Who's changing the world

Over the past year, the OCEANWISE communication team has sought to carefully reflect on the major threats that EPS/XPS pose to the health of our planet and our survival in an increasingly unhealthy world. The result of this reflection is reflected in each of our newsletters, for which we had the help of experts, we dissected studies and legal proposals. But because the path is also made by looking at good examples, we are looking for cases of people or institutions that have found a way to make a difference. Let’s look at some of them.

It feels like when we launch a boomerang: if you do it right, it doesn’t matter how far it gets, because it will come back towards us. This is the ambition of the BEWiSynbra company: to make all the EPS and XPS produced arrive back at its factories, to be recycled and transformed, sold and then return yet again later. “It is the real circular economy in action”, says the Portuguese managing director Pedro Luís. With recycling factories in five countries (Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark) and just one year of existence of this strand of action – it was already one of the largest producers of EPS -, the company wants to promote the often-overlooked idea that these materials are 100% recyclable and should not end up in landfills or in the oceans, as they usually do.

 Read our trip to this company on this newsletter.

Anouck Le Crann is responsible for the Quality, Health, Safety and Environment (QHSE) of the fishery port of Lorient, a French commune in the administrative region of Brittany with about 60 thousand inhabitants and overlooking the River Blavet. She tells us how, from here on, she saw the change happen, when the French ports started to offer EPS and XPS compactors. The idea inspired the world and there are countries that are also beginning to invest in the creation of compactors in their fishing ports – previously without a solution for fish, EPS and XPS boxes.

Read more on this newsletter.

Freedom implies also responsibility. That’s why a cage was set near the docks in the city of Setúbal, in Portugal. Yes, a cage. In it, there are no birds, but EPS and XPS. For years, restaurants in this popular area have asked for a solution for the white coat of waste from fragmented EPS boxes that spreads on the seafront on windy days, because there’s no place to deposit the fish boxes that bring fresh fish and seafood to restaurants only to get discarded bu lunchtime. This case-study was developed by the municipality of Setúbal and the cage was installed on March 19 this year.

Read more on this newsletter.