An estimated 4.8 to 12.7 million tons of plastic enters our oceans annually. Most of it comes from coastal communities in Southeast Asia, where waste management infrastructure is underdeveloped and fishing nets regularly pull in plastic alongside fish. GOT Bag, a German company founded in 2016, decided that fishermen on Indonesia’s north Java coast were both part of the problem and the logical solution to it.
The result is a bag company that has turned ocean plastic collection into a supply chain.
The One-for-One Model, Reversed
Most one-for-one retail models donate a second product when you buy the first. GOT Bag’s logic runs in the other direction: every product sold finances the collection of additional ocean plastic that would otherwise have no economic incentive to be recovered.
GOT Bag works directly with a network of fishermen on Java’s northern shore who collect PET waste and other plastic from their nets and from the seabed, materials that would otherwise be discarded or re-enter the ocean. GOT Bag processes this material into pellets, which are then spun into yarn, woven into fabric with a bio-PU water-repellent coating, and manufactured into the company’s backpack and bag line.
The processing happens in Indonesia, not Germany. This keeps jobs and economic activity in the community that generates the raw material, rather than extracting the material and creating value elsewhere.
The Three-Pronged Approach
Beyond the commercial supply chain, GOT Bag operates its own clean-up program in Indonesia that unites local fishermen and community members in waste collection before it reaches the ocean. Workshops and training sessions on waste separation build the local knowledge infrastructure that makes ongoing collection viable, because collection only works if people know what to separate and why.
The long-term aim is more ambitious: persuading local government officials to overhaul waste management systems. Indonesia is the world’s second-largest contributor to ocean plastic pollution, and the systemic fix requires government infrastructure investment, not just community-level programs. GOT Bag’s community relationships give them credibility to push for that policy change.
GOT Bag products are sold in over 45 countries and carry B Lab and PLAN A sustainability certifications, providing the independent verification that distinguishes genuine supply chain claims from marketing language.
The ocean plastic problem is a logistics problem: plastic enters the ocean where collection infrastructure doesn’t exist. GOT Bag built a business model that creates the economic incentive for collection to happen — and used that same plastic to make the product.
What Makes the Model Replicable
Several elements of GOT Bag’s model are worth studying for anyone building supply chains around recovered materials.
Proximity of collection to processing eliminates most of the transportation carbon that makes “recycled” materials sometimes have surprising footprints. The Java coast is where the plastic is; the processing happens nearby.
Fishermen as collectors works because they’re already in the water, already encountering the plastic, and are undercompensated by conventional fishing economics. Paying them for plastic collection creates a revenue diversification that makes their livelihoods more resilient while solving the collection problem.
Product premium pricing enables the economics. A GOT Bag Daypack retails for $99, a price point that generates sufficient margin to fund both the collection operation and the processing infrastructure, while remaining competitive in the sustainable fashion segment.
To find out more about GOT Bag, visit their:
P.S. GOT Bag’s website includes transparency reporting on how much Ocean Impact Plastic has been collected and processed. It’s worth checking before deciding whether the supply chain claim holds up.