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When people complain about celebrities it’s always about the wrong things—sure, celebrity culture is making us ever more shallow and narcissistic, but what we should be irate about is the tangible, provable stuff like how they’re bad for the environment.
Celebrities fly around in private jets, have huge-ass houses full of too much stuff, maintain sprawling green lawns in areas wracked by drought, and then encourager fans to emulate their consumption-based lifestyles. It’s amazing that more environmental activists haven’t organized campaigns against them.
Among the relatively small subset of celebs who’ve made eco-friendliness part of their personal brand, will.i.am stands out as being well-educated on the topic and self-aware. He’s also the first famous person I’ve ever heard actually come out and acknowledge that their fame has a negative impact on the environment.
"One day we were on tour in Costa Rica and I saw the aftermath of the Black Eyed Peas concert," he tells me on the very nice couch of a two-level suite in a W Hotel in midtown Manhattan. "I realized we play a role in waste as well, because we could’ve told people what to do with their garbage. They had signs that said ‘put bottles here. We could’ve had rewards [for recycling them]. We could’ve did something to where we made it easier for waste management. We didn’t."
Combined with his problem-solving nature and some time hanging out with Dutch kids who’d upcycle old industrial textiles into stylish clothes and accessories, this epiphany gave him the idea to launch a brand called Ekocycle that turns plastic beverage bottles into high-end consumer goods, and to bring Coca-Cola on as his partner. Thanks to will.i.am you can now buy a tuxedo by H Brothers, or a $2,000 MCM backpack, that was once a bunch of Coke bottles.
The reason we’re talking at the W is because the chain has signed up to have Ekocycle provide the sheets for all 46 of their hotels. Sheets made from recycled plastic sound like a terrible, uncomfortable idea, and for a luxury hotel chain, where the quality of the bedding needs to justify a customer paying more than they would at Best Western, it seems like a major risk.
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The Ekocycle sheets are very nice, though. If it wasn’t for the promotional push, probably not that many people would have even noticed the transition from the W’s old ones. They feel like high thread count cotton even though they’re 30% recycled polyester. Holding the corner of a sheet in your hand while picturing the 31 plastic Coke bottles that went into it will give you a newfound appreciation for the state of materials science.
W Hotels transitioning over to Ekocycle sheets is the equivalent, according to their figures, of diverting 268,000 20 oz. plastic bottles from the waste stream. That’s a respectable amount, although with Americans consuming tens of billions of gallons of bottled beverages per year, it’s a drop in a bucket the size of Lake Michigan. And considering the total market size for tuxedos and $2,000 backpacks, it doesn’t seem like Ekocycle’s about to singlehandedly save the world. Then again, will.i.am did turn “My Humps” into a global smash hit, so who knows exactly what the man is capable of?
