2021 : Boarding !

At the end of January 2020, Covid-19 made it to the French territory. A few weeks later, we were all roughly, at home, locked down.

Consequences of the pandemic

The pandemic has had terrible human, social and economic consequences such as an increased mortality among elderly and fragile fellow citizens, a hospital system saturation and exhausted healthcare personnel, tremendous difficulties for cultural and food industries, to cite only a few..

The health of our environment has also been deeply impacted. Indeed, in 2020 single-use plastic made a strong comeback: disposable masks, individual bottles of hydroalcoholic gel, overpackaging for internet deliveries, shopping carts and takeaway food. Plastic was presented as a barrier to the virus and therefore, is not experiencing a crisis. The powerful plastics lobby, EuPC, this year called on the European Commission to lift all bans on single-use plastics.

A chaotic year … which did not spare the Plastic Odyssey expedition at all.

2020 : A rough sea…

In 2020, a few storms have been faced while preparing our expedition! For instance, we found abestos on board our ship that had to be removed, the shipyard and the educational village were put at a standstill due to lock down, and several countries closed off their borders making any international expedition impossible…

The year 2020 put our Odyssey through the mill, leading to postpone the departure of the expedition in 2021

New year, new direction!

This year now behind us, we take time to look forward to bright seas.

The unprecedented situation has allowed the whole world to question itself. New rules, new ways of living, transporting, producing, consuming, new links to be created… In a world where tertiary actors have no longer been able to play their role as intermediaries, everything has suddenly been rethought. Short circuits, do-it-yourself, mutual aid, self-help… 2020 was also a year of renewal.

For Plastic Odyssey, these forced course changes gave us the opportunity to rethink our shipping plan.

French Tour

Witnessing the resurgence of single-use plastic all over France, we decided to start our expedition by a french tour: We are therefore planning several stopovers on french coasts, the perfect occasion to come and meet you, display our exploration material and share concrete solutions to rethink and reduce our needs, reuse or recycle plastic waste on the territory.

Essential partners

The isolation we all experienced during locks down reminded us of how important it is to forge bonds and imagine the “tomorrow’s world”. We have therefore taken advantage of this year 2020 to surround ourselves with valuable partners: enthusiastic volunteers, researchers in social sciences experts or partners providing financial support… They all contribute, in their own way, to make this adventure possible. And we thank them for their support.

It’s only together that we can face the plastic storm, which is why we decided, after months of social distance, to open the ship’s doors widely: the adventure Plastic Odyssey will welcome on board as many fellows as possible to think collectively the answers to plastic pollution.

New educational programs

At the beginning of 2021, we will officially launch a new program on board: the Plastic Odyssey lab, which will enable people to experiment solution thanks to the embarked technologies ! And for those who won’t have the chance to come on board, we have thought of an alternative: Plastic Odyssey will launch an international educational programme in 2021, giving a chance to the young communities to follow the adventure from the four corners of the earth and get involved at their own scale.

Long story, short, goodbye 2020, and thank you. 2021, here we are, full of dreams and projects! Can’t wait!