For Costa sunglasses chief executive Holly Rush, it was love at first sight. Her company markets the seaside lifestyle. Bureo is a California company with operations in Chile that recycles fishing nets to alleviate the growing problem of plastic in the planet’s oceans.
Rush met the Bureo folks two years ago at the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City. The product of their resulting partnership — Costa’s “Untangled Collection” — debuted at OR this week in downtown Denver.
“This has literally been like raising a child,” Rush said. “The baby has been born, but there was so much passion in the process and so much heart on wanting to bring this story to life in the right way.”
Bureo collects worn-out fishing nets from operations on the Chilean coast and has them shredded in Santiago. The resulting material is melted and extruded into pellets, which are then sent to other companies to make products that range from furniture to skateboards. The benefit to Costa was obvious.
“It was a Eureka moment,” said Rush, whose company is headquartered in Daytona Beach, Fla. “I think what these guys are doing is a real human interest story. For us it was a way to tell our story on a bigger stage and to do it with a great partner who cared about what we did. It was kind of a match made in heaven.”
Last year Bureo recycled 100 tons of fishing nets that otherwise might have been discarded in the ocean or burned on the beach. They collect the nets from a range of Chilean fishing operations, from large commercial companies to small syndicates.
“It’s partners like Costa that are allowing us to take this to the next level,” said Bureo co-founder Ben Kneppers, who has a background as an environmental consultant. “Instead of just making a few small products of our own, we can partner with a really established brand that shares the same values and has a responsible supply chain to work with us to utilize a lot more material.”
Ten percent of ocean plastic is discarded fishing gear, Kneppers said. It is four times more harmful than all other forms of ocean plastic put together, he said.
“Although it’s statistically 10 percent of ocean plastic, it’s actually the most harmful form due to its ability to continue to trap and degrade marine life and marine ecosystems,” Kneppers said. “It will continue to ‘fish’ — they call it ghost fishing — after it’s been discarded. When it comes in contact with any type of natural ecosystem like a reef, it will tear at it until it completely degrades.”
Humanscale, a New York furniture company, makes “Smart Ocean” chairs that incorporate two pounds of Bureo’s recycled plastic in each piece. Carver makes skateboards from Bureo plastic. Jenga makes a board game. Patagonia is a partner.
In the case of Costa, the recycled plastic pellets are shipped from Chile to Italy, where the frames are made. Like Henry Ford’s Tin Lizzies of the early 1900s, you can have any color frame as long as it is black. There are four different frame styles, though.
“For us, the big win is when a brand like Costa recognizes what we’re doing and they’re actually able to take the material and use it in their supply chain,” said another Bureo co-founder, David Stover. “It’s not a one-off gimmicky recycling project, it’s a supply-chain solution.”
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