Rivers continue to be one of the biggest sources of ocean plastic pollution. It is estimated that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste currently enters the ocean every year from rivers.1 Communities (who often don’t have alternative waste disposal solutions) will sometimes throw their rubbish directly into local waterways and it then makes its way into our oceans. To help us counteract this, we’re now working with Oceanworks who are helping to fund our collection efforts from the river barrier in Manado.

There are many rivers flowing through North Sulawesi and entering the sea at Manado, most of them are heavily polluted and the plastic waste they carry goes straight into the Bunaken National Marine Park. To counteract this, river barriers have been installed close to the river mouths in 2018. Since October 2022, NTTI together with our logistics partner , DSG, have been managing the recovery of the plastic collected at the river barriers. In this relatively short period, we’ve collected 25.3 tonnes of wet waste from these six barriers.

This video demonstrates the importance of the river barriers in Manado. During the rainy season, tonnes of waste flows downstream. In this instance, the flow was so strong that the barrier broke, unfortunately letting some of the plastic through.

Central to our approach is creating a circular economic model to support our collection efforts. While our existing collaboration with Cleanhub is still in place and support the waste collection service on the islands, We’re now delighted to announce another partnership with a plastic credit organisation. Oceanworks will support our river work and, hereby, support us in another geographic area than our existing collaboration with Cleanhub. Oceanworks are an American recycled plastic solutions company who have a range of partners and support initiatives like ours all over the world. They are also working with DSG to help fund further commercial waste collection efforts across Manado. Partnering with Oceanworks means that we can create economic value from the waste we collect from the river barrier, both recyclable and non-recyclable . The non-recyclable waste will be sent to Indo-Cement for co-processing. We will track all the waste we collect which will contribute to the Oceanworks Plastic Action Dashboard.

Oceanworks was founded in 2018 by Rob Ianelli. A couple years prior to this, he had created Norton Point, a sustainable brand which made glasses out of ocean plastics. It was through setting up Norton Point’s supply chains that Rob recognised the challenges that exist when working with a disjointed ocean plastic sector. To address these challenges and come up with a way of scaling up operations to meet consumer demand, Oceanworks was born.

We’re delighted to work with another mission led organisation who are enabling our continued growth. Since the beginning of 2023, we’ve collected more than 20 tonnes of plastic waste just from islands around Manado, and with this new partnership starting from Dec 1st, 2024 looks to be even more impactful!

1 Lebreton L.C.M et al, 2017, River plastic emissions to the world’s oceans, Nature Communications

Oceanworks support our river work!