Turning ocean waste into sustainable clothing

FROM tires to fishing nets to the billions of pieces of plastic floating in the oceans, marine pollution is an ecological disaster. Determined to rid beaches and water of this waste, while limiting the use of polluting natural resources, one entrepreneur has made it his mission to make sustainable clothing from this debris that is damaging ecosystems.

The Covid-19 pandemic is often referred to as a turning point for environmental awareness. However, some were already driving change, if not setting up projects in favor of a more responsible and sustainable approach to consumption and production, well before the pandemic.

This is the case of the Spanish entrepreneur Javier Goyeneche, founder of the Ecoalf brand, who made marine pollution his main target and resource way back in 2009.

This inspiring model has continued to evolve since its inception, and has now given rise to a nonprofit organization that is working to clean up the oceans.

And that's not all, since the brand recently opened a store designed from 3.3 tonnes of recycled, 3D-printed plastic to raise awareness about melting glaciers.

Tires, fishing nets and plastic

The starting point for the Ecoalf brand was the idea of reducing, if not stopping, the polluting use of natural resources, by creating only recycled products of the same or even higher quality.

From the outset, the brand worked to recycle waste such as tires, plastic bottles, fishing nets, seaweed and coffee grounds, to transform it into clothing and accessories.

But it is above all marine waste that today provides essential raw materials for the brand, with the dual objective of creating something new with the least possible impact on the environment, while ridding the sea of the millions of tonnes of waste that have taken refuge there over the past decades.

"I wanted to create a truly sustainable fashion brand, and I believed the most sustainable thing to do was to stop using natural resources in a careless way to ensure those of the next generation. Recycling could be a solution if we were able to make a new generation of recycled products with the same quality and design as the best non recycled," explains Javier Goyeneche on the Ecoalf website.

A store interior made from recycled plastic

The brand's materials of choice include recycled nylon from fishing nets collected in the seas and oceans, recycled polyester from bottles collected in the oceans or from post-industrial and post-consumer waste, recycled tires, recycled cotton, cashmere and wool, post-consumer coffee grounds, but also linen and kapok, two resources with low environmental impacts.

It's a challenge that has been met with flying colors by the brand, which has motivated the company to go even further with the creation of the Ecoalf Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to promote the collection of ocean waste with the help of the fishing industry.

This Foundation has a flagship project called Upcycling the Oceans. The idea is to collaborate with fishermen to clean up the oceans and give a second, less polluting, life to the waste collected.

The initiative started with three fishermen but there are now several thousand of them collecting marine waste floating in the Mediterranean Sea, from Spain to Greece through Italy.

The objective is to expand the program throughout the world, as shown by the recent extension of the project to Thailand.

In addition, the brand supports several waste management projects, as well as environmental awareness actions.

In February, in collaboration with the Nagami Design studio, Ecoalf unveiled a new retail space in the heart of Madrid doubling up as a metaphor for melting glaciers.

This installation was made by recycling and 3D printing 3.3 tonnes of plastic, used to form walls, shelves, displays and hangers.

From Seaqual Initiative and Sea2See to Ankore, the Ecoalf brand is now no longer the only fashion brand delving into the detritus polluting the sea to make its collections, but the brand represents one of the most successful concepts and projects to date. It has so far recovered 1,000 tonnes of marine waste since 2015.