The Atlantic Ocean alone has a coastline with 133 countries and five different continents. All these coastlines are both contributing to and suffering from the ocean plastic problem.

Where you decide to source your ocean plastic material matters. This is why Oceanworks designed our Marketplace to feature a broad network of suppliers and their materials, giving companies and their manufacturer partners choice.

Matching up more local suppliers with production facilities has multiple benefits. The environmental impact of cleaner waterways is felt closer to home, while the carbon footprint and cost of transporting raw materials is reduced.

If you’re manufacturing in Eastern Europe, only having the option to source material from Southeast Asia doesn’t make much sense. Vice versa, shipping material from Africa to Shenzhen China is also often unnecessary.

Virgin resins are manufactured in key hubs throughout the world, with supply chains meticulously perfected over decades. But supply chains operate differently when they involve a secondary material. 

Due to the basic economic principles of supply and demand, some brands are trying to capitalize on demand and are sourcing recycled material far outside their supply chain hub. These efforts might be a short-term fix, but ultimately make little sense in the long term. Oceanworks has many customers approaching us who previously sourced their own material. They had some initial success, but rapidly realized they were unable to scale their program due to the shipping costs, material capacity constraints, and lack of batch quality oversight.

The recycled ocean plastics industry is relatively young, but it's starting to become more organized, consistent, and efficient due to the efforts of companies like Oceanworks. 

To establish our on-demand supply chain network, Oceanworks assembled a group of responsive regional suppliers. This allows, for example, companies manufacturing in Indonesia to source recycled ocean plastics from Indonesia as well.

"Working with Oceanworks enables your team to leverage a powerful advantage; choice of source locations."

-RobIanelli, Pendiri, Oceanworks

The regional choice Oceanworks provides drives value throughout organizations and ultimately into the products they create. The plastic has a story to tell. What better way to condense the supply chain and become part of a marketing campaign?


Even if the specific needed material isn't available from the same country where manufacturing occurs, it still makes far more sense to source material from nearby areas. This best practice is becoming quite valuable, as more and more Oceanworks members launch their marketing campaigns.

From a messaging and storytelling perspective, a material's source location becomes an invaluable asset when creating go-to-market campaigns. Oceanworks makes this easy by providing members with a suite of content and assets to help make marketing both authentic and transparent.

A great example is iZettle who launched the Ocean Card Reader, which was manufactured using fishing net material sourced from the North Baltic Sea. This material was processed in Europe for manufacturing in Eastern Europe.

Sustainability should be a win-win program. Oceanworks, has worked hard to de-risk the proposition of using ocean plastics, and injecting value in key areas to make it as seamless as possible.

Get started today and explore what materials are being sourced in your part of the world.