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Chris Anderson: So you've been
obsessed with this problem

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for the last few years.

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What is the problem, in your own words?

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Andrew Forrest: Plastic.

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Simple as that.

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Our inability to use it for the tremendous
energetic commodity that it is

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and just throw it away.

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CA: And so we see waste everywhere.

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At its extreme, it looks a bit like this.

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I mean, where was this picture taken?

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AF: That's in the Philippines,

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and you know there's a lot of rivers,
ladies and gentlemen,

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which look exactly like that.

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There's 169 in Sri Lanka alone,

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and that's the Philippines,

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so it's all over Southeast Asia.

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CA: So plastic is thrown into the rivers,

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and from there of course
it ends up in the ocean.

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I mean, we obviously
see it on the beaches,

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but that's not even your main concern.

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It's what's actually happening to it
in the oceans. Talk about that.

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AF: OK, so look, thank you Chris.

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About four years ago,

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I thought I'd do something
really barking crazy,

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and I committed to a PhD
in marine ecology,

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and the scary part about that was,

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sure I learned a lot about marine life
but it taught me more about marine death

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and the extreme mass ecological fatality
of fish, of marine life, marine mammals,

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very close biology to us,

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which are dying in the millions
if not trillions that we can't count

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at the hands of plastic.

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CA: But people think of plastic
as ugly but stable.

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Right? You throw something in the ocean,
hey it'll just sit there forever,

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can't do any damage, right?

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AF: See, Chris, it's an incredible
substance designed for the economy.

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It is the worst substance possible
for the environment.

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The worst thing about plastics
as soon as it hits the environment

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is that it fragments.

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It never stops being plastic.

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It breaks down smaller
and smaller and smaller,

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and the breaking science on this, Chris,

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which we've known in marine ecology
for a few years now,

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but it's going to hit humans.

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Marine mammals, 99.9 percent
same biology as us.

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We are aware now that nanoplastic,

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the very, very small particles of plastic

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carrying their negative charge can go
straight through the pores of your skin.

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That's not the bad news.

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The bad news is that it goes
straight through the blood-brain barrier,

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that protective coating which is there
to protect your brain.

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Your brain's a little amorphous wet mass

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full of little electrical charges.

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You put a negative particle into that,

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particularly a negative particle
which can carry pathogens,

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so you have a negative charge,
it attracts positive charge elements

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like pathogens, toxins,

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mercury, lead.

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That's the breaking science
we're going to see in the next 12 months.

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CA: So already I think you told me
that there's like 600 plastic bags or so

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for every fish that size
in the ocean, something like that.

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AF: Yeah.

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CA: And they're breaking down

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and there's going to be ever more of them

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and we haven't even seen the start
of the consequences of that.

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AF: No, we really haven't.

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The ?? Foundation,
they're a bunch of good scientists,

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we've been working with them for a while,
I've completely verified their work,

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they say there will be
one ton of plastic, Chris,

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for every three tons of fish, by not 2050,

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and I really get impatient with people
who talk about 2050, by 2025.

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That's around the corner.

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That's just the here and now.

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You don't need one ton of plastic
to completely wipe out marine life.

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Less than that is going
to do a fine job at it.

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So we have to end it straightaway.
We've got no time.

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CA: OK, so you have an idea for ending it,

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and you're coming at this

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not as a typical environmental
campaigner, I would say,

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but as a businessmen,
as an entrepreneur,

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who has lived, you've spent
your whole life thinking

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about global economic systems
and how they work,

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and if I understand it right,

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your idea depends on heroes
who look something like this.

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What's her profession?

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AF: She, Chris, is a ragpicker,

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and there were 15, 20 million
rag pickers like her

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until China stopped taking
everyone's waste

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and the price of plastic,
minuscule that it was, collapsed.

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That led to people like her,

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which now she is a child

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who is a schoolchild.

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She should be at school.

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That's probably very akin to slavery.

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My daughter Grace and I have met
hundreds of people like her.

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CA: And there are many adults as well,
literally millions around the world,

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and in some industries,

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they actually account for the fact
that for example we don't see

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a lot of metal waste in the world.

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AF: That's exactly right.

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That little girl is in fact
the hero of the environment.

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She's in competition with
a great big petrochemical plant

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which is just down the road,

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the three and a half billion dollar
petrochemical plant.

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That's the problem.

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We've got more oil and gas
in plastic and landfill

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than we have in the entire oil and gas
resources of the United States.

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So she is the hero,

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and that's what that landfill looks like,
ladies and gentlemen,

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and it's solid oil and gas.

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CA: So there's huge value
potentially locked up in there

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that the world's ragpickers
would if they could make a living from,

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but why can't they?

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AF: Because we have ingrained in us

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a price of plastic from fossil fuels

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which sits just under what it takes

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to economically and profitably
recycle plastic from plastic.

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All plastic is is building blocks
from oil and gas.

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Plastic's a hundred percent polymer
which is a hundred percent oil and gas,

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and you know we've got
enough plastic in the world

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for all our needs,

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and when we recycle plastic,

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if we can't recycle it cheaper
than fossil fuel plastic,

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then of course the world
just sticks to fossil fuel plastic.

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CA: So if that's the fundamental problem,

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the price of recycled plastic

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is usually more than the price of
just buying it made fresh from more oil.

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That's the fundamental problem.

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AF: A slight tweak
of the rules here, Chris.

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I'm a commodity person.

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I understand that we used to have
scrap metal and rubbish iron

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and bits of copper lying
all round the villages,

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particularly in the developing world.

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And people worked out it's got a value.

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It's actually an article of value,

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not of waste.

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Now, the villages and the cities
and the streets are clean,

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you don't trip over scrap copper
or scrap iron now,

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because it's an article of value.
It gets recycled.

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CA: So what's your idea, then,
to try to change that in plastics?

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AF: OK, so Chris,

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for most part of that PhD
I've been doing research,

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and the good thing about being
a businessperson who's done OK at it

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is that people want to see you.

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Other businesspeople,

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even if you're kind of

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a bit of a zoo animal species
they'd like to check out,

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they'll, OK, I'll meet Twiggy Forrest.

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And so once you're in there,

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you can interrogate them,

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and I've been to most of oil and gas

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and fast-moving consumer good
companies in the world,

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and there is a real will to change.

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I mean, there's a couple of dinosaurs

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who are going to hope
for the best and do nothing,

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but there's a real will to change.

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So what I've been discussing is

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the seven and a half billion
people in the world

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don't actually deserve to have
their environment smashed by plastic,

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their oceans rendered depopulated
or barren of sea life because of plastic.

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So you count down on that chain,

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and there's tens of thousands of brands
which we all buy heaps of products from,

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but then there's only a hundred
major resin producers,

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big petrochemical plants

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that spew out all the plastic
which is single use.

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CA: So one hundred companies

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are right at the base
of this food chain, as it were.

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AF: Yeah.

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CA: And so what do you need
those one hundred companies to do?

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AF: OK, so we need them

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to simply raise the value

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of the building blocks of plastic
from oil and gas,

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which I call bad plastic,

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raise the value of that

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so that when it spreads through the brands
and onto us, the customers,

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we won't barely even notice
an increase in our coffee cup

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or Coke or Pepsi, or anything.

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CA: Like, what, like a cent extra?

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AF: Less. Quarter of a cent, half a cent.

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It'll be absolutely minimal,

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but what it does,

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it makes every bit of plastic
all over the world an article of value.

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Where you have the waste worst,

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say Southeast Asia, India,

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that's where the wealth is most.

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CA: OK, so it feels like
there's two parts to this.

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One is, if they will charge more money

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but carve out that excess

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and pay it into what, a fund
operated by someone

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to tackle this problem of, what?

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What would that money be use for,
that they charge the extra for?

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AF: So when I speak
to really big businesses,

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I say, "Look, I need you to change
and I need you to change really fast,"

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their eyes are going
to peel over in boredom

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unless I say, "And it's good business."

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"OK, now you've got my attention, Andrew."

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So I say, "Right, I need you to make
a contribution to an environmental

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and industry transition fund.

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Over two or three years,

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the entire global plastics industry

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can transition from getting
its building blocks from fossil fuel

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to getting its building blocks
from plastic. The technology is out there.

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It's proven.

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I've taken two multi-billion dollar
operations from nothing

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recognizing that
the technology can be scaled.

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I see at least a dozen technologies
in plastic to handle all types of plastic.

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So once those technologies
have an economic margin,

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which this gives them,

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that's where the global public
will get all their plastic from,

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from existing plastic.

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CA: So every sale of virgin plastic

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contributes money to a fund

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that is used to basically
transition the industry

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and start to pay for things
like cleanup and other pieces.

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AF: Absolutely. Absolutely.

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CA: And it has the incredible side benefit
which is maybe even the main benefit

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of creating a market.

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It suddenly makes recyclable plastic

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a giant business that can unlock
millions of people around the world

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to find a new living collecting it.

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AF: Yeah, exactly.

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So all you do

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is you've got fossil fuel
plastics at this value

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and recycled plastic at this level.

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You change it

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so recycled plastic is cheaper
than fossil fuel plastics.

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The world goes to fossil fuel plastics.

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What I love about this most, Chris,

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is that, you know,

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we waste into the environment

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300, 350 million tons of plastic.

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On the oil and gas
industry's own accounts,

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it's going to grow to 500 million tons.

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This is an accelerating problem.

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But every ton of that is polymer.

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Polymer is a thousand dollars,
1,500 dollars a ton.

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That's half a trillion dollars

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which could go into business

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and could great jobs and opportunities

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and wealth right across the world,

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particularly in the most impoverished,

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yet we throw it away.

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CA: So this would allow the big companies
to invest in recycling plants

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literally all over the world,

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where the plastic is over the world.

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AF: Because the technology
is low capital cost,

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you can put it in at rubbish dumps,
at the bottom of big hotels,

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garbage depots, everywhere,

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turn that waste into resin.

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CA: Now, you're a philanthropist

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and you're ready to commit
some of your own wealth to this.

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What is the role of philanthropy
in this project?

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AF: I think what we have to do

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is kick in the 40 to 50 million US dollars

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to get it going

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and then we have to create
absolute transparency

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so everyone can see
exactly what's going on,

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from the resin producer
to the brands to the consumers,

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everyone gets to see
who is playing the game,

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who is protecting the Earth,
and who doesn't care,

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and that'll cost about
a million dollars a week,

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and we're going to underwrite
that for five years.

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Total contribution is circa
300 million US dollars.

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CA: Wow.

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Now --

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(Applause)

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You've talked about the companies,
like to the Coca-Colas of this world,

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who are willing to do this,
they're willing to pay a higher price,

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they would like to pay a higher price

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so long as it's fair.

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AF: Yeah, it's fair.

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So Coca-Cola wouldn't
like Pepsi to play ball

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unless the whole world knew
that Pepsi wasn't playing ball.

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Then they don't care.

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So it's that transparency of the market

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where if people try and cheat the system,

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the market can see it,
the consumers can see it.

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The consumers want a role to play in this.

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Seven and a half billion of us.

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We don't want our world smashed
by a hundred companies.

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CA: Well, so tell us, you've said
what the companies can do

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and what you're willing to do.

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What can people listening do?

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AF: OK, so I would like all of us,

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all around the world,

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to go a website called noplasticwaste.org.

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You contact your hundred resin producers

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which are in your region.

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You will have at least one

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within an email or a twitter
or a telephone contact from you,

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and let them know that you would like them
to make a contribution to a fund

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which industry can manage
or the World Bank can manage.

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It raises tens of billions
of dollars per year

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00:13:30,521 --> 00:13:33,531
so you can transition the industry
to getting all its plastic from plastic,

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not from fossil fuel.

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We don't need that.
That's bad. This is good.

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And it can clean up the environment.

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We've got enough capital there,

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we've got tens of billions
of dollars, Chris, per annum

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to clean up the environment.

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CA: You're in the recycling business.

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Isn't this a conflict of interest for you,

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or rather a huge business
opportunity for you?

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AF: Yeah, look, I'm in
the iron ore business,

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and I compete against
the scrap metal business,

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and that's why you don't have any scrap
lying around the trip over,

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and cut your toe on,
because it gets collected.

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CA: This isn't your excuse
to go into the plastic recycling business.

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AF: No, I am going to cheer for this boom.

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This will be the internet
of plastic waste.

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This will be a boom industry
which will spread all over the world,

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and particularly where poverty is worst
because that's where the rubbish is most,

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and that's the resource,

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so I'm going to cheer for it
and stand back.

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CA: Twiggy, we're in an era

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where so many people around the world
are craving a new, regenerative economy,

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these big supply chains,
these big industries

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to fundamentally transform.

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It strikes me as a giant idea,

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and you're going to need a lot of people

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cheering you on your way
to make it happen. Thank you --

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AF: Thank you Chris. Thank you so much.

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(Applause)