Ocean Plastic - The Uncomfortable Facts

More plastic than fish?

Ocean and plastic are two words that should never appear in the same sentence. Unfortunately as we all now know too well, there will soon be more plastic in the ocean than fish. Here are some not-so-fun facts.

79 million kg, 3.6 trillion pieces, 1.6 million km2

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the name given to a huge swirling galaxy of waste plastic in the waters between Hawaii and California. It has been estimated that there are 3.6 TRILLION pieces of plastic swirling around in 1.6 million km2 of the beautiful Pacific Ocean.

320 billion kg / year

This not-so-fun fact is the global annual consumption of plastic.

Our voracious appetite for plastic shows no signs of stopping or even slowing down. The amount of plastic produced in the last 10 years is more than the total amount of plastic produced before that since the beginning of time[1]. Most of the plastic produced is for temporary packaging that is discarded as soon as the product is unpacked or consumed. A small amount is recycled. The rest ends up in landfill or is left for nature to dispose of, ultimately ending up in the ocean.

46% Ghost nets!

What's even worse than littering the planet's seas is the harm that this plastic is causing fish and other wildlife. A huge 46% of the plastic in the sea is discarded fishing nets[2] or so-called "Ghost nets" killing more or less everything that has the misfortune to swim into it.

The painful truth is that the fabrics used for sports clothing are synthetic and plastic-based for the most part. We are contributing to global plastic consumption. But. Our products are not disposable and are something that we believe positively contribute to a better world. There is work to do though. Large and small brands are realising that there are things we can do to help. Adidas for example is committed to using only recycled plastic by 2024.

Sigr is too.

As a first step, we've sown the seed for our new Ocean Collection of cycling clothing made from recycled fishing nets and other ocean plastic starting with two new pro quality jerseys, Ocean Dusk and Ocean Dawn.

Global Recycled Standard

Certifies that all of the production processes in the entire supply chain have underone the proper steps to ensure the integrity of the final product.

The GRS is based on a tracking and tracing principle which uses a transaction certificate based system to ensure the highest level of integrity.

sources:

  1. [Plastics Europe. Plastics - the facts 2016: an analysis of European plastics production, demand and waste data. Preprint at http://www.plasticseurope.org (2016).]
  2. [O’Hara, K., Iudicello, S. & Bierce, R. A Citizen’s Guide To Plastics In The Ocean: More Than A Litter Problem. (Center for Marine Conservation, 1988).]
  3. [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w#ref-CR1]