-Founder and CEO, Plastic Fischer
Image credit: Karsten Hirsch
On a holiday trip to Vietnam after graduating from the University of Cologne’s law school in Germany, Karsten Hirsch and two friends stayed in a hotel near the Mekong River and were stunned by the plastic pollution in the river. When they returned from Vietnam, they couldn’t find any organizations that focused on rivers to prevent ocean plastic. They founded Plastic Fischer four months later, in April 2019. Hirsch quit his job at a law firm and moved to Indonesia to develop the simple idea of stopping river plastic from polluting the planet’s oceans and became the CEO. Since then, Plastic Fischer has become an internationally recognized social enterprise that has developed a scalable swimming trash boom that captures plastic in rivers and developed the 3L Initiative: Locally built, Low-tech, and Lost cost, a simple process that can be put in place where needed. In 2022, the organization received a "Top Innovator" award in Uplink’s (World Economic Forum) plastic pollution challenge. Plastic Fischer also won the 2022 James Dyson Design Talent Award, which celebrates, encourages, and inspires the next generation of design engineers. According to Hirsch, only 1% of the plastic in our oceans is actually on the surface, and only a fraction of that is in the Pacific garbage patch. “Most of the plastic pollution is already on the ground, and it keeps coming from rivers,” he says. “So, before going to the oceans and sending vessels, crews, and expensive ships to clean up, you must stop the flow of pollution first.”
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