SC Johnson, the maker of household consumer brands such as Mr Muscle®, Ecover® and Duck®, is launching The Blue Paradox, an immersive educational experience with 360-degree digital projections that invites the public to walk beneath the ocean’s surface to explore the impact plastic waste has on our planet’s most valuable natural resource and to better understand how businesses, governments and individuals can work together to create a more sustainable world.

Created in partnership with global NGO Conservation International, The Blue Paradox will be open free to the public from 15th – 27th September in White City, London, for visitors of all ages and is following current NHS recommendations for COVID-19 safety protocols. For every visitor to The Blue Paradox, SC Johnson will donate to Conservation International to help protect 1 square kilometer of the ocean – with a minimum commitment to protect 9,000 km2, which is roughly six times the size of Greater London.

“Plastic has driven a boom of societal advancements in areas ranging from medical devices to food preservation, yet just 9% of all plastic waste ever produced has been recycled, according to the UN,” said Fisk Johnson, Chairman and CEO of SC Johnson. “This waste, if it ends up in the environment, can be incredibly disruptive to our planet ecosystems, particularly ocean ecosystems. The Blue Paradox is just one step of many that SC Johnson is taking to move toward our vision for a waste-free world. This immersive, educational experience is designed to help shed light on this complex, critical environmental issue and the role business, government and citizens can play to help solve it.”

“Billions of people rely on our oceans for protein — even more so as coronavirus devastates local economies — and that food source is in jeopardy because of plastic waste,” said M. Sanjayan, CEO of Conservation International. “The Blue Paradox brings the permanence of plastic front-and-center, encouraging visitors to take meaningful action. We’re grateful for SC Johnson’s commitment, which we hope will serve as a model for other businesses concerned with protecting our oceans, the source of all life on Earth.”

Ahead of opening the experience, SC Johnson and Conservation International were joined by the Financial Times for a panel discussion with leading sustainability figures across policy, business, academia and NGOs. Titled “Solving the Ocean Plastic Crisis,” the event featured an interview chaired by Andrew Jack, Global Education Editor for the Financial Times, with SC Johnson’s Chairman and CEO Fisk Johnson and M. Sanjayan, CEO of Conservation International, followed by a panel discussion with participation from Rt. Honorable John Gummer, Lord Deben, Chairman of the U.K. Government Committee on Climate Change; Cherilyn Mackrory, MP – Truro and Falmouth and member of the Environmental Audit Committee; Richard Walker, Managing Director of Iceland Foods; Professor Tamara Galloway, OBE, from the University of Exeter; and Jo Ruxton, Founder of the NGO Ocean Generation. The discussion was hosted on-site at The Blue Paradox and broadcast live by the Financial Times for international viewers to join virtually. The recording is available to watch on the FT Live website: https://oceanplasticcrisis.live.ft.com/

Some of the actions SC Johnson has taken to help create a waste-free world include:

Tackling Plastic Waste

In 2019, SC Johnson announced an expanded global partnership with Plastic Bank to stop plastic waste from entering the ocean and fight poverty. As part of the three-year partnership, 30,000 metric tons of ocean-bound plastic will be collected, the equivalent of preventing approximately 1.5 billion plastic bottles from entering the world’s oceans. The collected plastic is being incorporated into new product packaging including Mr Muscle® Platinum Window & Glass Cleaner in the U.K. and Windex® in North America.
The company has committed to making 100% of its plastic packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable, along with tripling the amount of post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic content, by 2025. Currently, 65% of SC Johnson plastic packaging is designed to be recyclable, reusable or compostable, and 19% of SC Johnson’s packaging is PCR, up from 14% in 2019. And since February 2021, all Mr Muscle® trigger bottles sold in the U.K. are now made using 100% PCR plastic.
SC Johnson is committed to continuing to remove excess plastics wherever possible. The company has eliminated more than 6.1 million kilograms of unnecessary or problematic plastic packaging since 2018.
SC Johnson introduced the company’s first concentrated refill in the U.K. in 2019 for its Mr Muscle® line of cleaning products and introduced the first concentrated refill in the U.S. in 2010. These concentrate bottles use about 80% less plastic compared to a typical trigger bottle. Additionally, the company’s brand Ecover® is currently testing refill stations in Belgium, Netherlands and the U.K., with participation from retailers Delhaize, Albert Heijn, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose.
In 2019, SC Johnson signed on as the 10th global partner with Ellen MacArthur Foundation to help advance a circular economy. The multi-year partnership builds on SC Johnson’s decades-long journey to improve the sustainability of its products. As part of this effort, the company has spent years working with industry experts to understand barriers to circularity and to find solutions to overcome them.
Over the last two years, SC Johnson has formed first-of-its kind partnerships with U.S. professional sports teams, like the Milwaukee Bucks and Milwaukee Brewers, to implement new recycling initiatives to better recycle the more than 1 million plastic cups that are used at the teams’ respective stadiums throughout their seasons. The cups collected will then be turned into 100% PCR bottles for Scrubbing Bubbles® bottles in North America.