How can we reuse and repurpose the plastic waste that pollutes our oceans, while promoting a greater level of respect and love for our beautiful blue seas?
Meet Alistair:
He’s our awesome Assistant Production Manager and Senior Artworker from the Southern Hemisphere. Outside of work, he loves to spend as much time as possible creating a cool new illustration or a punchy piece of artwork, often inspired by his passion for surfing and his deep-rooted respect for the planet.
2020 has been an interesting and challenging year for all the wrong reasons, but it has provided many of us with the space and opportunity to stop, pause and reflect on many facets of our daily lives, including the environment, the impact we have on it and the role we all have to play in reducing the damage we’re all causing.
Yet, as we look forward to a more positive 2021 and the possibility of a vital vaccine, we need to constructively discuss and develop ideas about how we can collectively have a more positive impact on the world around us. For Alistair, it’s been a chance to process his thoughts and think further about how his passion for the ocean can serve as a platform for progress.
“Growing up in Cape Town, I spent most of my formative years surrounded by the Cape Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Being in this environment soon transformed into a love of surfing and all things ocean related. I have always had a deep connection to the energy of the cold Atlantic waters, learning about the many marine creatures that populate its coastline, as well as the biodiverse ecosystems that make up the rock pools, beaches and oceans.
I have used this connection as inspiration in my everyday life, growing artistic ideas, achieving life goals and adapting it to many lessons along the way. This will always be a true passion in my life, but if we don’t all take a stand on plastic pollution and support the marine and land animals who depend on it, I can’t imagine the condition it will be in 50 years from now!
I have grown up in an era of waste and pollution, where our impact is being felt in every corner of the planet. It is particularly in the oceans that we are seeing this negative influence: over the last decades, tonnes of waste and plastics have found their way into the sea.
The effect on marine animals is devastating. Documentaries like Blue Planet have helped to make people aware of the impact we are having on our environment and the damage we are causing through every part of our day to day lives. We all know the environment is under the pressures of humanity but what are we doing as individuals to protect it? How do we change our own behaviour and better understand the ways we could be making better choices? We are in the modern age of fast progress and new technology, yet future-proofing our oceans seems low down on the list of priorities.
Future generations will have to deal with a world that has seen the abuse of our past countless years of waste, wealth and greed! Oceans are struggling to breathe, landfills are packed to capacity and a surge of plastic waste pours into our sewers, cities and streets on a daily basis. The choices we make today are the ones that are going to make the difference to the future of our oceans and the world we leave for future generations.
Organisations such as Take 3, Surfers Against Sewage, Sea Shepherd and WWF are making progress. They’re getting their voices heard and continue to make a huge contribution to the fight against pollution. But we can’t only rely on these guys. Global brands, corporations and even design agencies have a role to play and a responsibility to help change behaviour and produce more sustainable products that have a more positive impact on the world we live in.
And so, there is no time like the present to create platforms for people to have their voices heard! We have a choice to make: to either change the way we live, or sit back and let the planet suffocate under the pressures of our waste and refuse. And if we are to change the way we live, we need to look at every sector in every industry.”
So, how can the surf industry reuse ocean plastic and harness the power of design to communicate and highlight the long-term damage we’re all causing? How can the two work together to create something that is desirable and good, that encourages better choices and instils much needed behaviour change?
Here is Alistair’s idea…
Introducing Tide, a surf brand concept that’s inspired and enchanted by the overwhelming power of the ocean to return all waste back to the shore, be it natural- or human-caused. Tide manufactures surf fins from the tonnes of ocean plastic collected around the coast of South Africa, spanning from Alexander Bay in the West, across the entire cape of Africa and on to Richards Bay in the East.
Developed in partnership with Enis Akiev and her innovative new material – Plastic Stone – we envisage that Tide would collaborate with local artisans who collect, sort and code the gathered plastics by material, colour, and density. Each fin is a beautiful, bespoke and handmade artefact and is made from netting, solid, sheet and film plastics, which give it its unique patternation.
Tide would have a number of small franchise businesses, set up in districts spanning the length of the coastline. This network would support local craftspeople with flexible hours and fair pay, which not only improves the local ecology but also creates opportunities for and celebrates the men and women behind the work.
Once collected and sorted, the plastics would be pressed onto a foam core. The cores are machined from broken, end of life surf boards and are bonded under heat and pressure with ocean plastics to create a rigid, coloured, marbled coating which heroes the otherwise waste materials. This approach means that each Tide fin is a truly unique, one-off product which has been collected from that stretch of South African coast.
Each fin is packaged by Tide craftspeople in a box made from fully recyclable, lightweight and sturdy layered, corrugated board, which means it can be delivered directly to each surfer’s doorstep, without additional postage materials. Easy to manufacture, the packaging is designed to have minimal impact whilst ensuring each unique fin reaches its user in perfect condition. When the fin is fitted onto the board and the pack has reached the end of its life, the mono-material box can be recycled, there’s no need to separate or worry. Alternatively, the packaging can be kept and repurposed.
Both Alistair and the team at Path and Pathwork really hope this has inspired you to think further about how else we can reuse and repurpose waste materials in a way that helps to both highlight the very real challenges we face together and safeguard the future of our planet.