40% of Zoggs SS19 swimwear will be made from waste recovered from the ocean. Plastic in goggle packaging to reduce by 57% with all packaging 100% sustainable by 2020
It’s estimated 12.7 million tonnes of debris is dumped in our oceans every year. Pollution caused by plastic, microbeads and unsustainable fishing nets is harmful to whales, sea turtles, dolphins and other marine life. Fishing nets are the invisible killer taking 600 years to decompose.
At Zoggs, we’re passionate about the ocean and helping to protect our world for the future. Our mission is to transform debris that’s damaging our oceans into high performance swimwear made with ECONYL® yarn.
Ecolast™ outperforms competitor products
Our Ecolast™ swimwear begins its life as plastic waste which would otherwise cause damage to our planet, oceans and marine life. Abandoned ghost fishing nets, carpet (which also takes hundreds of years to degrade) and industrial waste is rescued from the oceans and saved from landfill, through different initiatives and projects such as The ECONYL® Reclaiming Program, The Healthy Seas initiative, and Net-Works™.
Once the nets are cleaned and shredded, the regeneration process begins. At the ECONYL® depolymerisation plant, the prepared waste returns to a raw material where it is transformed into Nylon 6 polymers used to produce the ECONYL® yarn. Made from 100% regenerated waste material, the yarn performs as well as any other nylon yarn manufactured using crude oil.
The Ecolast™ fabric is made using 78% ECONYL® yarn and 22% LYCRA® XTRA LIFE™ for a soft, comfortable, high performance swimwear fabric. We put the fabric through its paces in real life conditions and it outperformed our competitors’ fabrics, proving to be 15 times more resilient to chlorine than standard swimwear fabrics.
Reducing our environmental impact
Our Ecolast™ swimwear will be introduced in AW18 and rolled out from January 2019. Around 40% of our SS19 swimwear sold will be made from Ecolast™. We will donate 10% of our Ecolast™ profits to charity. We’re also dedicated to creating packaging that reduces our environmental impact. We will reduce the plastic used in our goggle packaging by 57% from 2019 and we’re aiming for 100% of our packaging to be sustainable by 2020.
“We’re passionate about the ocean and doing what we can to protect the environment. We’re thrilled to be launching Ecolast™ and we’re committed to creating more sustainable product packaging.
We’re excited about the future and doing what we can to make a difference” - Mark Hammersley, CEO at Zoggs International
"I am hugely excited to be supporting Zoggs UK with their launch of Ecolast. For me, the idea of using discarded fishing nets that are cluttering our oceans, recycling them and creating swim suits from the recycled yarn, brings a beautiful cycle and message of ocean conservation to the swim wear market. To work closely with a pioneering brand who are thinking about the wider global issues and matters of importance for our planet and our future generations is exactly why I am proud to work alongside Zoggs UK as their ambassador." - Susie Rodgers MBE, Paralympic Gold medallist, multiple European and British record holder
