How It’s Made: Fins From Old Fishing Nets

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is currently estimated to cover a surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers — twice the size of the U.S. state of Texas.

Old fishing nets — as you’ll see in the video – account for roughly 46% of the GPGP and 10% of all plastic in the ocean.

However, Bureo, a company started by three surfers, has found a way to convert the plastic problem into a viable business. Bureo is a start-up that works with fishing communities to acquire old fishing nets, recycle them into nylon pellets, and sell them to businesses looking for more sustainability in their supply chain. They currently work with Patagonia, Quiksilver, Yeti, and many more — including Futures. To date, over 10 million pounds of discarded fishing net has been collected by Bureo.

Sounds like one of those too-good-to-be-true case studies in any good business school’s “Ethics” class.

But it seems like the real deal.

So why did Futures make this video you (presumably) just watched? To sell fins and provide shareholder value of course! But, also to show that there are ways to incorporate sustainability into surf hardware without compromising performance (Exhibit A: The torque-monster, JJF’s, cutty at 1:47).

So, yes — purchasing fins made from recycled fishing nets won’t make a mega-dent in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch immediately, but it’s a step in the right direction. And sometimes direction is more important than speed, anyways.