The oceans are vast. The beautiful, strange, and plentiful marine life calls this their home. When one is asked to describe their visualization of the seas, they may close their eyes and imagine a pod of dolphins racing through the depths or a blue whale calf tagging along with its mother. For generations these images were wholeheartedly accurate as the inhabitants of the seas were largely left to themselves (maybe for the occasional fisherman). Today, however, human impact is more apparent than ever in our oceans with the acceleration of the waste increasing by the year. Said waste is slowly suffocating marine life and must be combated for the good of our planet and all creatures that call it home.
“It is estimated that 6.4 million tons of fishing gear are lost in the oceans annually” (MacFayden et al. 2009). This gear (specifically fishing nets) is infamously referred to as “ghost nets”. Although this number makes up less than ten percent of human-made pollutants in our oceans, the effects of free-floating fishing gear is more directly apparent in marine life. Threats posed by fishing nets include loss of freedom of movement, lacerations, and permanent entanglement drastically decreasing the overall health of our oceans. Over 600 known species are affected by man-made marine waste (Thompson, et al. 2012). These numbers will surely increase as synthetic fishing nets become cheaper to fishermen and more durable as they will inevitably wander through the waters entangling wildlife indiscriminately for years. The encroachment of ghost nets into marine habitats has not been met without resistance, though.
An initiative has been undertaken by many brave souls across the globe. Volunteers have retrieved ghost nets from the waters and disposed of them. Others, specifically GhostNets® Australia, have promoted the retrieval of ghost nets and the creation of GhostNets® Art. This program has repurposed nets into useful domestic items and expressions of art that have been created to spread awareness of the problem. A similar task has recently been undertaken by PolyCore™.
Here at PolyCore™, we value those who make the long-term health of our planet a priority. To aid in the cleanup of pollutants in our oceans, we have created a sustainable fabric from retrieved ghost nets appropriately named Ghost Nylon. This sustainable 350D Nylon, coupled with the coating of our environmentally friendly water-based polyurethane, provides a fabric created from pollutants and repurposed for the sake of solution for this problem. We are proud of this product and hope that others join in on the efforts to give the oceans back to the marine life it once belonged.
