Operation Clean Sweep

Collaborating with Operation Clean Sweep to advance the marine environment

We are a pledged partner of Operation Clean Sweep ® (OCS) and a committed Operation Clean Sweep ® Blue Member. OCS is a program designed to prevent pellet, flake and powder loss to the marine environment. Operation Clean Sweep ® Blue is an enhanced commitment which includes external reporting of unrecovered plastic releases to the environment. Our plastics manufacturing and logistics facilities around the world are engaged in this important initiative and each facility has completed a gap assessment to identify and eliminate pellet loss. We are committed to educating employees, partners and customers on the awareness and accountability for pellet loss prevention, containment and clean-up. While we are adopting OCS practices across our manufacturing sites, we are also extending this program to our external manufacturers and logistics service providers. In addition, we are sharing solutions that have helped us contain pellets with our customers and others in the value chain.

As an Operation Clean Sweep ® Blue member, and to increase our transparency and share best practices, Dow will annually report the number and volume of incidents of any unrecovered release of plastic to outside of Dow facilities that are greater than 0.5kg per incident. New global reporting requirements were launched on January 1, 2020, and the reporting data for external releases will be available in the annual sustainability report. Internal reporting requirements were also sharpened to capture data for near misses and loss of containment within facilities.

Our ESG Report provides information aligned to global reporting requirements on pellet loss and on our efforts to continue to improve plastics containment. View the Dow 2021 ESG Report.

View the OCS presentation