Finally, Some Good News About Ocean Plastics

When we see headlines about ocean plastics and pollution, they aren’t particularly cheery or hopeful. More than 8 million metric tons of plastics enter our ocean every year, on top of the estimated 150 million metric tons that currently circulate our marine environments. This pollution has widespread effects—from killing up to one million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals, marine turtles, and countless fish each year, to working its way up the food chain from fish to humans and increasing our contact with carcinogens.

It doesn’t take reading more than a few news stories about these dire situations to find it obvious that our oceans are in critical need of both a clean-up and laws to prevent more pollution from reaching them.

And that is where the good news comes in.

Thanks to massive cleanup efforts and innovative upcycling processes, a historic amount of plastic has been removed from the world’s oceans to date. After a 48-day expedition in July 2020, a crew successfully removed a record-setting amount of plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—aka the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world—that spans between Hawaii and California. The team collected a staggeringly impressive 103 metric tonnes (that’s 206,000 pounds) of fishing nets and toxic consumer plastic, pulling off the largest open-ocean clean-up in history. To put the effort into context, the amount of litter removed weighed as much as a 10-story-tall blue whale, aka the largest animal ever recorded on earth.

Manual human efforts have had remarkable impacts on cleaning up the rubbish in our oceans. And technological advances are on the cusp of being able to pick up what’s been left behind. A professional yacht racer from France has designed a litter-collecting sailboat called the Manta, which is powered by the very waste it collects. When launched, the Manta will be one of the largest waste-collecting vessels on the seas. Teams are working to have a working prototype on the water by 2024.

Better yet, when plastic waste is recovered, we are now able to transform it into something better, making sure it stays out of the water and has a longer life cycle. Recent innovative technological processes ensure that waste is used to our benefit, both through waste-to-energy programs and upcycled plastic-waste products. The country of Sweden even imports 800,000 tons of trash each year to power its waste-to-energy program; because their energy-conversion process is so efficient, the domestic waste Swedes produce isn’t enough to power their needs. Factor in the tons of plastic waste woven into usable textile threads and yarns each year, and the actions being taken to upcycle ocean plastics leaves one pretty optimistic.

And it’s not just non-profit and government organizations that are getting involved. Massive efforts to clean our ocean and upcycle waste are thanks to manufacturers as well. Seaqual, a community of eco-friendly organizations and companies, has brought together like-minded brands and manufacturers from 58 countries to help clean up our oceans and find new, innovative ways to repurpose ocean plastics and upgrade them from single-life pollutants to bona fide products. To date, Seaqual is responsible for removing 600 tons of waste from the oceans. And 200 tons of that waste has been transformed into upcycled productslike Seaqual Yarn.

Upcycling marine plastics by repurposing them into textiles isn’t new—in fact, many brands have been creating products made of plastic waste for years. Shoe brands and clothing companies incorporating nylon yarn created from ocean plastics (including discarded fishing nets) has resulted in some very cool (and comfy) knit sneakers, knit shirts, and sharp bags that are perfect for work and everyday use—none of which you’d ever guess were once plastic litter.

But what is new is the idea of taking even more challenging goods—those with longer lifespans than, say, a shirt or some shoes—and making them with upcycled-ocean-plastic textiles so the materials can stay out of the waste cycle even longer. That’s why Beautyrest’s partnership with Seaqual is especially good news when it comes to long-term plans to get ocean plastics out of the water (and keep them out). Beautyrest has found a way to incorporate recovered plastics into a luxe mattress that is designed to their highest comfort, quality, and durability standards.

The Beautyrest Harmony mattress has a cover made from Seaqual Yarn and features HeiQ V-Block antimicrobial technology. The HeiQ V-Block uses microsilver and vesicle technologies to attract, break down, and eliminate harmful bacteria from the surface of the mattress. In turn, this prevents bacteria from impacting the integrity and lifespan of the mattress. Seaqual estimates that for every kilo of Seaqual Yarn used, between 600 grams and 1 kilo of marine litter have been cleaned from our oceans. Factor that into how much fabric is needed to make a queen- or king-sized mattress, and a sizable amount of ocean plastic has been removed and upcycled. In fact, a queen Harmony mattress recovers the equivalent of 25 bottles a unit, while the Harmony Lux and Harmony Lux Hybrid models each recover 50 bottles.

Additionally, the Harmony features a layer of eco-friendly Tencel yarn, which helps to provide a cool sleep environment and aids in bringing a more sustainable practice to what’s traditionally been a challenging, not-so-sustainable industry. Together, it all adds up to a step taken in a better direction for industry standards, production management, consumer choice, and—of course—our oceans. Learn more about the Beautyrest Harmony and Beautyrest’s partnership with Seaqual to save our oceans here.

This story was produced by WIRED Brand Lab for Beautyrest.