I wanted to highlight an exciting articled written by Leon Kaye and published in Triple Pundit called Clinton Global Initiative and Thread Bring Dignity to Haiti’s Plastic Bottle Collectors.
Kaye highlights that Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) is in partnership with Thread, Timberland, HP and an NGO named Team Tassy. This is very exciting since it supports the poorest of the poor in collecting the trash, recycles the plastic into a usable material which then can be brought back into the supply chain. Its a perfect mix of manufacturing, innovation and productivity which leads to improving the lives of Hatians.
According to Kay Thread plans on investing $300,000 in funds for health care services for the bottle collectors.
Thread says it hopes to repeat this model in regions across the world. Scale would depend on whether the company can score more corporate buyers for the recycled plastic, especially firms seeking a more closed-loop system in the drive to eliminate waste.
So far, Timberland committed this project by buying fabric made from collected bottles for use in some of its shoes and bags. HP will use some of the recycled material to manufacture its ink jet printer cartridges.
The above picture and below video are taken from Rain Noe’s article on Core 77.com
About me: Sean McClure is a former Senior Advisor at the White House. Sean is currently the Suspension and Debarment Advisor to the Department of the Treasury and with over 15 years of experience working at the White House, Department of the Treasury, USAID, and Department of State. He has traveled extensively to 35 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe.