Looking at the latest stats is all it takes to realize that marine pollution is worsening by the day: every year, over 8 million tons of plastic end up in our waters.
In an interview with Vogue, fashion designer Tom Ford revealed that he started taking interest in this environmental issue around five years ago, after hearing actor Adrian Grenier talking about straws on TV. This is when he began to realize that some of our daily actions, although apparently harmless to the environment, were actually severely damaging and destroying our planet. Since then, he has stopped using any disposable plastics both in his private life and in his offices.
Now, Tom Ford has designed a men’s watch made from 100% plastic coming from ocean cleanup operations.
While luxury and sustainability combine in design items like this watch, Tom Ford has further carried on his mission against marine pollution by introducing the Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize, a 1-million-dollar prize that will go the innovator able to engineer a scalable alternative to polyethylene plastic.
The prize was created in collaboration with Grenier and 52HZ, the consulting division of the Lonely Whale organization, which the actor founded in 2015 together with producer Lucy Sumner with the aim to positively impact the oceans’ health. The winner will be selected in 2022, with the goal to launch the product on the market by 2025.
