Provo—Repurpose Recycling, an innovative company taking on ocean-bound plastic, has partnered with several Utah businesses in its efforts to reduce plastic waste and provide opportunities for people living in impoverished areas. 

Repurpose Recycling founder Jeremy Porter hatched his vision for Repurpose Recycling while a student at BYU. His ambitious plan involved removing and recycling plastic making its way to the Pacific Ocean while providing opportunities for people experiencing poverty.

Porter hatched the idea in 2019 and made use of on-campus resources like the Rollins Center and Ballard Center to secure funding and feedback before officially launching Repurpose Recycling in 2021. With current operations in Guatemala, Repurpose Recycling focuses its efforts on the Maria Linda and Achiguate Rivers, where more than 3.2 million pounds of plastic flow into the Pacific Ocean each year. In these plastic-choked areas, local collectors remove plastic for recycling in exchange for food, clean water, and money.

Business partnerships are critical to the Repurpose Recycling model as their plastic-focused pledges directly aid in funding operations. In just under two years, Repurpose Recycling has partnered with over a dozen business partners and over 150 local plastic collectors to remove 233,124 pounds of ocean-bound plastic from the environment, with that number increasing daily.

Repurpose uses BanQu to track every step of the supply chain to make our impact as transparent as possible.

“We want to make it easy for businesses of any size to have a positive impact in the world. I think a lot of businesses would be surprised at how much of an impact they can have in stopping ocean plastic and helping change the lives of people experiencing poverty”, said Porter.

Corporate partners can make a meaningful – and traceable – impact as they purchase plastic offset credits. These credits offer businesses a way to become plastic neutral, plastic negative, or make an impact promise such as a “1-pound promise,” where one offset credit is purchased for every product sold, thereby funding the removal of one pound of plastic from the environment with each sale.

Repurpose Recycling counts six Utah-based businesses among their partners, including:

● Sami Sacha Flowers

● Del Alma Group

● Wakbat

● Rowdy Supply Co.

● Recyclops

● Con Todo

Sami Sacha Flowers is a co-op of flower farms located in Ecuador. Noam Temkin, one of its founders, said the company partnered with Repurpose Recycling because they wanted to offset

the necessary use of plastic in their products. “We need plastic in so many different things. Not just in food packaging, but in medical goods.” Temkin said Sami Sacha Flowers needs to use plastic sleeves to keep flowers together during transportation. Because they cannot completely eliminate plastic use within their business, Temkin said Sami Sacha Flowers chose to work with Repurpose Recycling to achieve net negative plastic use. Removing plastic from oceans and rivers and doing something good with it afterward is gratifying. “That’s where the beauty of it is”, Temkin said.

Partnership details

Rowdy Supply Co., Wakbat, and Con Todo are all doing a “One-Pound Promise” meaning they fund the collection and recycling of one pound of ocean-bound plastic each time they sell a product.

Sami Sacha and Del Alma Group are Plastic Neutral meaning they fund the removal of an equivalent amount of plastic from the ocean as is used in their product and packaging.

Recyclops will soon be enabling an option on their site where when customers sign up for the Recyclops recycling service they can also fund the collection and recycling of ocean plastic included in their monthly bill.

Contact Info: Jeremy Porter – jeremy@repurposerecycling.com – 385.209.5338 Ryan@recyclops.co

Noam@delalmagroup.com – Del Alma Group and Sami Sacha

rowdysupplyco@gmail.com

crockett.kimball@gmail.com -Wakbat