Plastic Bank at Ecomondo 2025: a model that transforms plastic into social and environmental value, combining circular economy and inclusion.
Plastic Bank, the international organisation founded in 2013 by David Katz, presents its pioneering approach to plastic management, based on a simple yet revolutionary principle: not waste, but a resource that can change lives.
The organisation operates in the coastal countries most affected by marine pollution, where it transforms plastic collection into an economic and social opportunity for thousands of people. Materials are intercepted before they reach the sea, delivered to partner collection points and converted into Social Plastic®, a regenerated material that re-enters the supply chains of major international brands.
Plastic Bank's impact is both environmental and human: since its founding, it has already collected more than 175 million kilograms of plastic, the equivalent of nearly 9 billion bottles, creating collection ecosystems in twelve countries and generating income, access to essential services and new opportunities for local communities.
This year Plastic Bank is among the leading companies featured at Ecomondo 2025, the international benchmark event for the circular economy, scheduled from 4 to 7 November at the Rimini Expo Centre. An opportunity to share its vision of the circular economy.
For Katz, the key to true transformation lies in partnership, because sustainability cannot be built alone.
"The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are listed as seventeen ambitions for humanity," he explains. "But what many people don't know is that they are in order. If we want to solve problems related to life below water, hunger or education, we must start with number one: poverty. Everything begins there."
Plastic Bank is a movement of global cooperation, where economics intertwines with social justice: the value generated by material recovery always flows back to the people who create it.
But Katz's vision goes further. He imagines a future in which humanity knows how to flourish in balance with the Earth, returning value to every material and every life. A perspective that is at once philosophical and concrete, and which through Plastic Bank translates into tangible actions: circularity, prosperity and regeneration, transforming what we discard into a new form of shared value.
As Fabio Todesco, Plastic Bank's Country Manager for Italy, explained to us, we have entered a new phase of sustainability. After the "economic bet", comes the era of social value. Younger generations, raised in an age of crisis and awareness, are no longer satisfied with environmental sustainability alone: they demand ethics, human impact and authenticity.
In this landscape, Plastic Bank becomes a concrete model of purpose-driven marketing: it transforms good intentions into action. Those who collect plastic in developing countries receive compensation, microcredit or essential goods — such as insurance, phone credits or food vouchers — through a transparent blockchain-based system that certifies every transaction and ensures value flows back to the people.
In Italy, Plastic Bank works with companies that choose to link plastic offsetting to their brand identity. The goal now is to also engage smaller players — professionals, restaurants, local businesses — in a kind of "Michelin Guide for goodness", connecting those who generate social and environmental value through their choices.
"Sustainability is not just business," Todesco concludes. "It is education, it is the human spirit. True impact is not measured solely in tonnes of carbon dioxide saved, but in lives improved."
Plastic Bank is among the guests hosted in the Vip lounge at Ecomondo, an exclusive space for meetings and the exchange of opinions and ideas, dedicated to companies that make sustainability and circularity their primary objective.
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