Transparency is key for building trust.

Negligible, and outweighed by the positive environmental impact we have by removing ingestible micro-plastics. When we clean a beach, we are in fact cleaning a very small area. We focus on what we like to call the Micro Plastic Accumulation Zone (MPAZ), this zone is located along the sping tide line on a beach – the very highest point the tide reaches. Within this spring tide line, microplastics move laterally along the beach by the process of longshore drift. They accumulate in an area that prevents the lateral movement of material, this is typically between two sand dunes, next to a stream, or in a cove by a rock face.
Here is where micro-plastics occur in a high enough quantity to focus on removing.
We typically see the MPAZ as a 30m x 30m patch, that we target time and time again with the Trommels to remove the plastic.
The rest of the beach remains untouched and therefore the ecosystem we’re trying to conserve is not damaged, it’s improved.

We’ve had a number of conversations on the point of accidental damage to the ecosystem. We have consulted national bodies, research institutes, councils and many more on this! The conclusion that we have come to on this matter is an impact assessment, based only on the regions ecology (as every area is different) that must be conducted prior to cleaning, and a strict method to cleaning.
 The assessment highlights vulnerable and endangered organisms in the area and once completed, using random sampling and quadrating, the cleaning can either commence or not (a beach we have visited has never failed the impact assessment because of the location we are cleaning – not historic brack lines).
Furthermore, cleaning is very limited. It is only conducted at the high tide mark of the day, not historic marks where breeding of the organisms happens. It is absolutely nothing like beach raking, which is undertaken twice a day during high season. We aim to clean a beach maximum two times a year with the machine. This is when plastic is most available to us so we can remove the problem and return 12 months later to stay on top of it.
The vacuum is non intrusive and doesn’t turn over the sand. Some organisms are light sensitive so this is the rational behind that.
So…
1. We cannot clean if the beach fails the impact assessment.
2. We only clean max twice a year.
3. The machine is non intrusive.
4. We don’t clean historic brack lines because of breeding.
5. We lay the collection on a tarpaulin and return as much organic material and invertebrates as we possibly can.
6. The vacuum impeller blade has been chosen to not ‘mulch’ the material up inside – less instrusive. We’re also not sucking up material larger than 40mm – so no sifting through wads of seaweed and food source to collect the plastic.

As this pollution continues to exponentially increase on our shores – someone is going to try and clean it up. We are not for profit, a team of environmental scientists and engineers, that have studied plastic pollution for years and therefor can have conversations with the very highest levels of academia.
We believe we take every possible precaution to improve the environment, something others who aren’t as qualified wouldn’t do.
As we grow, we’ll only get better and like most things, its only a case of funding that restricts us.

There are a number of reasons why they aren’t at this stage – although we’re working towards it. Firstly, micro plastics are extremely difficult to separate into different types of plastic. Although the types of plastic that they are mix well, we still get a small amount of polystyrene and sticks. No injection moulding company will take this to form into a phonecase. On top of this, we LOVE the marble effect we get when we compression mould our micro plastics – if we injection mould them, it’ll turn into one colour – dark grey. Yuck.

Therefor we’re left with a number of options –

1. Use a compostable phonecase. Compostable, biodegradable, sustainable phone cases are the perfect greenwashing marketing ploy. They are either made of PLA or a mix of organic material and virgin plastic. They market them cleverly, by using words like “55% originates from non renewable sources”. Ultimately, a phone case made of PLA or mixed organic material CANNOT be recycled, and if left to degrade in the ocean – would either act exactly like plastic (PLA) or breakup into plastic dust and pollute the entire ecosystem. We’re not bout dat.

2. Use a virgin plastic phone case. We’re not bout dat either. No new plastic is used in the phonecase.

3. Use a recycled plastic phonecase. We have opted for the recycled plastic base case purely because…
a) It creates no new plastic.
b) We can collect it back from the consumer (giving a discount of 20% off a new one) and repurpose it into recycled plastic sheets. Circular economy style.
c) They are professionally made and fit all models perfectly, without us having to go through the tooling design stage juuust yet.

4. Mould a phone case out of the larger ocean plastics and put our micro plastic back into it. By making it out of larger macro plastics from the ocean, we can be sure the case is devoid of sticks and polystyrene foam. Moulding out of larger plastics is our favoured option, and we are working towards this immediately. Tooling for injection moulding is very expensive and there are lots of models, so we’re saving our pounds to make this a reality. Plus, we don’t know how well the ocean plastic will hold up in the phonecase, ocean plastic can be very brittle. An attribute that would make a VERY bad phone case!
For the moment, option three is a perfect stepping stone between where we are now, and where we want to be.

Absolutely not.
Yes, microplastics accumulate harmful pollutants, this is true.
However, they are still in parts per million in concentration. We have had our products tested by a research institute and the micro plastic products fall below EU guidelines for the adsorbed chemicals.
We like to go above and beyond to ensure plastic is safe for the consumer. People handle their phone cases a heck of a lot! We have 4 stages of top secret washing, which removes adsorbed chemicals from the surface and adsorbed VOC’s in a different method.
The residual water is then disposed of correctly and not ‘tipped down the drain’.

Once upon a time, the horse lost its job to a car.
The candle lost its job to a lightbulb.
And sooner or later, fossil fuels will loose their jobs to electric renewable energy.
For now, this isn’t achievable. We like to think of it in a more positive light – we run one 11hp engine on the machine which saves hundreds of cars turning up to a beach clean to try and tackle a pollution notoriously hard to remove.
A one man band if you wish.

In our opinion, 2050 is an environmental deadline. The point at which the natural world and ecosystems undergo extreme collapse, with the oceans to fall first. The oceans have 3 main threats – Dead zones are the most destructive, Plastic second, and over-fishing third.
We have to do something about this and will not look at our children in the eyes and say “I did nothing”.