Parley For The Oceans (Parley), an environmental organization that address threats toward the world’s oceans, has passed 5 million participates in its Run For The Oceans campaign with Adidas. Run For The Oceans was launched in 2017 to raise awareness that plastic waste is polluting our world’s oceans. The Run For The Oceans campaign has recorded more than 34 million mi. (55 million km), cleaning up the equivalent of 560 million plastic bottles.
Parley developed the world’s first supply chain of upcycled marine waste to make what it calls “Ocean Plastic.” Ocean Plastic is used in a variety of Adidas apparel and footwear to produce environmentally friendly athletic equipment. Adidas produced around 1 million pairs of Parley Ocean plastic shoes in 2017, 5 million in 2018, 11 million in 2019, and is now producing over 20 million pairs of Parley Ocean Plastic shoes per year. Parley apparel and footwear continues to headline Adidas promotions, including the company’s online July 4th promotion in the United States.
Partnership With Brita
To further its goal of eliminating plastic waste, Parley launched a long-term partnership with Brita, one of the world’s leading water filtration companies, to directly target single-use plastic water bottles. The partnership is introducing the “Future of Water,” a new collaborative design between Parley and Brita. According to Brita, the design envisions a filtration system inspired by nature and composed of organic substances like lignin, algae, and mycelium to replace any need for plastics. The filtration ring is the central element of the modular system that can be used alone with a tap faucet or configured create an attachment for bottles and pitchers. The system is designed to remove and break down contaminants while enriching water. Each component is expected to be either biodegradable or eligible to be returned for renewal and reuse.
To make the new design possible, Brita and Parley are exploring advancements in green chemistry, biomaterials, and solutions inspired by nature to enable access to water that is safe, equitable, and free of plastics and toxic pollutants. “The single-use plastic water bottle is a symbol and symptom of a broken system,” said Cyrill Gutsch, founder of Parley. “We cannot continue to package our most precious, life-giving resource in a design failure that threatens the oceans and human health. With billions of people already facing the reality of water shortages, we know we have to change. But to create a better future, we first need to imagine one. Parley has demonstrated before that a ‘symbol of change,’ or product fiction, can be the vehicle that allows us to take an idea and transform it into reality. With Brita, we will harness the powers of design and science, and collaborate with nature to transform the future of water, the lifeblood we share with the oceans.”
Earlier this year, Brita announced bold goals for 2030, including having zero plastic waste to landfills, creating completely curbside recyclable packaging using 100% recycled fibers, and removing 20 billion single-use plastic water bottles from circulation per year. “This partnership is one of the most important actions we’ve taken as a brand to help achieve our sustainability goals,” said Eric Schwartz, general manager at Brita. “Through our work with Parley, we’ve been able to conceptualize a world free from single-use plastic water bottles and demonstrate how this ambitious idea can be our new reality. This design has been in the works for some time, and we’re looking forward to using it as inspiration for products we’re bringing to market in the near future.”
The Parley AIR Strategy
In addition to the Future of Water design, Parley and Brita are announcing their Avoid, Intercept, and Redesign (AIR) strategy aimed at fighting the global crisis of plastic waste and water scarcity. The strategies’ key points are as follows:
- Avoid Plastic Wherever Possible
Brita and Parley will work side-by-side to provide more people with clean, healthy tap water so more households can choose to avoid single-use plastic water bottles. The partners will explore innovation of Brita products to reduce and ultimately avoid plastic altogether, beginning by eliminating single-use plastic packaging.
- Intercept Plastic Waste Before It Reaches Our Environment
Through Parley’s Global Cleanup Network, Brita will support the interception of marine plastic debris equal to its current plastic filter footprint.
- Redesign The Materials, Methods, And Mindsets At The Source Of The Problem
Parley and Brita will design eco-innovative products to bring an end to the single-use plastic water bottle and replace plastic with eco-innovative materials and filtration solutions.
