Within our existing workplace in Rotterdam, the Netherlands we are setting up a circular workshop to recycle plastic marine pollution to valuable and durable new materials.

CLEAR RIVERS retrieves plastic pollution from the rivers and ports in Rotterdam and surrounding areas. We want to find a way to locally and innovatively recycle the recovered plastics that is beneficial for the environment and provides education to local schools and institutions.

CLEAR RIVERS has a floating office in one of Rotterdam’s harbors. Next to our office we have our first product of recycling marine litter: Recycled Park. A 140m2 floating green structure that improves the ecosystem and adds new vegetation to this urban area. Additional to the floating park we also have one of our Litter Traps, used to subtract plastic pollution from the water, next to our office. Together this already leads to an interest of schools and institutions to come and visit us.

Adding a circular workshop will help us to become more effective and innovative in recycling marine litter and to involve the local population, schools and universities in doing so.

Within our office we will set up a small scale, but complete, recycling line to effectively recycle plastic pollution to innovative new products. The line will include a washing machine, a sorting table, a shredder, an extruder, an injection mold, an oven, a plate press, a laser cutter and a specialized 3d-printer. In this way we will be able to recycle the majority of the recovered plastics into a variety of innovative products. Together with pupils and students we will explore what these new products should be to also have these integrated into the educational program. The workshop will allow us to organize volunteering and educational events that will include a clean up (taking the pollution from the streets and open water) and the recycling to various new products all in the same day. At the end of the day the volunteers, pupils and students can take the self-made end products, with them, for their own use and benefit.

The workshop will allow us to experiment and innovate in plastic recycling. This is beneficial for our ongoing projects in the Netherlands but will also benefit our projects abroad as in Vietnam and Malaysia. Where we face the same challenges. The workshop in Rotterdam will allow us to test the recycling line and to build new circular prototypes that can be used nationally and internationally. An example in this is our current desire to develop a low budget way to recycle marine litter into floating wetlands; floating structures with vegetation that can be implemented in canals and rivers in the Netherlands and Vietnam to support the ecosystem as our Recycled Park does.  The desired workshop will allow us to test and build different variations for this to find the most suitable and durable manner.

Together the project will allow us to effectively and locally recycle plastic marine pollution. To educate pupils and students about the impact of plastic pollution and its potential in innovative recycle. We will be able to test and innovate plastic recycling to come to new products and potentials.