The HIPPO: Turning a Dream Into Reality

In our last newsletter, we embarked on the journey of the HIPPO, our innovative, low-tech, low-cost, high impact pollution remover. We discussed the genesis of this groundbreaking project and the initial steps taken towards its creation. Now, let's delve further into the story of its development and how it's set to revolutionize river pollution control on a global scale.

From concept to reality

At this point it was an overly ambitious plan with no real way of paying for it. Luckily, I was invited to a sustainability conference soon after where a contact of mine, Roger from Marina Bay Sands, was hosting the session. Literally over the buffet I elevator pitched the idea to him and to my amazement he informed me that the idea was highly aligned to their foundation’s criteria. What would you know, it was, and when we applied we won!

With that initial capital the project was catapulted into life. The contract was signed with the engineers and the project began to come into life.

Around a similar time, we were working closely with a large UK based Insurance Company called Howden Group on a project to help them map their plastic footprints across their global offices then offset it by removing that same weight of plastic from the ocean on their behalf, whilst they focused on making investments to reduce and hopefully eliminate their plastic waste in the future. In true Seven Clean Seas fashion I jumped at the opportunity to pitch them the project and this turned into a very serious application to their foundation.

One night a while after Ben Moody, my co-founder and I were invited out for drinks with their team to mark the end of a separate project, things kicked on pretty late! At one point, the bartender came to our table, with a bottle which had a sparkler shooting out of the end and handed it to us. We quickly realized it was an empty bottle and inside was a brown, sun aged letter… it was a message in a bottle! Once the commotion (there was plenty) had settled it was a lovely note from the Howden team committing to join the project as a financial backer. It was a moment of total euphoria. We had the money to kick off the project… It was go time!

An unexpected hurdle

It was about the time that the world got weird, fast. Boarders were closing and the talk of a pandemic was raging! There were many challenges of Seven Clean Seas during the pandemic as it was a bootstrapped environmental startup. One of the most significant challenges was trying to move the river project forward. For over a year we were focussed on locations in South Vietnam, and we got close.

We did however realize that pilot projects are way more expensive and complex than well oiled, well rehearsed projects. There was a point when we needed to pull the plug on the project's focus into Vietnam, accept over a 1 year delay and turn to our partners for guidance.

A little before this one of our cornerstone partners, ECCA Family Foundation had supported Seven Clean Seas in another area and we knew they had a strategic focus on Thailand. Low and behold they got onboard with the project and we had a new focus, Thailand. With that in agreement, and some final funding from BW, It was time to take the brakes off and get this project moving once again!

Entering a new market

Entering a new market is hard at the best of times, especially when you cannot physically go there! This being the case we decided to commission IUCN Thailand to be our on the ground partner to help us run a feasibility study to choose a location and importantly map and engage the necessary stakeholders. As part of this process we met with many government ministries and agencies, but one particular connection proved to be invaluable.

Introducing Wat Chak Daeng, a beautiful Thai Buddhist temple on the banks of the Chao Phraya river in central bangkok. The monks here needed no introduction to circularity, the work they were already undertaking and continue to do is nothing short of amazing. They have a fully functioning Materials Recovery Facility onsite where they can collect the waste from the surrounding communities and process it for recycling, composting and even pyrolysis! Their orange robes are actually made from plastic bottles which they themselves have collected and had recycled into polyester. Inspirational stuff to say the least!

After some time, I had the honor of visiting them to sign a partnership agreement with the Monk Abbot to install our system directly behind the temple in the river. I’m extremely grateful for their confidence in Seven Clean Seas and this project.

Pilot: Inspiring global change

Now here we are, 3 years and a few gray hairs later with the pilot about to launch. It’s been a journey to say the least. This pilot is not just a financially accessible river cleanup system for the municipalities who need them the most, but we have been working on an innovative financial model to enable the scaleup of multiple systems, globally, quickly! That's the real innovation. Seven Clean Seas is in this for the long haul, we’re here to roll out these systems globally and we’re here to offer a truly implementable solution to tackle 70% of ocean plastic generation!

Oh yeah and it’s called the HIPPO!

If you missed the first part of the HIPPO's journey, you can catch up by reading it?here. Stay tuned as we set the HIPPO in motion,