The recent fines imposed on the producers of Glad Kitchen Bags are welcome but don't address the fact that 'ocean plastic' is a misnomer and often an example of greenwash in itself. Glad Kitchen bags producers had falsely claimed that 50% of their product was sourced from ocean plastics when they were not. The courts imposed an $8 million fine. 

Ocean bound plastics is a term given to any littered plastics collected within 50 kms of a coastline. It is not, as the term suggests, just plastics recovered from the ocean. Its littered plastic that has a risk of eventually entering the ocean. It is a good thing that these plastics are being collected, recycled and reused, and that there is a market for it. However, manufacturers need to be honest about where these plastics have been sourced from. There is an OBP Certification system that can help keep them honest.

Theses littered plastics are often degraded and contaminated and completely unsuitable to be used in food grade products. Ocean bound plastics should be collected and down-cycled in other plastic products.

Ocean plastic pollution is a major global problem and the best course of action is to avoid waste and litter in the first place. That means reducing  the manufacture of unnecessary plastics, designing plastics for reuse or recycling and then having system in place that ensure that any plastics thrown away will be recovered and reused.

For the plastics already littered in and around our oceans and waterways, it's important that we have markets that can use collected and recovered plastics. Around the Australian and our regional neighbours coastlines are plastics that have been littered and end up causing harm to the environment and wildlife. Having a recycled market for these plastics provides an incentive to collect rather than simply adding to landfill. For many of our regional neighbours, landfill does not even exist as an option. They need a recycling market that can pay them for what they collect.