Fishing Nets Recycled Into New Samsung Galaxy Devices

Fishing nets represent some of the worst types of marine pollution, making headlines for both their quantity (~0.5 to 1M tons/year depending on studies) and the potentially horrific harm they do to animals.

It looks like Samsung has found a way to repurpose that ocean-bound plastic waste into brand new Galaxy products, some of which will be unveiled in a couple of days at the Samsung Feb 9 Unpacked event (official page).

Samsung started using recycled material a while ago but added new ways of reducing its environmental footprint regularly. The most recent vision is articulated in its Galaxy for the planet initiative. By 2025, it aims at:

• Using recycled material in all products
• Remove all plastics in “mobile packaging”
• Bring standby power below 0.005W
• Reach “zero waste to landfill”

Pretty impressive stuff. I hope that there’s a true economic incentive (for Samsung) in repurposing these plastics at scale. Samsung says that “This new technological advancement” makes it possible to bring new life into these fishing nets but didn’t add more details.

In any case, any plastic removed from the ocean is a good thing, so let’s hope that others will get inspiration from this.

Alternatively, not using plastics to start with or making plastics bio-degradable should remain the ultimate goal as these materials are usually not infinitely recyclable.

Hubert Nguyen
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Eco (environment), pollution, Samsung, samsung galaxy