Lefteris Arapakis of Enaleia on harnessing the power of fishing communities to scale marine plastics recycling globally

"On our current path, there will be more plastics in our oceans than fish by 2050"Lefteris comes from generations of fishermen, though by his own admission he is not a natural... However, when out on fishing boats as part of a Greek fishing school run by his start up during the financial crisis, he witnessed a fisherman hauling plastic out of the sea along with their catch - and simply throwing the bottles, cans, plastic bags, old nets and even fridges back into the ocean. That's when the idea came to him: What if someone could harness the power of fishing fleets to haul out plastics from the ocean and offer them an additional revenue stream by bringing it in bulk back to shore for recycling and reuse?This is the incredible story of how, starting with one fisherman (his father), he and Enaleia have scaled into an operation of over 6500 vessels covering most of the mediterranean coast enabling over 1.5m tons of plastics to be recycled, including:- How to use the tipping point theory to mobilise communities into action (including using charm and tradecraft to persuade the household decision makers!)- Evolving social enterprise models to deliver systems change to prevent plastics entering the ocean in the first place- How Enaleia turn over 57% of the plastics retrieved into commercial products including furniture, kayaks, clothing and trainers- How to build a circular economy network combining the raw power of fishing communities with cutting edge blockchain to verify end-to-end traceability- Details on the CO2 efficiencies of melting down recycled plastics to create new products vs virgin plastic processing- How Enaleia's circularity operations in Egypt include repurposing plastics at scale into urban products including street paving- The future potential of plastic credits- The power of simplicity, the value of being authentic, how to gain people's trust - and so much more..!"Clean-ups are great but we are just treating the symptom of the problem. There are 1000 rivers in the world responsible for 80% of plastics pollution in our oceans"#Circularity #MarinePlastics #Tippingpoints #SystemsChangeLefteris portrait picture credit + Enaleia article from The Washington PostEnaleiaEthereum FoundationAshokaEcoAlfGravity WaveSkyplastAntipollutionEldiaPolyecoCreta RecyclingInvesting for PurposeEllen Macarthur FoundationUN SDGS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.