The Ocean Cleanup project has this year again become the beneficiary of Karlsbad, Germany-based Herrmann Ultraschall’s Christmas donation effort.
Each year, the company picks a project or organisation that its philanthropic initiative Herrmann Cares then supports in the form of a donation during the holiday season. "With our donation as part of Herrmann Cares, we traditionally support organisations that align with our values," said CEO Thomas Herrmann.
In 2022, Herrmann Ultraschall donated a sum of €10,000 to non-profit organisation The Ocean Cleanup, which aims to eliminate marine plastic from the world’s oceans - a move demonstrating the importance of this effort even for those companies in the industry not directly involved in plastic processing. This year’s donation once again went to this project, underlining Herrmann Ultraschall's commitment to eliminating plastic litter from the oceans.
The ultrasonic welding technology in which Herrmann Ultraschall is specialised is a highly precise, energy and cost efficient bonding technology that uses only sound waves to achieve reproducible weld joints that require no further processing.
"Just like us, The Ocean Cleanup stands for the sustainable use of plastic. With our safe ultrasonic welding technology, we can prevent the generation of waste and at the same time help to remove existing plastic waste from the environment with our donation,” explained Herrmann.
The Ocean Cleanup follows a dual strategy towards achieving the aim of ridding the oceans of plastic. The project has developed and is scaling both technologies that intercept the plastic in rivers to stop the inflow of pollution into the ocean, as well as technologies to remove the plastic that is already out there; debris that has been building up for decades, accumulating into gyres that form the so-called ‘Garbage Patches’ in the oceans. The collected plastic is recycled and used for the manufacture of new products.
The stated goal of the project is to remove around 90 percent of plastic waste from the oceans by 2040.