Prevented Ocean Plastic Africa is a commercial partnership between Bantam Materials, Bariq, and infrastructure experts supporting the region. The programme will build infrastructure to collect plastic from areas with little or no current recycling, for expert, food-safe processing in North Africa.
Ahmed Nabil, Chief Commercial & Sustainability Officer at Bariq said, “We already diverted 15 billion bottles and we are ready to support any initiative that we see extending our impact to other regions. We hope that Prevented Ocean Plastic Africa will have a good impact and will achieve the target. We have already recycled 15 billion bottles and we have a target of recycling 50 billion bottles by 2030. Year over year, we wanted to have more plastic diversion from ocean within our recycling mix. We are pleased to be working with Bantam Materials to create Prevented Ocean Plastic Africa. This will help to protect coastal regions and the Mediterranean Sea from plastic pollution. We’re looking forward to being able to scale up the programme and show what’s possible while holding the work to the highest of standards.”
The programme officially launched in Cairo, where COP27 will soon begin, as some of the world’s best recyclers came together to ratify and sign up to Prevented Ocean Plastic’s new Standards.
The Prevented Ocean Plastic Standards will underpin all the work of the new African programme. The programme is already successfully operating in South East Asia (supported by USAID), Latin America, and the Mediterranean region using the same model that was used the test these new Standards. They will set the rules, guidelines and characteristics for organisations participating in the Prevented Ocean Plastic Africa programme and have been agreed to by some of the best recyclers globally.
Prevented Ocean Plastic Africa will divert at least 5,000 tons of plastic in its first 18 months from entering the ocean, with the aim of scaling to stop 10,000 tons at its maturity. This will contribute to the global programme being able to stop one billion bottles in just 18 months, just half the time it took to stop its first billion. That will be enough bottles, when piled up, to match the size of a great pyramid. It will also create work and boost local economies. The programme will provide fair paid work for collectors and employees in the recycling centres. Worker conditions and pay are monitored as part of the new standards.
