the upcycled soap dish, sustainably made from plastic waste

We decided to take plastic waste recycling into our own hands. We want to bind at least a fraction of the plastic that exists in this world in a meaningful way: in the form of sustainable soap dishes! Official statistics reveal a scary reality: only 17% of German plastic waste is provenly recycled. And the rest? Plastic waste never decays, it only breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces of micro plastic. Plastic-free living is literally impossible, as the entire environment is already full of it!

Upcycling to a soap dish: turning waste into an eye-catcher for your bathroom

We want to give plastic waste a useful function in the bathroom. let's keep the slippery soap at bay! But what kind of trash should we use for our upcycled soap dish? The most sustainable way is the use of plastic from our immediate environment in Germany. That's why we decided to make all our customers our suppliers! Yes, that's right! You can send us your PET-plastic and we will pay you for it: Per 100g PET you will get 1€ in the form of a voucher for our webshop! Exciting? Then read more about how to participate here. As soon as we have collected enough material together, we can start to produce and you will soon find our sustainable soap dish in our webshop!

 

Precious Plastic has taught us: plastic recycling is an art

In December 2019, we upcycled beautiful soap holders using homemade shredders and injection molding machines. Our customers were invited to send us their plastic waste and we turned old cosmetic bottles into sustainable soap dishes. The non-profit initiative "Precious Plastic" provided us with the DIY instructions for the machines, but we were still miles away from mass production! A single holder took us about 30 minutes to make! After many months of research and experimentation, we have now teamed up with an injection molding company near Hamburg that shreds and upcycles all plastic we collect! So we can finally produce big quantities of our sustainable soap dish

Fighting plastic island: we upcycle plastic bottles from greece!

In addition to the plastic collection in Germany, we started to collect plastic in Greece. on many islands in the Mediterranean there is no recycling, but at the same time consumption of plastic (especially in form of beverage bottles) is high. In our pilot project, we collect PET waste on the beach of ikaria every day and thus ensure that at least a first island does not dump all its plastic bottles in the local landfills. Ikaria is a start and over time we will install more and more collection points to accumulate a critical mass fighting the phenomena of "plastic islands" within the EU!

We want to be an example for upcycling, putting pressure on large corporations

If we as a small company can set up such a recycling program, the big ones could do it even more. We set a good example, bringing upcycling ideas into people's minds. On this mission, we're happy to dig through trash, rinse bottles, peel off labels and get our hands dirty. Because if no one moves first, nothing ever changes. With that in mind, we're extremely excited to have your support in this plastic collection program! Every bottle counts and every soap holder is a beautiful reminder for a better future. Participate here!

How does recycling work: the 5 most important facts

• There are many recycling symbols and therefore many plastic categories

  Not all plastic is the same! in this list you can see how many different types of plastic exist. We only collect PET, which is plastic category 1. You will find the symbol embossed somewhere on the plastic container. If you don't see a symbol, it's a mixed material that can't get recycled

• All plastic categories must be recycled separately
  

  In order to recycle, plastic categories must be sorted. For our soap dishes, we have chosen plastic type 1 (PET), because this plastic is very common in normal households. We only accept this material and nothing else!

• We have to remove labels and lids
  

  Elements, such as caps or labels, are made of other categories of plastic and therefore cannot enter our PET recycling cycle. So we have to peel off labels and take off lids before the packaging is shredded. Otherwise, we risk that our upcycling process won't work or our product can't get recyclable in the future!

• Plastic waste must be clean to be recycled
  

  The recycling rate of plastic waste from private households is astonishingly low. The reason is that often several material components are glued together (e.g. tetrapak) or the waste is so dirty that recycling is simply not possible. Therefore, please send us only rinsed containers, otherwise we cannot use them for our upcycling!

• All plastic must be free from health risks
  

  To make sure that there are no chemicals hiding in the plastic and that the packaging comes without residues of hazardous contents, we only accept plastic waste from food or cosmetics packaging! This is how we ensure that our upcycled soap dish will be a safe product for everyone!

further info to all mentioned facts at Tagesschau and German ministery of ecology. here you find Precious Plastic

pictures from greece by Richard van der Vieren