Can we turn discarded fishing nets into useful products to reduce ocean pollution and support coastal communities?
NetPlus®
Bureo®
Chile & California, USA
2013 — Present
Each year, discarded fishing nets contribute to ocean plastic pollution and kill or injure more than 650,000 marine animals.
To address this problem, Bureo® collects, cleans, and recycles used fishing nets, turning them into NetPlus®, a material then used to create products like hat brims, winter jackets, and Baggies™ shorts by Patagonia, as well as skateboards and Jenga® Ocean™.
The company incentivizes the collection of discarded nets. By doing so they provide extra income to coastal communities and involve local populations in environmental protection efforts.
In transforming waste into new items, Bureo® fosters a circular economy in which waste is remade into new things instead of being thrown away. They prevent hundreds of tons of nets from entering the ocean yearly.
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Website:
Bureo: bureo.co
BOOKS
William McDonough & Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, Northpoint Press, 2022.
A manifesto for a radically different philosophy and practice of manufacture and environmentalism
VIDEOS
Patagonia, “A Net Plus | Giving Discarded Fishing Nets a New Start,” 2020.
This is the story of how Bureo locked arms with Patagonia to create a new solution to our oceans’ overwhelming plastic pollution problem.
Images courtesy of Bureo®