Sustainable approach at the production level
No more mermaid’s teaR'S
Operation Clean Sweep®
Plastics play a major role in improving our quality of life and boosting energy efficiency but, if they end up in waterways and oceans, they can have a negative environmental impact on marine life. Most plastic found in the oceans is ordinary post-consumer waste.
However, an estimated 10% of it is dispersed during the production and processing of plastics. Mindful of what is at stake, plastics industry associations, including the World Plastics Council, have launched Operation Clean Sweep®, an international program with a particular focus on Asia.
Its goal : to propose guidelines to help all players in the plastics industry — manufacturers, transporters, processors — follow good housekeeping and pellet containment practices, to prevent pellet loss in waterways and oceans.
As part of our contribution, through our involvement in the Plastics Europe association, Total:
- Promotes Operation Clean Sweep® to customers and distributors of the association.
- Manages the audit guidelines for manufacturing norms.
- Demonstrates exemplary leadership.
Total puts the Clean Sweep pledge into practice on the front line
From commitment to action
At the Feluy (BE) complex, Feluy teams invented a blower system to combat plastic pellet loss.
This invention and other investments have been made to prevent pellet loss leading to a monthly pick up of three metric tons of pellets. That is 120 million pellets that will not end up in the environment.