Legacy Plastic

Beneath the waves lies an unseen world of plastic pollution. While a major threat to marine life, the negative impacts reach far beyond the ocean depths, extending to the very air we breathe. Thankfully, heroic efforts are being made to recover this plastic and save the environment.

Although the ultimate goal is to prevent debris from ever touching the water, the work to reclaim it has led to a treasure trove of opportunity: converting marine waste into a circular built environment solution.

We spoke with Chloé Dubois, Co-Founder and Executive Director at The Ocean Legacy Foundation, about how this organization’s Legacy Plastic™ products are giving plastics from marine gear, shorelines, and the ocean depths a second life as building materials.

What inspired you and your other co-founder to start Legacy Plastic and engage in circularity?

Legacy Plastic™ emerged from over a decade of frontline experience addressing marine plastic pollution through direct cleanup, recovery, and recycling operations.

As Ocean Legacy’s founders, James Middleton and I witnessed firsthand the scale of plastic waste accumulating on coastlines, in remote communities, and within marine ecosystems, particularly abandoned, lost, and discarded fishing gear and other hard-to-recycle plastics that had little to no end-of-life solutions.

What became clear very quickly was that cleanup alone would never solve the problem. Without viable circular systems and markets for recovered materials, the same plastics would continue leaking into the environment. That realization inspired the development of Legacy Plastic™: a recycled material stream created from ocean, coastal, and post-consumer plastics that could be reintegrated into durable products and infrastructure applications.

The goal was not simply recycling for the sake of recycling but creating a system where waste becomes a resource, pollution is prevented, communities gain economic opportunities, and materials remain in circulation at their highest possible value. Circularity became the bridge between environmental restoration and long-term systemic change.

How do you feel that implementing circular solutions will benefit the built environment, communities, and Canada?

Implementing circular solutions within the built environment has the potential to transform how Canada manages resources, designs infrastructure, and supports resilient communities. The built environment consumes enormous volumes of materials, making it one of the most important sectors for scaling circular economy solutions.

Using recycled materials like Legacy Plastic™ in products, construction applications, and infrastructure can help reduce dependence on virgin plastic and other carbon-intensive materials while diverting waste from landfills and the environment. It also develops and secures a local supply chain and domestic manufacturing opportunities that strengthen economic resilience.

The built environment consumes enormous volumes of materials, making it one of the most important sectors for scaling circular economy solutions.

For communities, circular systems generate employment, foster innovation, and create pathways for local participation in environmental stewardship. In many coastal and remote communities, waste management infrastructure is limited, so circular models can help reduce disposal costs while creating value from materials that were previously considered waste.

At a national level, advancing circularity supports Canada’s climate commitments, strengthens resource security, and positions the country as a global leader in sustainable materials management and regenerative design.

What do you consider to be your biggest success in advancing the circular economy in the built environment? Can you share any stories of impact your work has had that have surprised you?

One of Ocean Legacy’s biggest successes has been demonstrating that heavily contaminated and difficult-to-recycle marine plastics can successfully be transformed into high-quality recycled materials suitable for long-term applications. Building the systems to recover, process, and remanufacture these materials required innovation across logistics, skill development, sorting, cleaning, processing, and market development.

A particularly meaningful impact has been seeing communities shift from viewing marine debris as an unavoidable environmental burden to recognizing it as a recoverable resource with economic and social value. Through the Ocean Plastic Depot network and recycling initiatives, communities that once had no viable options for managing marine debris are now participating directly in circular solutions.

What has been especially surprising and encouraging is the international interest in replicating these systems. Communities, organizations, and governments from around the world have reached out wanting to adapt Ocean Legacy’s models to their own regional challenges. That response has reinforced the idea that circular economy solutions can scale globally when they are rooted in practical, community-based implementation.

What are some of the challenges you typically face working to advance the circular economy, especially within the built environment?

One of the largest challenges is that circular systems are often expected to compete directly against highly subsidized and historically entrenched linear systems. Virgin materials are frequently cheaper and more accessible despite their broader environmental and social costs, which are not reflected in pricing structures.

Another major challenge is infrastructure and market readiness. Recovering and processing complex plastic materials at scale requires significant investment, long-term procurement commitments, and supportive policy frameworks. In the built environment specifically, introducing alternative recycled materials can involve lengthy approval processes, certification requirements, and conservative procurement practices that slow adoption.

There is also an ongoing need for stronger collaboration between industry, government, designers, engineers, recyclers, and communities. Circularity cannot succeed in isolation; it requires systems thinking across the entire value chain.

Are there any upcoming initiatives, projects, trends, or advancements related to your work you'd like to share?

Ocean Legacy continues to expand its work through the growth of the Ocean Plastic Depot network, its Marine Plastic Management Program, advancements in marine debris recycling technologies, and the development of new applications for Legacy Plastic™ materials.

A key focus moving forward is increasing the integration of recovered plastics into durable, long-life applications that support circular procurement and infrastructure development. There is growing momentum around designing products and built environments with material recovery and reuse in mind from the outset, and we are encouraged to see more industries exploring how recycled materials can be embedded into their operations.

We are also seeing increased recognition globally that plastic pollution, climate resilience, and circular economy strategies are deeply interconnected. That shift is creating important opportunities for innovation, policy alignment, and cross-sector collaboration.

Looking ahead, what are your hopes for the circular economy over the next decade, and how do you envision contributing to this vision? How can other individuals and organizations help support your mission and/or advance circularity in the built environment?

Over the next decade, we hope to see circular economy principles become embedded into the foundation of how materials are designed, used, recovered, and valued. Success would mean moving beyond pilot projects and making circularity the standard rather than the exception.

We envision a future where waste is dramatically reduced, recycled materials are integrated into mainstream manufacturing and infrastructure, and communities have access to localized circular systems that create both environmental and economic resilience.

Ocean Legacy aims to contribute to this vision by continuing to innovate scalable recovery and recycling systems, advancing material applications for Legacy Plastic™, and collaborating with partners across sectors to build practical circular solutions.

Other organizations and individuals can help by prioritizing circular procurement, supporting recycled-content materials, investing in infrastructure and innovation, advocating for stronger policy frameworks, and designing products and spaces with end-of-life recovery in mind.

Collaboration is essential. Advancing circularity in the built environment will require collective action, long-term commitment, and a willingness to rethink how we define value and waste within our economy.