Plastic Beach Party is an experimental plastic recycling collective. Recycling single use plastic waste into reusable plastic products that decrease waste. With self built open source machines (precious plastic) the collective diverts plastic from going into the coastal dump. In 2017 it aims to recycle at least 1 tonne of plastic, reaching 50 tonnes by 2020. The collective also organize citizen science programs to inform people of the impact of waste and take action towards zero waste economies. Foremost measuring air quality and ocean acidification to quantify progress and inform citizens.

Plastic waste is collected from local hotels, and then recycled into re-usable products at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design. The products are designed locally by students, artists and others to be presented on the local market, initially cosecha artesanal market. The facility is designed to be circular, so designed products should be returned to the recycling facility if they are no longer to useful or broken. The plastic recycling facility aims to fix, products or re-recycle products as much as possible to decrease the use of virgin plastic and thus continued pollution of the ocean. Additionally the program consults with Bucuti to offer ideas on how to decrease plastic waste produce by the hotel. These plastics would other wise be disposed at the local dump which is a poorly managed coastal landfill without a border between the landfill and the ocean, the landfill is surrounded by reef and mangroves and leaches into the ocean constantly. The monitoring program will be built through an open and collective citizen science program that encourages people to take part and allows technical know how to be shared. This program will also support the uploading of the live data so it can be available for citizens, used to monitor progress towards sustainable development and accessible to researchers both local and abroad to study. The air quality will also be used to create a warning system for high air pollution levels.

The centre of excellence for small islands in development will publish a report on the initiative to built a local bottom up recycling facility, this report will be shared with other SIDS. The program is built using the designs of precious plastics, and is part of the precious plastics community where we share what we make with other communities around the world building these same machines. Machine building is done collectively in an open format that allows people to learn together by doing, the same is through for the environmental monitoring programs and set up and programming of the bio-lab. Additionally the program is built using open-source designs and connecting to the knowledge network of the open source community and feeding back into it.

The plastic beach party is run as a foundation through a partnership with the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bucuti Resort, Metabolic Foundation and others. The Academy hosts the recycling facility as well as the maker space, additionally it harbors a design ethos that inspires design with recycling materials and integrates circular design into its educational program. Metabolic runs the recycling program and built the machines through a collaborative and open process. Metabolic Foundation operates out of an open maker space which uses digital fabrication, to make and prototype these interventions. The space encourages the use and adaptation of open source design, in the making of interventions to keep the designs iterative, and collaborative through a global network of makers and innovators. The program also encourages the use of e-waste in the building of machines, making use of what is accessible since as a small island many parts are not readily accessible. Bucuti and in the future other hotels will offers the plastic waste and pays for the service which offsets the energy and labor cost of recycling. Working with hotels, decreases the negative impact of tourism on the islands and offsets some of the costs of recycling allowing the recycled products to be offered at a lower price. And also the initiative and experimentation with new product design to take place with less market risk. The recycling is done and organized as a collective, with volunteers developing the program and designing together and designing products together to be tested on the local market. The collective also organizes awareness programs with various NGO and school partners.

Metabolic Foundation, Centre of Excellence of Sustainable development in Small Islands in Development, Bucuti Resort Aruba, Academy of Fine Arts and Design of Aruba, Bank Giro Lotterij Fonds, Precious Plastics, Stichting DOEN Aruba