News: Zoggs announces partnership with Healthy Seas

Following the launch of our Ecolast™ swimwear, made from ocean waste, we’re delighted to announce we’ve partnered with Healthy Seas. Healthy Seas is a not-for-profit initiative with a mission to protect our oceans and marine life by collecting abandoned fishing nets that are then transformed by Aquafil into ECONYL® yarn to create sustainable products.

Working with divers, schools, NGOs and governments, Healthy Seas is responsible for the retrieval of ghost fishing nets, raising awareness of the environmental damage these nets cause. It’s estimated 640,000 tons of fishing equipment is discarded in our oceans every year, each taking hundreds of years to decompose.

The Healthy Seas initiative also collaborates with fishermen, fish farms and local communities to prevent these nets ending up in the sea by helping to source responsible solutions. You can watch a recap of the ghost fishing removal dive, organised by Healthy Seas and Cousteau Divers, for World Oceans Day below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glMs0eti5Tw

The fishing nets recovered by Healthy Seas are cleaned of foreign materials and prepared for regeneration by Aquafil. The nylon in these nets is then turned into a raw material (with other debris such as industrial waste and carpet) and transformed into ECONYL® yarn by Aquafil. Along with our Ecolast™ swimwear, ECONYL® yarn can be used to create new products like sportswear and apparel. Since the ‘Healthy Seas, a Journey from Waste to Wear’ initiative was launched in 2013, divers and fishermen have collected over 375,000 kilograms of fishing nets.

At Zoggs, we’re committed to doing what we can to protect our oceans and have cleaner seas. We’ll be donating 10% of our Ecolast™ swimwear profits to the Healthy Seas initiative. Our partnership will also include working together on other initiatives such as running beach cleans, supporting conservation events and even joining Healthy Seas on some of their dives.

"As a brand, it’s our responsibility to help tackle environmental issues such as the health of our oceans. We’re passionate about making a difference and look forward to working in partnership with Healthy Seas to protect our world for the future." Mark Hammersley, CEO at Zoggs International

"It is wonderful to see more and more lifestyle companies actively caring for the Ocean. We couldn’t be prouder to observe this growing movement and to welcome Zoggs among our list of partners. Together, we can do so much more!" Veronika Mikos, Project Coordinator at Healthy Seas

We launched our Ecolast™ swimwear collection in July 2018 and it will form 40% of our swimwear collection from January 2019. Ecolast™ is made using 78% ECONYL® yarn and 22% LYCRA® XTRA LIFE™ resulting in a soft, comfortable, high performance swimwear fabric. Put through its paces in real life conditions, it outperformed competitors’ fabrics proving to be 15 times more resilient to chlorine than standard swimwear fabrics.

For more information on our Ecolast™ collection, have a read of this post which also includes our Q&A with Campaign magazine. To view the initial Ecolast™ range, click here.

To find out more about Healthy Seas and donate, please visit their website and do check out the video below to understand the incredible work this charity does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pk6rqksNaM

For Zoggs press enquiries, please contact charly.dove@zoggs.com.