Car manufacturer, Kia, plans to use thousands of pounds of plastic waste found in the Pacific Ocean for new electric vehicles car models.
A 60-ton haul of reclaimed plastic was pulled from the Pacific Ocean and Kia plans to repurpose all that plastic into EV models. The record-breaking plastic haul was pulled out of the ocean by Kia’s global partner, The Ocean Cleanup. This cleanup marks the next phase of the seven-year global partnership agreed to in April of last year.
This agreement integrates recycled ocean plastic that is collected by the non-profit into Kia’s value chain process.
The Ocean Cleanup’s latest haul was collected from the ocean using the company’s 002 extraction technology after traveling through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Recycling the materials will begin soon and Kia will use some of that material in future models.
“Initiatives such as this one perfectly align with Kia’s transition to a sustainable mobility solutions provider and our Plan S strategy, through which we embrace the needs of our customers and the protection of our environment by acting as a responsible corporate citizen,” said, Senior Vice President and Head of the Global Brand & CX Division at Kia, Charles Ryu.