“You don’t just get out of bed one day and say ‘I want to manufacture eyeglasses out of plastic waste’,” says François van den Abeele. His vision for cleaning up the plastic in the oceans was ambitious, but it was not unrealistic. He’d worked with impact businesses before. And as a journalist and documentarian, he had covered social and environmental issues in roughly 130 countries – including in many of the world’s most vulnerable regions, in the Middle East and SubSaharan Africa. The crisis of plastic pollution in waterways was always at the top of the list.

François created Sea2See, an innovative sustainable business that is addressing the planet’s most universal and most pressing environmental issue. Sea2See gathers plastic waste from the ocean and transforms it into affordable consumer goods – including eyeglasses and wristwatches. As of March 2021, Sea2See has collected 443 tons of plastic from oceans and waterways in Spain, France, and Africa.