Courtesy of TED Talks.

“Preventing ocean plastic could be humanity’s richest opportunity,” predicts David Katz, a plastics alchemist and founder of The Plastic Bank, an organization that monetizes plastic waste and provides an opportunity for the world’s disadvantaged to collect and trade plastic waste as a currency.

The Plastic Bank is a global network of micro-recycling markets that empower the poor to transcend poverty by cleaning the environment.

Katz is the recipient of the 2017 United Nations Lighthouse award for Planetary Health, recipient of the Paris Climate Conference Sustainia community award, and has been named one of the world’s most compassionate entrepreneurs by Salt magazine. He’s featured in an award-winning documentary and is a steward of the earth and a champion for the poor.