By embarking on a new awareness-raising quest, Electrolux is hoping to focus the public's attention on the growing problem of global plastic waste. Looking specifically at the vast islands of accumulated plastic garbage dotted around the world's oceans, the company has announced its Vac from the sea campaign. Part of the initiative will involve the collection of rubbish from ocean hotspots, recycling and processing it and then turning it into a limited number concept vacuum cleaners.
To say that our society has become somewhat dependent on the use of plastics is a bit of an understatement. But while plastics have proven incredibly useful, there is a hazardous downside - waste. The main problem with plastic waste is the same process that makes plastic so durable also causes it to have a very slow rate of degradation and far too much of it ends up being incinerated, dumped in landfill or disposed of at sea.
Electrolux has started a public awareness campaign to tackle the latter issue and is aiming to inform people of the problems caused when plastic ends up floating in the world's ocean waters as vast islands of dangerous waste (such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch).
As well as raise the public profile of this huge problem, the company's Vac from the sea campaign is also looking to collect plastic debris from vulnerable marine habitats around the globe, recycle and process it into a useful form and then create a limited range of vacuum cleaners from it.
The concept cleaners are likely to merely serve as an example of what can be achieved rather than being made commercially available. But if it helps clean up some of the plastic swells in marine hotspots around the world then we wish Electrolux well.
