Packaging and recycling

The Handy bottle made from ocean plastic

Orange Handy washing-up liquid has long had cult status. Now it has a sibling: Handy Fresh Ocean, in a bottle made from plastic waste.

From: Michelle de Oliveira
Date: 09.10.2023
Format: What we do

Handy Fresh Ocean – like its famous sibling – cleans dirty dishes. That’s not all. Because the bottle is made from plastic collected from coasts and beaches, every single bottle contributes to the protection of the oceans.

Here to stay

Originally, Handy Fresh Ocean came into stores as a limited edition – but the blue bottle is here to stay: it is now a permanent part of the Migros range.

**Tide Ocean SA collects plastic waste on the islands and along the coastlines of Southeast Asia, sorts and recycles it locally and then uses it to produce high-quality plastic granulate.**

For the new Handy Fresh Ocean, we are working with the Swiss company Tide Ocean SA, which specialises in upcycling ocean-bound plastic and is developing the innovative plastic granulate. It is made using plastic waste collected from coastlines and beaches, known as ocean-bound plastic. This prevents the plastic from entering the ocean in the first place.

**Intervening before plastic reaches the ocean: Tide Ocean SA collects plastic near coastlines and beaches.**

Tackling causes instead of symptoms

10 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year, an amount equivalent to more than one truckload per minute. Approximately 80% of this plastic originally comes from coastal areas. Tide Ocean SA wants to combat causes rather than symptoms and collects plastic waste along the coastlines of Thailand and Indonesia. This waste is then sorted, cleaned and processed into valuable plastic granulate. The #tide ocean material® made from this granulate is used to manufacture new products, such as our Handy Fresh Ocean bottle.

New formula

Incidentally, it’s not just the bottle that has a new look and is made of ocean-bound plastic; the formula has also been tinkered with. The new Handy Fresh Ocean boasts good biodegradability, a high proportion of natural ingredients, a skin-friendly pH value and a new, fresh ocean scent. In short: with the new cult Handy, consumers are making a small but significant contribution to combatting ocean pollution.