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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 do 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,

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but it taught me more about marine death

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and the extreme mass
ecological fatality of fish,

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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. Right?

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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,
carrying their negative charge,

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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
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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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 Ellen MacArthur Foundation,
they're a bunch of good scientists,

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we've been working with them for a while.

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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,
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, who has lived --

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you've spent your whole life thinking
about global economic systems

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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
ragpickers 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
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,

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we don't see 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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See, all plastic is
is building blocks from oil and gas.

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Plastic's 100 percent polymer,
which is 100 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 that's the fundamental problem,

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the price of recycled plastic
is usually more

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

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they'll say, yeah, OK,
we'll all 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 the oil and gas
and fast-moving consumer good companies

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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 depauperate
or barren of sea life because of plastic.

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So you come down 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
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 used 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

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to an environmental
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.

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The technology is out there.

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It's proven."

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I've taken two multibillion-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
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,

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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 is, you've got fossil
fuel plastics at this value

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and recycled plastic at this value.

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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,
is that, you know,

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we waste into the environment
300, 350 million tons of plastic.

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On the oil and gas companies 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 1,000 dollars,
1,500 dollars a ton.

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That's half a trillion dollars
which could go into business

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and could create jobs and opportunities
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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AF: All over the world.

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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
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 producers
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 to other 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,

00:12:47.627 --> 00:12:49.988
the market can see it,
the consumers can see it.

00:12:50.012 --> 00:12:52.138
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

00:12:59.179 --> 00:13:00.646
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

00:13:10.889 --> 00:13:12.329
which are in your region.

00:13:12.353 --> 00:13:14.026
You will have at least one

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

00:13:18.508 --> 00:13:23.943
and let them know that you would like them
to make a contribution to a fund

00:13:23.967 --> 00:13:26.594
which industry can manage
or the World Bank can manage.

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It raises tens of billions
of dollars per year

00:13:30.336 --> 00:13:35.018
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.

00:13:38.509 --> 00:13:40.521
And it can clean up the environment.

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We've got enough capital there,

00:13:42.122 --> 00:13:45.079
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,

00:13:50.388 --> 00:13:52.597
or rather, a huge business
opportunity for you?

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

00:13:54.778 --> 00:13:56.987
and I compete against
the scrap metal business,

00:13:57.011 --> 00:14:00.446
and that's why you don't have
any scrap lying around to trip over,

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and cut your toe on,

00:14:01.943 --> 00:14:03.219
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.

00:14:08.906 --> 00:14:11.017
This will be the internet
of plastic waste.

00:14:11.041 --> 00:14:14.380
This will be a boom industry
which will spread all over the world,

00:14:14.404 --> 00:14:18.463
and particularly where poverty is worst
because that's where the rubbish is most,

00:14:18.487 --> 00:14:19.803
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

00:14:24.427 --> 00:14:29.092
where so many people around the world
are craving a new, regenerative economy,

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these big supply chains,
these big industries,

00:14:31.769 --> 00:14:33.810
to fundamentally transform.

00:14:33.834 --> 00:14:35.566
It strikes me as a giant idea,

00:14:35.590 --> 00:14:38.650
and you're going to need a lot of people
cheering you on your way

00:14:38.674 --> 00:14:39.840
to make it happen.

00:14:39.864 --> 00:14:41.539
Thank you for sharing this with us.

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AF: Thank you very much. Thank you, Chris.

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(Applause)