Happy World Oceans Day! We here at Free Plastic love our oceans, and are doing what we can to help them by developing new ways to recycle ocean plastic!

What does Free Plastic look like by the numbers? We’re so glad you asked!

With community partners like O, Miami, the Key Biscayne Community Foundation, PHYTO, and Miami-Dade Department of Cultural Affairs, Free Plastic has installed 9 plastic poems around Miami-Dade County, held 4 poetry workshops, and hosted 14 community cleanups, with more scheduled through the summer! We have collected over 1,500 pounds of pollution from the marine environment, of which we have reclaimed over 300 pounds of plastic pollution and recycled 128.49 pounds of plastic!

Not all plastic is safe to recycle via heat, so that unsafe/unrecycleable plastic gets sorted into two groups, (1) safe for use with thermoset plastics, and (2) pollution that should be disposed of via our local waste streams.
Any plastic that is safe to recycle via heated methods is sorted by type and color, then shredded down to eventually become a letter for a poem, or a keychain for a friend, or a carabiner for our knapsack.

Please remember, plastic pollution comes from all of us, and it comes from our habits and lifestyle. The most important step you can take to help the plastic pollution problem is to refuse, reduce, reuse, and recycle plastics when you are able to. And, if you want to further the development of recycling techniques in South Florida, please consider making a donation.