5 Kickass Plastic-Fighting Organisations To Work For
Did you know that plastics made from fossil fuels have only been around for about a hundred years, but can take up to a 1000 years to decompose in landfills?
If you lived in the year 3022, and someone told you what they were doing with plastics back in the year 2022, you might think it was made up...
Lightweight single-use plastic products, which often have a use-time of just a few minutes before they are thrown away, make up around 50% of all plastics produced, and often can’t be recycled. Madness, no?
Here are some plastic facts:
- About 8 million tons of plastic waste is released into the oceans every single year (the equivalent of five rubbish bags set along every foot of coastline around the world)
- The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, between Hawaii and California, has an estimated 1.8 trillion plastic pieces floating there (the equivalent to 250 pieces of debris for every human in the world)
- It takes 20 years to decompose a plastic bag, 200 years for a plastic straw, and a whopping 500 years for a coffee capsule!
Once plastics arrive in the sea, a mix of sunlight and wave action breaks it down into microplastics. These have been found everywhere, from Mount Everest’s highest peak, to municipal drinking water systems, to human blood and breast milk.
But no fear - from scientists working on PET-eating bacteria and plastic-eating enzymes, to organisations creating biodegradable coffee cups, there are lots of mission-driven teams out there working on solutions - with projects that you can join and work for!
This forward-thinking team has come up with the Flexi-Hex sleeve, a patented, sustainable packaging sleeve made from paper that can be used across a range of industries. Inspired by nature, the honeycomb design seamlessly fits with any brand, from skincare products, to surfboards. Run by a passionate and positive team, their Escape 100 employee reviews included highlights such as a flexibility, excellent work-life balance, employee wellbeing focus, transparency and collaborative ‘can-do’ team atmosphere.
Did you know that 300 billion single-use cups are made each year, with less than 2% being recycled? Born in 2014, the ecoffee cup is made from a new material, having since been featured in Vogue, on Love Island, in Forbes, in the UK Parliament, and more. Despite this, they remain aware that they haven’t yet fulfilled their massive mission of stopping plastic cup pollution, which was set back by the COVID pandemic and the overdrive of the single-use industry. Now working on solutions for cafes and businesses wanting to replace single-use cups with practical, cost-effective, and attractive alternatives, they offer real consumer insight, logistics, inventory, and supply chain management, too.
Launched in 2009, KeepCup revolutionised the way consumers drink their takeaway espresso with the world’s first barista standard reusable cup, designed for drinking pleasure. Our mission is to ensure the world neither wants, needs or uses single-use cups, and every year KeepCup reusers divert millions of disposables from landfill. And on Escape the City, their anonymous employee reviews give them a score of 9.4/10 as an employer - worth checking out!
Plastic Free is a brand new content platform with a singular goal: to turn off the plastic tap at its source. Created by creatives for creatives, the platform celebrates game-changing plastic-free innovations and circular economy business models, providing robust data and design-focused insight into alternative materials, enabling designers to make lasting change. Launching at the end of 2022, this innovation new platform is set to make waves in the plastic-free revolution.
Fuelled by plants and fempower, Here We Flo were a new entry into the Escape 100 in 2022, bringing their ‘fempire’ to the equation. They use biodegradable and compostable plant cellulose for their pad, liner and tampon wrappers, and sugarcane biopolymer for their applicators (95% plant-based). On top of this, their eco-friendly period products are certified Carbon Neutral, and 5% of their profits go to marginalised and vulnerable communities where Flo products are sold. It’s no surprise that their team highly rate working here, mentioning the flat hierarchy, flexibility, autonomy, monthly wellness days and sense of humour.
Feeling ready to take on the no-plastic revolution? Set up some job alerts for these plastic warriors by clicking the ‘Set up Alert’ button at the top of their profiles.