1. Home
2. News

Gigantic plastic waste pyramid highlights sustainability initiative

Coinciding with the COP27 conference taking place in Egypt this week, the pyramid was installed in the country’s Western Desert. Taking four days to build, the structure weighs 18 tonnes, is 10 metres tall and 12 metres wide.

It was made using the equivalent of one million plastic water bottles collected from the Nile River by entrepreneur Mike Smith, founder of Zero Co, and The Hidden Sea co-founders Justin Moran and Richie Vandenburg.  

Hoping to fund the launch of their 100YR CLEANUP initiative, the partnership is looking to raise $1,000,000 in the next 12 months to create full-time teams around the world, dedicated to “cleaning the planet five days a week, every week, every year, for the next 100 years, to create a century long wave of collective action”.

Justin Moran, founder of The Hidden Sea, said: “Despite its epic size, the pyramid shows just a fraction of what is an incredible crisis. Powered by wine drinkers, The Hidden Sea has removed 18 million plastic bottles from the ocean so far; this demonstrates that consumers simply need a clear way to be part of the solution.”

100YR CLEANUP founder Mike Smith also agreed to 'camp' on top of the pyramid for three days, to garner support.

“The global waste problem and eliminating single-use plastics are top of the agenda at the moment with COP27 taking place, and our installation will really draw attention to the scale of the problem of plastic waste in our rivers and oceans,” he said.

“By working together with businesses and industry leaders and inviting them to be part of a proactive plan that will outlive us all, we’ll be able to build a scalable solution to the problem and have a huge impact. It’s impossible to solve the plastic problem alone, but we can give everyone the ability to take action.” 

To find out more about the initiative and donate, visit 100yrcleanup.com.

• Sustainability
• plastic
• The Hidden Sea
• COP27
• 100YR CLEANUP
• Zero Co