Cleaning Up the Oceans with a Vacuum Cleaner
Ocean pollution has been a topic of increasing concern lately and its devastating aftermath for marine life has been grimly documented. To raise awareness about the issue, Electrolux has introduced Vac from the Sea — a series of six limited-edition of energy-efficient vacuum cleaners made with plastic salvaged from vulnerable marine habitats.
Electrolux dreamt up the project when, in their search for sustainable source materials for the chasis of the new vacuums, they stumbled upon a plastic paradox: While oceans remain polluted with plastic, recycled plastics for home appliances were both hard to find and prohibitively exepnsive. So, they decided to make their own. Vac from the Sea was born.
Each of the five designs uses plastic from a specific region – Hawaii for the Pacific edition, Sweden’s Skagerrak for the The North Sea, Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer in France for The Mediterranean, Thailand’s Phi Phi Islands for The Indian Ocean, the coastal waters of Sweden, Poland and Latvia for The Baltic Sea, and waters outside the UK for and The Atlantic – and plastic is collected in partnership with local environmental nonprofits working to clean up coastlines.
Maria Popova is the editor of Brain Pickings, a curated inventory of miscellaneous interestingness. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Magazine, Design Observer and Huffington Post, and spends a shameful amount of time on Twitter.
