Kingspan : Launches Ocean Plastic Clean-up Partnership and aims to Recycle 1bn Plastic Bottles Annually by 2025

• Recycled bottles will be used in production of Kingspan insulation
• Commitment increases current use of recycled plastic fourfold
• Interim target of 500m bottles by 2023
• 3-year partnership to remove plastic from the ocean agreed with EcoAlf Foundation

Kingspan, the global leader in high performance insulation and envelope solutions for low carbon buildings, has committed to recycling 500m plastic bottles each year by 2023 for use in its insulation with a further target of 1bn bottles each year by 2025. This recycling initiative is part of a broader Kingspan programme, together with the company's 2020 Net Zero Energy manufacturing target, to produce its energy-saving products in a low carbon and environmentally responsible way.

Kingspan is already manufacturing insulation using recycled plastic but from today will be adding recovered ocean plastic to this manufacturing chain, made with raw materials from its plant near Barcelona, Spain. This plant already recycles 250m bottles each year and has set an ambitious target to quadruple this over six years.

To achieve this target, Kingspan has partnered with the EcoAlf Foundation and under a 3-year partnership, the company will proactively help to remove up to 150 tonnes of waste from the Mediterranean each year through the EcoAlf Foundation's network of fishermen. Kingspan will reuse as much of the ocean plastic recovered as it can in its production.

Using recycled plastic bottles helps prevent them from ending up in landfill, or worse in the oceans. Currently only 9% of the plastic ever made in the world has been recycled, and according to the United Nations Environment Programme, more than 8 million tonnes of plastic ends up in the ocean each year - equivalent to dumping a rubbish truck of plastic every minute.

Commenting on the initiative, Gene Murtagh, CEO of Kingspan Group said: