The Pacific Ocean has an area of 165 million square kilometres, an area so large that if you looked down at the middle from space, you would see only the water. Somewhere in that gigantic mass of water is a place known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). This is the equivalent of landfill where rubbish is deposited on land, except that it is in the ocean.
While a lot of rubbish in the sea sinks or just decomposes, there is a lot that also floats – especially plastic items. These products of modern society end up in the seas and get carried around by currents. Somehow, they have collected in two specific spots, first mentioned in 1988 and then sighted by a participant in the Transpacific Yacht Race in 1997.
According to National Geographic, 80% of plastics in the sea come from land-based sources and a very large proportion from East Asian countries. They float around and if they are in the GPGP, they get trapped there due to the way the currents swirl.
As a result, this mass of pollution has grown to a size estimated to be 1.6 million square kms. That’s a lot of plastic rubbish and efforts by various organisations to remove this pollution have been undertaken over the years.
One of these organisations is The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch non-profit environmental engineering organization that develops technology to remove plastic pollution from the oceans and also capture it in rivers before it can reach the ocean.
The Ocean Cleanup, established in 2013, has a long-term partnership with Kia Corporation which is offering support that is in line with the automaker’s ongoing transformation into a leading provider of sustainable mobility solutions.
Kia announced its support for The Ocean Cleanup in 2022, and has since provided funds and in-kind contributions for ocean operations and for the construction of Interceptor Original river-cleaning devices.
Through this partnership, Kia also intended to integrate recycled ocean plastic harvested by The Ocean Cleanup into Kia’s value chain process. This has now been realised with the world’s first car accessory partially (40%) made from plastic extracted from by The Ocean Cleanup.
As one of the most significant outcomes of the partnership so far, Kia will introduce a limited-edition bootliner for a fully electric model which is made using ocean plastic received from The Ocean Cleanup. The exclusive accessory will be available for the EV3 in selected markets.
Taking inspiration from Kia’s ‘Opposites United’ design philosophy, the bootliner’s ‘geometric wave’ top surface pattern is reminiscent of waves and the flow of trash into a collecting area, echoing The Ocean Cleanup’s process for extracting marine plastic. Made with 40% recycled ocean plastic, the high-quality liner is just as durable, protective and functional as a conventional liner. Each liner also features a QR code, which provides customers with detailed information about the product’s development and the partnership, as well as The Ocean Cleanup logo.
“As the first genuine Kia accessory made using reclaimed ocean plastic, we are proud to see tangible progress made toward creating a circular resource system for ocean plastic. We will leverage the lessons learned during the recycling and product development process to continue to manufacture useful and beneficial products for our customers using ocean plastic retrieved and provided by The Ocean Cleanup,” said Charles Ryu, Executive Vice-President and Head of the Global Brand & CX Division at Kia.
As part of the company’s ongoing sustainability goals, Kia has proactively integrated recycled plastics and other eco-friendly materials in its latest models. This includes the EV9 which incorporates recycled fishnets for flooring and recycled plastic bottles for seat fabrics. The EV6 also has cloth and matting produced from recycled plastics.
To support its broader vision of becoming a pioneer in sustainable mobility, Kia has pledged to increase the use of sustainable materials in its future products and raise application of recycled plastic in vehicles to more than 20% by 2030, underscoring its commitment to creating a circular resource system for ocean plastic.
