Part of their circular design approach, Dell Technologies developed a new supply chain that recovers ocean-bound plastics to use it in the packaging of their products.
Dell made it a corporate mission to see waste as a resource and to find raw materials in the most unlikely places, like the bottom of the ocean. They engineer waste out of their product lifecycles to recycle materials back in and they work with suppliers to collect, process, and mix plastic with other recycled material. Their molded trays are made from 50% ocean-bound plastic and 50% recycled HDPE plastic, using no virgin materials.
Carbon fiber is one of the main materials used as a raw material recycled for the production of laptops. It is strong, rigid and very light making it ideal also for the aerospace industry with whom Dell works to take off-spec, excess or scrap, chop, pelletize and then compound it with plastic resin and mold it into components that make laptops stronger, thinner and lighter.

These types of corporate and private actions are crucial as 8 million tons of plastics end up in our oceans every year and by 2050, plastics may outnumber fish in the sea, disturbing global ecosystems overall.