Method utilizes ocean plastic in new bottle designs

Method, a purveyor of eco-conscious household and personal care products, unveiled its latest innovation in sustainable packaging – a bottle made out of plastic collected from the North Pacific Gyre, often referred to as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Method’s bottle is 100 percent post-consumer polyethylene, 25 percent of which is plastic collected from the Gyre. Partnering with Envision Plastics, one of the largest recyclers in the United States, Method was able to make bottles out of a novel and potentially profound new plastic material – Ocean PCR.

Together with Envision, Method has pioneered an integrated new recycling process to engineer Ocean PCR plastic that is the same quality as virgin HDPE plastic. The process allows the plastic to be cleaned, unwanted contaminants removed completely, blended, and then remanufactured into high quality plastic.

“We’ve created a usable bottle from ocean plastic and upcycled it into something useful that can be recycled again and again,” said Adam Lowry, Method co-founder and chief greenskeeper. “Our ultimate goal is to raise awareness that the real solution to plastic pollution lies in reusing and recycling the plastic that’s already on the planet.”

Method is focused on collecting enough usable ocean plastic to create a significant supply and turning it into bottles.

Method made its first bottle entirely from post-consumer recycled plastic in 2006. Since then, Method has continued to develop post-consumer plastic technology and now makes tens of millions of plastic bottles a year that are completely free from virgin plastic.