'Ocean plastic' can mean whatever brands want it to

Taken at face value, the phrase 'ocean plastic' would seem to mean plastic that's been removed from the ocean, and accompanying visuals reinforce that claim. Regenerated nylon brand Econyl uses pictures of fishing nets, plastic bags in the ocean, and marine life trapped in plastic waste, while sportswear brand adidas relies heavily on images of coastlines and the sea in illustrating its partnership with Parley for the Oceans.

But the terms 'ocean plastic' and 'ocean-bound plastic' (which are used interchangeably without explanation) generally refer to plastic that could potentially make its way to the ocean at some point, rather than plastic actually being retrieved from the ocean. Tide Ocean Material uses the definition set by Jenna Jambeck et al.: "plastic waste within 50 kilometres of shores where waste management systems are inexistent or inefficient". In the case of adidas x Parley, adidas states that trademarked Parley Ocean Plastic is "created from upcycled plastic waste intercepted from beaches and coastal communities before it reaches the oceans", while footwear brand Rothy’s describes its 'marine plastics' (another oft-used term) as being collected from "within 30 miles of coastlines".

When ocean plastic producers are vague in their definitions, it trickles down. Swimwear brand Silverwind, which manufactures with Econyl, says its "sustainable swimwear fabric was made from ghost fishing nets", but Econyl told DW Planet A that ghost nets "represent a small part of all the waste we regenerate". Other sources of nylon Econyl uses include old carpets, brand takeback schemes, and pre-consumer waste. Not quite the ocean clean-up you’d expect from its language and imagery.

"Right now and at scale, there is no such thing as recycled ocean plastic," Raffi Schieir, director of Prevented Ocean Plastic, told DW Planet A. "There is no need for brands to overreach their marketing for what can be such a powerful story of cleaning up our coastlines and supporting coastal communities. Why do we have to pretend that it’s coming out of the ocean?"

There’s nothing inherently wrong with removing plastic waste from the land and the coastline – it’s necessary to clean up the mess plastic reliance creates – but presenting it under the title 'ocean plastic' suggests something completely different. Like all greenwashing, it can lead consumers to believe the problem is in hand when, in fact, it’s getting worse.

Major plastic players love ocean plastic

Plastic manufacturers and plastic-reliant brands love any solution that lets them keep using plastic. We saw it with the Higg Index and we're witnessing it with ocean plastic. In some cases, the brands and organisations recycling ocean plastic are even in a symbiotic relationship with the manufacturers causing the initial waste. A 2022 Channel 4 Dispatches documentary discovered that Parley collects plastic bottles directly from the Kurumba resort in the Maldives. BonAqua water, a Coca-Cola product, is served at the resort and bottled in a plant owned by the resort owners. Kurumba had said it aimed to be plastic free by 2021, but in guaranteeing a home for its plastic waste, Parley enables and encourages the production of yet more plastic bottles. That’s a serious diversion from Parley’s mission statement which says it "works closely with corporate partners to reduce and replace plastic in consumption, production and distribution".

When the 'ocean' plastic is turned into products, it often appears in very low volumes. A pair of adidas x Parley Primeblue trainers is described as follows: "50% of the upper is textile, 75% of the textile is Primeblue yarn". Primeblue is a "high-performance recycled yarn containing 50% Parley Ocean Plastic", according to adidas. So only around 18% of the entire shoe is made from Primeblue yarn and only 50% of that yarn is ocean plastic. 

As well as supplying Parley with plenty of single-use plastic bottles, Coca-Cola — the world’s worst plastic polluter for five years running — has made its own ocean plastic bottle it calls "a coke bottle made with plastic from the sea". The bottle contains just 20-25% ocean plastic, collected from beach clean-ups and Mediterranean ports. Meanwhile Dell, which ships approximately 10 million PCs per quarter, centres on ocean plastic within much of its marketing. Its "most sustainable laptop yet" features 28% "ocean-bound plastics in the fan housing", a component which measures approximately 10 centimetres. 

Plastic-reliant brands are providing an outlet for polluters, applying the recycled result of those relationships in small amounts, and using it as a licence to continue to rely on plastic. And what happens when those plastic products reach the end-of-life? Unlike plastic bottles, the most common form of ocean plastic, they’re not so easy to recycle. adidas, which sells 900 million products a year, has just 59 products in its circular 'Made To Be Remade' collection. Ocean plastic products don’t keep plastic out of the ocean – or landfill – permanently, they merely delay its arrival.

Ocean clean-ups aren’t as simple as they seem

We know our oceans are full of plastics, so it seems odd that we’re not scooping it out instead of —  or in addition to — relying on plastics from 50 kilometres inland. One reason for this is that ocean plastic is more contaminated, therefore much more difficult to process and recycle, but it’s also just not that easy to remove it.

A clue as to why comes from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s phrasing: "by weight". We’re not just talking about bottles, cups, and bags, but tiny, indiscernible pieces. "The so-called [Great Pacific Garbage] patch isn’t so much an island as it is a soup ... in which broken-down bits of plastic are like pepper flakes. Much of the waste is pea-sized or smaller and floats below the surface," marine biologist Melanie Bergman told Vox. Most ocean clean-up solutions are enormous net scoops, not designed to pick up invisible pieces. And even if they could, 99% of ocean plastic – including more dense, intact items – is "missing": hidden in sediment, sitting on the sea floor, or flitting from beach to beach.

When efforts are made to clean up the 1% which can be located, they aren’t hugely successful. Non-profit The Ocean Cleanup plans to clear 90% of floating plastic from the world’s oceans by 2040. During 120 hours of deployment in August 2021, reliant on fossil fuel-powered ships, it scooped up 8.2 tonnes of plastic — less than a standard garbage truck haul. Some experts have called into question the integrity of clean-up footage shared by the organisation, claiming the plastic is too clean and un-bleached, with some even going as far as saying the videos are staged.

Even if the footage is legitimate, the method of dragging shallow nets, similar to trawl fishing, can trap and kill sea creatures and disturb the ecosystems at the ocean’s surface. The Ocean Cleanup says its system lets fish swim free, but wrote that it collected "141 kilograms of biological matter" in a 2022 evaluation.

It’s early days for ocean clean-ups, so the specifics are still up in the air, but it's clear there is much more to it than simply scooping up bottles, cups, and nets. 

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