The Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize is meant to encourage designers and manufacturers to create an alternative for thin-film plastics that would break down in both soil and ocean conditions. According to Vogue, nearly half of the 11 million tons of plastic waste in the ocean is thin films.
In addition to the prize money, the winner will also receive unspecified support to scale production of the material by 2025.
“There is so much creativity, talent, and innovation out there in the world, and it just takes one amazing idea and the drive to tap into one’s potential to make the impossible possible,” Ford says. “I would encourage all inventors who feel passionate about the cause to really believe in their ability to change the world. The environment is in desperate need of a solution for plastic waste, so it is up to us to come together to develop an innovative solution to make the environment a safer place for generations to come.”
52HZ was co-founded by Entourage star Adrian Grenier and is the consultancy arm of Lonely Whale—so-named for an individual whale of unknown species who communicates at 52 hertz, a frequency unused by other whales. This distinction has earned him or her the sad moniker of The World’s Loneliest Whale.