Fashion made from ocean plastic might not be what you think it is...

It sounds like an environmentalist’s dream: rescuing millions of tons of plastic from our oceans to turn them into fibers that can produce anything from packaging to yoga pants. It’s a welcome antidote to the haunting images of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and turtles caught in fishing nets.

Global plastic production began in the 1950s and has now grown to 359 million tons per year. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly the total weight of the human population produced in plastic every year — and it’s choking our environment.

In 2010, 275 million metric tons of plastic waste were generated by coastal countries, of which 5 to 13 million tons entered the ocean. Countries with poor waste management and lack of access to clean water are especially prone to leaking monstrous amounts of plastic into their waterways.

With that in mind, many clothing companies and textile manufacturers have joined the effort to create high-quality, durable fabrics from ocean plastic. ECONYL, one of the largest suppliers of ocean plastic fiber, creates its material from at least 50% recovered fishing nets and post-consumer carpets.

Why Recycled Ocean Plastic Is (Often) a Lie

Repreve represents another major share of the market, but smaller suppliers are also making a huge impact. Brands have begun producing fashion lines and activewear made from ocean plastic fibers. Their efforts have the potential to help solve a growing global issue.

By switching to ocean plastic recycling, brands can play a crucial role in environmental preservation and restoring marine biodiversity. However, many brands provide shallow or vague information about the composition and sourcing of their materials.

Currently, there is no certification body with the authority to define the composition of ocean plastic fiber or verify claims made by manufacturers and brands. So how do we know what “ocean plastic fiber” actually means?

What Is Ocean Plastic Fiber?

Definitions vary. The term “ocean plastic” seems to imply that the plastic is sourced from the ocean — but the truth is more nuanced. “The issue is that true ‘ocean plastic’ is almost impossible to manufacture and collect at a scale that can realistically support commercial demand,” says Rob Ianelli, founder of Oceanworks, a global marketplace for recycled ocean plastic materials.

True ocean plastic collected from the open sea is often degraded to a point where it can no longer be reused. It’s also expensive to retrieve. Large expeditions must be funded to access ocean garbage patches, and even then (ironically), it’s not possible to collect enough material to meet growing demand for ocean plastic. To work around the cost and scalability issues, manufacturers aim to capture ocean-bound plastic closer to the source — before it has a chance to be swept into the sea.

Mark Hartnell, textile director at the Seaqual Initiative, a community fighting plastic pollution, defines ocean plastic as waste “of any kind that has been lost or discarded in the marine environment and found on beaches and shores, on the seabed and ocean surface, or in rivers and estuaries.”

The Seaqual Initiative brings together scientists, NGOs, manufacturers, and brands to collect plastic and turn it into yarn, among other things. It organizes massive cleanup efforts, recruiting fishermen and a small army of volunteers who comb beaches for debris. The resulting material has been adopted by major companies like IKEA, Gant, and Jack Wolfskin.

Even with this expanded definition of ocean plastic — to include materials recovered from beaches, rivers, and estuaries — the Seaqual Initiative team still needs to blend marine plastic with post-consumer PET from land sources to scale production. Ocean plastic yarn is approximately 10% marine plastic and 90% post-consumer plastic from land.

That’s the reality for most ocean plastic fiber manufacturers. In nearly all cases, ocean plastic fiber is a blend of recycled marine debris and land-sourced waste. San Francisco–based brand Rothy’s, for example, makes shoes and bags from recycled ocean and post-consumer plastic water bottles.

Rothy’s definition of ocean plastic is even broader than Seaqual’s. They define ocean plastic as “discarded plastic collected within 30 miles (48 kilometers) of coastlines, in areas where plastics are at high risk of ending up in our oceans,” according to Saskia van Gendt, Rothy’s Head of Sustainability. “The best way to deal with marine plastic is to prevent it from entering our waterways in the first place.”

Many brands like Rothy’s treat ocean-bound plastic — found on land but at risk of reaching the ocean — as synonymous with ocean plastic. The term “ocean-bound plastic” emerged about two years ago and was initially quite vague. Today, it has a more defined classification based on research by Dr. Jenna Jambeck, a professor at the University of Georgia’s College of Engineering.

For decades, she has researched plastic waste disposal, and her studies have found that at least 80% of ocean plastic originates on land and ends up in waterways due to poor waste management. Like patching a leaky bucket, intercepting plastic waste from high-risk coastal areas has a massive impact on reducing the amount of plastic that ends up in the ocean.

“Today, ocean plastic is the bread and butter of the ocean plastic fiber industry. Roughly 80% of the materials available in our market fall into the ocean-bound category,” said Ianelli from Oceanworks. “It’s a better price for brands and manufacturers. It has a story and is what’s most readily available.”

When you find brands offering clothing made from ocean plastic, this is likely what they’re using: a blend of ocean-bound plastic and land-sourced post-consumer PET, with a small percentage of actual open-sea marine debris possibly added in.

Many small activewear brands, such as Girlfriend Collective, Kaira Active, and SOS Activewear, are creating yoga leggings and sports bras from this type of fabric. Some swimwear brands are also making bathing suits with the same material, with several reminding customers to wash clothes with a Guppyfriend to prevent microplastics from entering the water.

Sporting giant Adidas partnered with Parley for the Oceans, the largest ocean plastic advocacy group, to create sneakers, each made from eleven ocean plastic bottles. The collaboration was a hit. The initial release of 7,000 shoes sold out instantly. With success stories like these, why aren’t more brands jumping on the ocean plastic wave?