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Chris Anderson: So you've been
obsessed with this problem
-
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,
-
and from there of course
it ends up in the ocean.
-
I mean, we obviously
see it on the beaches,
-
but that's not even your main concern.
-
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,
-
and I committed to a PhD
in marine ecology,
-
and the scary part about that was,
-
sure I learned a lot about marine life
but it taught me more about marine death
-
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
-
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
-
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,
-
and the breaking science on this, Chris,
-
which we've known in marine ecology
for a few years now,
-
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 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,
-
particularly a negative particle
which can carry pathogens,
-
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
-
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
-
and there's going to be ever more of them
-
and we haven't even seen the start
of the consequences of that.
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AF: No, we really haven't.
-
The ?? Foundation,
they're a bunch of good scientists,
-
we've been working with them for a while,
I've completely verified their work,
-
they say there will be
one ton of plastic, Chris,
-
for every three tons of fish, by not 2050,
-
and I really get impatient with people
who talk about 2050, by 2025.
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That's around the corner.
-
That's just the here and now.
-
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
-
not as a typical environmental
campaigner, I would say,
-
but as a businessmen,
as an entrepreneur,
-
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,
-
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,
-
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,
-
and in some industries,
-
they actually account for the fact
that for example we don't see
-
a lot of metal waste in the world.
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AF: That's exactly right.
-
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
-
which is just down the road,
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the three and a half billion dollar
petrochemical plant.
-
That's the problem.
-
We've got more oil and gas
in plastic and landfill
-
than we have in the entire oil and gas
resources of the United States.
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So she is the hero,
-
and that's what that landfill looks like,
ladies and gentlemen,
-
and it's solid oil and gas.
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CA: So there's huge value
potentially locked up in there
-
that the world's ragpickers
would if they could make a living from,
-
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
-
to economically and profitably
recycle plastic from plastic.
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All plastic is is building blocks
from oil and gas.
-
Plastic's a hundred percent polymer
which is a hundred percent oil and gas,
-
and you know we've got
enough plastic in the world
-
for all our needs,
-
and when we recycle plastic,
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if we can't recycle it cheaper
than fossil fuel plastic,
-
then of course the world
just sticks to fossil fuel plastic.
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CA: So if that's the fundamental problem,
-
the price of recycled plastic
-
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
-
and bits of copper lying
all round the villages,
-
particularly in the developing world.
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And people worked out it's got a value.
-
It's actually an article of value,
-
not of waste.
-
Now, the villages and the cities
and the streets are clean,
-
you don't trip over scrap copper
or scrap iron now,
-
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,
-
for most part of that PhD
I've been doing research,
-
and the good thing about being
a businessperson who's done OK at it
-
is that people want to see you.
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Other businesspeople,
-
even if you're kind of
-
a bit of a zoo animal species
they'd like to check out,
-
they'll, OK, I'll meet Twiggy Forrest.
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And so once you're in there,
-
you can interrogate them,
-
and I've been to most of oil and gas
-
and fast-moving consumer good
companies in the world,
-
and there is a real will to change.
-
I mean, there's a couple of dinosaurs
-
who are going to hope
for the best and do nothing,
-
but there's a real will to change.
-
So what I've been discussing is
-
the seven and a half billion
people in the world
-
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,
-
and there's tens of thousands of brands
which we all buy heaps of products from,
-
but then there's only a hundred
major resin producers,
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big petrochemical plants
-
that spew out all the plastic
which is single use.
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CA: So one hundred companies
-
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,
-
which I call bad plastic,
-
raise the value of that
-
so that when it spreads through the brands
and onto us, the customers,
-
we won't barely even notice
an increase in our coffee cup
-
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,
-
but what it does,
-
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,
-
that's where the wealth is most.
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CA: OK, so it feels like
there's two parts to this.
-
One is, if they will charge more money
-
but carve out that excess
-
and pay it into what, a fund
operated by someone
-
to tackle this problem of, what?
-
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,
-
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
-
unless I say, "And it's good business."
-
"OK, now you've got my attention, Andrew."
-
So I say, "Right, I need you to make
a contribution to an environmental
-
and industry transition fund.
-
Over two or three years,
-
the entire global plastics industry
-
can transition from getting
its building blocks from fossil fuel
-
to getting its building blocks
from plastic. The technology is out there.
-
It's proven.
-
I've taken two multi-billion dollar
operations from nothing
-
recognizing that
the technology can be scaled.
-
I see at least a dozen technologies
in plastic to handle all types of plastic.
-
So once those technologies
have an economic margin,
-
which this gives them,
-
that's where the global public
will get all their plastic from,
-
from existing plastic.
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CA: So every sale of virgin plastic
-
contributes money to a fund
-
that is used to basically
transition the industry
-
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
-
of creating a market.
-
It suddenly makes recyclable plastic
-
a giant business that can unlock
millions of people around the world
-
to find a new living collecting it.
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AF: Yeah, exactly.
-
So all you do
-
is you've got fossil fuel
plastics at this value
-
and recycled plastic at this level.
-
You change it
-
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,
-
we waste into the environment
-
300, 350 million tons of plastic.
-
On the oil and gas
industry's own accounts,
-
it's going to grow to 500 million tons.
-
This is an accelerating problem.
-
But every ton of that is polymer.
-
Polymer is a thousand dollars,
1,500 dollars a ton.
-
That's half a trillion dollars
-
which could go into business
-
and could great jobs and opportunities
-
and wealth right across the world,
-
particularly in the most impoverished,
-
yet we throw it away.
-
CA: So this would allow the big companies
to invest in recycling plants
-
literally all over the world,
-
where the plastic is over the world.
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AF: Because the technology
is low capital cost,
-
you can put it in at rubbish dumps,
at the bottom of big hotels,
-
garbage depots, everywhere,
-
turn that waste into resin.
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CA: Now, you're a philanthropist
-
and you're ready to commit
some of your own wealth to this.
-
What is the role of philanthropy
in this project?
-
AF: I think what we have to do
-
is kick in the 40 to 50 million US dollars
-
to get it going
-
and then we have to create
absolute transparency
-
so everyone can see
exactly what's going on,
-
from the resin producer
to the brands to the consumers,
-
everyone gets to see
who is playing the game,
-
who is protecting the Earth,
and who doesn't care,
-
and that'll cost about
a million dollars a week,
-
and we're going to underwrite
that for five years.
-
Total contribution is circa
300 million US dollars.
-
CA: Wow.
-
Now --
-
(Applause)
-
You've talked about the companies,
like to the Coca-Colas of this world,
-
who are willing to do this,
they're willing to pay a higher price,
-
they would like to pay a higher price
-
so long as it's fair.
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AF: Yeah, it's fair.
-
So Coca-Cola wouldn't
like Pepsi to play ball
-
unless the whole world knew
that Pepsi wasn't playing ball.
-
Then they don't care.
-
So it's that transparency of the market
-
where if people try and cheat the system,
-
the market can see it,
the consumers can see it.
-
The consumers want a role to play in this.
-
Seven and a half billion of us.
-
We don't want our world smashed
by a hundred companies.
-
CA: Well, so tell us, you've said
what the companies can do
-
and what you're willing to do.
-
What can people listening do?
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AF: OK, so I would like all of us,
-
all around the world,
-
to go a website called noplasticwaste.org.
-
You contact your hundred resin producers
-
which are in your region.
-
You will have at least one
-
within an email or a twitter
or a telephone contact from you,
-
and let them know that you would like them
to make a contribution to a fund
-
which industry can manage
or the World Bank can manage.
-
It raises tens of billions
of dollars per year
-
so you can transition the industry
to getting all its plastic from plastic,
-
not from fossil fuel.
-
We don't need that.
That's bad. This is good.
-
And it can clean up the environment.
-
We've got enough capital there,
-
we've got tens of billions
of dollars, Chris, per annum
-
to clean up the environment.
-
CA: You're in the recycling business.
-
Isn't this a conflict of interest for you,
-
or rather a huge business
opportunity for you?
-
AF: Yeah, look, I'm in
the iron ore business,
-
and I compete against
the scrap metal business,
-
and that's why you don't have any scrap
lying around the trip over,
-
and cut your toe on,
because it gets collected.
-
CA: This isn't your excuse
to go into the plastic recycling business.
-
AF: No, I am going to cheer for this boom.
-
This will be the internet
of plastic waste.
-
This will be a boom industry
which will spread all over the world,
-
and particularly where poverty is worst
because that's where the rubbish is most,
-
and that's the resource,
-
so I'm going to cheer for it
and stand back.
-
CA: Twiggy, we're in an era
-
where so many people around the world
are craving a new, regenerative economy,
-
these big supply chains,
these big industries
-
to fundamentally transform.
-
It strikes me as a giant idea,
-
and you're going to need a lot of people
-
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)