As a long-tail boat arrives at a fishing village on the southern Thai island of Koh Chang, residents gather to sell their wares — not seafood, but plastic.
The villagers, members of the semi-nomadic Moken people, are selling to Tide, a start-up attempting to create new value from old plastic collected from or near the sea.
Recyclers have long scooped up some of the over six million tonnes of plastic that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates enters the ocean each year.
But Tide works directly with everyone in the process, from collectors in remote Thai fishing villages to carpet manufacturers in the Netherlands.
Its plastic is traceable and certified as “ocean-bound” — a process that involves annual audits by an NGO.
It is processed using a method Tide says results in a recycled product of comparable quality to virgin plastic.
“We are convinced there is more than …