Tontoton launch plastic-free coastlines program in Sihanoukville

Tontoton, a private-enterprise firm, launched its program “Community Solution For Plastic Free Coastlines” at a press conference in the coastal city of Sihanoukville on Frday.

The event ,which included a visit to a floating village, as well as speeches from big-wigs from the private, public and NGO sectors highlighted the work now being done to clean up three villages in Sihanoukville through a plastic credits scheme. What’s a plastic credit you ask? All in good time.

Who are Tontoton?

Tontoton were established by Israeli national and CEO Barak Ekshtein to be a “solution provider creating daily impacts and changing the reality of plastic pollution through plastic credits”.

For anyone that followed the horror show that was COP26, or have even the vaguest interest in the planet, you might be familiar with “carbon footprints” and how they can be offset by “carbon credits”. Plastic credits work in a similar fashion.

Theoretically companies that create plastic waste, which is pretty much every company, would buy plastic credits from regulated companies that work in the recycling field, companies like Tontoton. Said companies would then offset customers’ plastic footprints by doing good stuff like clearing the abundance of plastic waste that ends floating to our shores.

The company originated in Vietnam in the informal waste collection sector before expanding to Sihanoukville in October 2021. Currently the company works in three local villages and employs people to literally pick trash from the water. We saw that in action during our visit to Oh Vietnam Village. 

Oh Vietnam floating village

In many respects Oh Vietnam is not all that dissimilar from the floating villages you see on tourist trips to places like Siem Reap. There have in common fishing boats, simple accommodations, shops and people going about their everyday lives. 

The big difference here though is that there’s a huge problem with plastic waste. That waste is a mixture of refuse thrown into the sea by villagers themselves and even more from other regions that simply washes up on their shores.

To read about Siem Reap floating village click here.

Bopha, a villager and waste collector, described how sometimes the trash would get so high it would go into peoples houses. Villagers would then just push it out and underneath until it became unbearable. 

Some of that waste, specifically cans and bottles, could be recycled and monetised and would be dealt with. But no one wanted to deal with the non-recyclable/worthless plastic waste until Tontoton stepped into town. 

The company employs local villagers to take the trash from the ocean, separate the recyclable from the non-recyclable and then pays them for what was previously valueless trash. Waste collectors receive 300 riels per kilogram, which may not sound like a whole heap but still offers a welcome employment opportunity, but as Bopha added “I am glad to have a job and be able to support by family, particularly at this time. On a good day I might earn up to $20”.

The cash in the trash

Once the the non-recyclable plastic is bagged up, the company pick its up to be taken to its processing centre. That facility employs 50 people who get the material ready for transfer to Kampot. There, in association with ChipMong Ecocycle, the plastic is burnt and turned into ash to be used in cement.

So purely an ecological plastic based cement solution for cement? Well, not solely that. The process may also provide an economic benefit. Chris Parker, Director of Plastic at US based Climeco LLC, a company which specialises in advising on and monitoring plastic credits told Khmer Nights, “In the future as processing improves and companies are incentivised to reduce their plastic footprint, we feel using waste plastic for cement is something that could one day become profitable in itself”.

For now though the cash in the trash comes from the plastic credits themselves. Mae Catibog, the head of Sustainability Compliance at Tontoton, told us the company was a for-profit firm with a product that is an environmental commodity.

She added that the company did not rely on donations at all, with almost all its income coming in the form of the purchased plastic credits themselves.

What’s a plastic credit worth?

And herein lies the golden question.What is a plastic credit actually worth? Much like a carbon credit it has no set economic value. The hope and potential behind it lies in consumers being the driving force to move companies to take action. Says Chris Parker, “Customers increasingly care about corporate responsibility and they want to see action, with a reduction in plastic waste being just as important as reducing carbon footprints.

This is something we have increasingly seen in the west and at Climeco we work with companies, such as Tontoton, to be matchmakers between those doing the work on the ground and businesses wishing to improve their environmental footprint”.

So, while “doing the right thing” can often feel like pissing in the wind when it comes to the environment, the onus is definitely on us as consumers to choose companies that have positive environmental policies. And companies that purchase plastic credits potentially become part of that choice process. 

Tontoton will not be able to solve the problem of plastic washing up on Cambodian shores alone, but as of now? They are certainly playing their part.  

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