We are thrilled to announce our latest collaboration, as theICEway partners with CleanHub in 2024. If you are reading this then you will probably know all about our long standing commitment to the cruise industry. For the uninitiated among you, we have delivered IT solutions and support to cruise lines since 2007. This year, we’re joining many of our esteemed cruise partners by committing to protecting the oceans. Read on to find out how we’ll be doing that with the fantastic people at CleanHub.
Put simply, the CleanHub mission is “to end plastic pollution… for clean oceans.” Before we cover what they do, it is essential to understand the wider scenario. “Every minute, the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic is dumped into our ocean.” This fact is featured prominently on the CleanHub website, and it certainly made this writer pause for thought. There was another pause after it was then discovered that billions of people in coastal regions around the world do not have access to proper waste management. The pause lengthened as it emerged that in such regions, waste is often burned or dumped onto landfills. From there, the ocean awaits… But hopefully, not for much longer.
CleanHub are “building a collective solution to the plastic problem.” At the start of their journey, they travelled to the regions described above. They identified that they are treating waste in that manner because there is no value attached to it. Sadly, it became clear that a recycling effort alone wouldn’t be enough without a clear value proposition. And so a new solution was born, one where non-recyclable plastic not currently collected in Asia was assigned a tangible economic value.
- They initially reached out to recycling companies in India to ask if they would sell their non-recyclable material
- Then they asked waste pickers if they would collect the material usually left behind if they were paid a fixed price per kg
- Next, they contacted large consumer goods companies in Europe to see whether they would pay for such an environmental service
- After this, local waste collection companies in India were scouted where work environments were safe and devoid of child labour / people who were forced to work
- These were then tasked with collecting the (hitherto uncollected) non-recyclable plastics
There were many more steps and this article on the CleanHub founders’ story is well worth a read. You can also find out more at the official CleanHub website.
Joel Tasche is the Co-CEO and Founder of CleanHub. In July 2023, we published an article on an episode from our Tech Talks podcast featuring Joel. In ‘Tech Solutions to Plastic Pollution…‘, you can read about his story as he speaks to theICEway’s Co-Founder & CEO, Ian Richardson. Fast forward 6 months and we have now entered a new year. We’re delighted to say that theICEway has also entered a new partnership. We are determined to help CleanHub in their ongoing mission to end plastic pollution. We are committing to recover 2500kg of plastic waste this year, with all recovery data verified by CleanHub’s track and trace OS. This effectively ensures a new level of transparency within the plastic credit market.
By supporting CleanHub, the team at theICEway are further facilitating their fantastic work with waste management systems. Proper waste management can definitely help to prevent plastic pollution. Ian Richardson is 100% behind our joint efforts to do just that:
“When we became aware of CleanHub and Joel’s mission, we immediately knew there was a great fit with theICEway. We have been working in the cruise industry for many years and have a built up a very real appreciation for the world’s oceans and the issues they face from pollution. It was great to then meet Joel and develop this partnership, which we all believe will last for a very long time.”