Mike Biddle becomes President of Waste Free Oceans Americas
Our founder Mike Biddle has been invited to become the President of Waste Free Oceans (WFO) Americas. The WFO Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation doing great work to raise awareness of the importance of reducing the volume of waste entering our oceans. It seeks to unite business, government and NGOs in defining collaborative solutions to tackling some of the major root causes of marine litter: poor waste management practices in ports and marinas, dumping by ships and vessels and consumer attitudes towards littering.
WFO was founded in 2011 by the Brussels-based EU Plastics Converters’ (EuPC) association, with the aim of helping Europe to become a leader in the global drive to prevent further marine litter from clogging up our oceans and harming precious eco-systems. The WFO held its first conference earlier this year to catalyse ideas for public and private solutions to this important issue, with 120 delegates participating from fishing communities, national authorities, EU bodies, NGOs and of course the plastics industry and recyclers.
Among the ten key recommendations to emerge from the conference were improving and adapting plastics waste management facilities in urban and coastal areas, supporting beach cleaning and education programmes, enhancing waste water treatment, creating value from plastics waste streams via public-private partnerships, and increasing recovery and recycling options for waste in ports.
“I’m thrilled to be helping Waste Free Oceans expand its activities to the Americas,” says Mike Biddle. “The more attention we can bring to this issue at a global level, the more opportunities we’ll create to inspire action and innovation in addressing marine litter challenges. Increasing the volume of plastics waste diverted from the oceans could also present commercial opportunities to the plastics recycling industry, and help boost the economy.”
For further information on the Waste Free Oceans Foundation, please click here. To learn how MBA Polymers customer Electrolux used recovered plastics waste from the oceans to create a dynamic range of vacuum cleaners, please read the full story on our website.