We have partnered with the incredible team at Seven Clean Seas, an ocean clean-up organisation based in Bali, to remove marine plastic from coastlines, mangroves, rivers and nearshore areas in Bintan, Indonesia.

They have committed to recovering over 10 million kilos of marine debris by 2025 from some of the most polluted areas globally!

Seven Clean Seas formally employs waste pickers in Indonesia, so they can provide full transparency on where the plastic waste is collected, deposited and who collected it! This ensures there is no green-washing or exploitation of cheap labour. Seven Clean Seas helps clean the environment and support the local community at the same time. It’s a win-win sea-tuation.

Once the plastic is collected from beaches and waterways, the Seven Clean Seas team takes it back to their MRF (Material Recycling Facility) to sort and separate – this is when the horror of just how many PET bottles there are becomes clear. Literally tonnes from this one area alone.

Tragically much of the plastic bottles that are collected is highly contaminated with organic matter, tar or even degraded by UV radiation. Therefore, a lot of the plastics collected cannot be recycled.Only a small percentage (~5%) of the total plastic collected is recyclable and are almost solely PET bottles and are donated to the local informal sector. The remainder has to be treated in a government-owned and managed landfill to permanently ensure it remains out of the environment.This end-of-life solution has been successfully third party audited by Control Union against the Zero Plastic Oceans certification, to ensure it remains permanently out of the environment.

Additionally, Seven Clean Seas are investing in material research and development to find upcycling solutions for the non-recyclable material so that one day, they can achieve zero waste to landfill!It’s not perfect but it’s better than polluting our oceans.

Working with our partners, Seven Clean Seas, the weight of a plastic bottle (a 375ml plastic soft drink bottle and cap to be exact!) is defined as 17 grams. That means we remove 34 grams of plastic for every can of Not Soda we sell. Just in case you thought we might be pulling a swift-one and removing the weight of flimsy water bottles, we’re not.

PET stands for Polyethylene Terephthalate and is a widely used type of plastic most commonly used in soft drink bottles.

Yes, we use plastic. It is mostly an unavoidable cost of doing business. However, that's why we’ve started our journey with Seven Clean Seas.

Seven Clean Seas is an organisation in love with the ocean focussing on implementing plastic removal projects tackling environmental and social issues. Seven Clean Seas' goal is to remove 10,000,000 kilos of plastic –the weight of the Eiffel Tower– from the ocean and to hire 200 formal workers by 2025. To do so, Seven Clean Seas partner with businesses and individuals to co-create sustainability initiatives and targets that measure, reduce, and compensate for their plastic footprints.

Seven Clean Seas provide detailed impact reports to partners that include the amount of plastic removed, the amount of plastic that we’ve collected on their behalf, and other relevant metrics. This transparency ensures that this communication is clearly communicated to people like you!

Please see below to read Seven Clean Sea's Annual Impact Reports in 2022 and 2023.