Leave a Nest Group Partners with UK Startup Ichthion to Combat Ocean Plastic Pollution in Southeast Asia
Leave a Nest Group (Head Office: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo; Group CEO: Yukihiro Maru) has become a partner of the river plastic waste collection project “Galapagos Guardian” operated by Ichthion Ltd., a UK startup working to solve ocean plastic pollution.
Ocean plastic pollution is a global problem that affects marine ecosystems, with many organisms facing difficulties. Plastic ingestion by marine life can lead to death, and decomposed microplastics spread throughout the entire ecosystem via the food chain, exacerbating the pollution of harmful substances. It is said that currently, 12 million tons of plastic waste flows into the ocean annually due to factors such as human littering and lack of understanding of recycling.
Ichthion has developed a technology to collect plastic waste from rivers, focusing on the fact that 60-80% of ocean plastic originates from rivers and becomes extremely difficult to recover once it enters the ocean. Using this technology, they launched the “Galapagos Guardian” project to solve the world's ocean plastic problem and have begun activities in Ecuador, known for the Galapagos Islands, a World Heritage Site.
However, the main emitters of ocean plastic waste are the island nations of Southeast Asia, with the Philippines ranking first, India second, and Malaysia third in annual emissions. In Malaysia, the proportion of plastic waste flowing into the ocean is estimated to be about 9%, compared to about 0.6% in China, which has about 10 times the total amount of plastic waste in the entire country.
Therefore, Leave a Nest Group has decided to partner with Ichthion to solve the ocean plastic pollution problem in the Southeast Asian region, supporting Ichthion's expansion into Southeast Asia and the expansion of Galapagos Guardian. As a first step in the partnership, Ichthion's representative, Inty Grønneberg, participated in the Hyper Interdisciplinary Conference held in Singapore, a hub for global companies, to communicate to the world the significance of the solutions developed by Ichthion to address ocean plastic pollution.
Furthermore, an office will be established at the Center of Garage Malaysia, a deep-tech focused incubation facility operated by Leave a Nest Malaysia, to implement Galapagos Guardian in Malaysia, which has a high proportion of plastic waste flowing into the ocean, and to conduct educational activities to deepen understanding of ocean plastic.
Through this partnership, Leave a Nest Group and Ichthion will further strengthen their collaboration and jointly promote effective measures to solve the ocean plastic problem.
About Ichthion
Ichthion Ltd., a spin-off company from Imperial College London, focuses on developing technologies to prevent plastic inflow into coastal areas and recover plastic from the ocean. Their Azure System, designed to remove plastic waste from rivers and prevent ocean pollution, has been implemented in multiple plastic collection projects in Ecuador. The relationship between Leave a Nest Group and Ichthion began in 2018 when Ichthion was selected as a finalist for TECH PLANTER 2018 UK, and in 2024, Leave a Nest Capital invested in Ichthion.
Contact:
Leave a Nest United Kingdom Ltd.: Maekawa
Email: [email protected]