Progress report for
Dell Commits to Scaling Commercial Use of Ocean Bound Plastic
Achievement at a glance
Since registering this commitment in 2017, we launched our industrys first ocean bound plastic packaging for our premier consumer laptop, the XPS 2-in-1. Since that time, we have continued to scale and grow not only the product lines in which ocean bound plastic packaging would be leveraged, including a portion of our commercial Latitude notebook line, but we also scaled the percentage mix of the material with other recycled material (25%-50% in most cases). In 2019 alone, Dell Technologies used 66,635 lbs of this material which went into 1,751,494 plastic packaging trays and endcaps for our products. This brings our new total between 2017-2019 to 88,887 lbs used in our packaging, as well as evaluation and testing of other material use cases.Additionally, to fulfill our second commitment to the UN SDG 14, Dell Technologies also took the step to officially form the NextWave Plastics consortium (nextwaveplastics.org) in partnership with The Lonely Whale Foundation and select number of founding members from cross-industry companies. The consortium was formed in late 2017 in support of these 10 principles: (1) transparent, (2) open-source, (3) science-based, (4) cooperative, (5) complementary, (6) beneficial, (7) enduring, (8) accountable, (9) collaborative, and (10) competitive. Since that time, membership has grown to 11 organizations committed to develop commercially viable and operational supply chains and the integration of non-virgin plastic material into packaging and products. Since launch, member companies have developed use cases and conducted commercial launches, which showcase the viability of integrating ocean-plastics into existing supply chains (or creating new ones). The NextWave Plastics supply chains are currently found in areas such as Indonesia, Chile, Philippines, Haiti, and Denmark. Additionally, the membership has committed to collectively divert a minimum of 25,000 metric tons of plastic from entering the ocean by the end of 2025.
Challenges faced in implementation
Although ocean-bound plastic material has been successfully leveraged within aspects of Dell Technologies packaging, there continue to be some limits in use cases due to the nature and types of ocean bound plastic waste.The supply chain Dell Technologies and other NextWave Plastics member companies are developing to collect ocean-bound plastics provides an economic opportunity that supports livelihoods for many people. However, the workers in this type of supply chain also encounter challenges that may come with informal employment, which also makes workers hard to monitor. As such, NextWave Plastics has established a social responsibility working group to fuel discussion, research, pilots and other mechanisms to continue to engage and advance this supply chain and its workers.
Beneficiaries
Indonesia: The bottles and recyclable plastics used in our packaging are collected by waste pickers and aggregators. We estimate there are likely more than 20,000 people who contribute to collecting plastic waste for our recycling partner.
Haiti: Dell Technologies sourced the first 16,000 pounds of material from Haiti, which started us on our journey and became our 2017 baseline. However, to properly scale this effort, it was important to source the ocean-bound plastic from a location that was near our supply chain and that had high-concentrations of ocean-bound plastic waste to intercept.
Variety of other countries through NextWave Plastics member supply chains: Dell Technologies membership in NextWave Plastics supports not only our own direct supply chain but also helps to grow supply around the world, as other members needs continue to expand as well. Some of the other countries reflected include Chile, Philippines and Denmark, and the list continues to grow.