- Ongoing help from Kia has enabled the removing of over a million kilos of plastic from the Nice Pacific Rubbish Patch (GPGP)
- Partnership with The Ocean Cleanup aligns with Kia’s strategic transformation right into a sustainable mobility options supplier
Kia Company and international accomplice The Ocean Cleanup are right this moment celebrating a big milestone of their joint technique to deal with plastic air pollution on the planet’s oceans. Symbolically returning to the port of San Francisco from which the first-generation System 001 vessel launched into its maiden voyage six years in the past, The Ocean Cleanup’s present System 03 has accomplished a big haul.
For the reason that institution of the partnership in 2022, Kia’s help has helped The Ocean Cleanup take away over a million kilos of plastic from the world’s largest accumulation of floating waste – the Nice Pacific Rubbish Patch (GPGP) – which has an estimated floor space of 1.6 million sq. kilometers.
In a big step in direction of attaining its mission of ridding the world’s oceans of plastic, The Ocean Cleanup has introduced a transparent timeline to scrub up the GPGP. Whereas information gathered throughout this season’s operations means that the GPGP may probably be cleaned inside 10 years because of recognized technological enhancements, the worldwide NGO is pushing boundaries and goals to halve the time wanted to scrub the GPGP to 5 years.
Charles Ryu, Senior Vice President and Head of the International Model & CX Division at Kia Company, mentioned: “All of us at Kia prolong our warmest congratulations to The Ocean Cleanup group for its continued dedication and arduous work as the one group actively tackling plastic air pollution within the GPGP. We’re honored to be a key supporter of its ocean cleanup actions and look ahead to an much more formidable chapter of our partnership as System 03 and operations are improved to shorten the timeline for cleanup.”
In 2025, The Ocean Cleanup will concentrate on deploying a brand new hotspot looking initiative designed to map the “hotspots”, or areas of intense plastic accumulation within the GPGP, to extend the impression of future extractions.
“The Ocean Cleanup is a global non-profit and our operations are reliant on our unimaginable partnerships”, mentioned Boyan Slat, Founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup. “Our partnership with Kia is setting a brand new normal for a way organizations can drive actual change. Collectively, we’re proving that innovation and dedication can rid the oceans of plastic and encourage others to comply with. The merchandise born from this collaboration will symbolize our shared progress and the tangible impression of sustainable options.”
Over the previous two and a half years, Kia and The Ocean Cleanup have labored collectively to scale back plastic air pollution. In its first six years of operation, The Ocean Cleanup executed 23 operational journeys and accomplished greater than 100 plastic extraction missions. These efforts have eliminated greater than one million kilos of trash, addressing roughly 0.5 p.c of the floating plastic air pollution within the GPGP.
As a part of the collaborative imaginative and prescient to create a round useful resource system for ocean plastic, Kia and The Ocean Cleanup have been working collectively to seek out new methods of turning plastic waste extracted from the GPGP into sturdy, helpful merchandise. The primary merchandise from this initiative, a automobile accent for the Kia EV3, will launch in This fall of this yr.
Kia has additionally been integrating different recycled plastics and eco-friendly supplies into its newest fashions. This consists of Kia’s flagship all-electric SUV, the EV9, which makes use of recycled fishing nets in its inside carpet and recycled plastic bottles in its seat cloth. The EV6 additionally options fabric and matting made out of recycled plastics.
To help its broader imaginative and prescient of turning into a pioneer in sustainable mobility, Kia is focusing on 20 p.c use of recycled plastics in its automobiles by 2030.
