Welcome to Free Plastic
Free Plastic’s goal is to harness the manufacturing power of plastic pollution that we farm from our beautiful beaches, parks, pathways, waterways, and green spaces. Sadly, plastic is a product that naturally washes ashore on a daily basis, however it gives us a near limitless supply of manufacturing materials.
As we discuss in our statement on recycling locally, there are so many questions looming about the efficacy of our current recycling platform. There are doubts about whether the materials are being recycled, or if they are casually skirting the recycling plants and being loaded into the incinerator, or landfill, or both.
Free Plastic will exploit our community’s naturally-occurring plastic pollution by removing it from the waste streams, and fixing it into useable, sellable, cherishable products that are lovingly hand-crafted right here in South Florida.
Free Plastic’s Impact
426 lbs
Plastic Reclaimed
14
Public Art Pieces
143 lbs
Plastic Pollution Recycled
2,166
Workshop Participants
Free Plastic’s Advisory Board
As Free Plastic evolves, our need for accessible, specialized, and targeted knowledge rises.
With that need in mind, we formed our first Advisory Board consisting of professionals from various sectors that will help guide us to better achieve our goals of educating our community about plastics, their use, and the reality of recycling in South Florida, while simultaneously aiding us in the development of new products and techniques to harvest and recycle unlabelled and otherwise unrecyclable plastics found in our communities and environment.
Nathan Moyer
Founder | Product Design & Systems Development
Nathan Moyer is passionate about bettering the world, and as a designer and consultant, he helps businesses & nonprofits fulfill their mission. In 2012, he helped launch the Key Biscayne Citizen Scientist Project, which gave him his first taste of co-creating a nonprofit program.
Prior to that, he spent years working in the fiberglass manufacturing and design industries which led him to plastics ‐ thermosets at first, and then thermal plastics. This interest laid the groundwork for what would become his first official nonprofit, Free Plastic — a place for him to experiment with new materials, techniques, and designs, while also positively impacting our community and environment.
Briana Gibbs
Fisheries & Trash Scientist
Briana “Bree” Gibbs is a Fisheries Biologist who holds a Master of Science in Fisheries Management from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Bree studied marine debris & fisheries at sea in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch with The Ocean Cleanup, and also conducted oceanography research at sea on the NOAA Research Vessel ‘Ronald H. Brown’ off the coast of Africa.
As the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Fellow at The Billfish Foundation, Bree coauthored a paper on the changes in the recreational billfish fishery over a nearly 40 year time series, and she presented her findings at the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas Working Group on Stock Assessment Methods in May 2020. She is currently working as a fisheries biologist for FWC and spends her time working with sea turtles in Miami-Dade County & paddleboarding for fun while searching for manatees.
Michael Braggiotti
Educational Programming
Michael is a South Florida native interested in the intersection of technology, education, and the environment. He studied business at both Samford University and Florida Atlantic University, and earned an MBA from Western Governors University.
Even throughout college, Michael knew that he wanted to use his business education in a non-profit capacity. He worked with economically disadvantaged elementary and middle school students through Fresh Air Family in Birmingham, AL, to help provide environmental and STEM enrichment programming. Michael also worked with the City of Fort Lauderdale, Charter Schools USA, and currently serves as a project manager for Broward County Public Schools.
Desiree DiClemente DiSalvo
Community Development & Plastic Farmer
Desiree DiClemente DiSalvo is the founder of Sun of a Beach Cleanup and the current Chair of Surfrider Broward. Desiree founded Sun of a Beach Cleanup in 2018 with the motto: Saving the world one bucket of marine debris at a time.
Desiree is passionate about marine debris and brought the first #FillABag beach cleanup station to Broward County. She also coordinated the Guinness World Record coastal cleanup in 2019 at the Deerfield Beach International Fishing Pier and has been Free Plastic’s very own Plastic Farmer since its inception in 2019.
Thank you to Amancio Paradela, Co-Founder and former Vice President of Free Plastic, for their support while creating Free Plastic and their dedication to nonprofit development.