Patagonia Aims to Make Endlessly Recyclable Wetsuits

Beginning subsequent yr, Patagonia’s wetsuits received’t simply be recycled — they’ll be reincarnated.

On the firm’s “Wetsuit Forge” restore and design middle, situated just a few blocks from the seaside in Ventura, California, a first-of-its-kind wetsuit is draped over a desk. The go well with seems and looks like some other, but it surely’s made partially from used Patagonia wetsuits damaged down at a molecular stage. It too will likely be melted down on the finish of its life and reborn into a brand new, lower-carbon wetsuit.

The prototype is the product of a years-long initiative by Patagonia Inc. to eradicate a lot of the waste that accumulates when a surfer buys a brand new wetsuit. Whereas the outside attire retailer ensures a lifetime of repairs for put on and tear, finally the day comes when the racks of previous wetsuits awaiting mending in Ventura can now not be stitched again collectively. Some are recycled into yoga mats or tote luggage, however inevitably, all of them find yourself buried in landfills.

Simply what number of previous Patagonia wetsuits find yourself as a part of $500 reincarnated variations is determined by the amount of discarded wetsuits the corporate collects. However the technique is ushering in a doubtlessly repeating cycle that might yield the final word, immortal wetsuit.

“Primarily, a wetsuit turns into endlessly reusable,” says Mackenzie Warner, a Patagonia materials developer.

The $2 billion wetsuit market is the antithesis of quick vogue, a budget disposable garments largely answerable for the attire trade’s rising carbon footprint. Surfers have a tendency to not be slaves to fashion, no less than relating to wetsuits, typically solely shopping for an costly new one when their previous one wears out. Roughly 7 million wetsuits are offered yearly and the worldwide market is forecast to develop to $3.5 billion by 2033.

Patagonia specifically has constructed eco-consciousness right into a billion-dollar model by making garments for mountain climbing, climbing and browsing out of expensive however sustainable supplies, then urging its prospects to put on the gear till it frays earlier than returning it for restore or resale. The corporate sells about 100,000 wetsuits a yr.

“Sturdiness and reparability have an effect on environmental impression,” says Veronica Bates Kassatly, a London-based vogue trade analyst centered on sustainability. She cites the instance of carrying a shirt 500 instances. If a cheaply made shirt is changed after being worn 10 instances, 50 shirts will should be produced and discarded. But when one better-made and simply mended shirt might be worn 500 instances, the environmental value is considerably decrease, even when making the garment makes use of extra water and vitality upfront.

Regardless of browsing’s one-with-nature vibe, most wetsuits are the sartorial equal of an oil spill. They’re produced from neoprene, a petroleum-based artificial rubber. (Many wetsuits offered in California even carry a state warning that they’ll expose you to chemical compounds recognized to trigger most cancers.) Patagonia is amassing end-of-life wetsuits for a companion that vaporises them to reclaim what’s often known as carbon black, a key ingredient in neoprene and within the pure rubber Patagonia makes use of. It’s the petroleum-derived factor that provides wetsuits their energy and jet-black color.

Whether or not carbon black might be infinitely recovered stays to be scientifically validated, however reusing it retains previous wetsuits out of landfills. The reclaimed materials additionally avoids carbon dioxide emissions from the manufacturing of virgin carbon black, a ubiquitous ingredient in tires, plastics, inks and electronics. The fabric’s $19.3 billion market, which is anticipated to develop 66 p.c by 2032, emits as a lot as 79 million metric tons of CO2 yearly from the combustion of tar oil and different petroleum feedstocks, in accordance with a January paper revealed within the Journal of Cleaner Manufacturing.

“Circularity is at all times the great method,” says Fabian Rosner, lead creator of the paper and an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering on the College of California at Los Angeles. “In the event you can reclaim that carbon black, you cut back the quantity of sources that you just want within the first place.”

A few decade in the past, Patagonia started to exchange neoprene with Yulex, the model title for a pure rubber produced by drought-resistant Hevea timber and Guayule crops grown on non-arable land. The corporate’s newest wetsuit line, launched in September, is 85 p.c Yulex, and rival surf manufacturers have additionally began so as to add Yulex and different sustainable supplies to their wetsuits. Some have additionally launched recycling initiatives.

However even Yulex wetsuits are made with carbon black. That led an entrepreneur named Tony Wibbeler to indicate up at Patagonia’s door in 2017 with a pitch for a sustainable answer to each the carbon black conundrum and the recycling problem.

The startup Wibbeler based, Boulder, Colorado-based Bolder Industries, developed an industrial course of to reclaim carbon black from previous tires, which it sells as BolderBlack. He informed Patagonia executives he might create a proprietary system to do the identical for his or her wetsuits. Wibbeler says Bolder’s technique is 85 p.c extra sustainable than conventional carbon black manufacturing.

Rosner says the CO2 financial savings from reclaimed carbon black rely on the vitality effectivity of the reclamation course of. However the environmental impression may very well be substantial: Carbon black accounts for about 20 p.c of Patagonia wetsuits’ rubber foam and can also be used to dye the wetsuits’ recycled nylon lining, in accordance with Hub Hubbard, the corporate’s product line supervisor for surf and wetsuits.

On the Wetsuit Forge, Warner factors to a container filled with inky granules of BolderBlack. “It was form of a no brainer for us to modify to BolderBlack because it has a reasonably large impression on the general wetsuit,” she says.

Bolder isn’t the one firm producing reclaimed carbon black for wetsuits. Taiwan-based Sheico, which manufactures wetsuits for Patagonia and different main surf manufacturers, has began utilizing its personal reclaimed carbon black from previous tires. Patagonia is the primary, although, to supply the reclaimed materials from used wetsuits. The corporate will acquire end-of-life wetsuits, take away the zippers and ship them to Bolder to extract the carbon black. The reclaimed materials will then be despatched to Patagonia’s producer.

“It’s a round answer, not only a sustainably sourced or a bio-based materials,” says Wibbeler, who can also be Bolder’s chief govt officer. “The cool half about that is that it’s wetsuits to wetsuits.”

The primary BolderBlack Patagonia wetsuits are set to go on sale in 2025. Bolder will combine previous wetsuits with tires so sufficient BolderBlack is produced for every reincarnated go well with.

Within the meantime, the corporate continues to enhance its wetsuits’ sturdiness and repairability. The Wetsuit Forge opened in 2020 because the Covid-19 pandemic impressed a brand new wave of sustainably minded surfers to take up the game after gyms shuttered. As provide chain snarls led to a scarcity in new wetsuits, a tsunami of used ones arrived in Ventura for restore — some 6,000 over the previous three years. The pandemic additionally closed down recycling programmes, spurring an effort to lengthen the lives of wetsuits and shut the loop on reuse.

“Once we get all these fits that come by way of the door, we’re actually in a position to pinpoint the place the failure was on the go well with and monitor these knowledge factors for every era of go well with,” says Patagonia wetsuit engineer Buddy Pendergast. “We began drawing these arduous correlations between repeat failures that we wished to handle.”

As an example his level, Pendergast walks over to a desk and picks up a wetsuit to present how a seam has been changed with one which’s extra sturdy and faster to restore. When the information indicated that ankle cuffs have been generally failing, the crew redesigned that a part of the wetsuit, too. A rack of surfboards stands alongside one wall of the Forge so engineers can take a look at design tweaks at C Avenue, a legendary surf break close by. All the engineers’ learnings and upgrades have been included into the reincarnated wetsuit.

“We lab examined it, we area examined it and made certain that it will move all of our high quality requirements,” Warner says.

The fast-fashion dynamic has made it so that folks typically discover it “cheaper and simpler to purchase a brand new merchandise than to restore an current merchandise,” says Kassatly, the style analyst. Patagonia has already flipped that calculation. Pendergast says the corporate has a 90 p.c restore price; for simply the price of delivery most instances, a surfer will get an improved wetsuit with out shopping for a brand new one. However the success of the BolderBlack initiative will rely on getting surfers to ship their beyond-repair wetsuits again to Patagonia a ultimate time — no less than of their present life — fairly than letting them mould within the storage.

“Our hope is that after this will get out, persons are going to start out digging out all their previous wetsuits to ship to us,” says Hubbard.

By Todd Woody