Pulling Plastic from the Sea and Recycling it into Skateboards
February 26, 2018 01:30:35 AM
Today, Net Positiva operates in dozens of villages throughout Chile. In 2017 alone, it salvaged more than 185,000 pounds of nets from the ocean.
SEATTLE (Waste Advantage): Growing up near Cape Cod, Ben Kneppers felt an affinity with the ocean. “I lived right beside a cove, where my friends and I spent all our time catching blue crabs, clamming and exploring,” he says.
It’s no surprise that Kneppers grew up to become an environmental consultant — and avid surfer. His career took him to Australia, where he befriended David Stover and Kevin Ahearn, who shared his passion for catching waves. During late-night talks, the guys always seemed to return to the topic of plastic garbage in the ocean. They were constantly surfing over, around or through it.
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In 2012, Kneppers relocated to Chile for work. When he heard a program funded by the Chilean government was looking for sustainable start-ups to fund, he remembered those conversations with his friends. “For as much doom and gloom as we cast on ocean pollution, I figured it was probably actually solvable,” Kneppers says.
He reached out to Stover and Ahearn and suggested they figure out how. Stover has financial skills and Ahearn, engineering expertise. Kneppers, for his part, “researched the heck out of” ocean plastic. He interviewed local fishermen, scrutinized coastal infrastructure, and studied behavior and design. His conclusion? “Waste is a design flaw,” Kneppers explains. “If we designed something using a circular model, we could solve the problem that we created.”
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