Plastic was actually born from admirable goals: To make consumer products more accessible and take pressure off of severely exploited natural resources. How, then, did plastic pollution become one of the greatest threats to our natural environment?
Plastic is a wonder material. For better and (mostly) for worse,
it has defined the last century of human consumption.
Petroleum refineries poison the air and leak toxins into our water. After oil is converted into plastic, millions of pellets spill into waterways during transport, storage, loading, and cleaning.
160 million tons of plastic bags, wrappers and pouches are produced across the globe each year, but only 1-3% are recycled. These flexible, thin-film plastics remain in nature for centuries, clogging waterways and harming human and aquatic life.
Plastics are the most inexpensive, lightweight, scalable material on earth. Efforts to combat petroleum plastic waste have primarily focused on the “Three Rs”: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. But petroleum plastic still finds its way into our homes, our bodies, and our environment.
At Sway, we believe in a fourth R. Regenerate.
Sway's flexible packaging solution technically outperforms petroleum plastic, too. It is derived from a benevolent resource, cultivated to empower coastal communities and restore coastal ecosystems, and can be composted in your backyard after use.
We aren’t simply creating a plastic alternative — we’re Swaying the future of materials.