Ever wonder what happens to all those plastic straws, spoons, water bottles and bags we use just once and throw away? You might not think much of them once they’re in the trash, but they have quite an afterlife.

Unfortunately, billions of pounds of plastic work their way through the waterways and converge into tiny scattered islands across the world’s oceans — it’s the equivalent of one garbage truck load of plastic every minute, and it affects many coastal communities that face high levels of poverty.

But what if you could find a way to rethink the value of all that plastic? What if there was a way to turn that plastic into money in the form of tokens that you can use to buy education or medicine?

That’s the idea behind Plastic Bank, which leverages a partnership with SC Johnson and IBM’s blockchain technology to give currency to plastic. In our video above, learn how localized solutions might be just what we need to fix this global crisis.