Hope, the makers of Hope in a Bottle, in partnership with Republic Cement and GreenAntz has worked to ensure that Hope could be plastic-neutral for all plastic they put out in the market since Jan 1, 2018. How did they do this? Hope started planning in 2017 and executed on a partnership with GreenAntz to build its classrooms using eco-bricks made with post-consumer plastic. After realizing in 2018 that eco-bricks alone would not achieve their desire to become plastic neutral, they started looking for a partner to process safely the balance of their plastic footprint so that they did their part to make sure post-consumer plastic did not wind up in the oceans or in our food chain. They found this partner in Republic Cement ( a CRH-Aboitiz Company) who was eager to help create a successful plastic neutral story to inspire others to rethink how we solve our plastic problem and address an important alternative fuel opportunity.
“At Hope, we realized that we did not immediately have good options to replace plastic bottles outside of the premium market and that the current problem was more that we were terribly mismanaging plastic especially at the post-consumer levels,” said Nanette Medved Po, founder of Hope.
“Inspired by the private sector solution that Hope uses for classrooms we started to explore ways to take responsibility and found that non-specific post-consumer recovery of plastic for all our sales was a way we could start,” she added. “Hope now assigns a recovery surcharge for every bottle sold which goes into a fund that is earmarked to be spent exclusively for recovering plastic after use. In 2018 and 2019 we are funding that recovery internally.” Medved continued.
CEO of Republic Cement, Nabil Francis stated, “Republic Cement is excited to partner with Generation Hope, Inc. to achieve their plastic neutral target by offsetting their plastic packaging materials consumption against post-consumer plastics co-processing at our cement kilns. The partnership of like-minded and environmentally responsible companies to promote and support responsible use and disposal of plastic packaging materials to reduce its harmful effects on the environment will contribute to a Stronger and Greener Republic.”
GreenAntz Builders founder Rommel Benig added, “GREEN ANTZ is happy and inspired to collaborate with HOPE in this noble cause. The issue of plastic pollution is really daunting but with committed organizations and companies who are doing tangible actions, we have a very good chance to address this big problem”.
“We are very excited and hope to share our learning with any and all companies who would like to consider doing the same.” Nanette Medved-Po said for the group.
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