What if you could turn plastic trash into cash?
This article's main focus is about helping people who are poverty stricken while also helping remove plastic and trash from the environment. The speaker, David Katz, created the Plastic Bank. The Plastic Bank is a set of stores for the ultra-poor which enables everything to be bought with plastic trash. I think this is an awesome idea and can be extremely beneficial in removing plastic trash from our the environment. It can also definitely help extremely poor people get the money to create a better life for themselves.
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_katz_what_if_you_could_turn_plastic_trash_into_cash#t-177715
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_katz_what_if_you_could_turn_plastic_trash_into_cash#t-177715
This is a very interesting topic because it promotes both cleaning up the environment and helping out the poor, but I would like to know where the money to fund this bank came from. Is it privately funded or does he receive money from the environment. I would also like to know if anybody can get in on this project. While it is a very good idea, I wonder if only poor people are allowed to cash in the plastic or not, because if anybody could pick up trash and turn it in, I feel like that would be a great idea poorly executed.
ReplyDeleteI can't find anything about picking and choosing who gets to cash in, but it looks like they are only initiating the project in areas with high levels of poverty. It is funded by donations, corporate sponsorship, and consumer pressure for companies to be environmentally responsible (urging a company to use "Social Plastic" in their production instead of making more plastic or using any old recycled plastic)... my guess is that there is a slightly higher cost when a company sources their plastic from the plastic bank. But they may offset that by having customers who want a more environmentally and socially responsible product and will pay more for that product.
Deletethis is great how it shows to help the environment and the people, more things need to be like this so we can all come together. This could be very useful in other things like with other environmental issues.
ReplyDeleteWhile this seems like a very useful way to bring money to non-wealthy people I don't really know how effective it would be. Seeing as it is meant for those that are extremely poor I am just curious as to how they would get enough plastic to gain a decent amount of money or decent products. While there is quite a bit of litter around the world, how much of it is actually recyclable plastic and not just random garbage?
ReplyDeleteI really like this idea because it is helping not only the environment but also the poor people. This should be implemented in more poor areas around the world.
ReplyDelete