David Katz, is the CEO and founder of the Plastic Bank, a unique organisation that is using blockchain technology for social good. They make plastic waste a currency to fight ocean plastic and poverty. Listen to David as he explains to us how he transforms plastic waste into a unit of positive value that large brands are willing to pay for. Leading not just to the removal of plastic from entering the oceans but also providing a path to financial inclusion for some of the poorest communities around the world.

 

What is blockchain?

For David, blockchain is really a database that allows him to understand who has been contributing or changing data. Blockchain is a technology that enables true authenticity. It enables for value (money or good quality recycled plastic) to be transformed between corporates and into the hands of the poor in emerging countries without the need of intermediaries such as government or the risk of it being hijacked by malicious parties such as the mafia. Plastic Bank corporate customers want to make sure that when they buy good quality recycled plastic from them that the value is truly transferred to the people who are collecting the plastic.

David looks at authenticity in a binary manner. He looks at good quality reliable data as having an authenticity value of one. Data that he can’t rely on has a value of zero. The Plastic Bank needs to ensure that the material has as much authentic value as possible to really make it an incentive for the world to collect it and purchase it. For the Plastic Bank that’s what blockchain is and what it enables without the need for audit. Audit’s take time and the ocean cannot wait around.

 

Your journey to the Plastic Bank

David has a very philosophical view on the journey that has taken him to founding the Plastic Bank. He recognizes that every single experience and decision is what led him to this very moment. It is a mixture of all his journeys from the good to the tragic ones. There may have been some things that may have been more relevant than others like 35 years ago walking the beach on his way to school every day and observing all of the marine debris and being aware of them. Or as a 15-year-old calling out a mayday in the middle of the ocean whilst sailing with his father who was having a heart attack. Or was it the images of decomposing birds, whose bellies were filled with plastic, whilst walking the beach on holiday. Or was it his journey as an entrepreneur?

In May of 2013, David attended a course at Singularity University, in the seminar on 3D printing, he was able to witness a solid strand of plastic be manipulated with a heated nozzle to be turned in to a belt. He was told that the sale price of the belt was $80 whilst the cost of the material was $10.

At this moment he realized that the only thing that was giving that plastic a $70 value was its shape. It was the perception and view the customer was giving to that plastic that gave it a value of $80 and not $10.

So the same way we look at packaging, bottling and other disposable plastic goods where our perception of those plastic items is worthless. So it came to David that we just had to change the perception of the material and not the material itself.

David challenges every individual to think how their perception of every plastic, packaging and bottling they encountered was worth $5. Would we see any of that plastic in the garbage, street, environment or ocean? David believes that would be none. It’s not the plastic, it has nothing to do with the plastic but it has all to do with the way we perceive it.

 

Tackling plastic waste