Billabong has launched its most sustainable wetsuit range to date. Abigail Turner finds out more about the technologies used in the collection and how the brand plans to scale their use.
Billabong has launched its most sustainable range of wetsuits to date.
The Australian surf and clothing retailer launched its Upcycler collection this summer, which combines several technologies in one. These include discarded post-consumer textiles for jerseys and wetsuit liners and post-consumer discarded wetsuits that have been repurposed into raw ingredients for the internal rubber.
Additionally, Billabong has made a crucial shift by transitioning all synthetic rubber to an all-natural Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified rubber formulation sourced from the Hevea brasiliensis tree. These three major steps mark a significant leap toward creating the brand’s most sustainable wetsuits to date.
Scott Boot, global director of wetsuits and Liberated Brands, said: “Throughout the past 15 years, we have rolled out a number of sustainable advancements, including innovative wetsuit variations featuring recycled materials… Upcycler, which has been years in the making, is our most sustainable to date.”
In 2009, Billabong started developing Recycler wetsuits, which consisted of B9 platinum wetsuits, featuring lines and jerseys from upcycled fishing nets. In 2015, the brand’s factory became Bluesign certified, and in the following year it started using recycled car tyres and scrap neoprene for the first time, as an added base ingredient of its neoprene.
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