Upcycling: Turning plastic waste into fashion

Around midday, Nacho Llorca hauls in the trawl for the second time that day. With a loud splash, the catch lands on the deck of the white fishing boat. Squid, sea bream, octopus from the Mediterranean off Ibiza, even a few lobsters. Whoever ends up eating them tomorrow, they probably won't taste particularly good if they knew they were lying here between an old San Miguel can and half-rotted plastic bottles. But the fisherman has already stuffed all the trash into a blue bin. It's almost full to the brim with bags, PET bottles, yogurt cups, diapers, whatever else is floating around in the sea. "And that's comparatively little today," says Llorca, pulling up his baggy work trousers. "Some days, we get twice as much."

In the past, they would do exactly what they still do with injured or undersized fish: They would simply throw everything back into the sea, accompanied by the loud cries of seagulls. "I still remember a few years ago when we wanted to shoot the first video footage with Nacho for our website, and his two employees just kept automatically throwing the trash over the railing," says Javier Goyeneche, holding on to the railing. Nacho had to keep reminding them that things were different now and that plastic would be collected from now on. Because this guy from Madrid wanted to make clothes out of it.

Javier Goyeneche is the founder of the Spanish fashion brand Ecoalf, which not only claims to be eco-friendly in name, but from the outset aimed to produce "truly sustainable" clothing. Although he now knows that he could have made his life "really easier," says the 55-year-old entrepreneur with a faint smile. The label relies exclusively on environmentally friendly materials such as regenerative cotton and wood pulp, as well as on recycling. The sweaters, bearing the in-house slogan "Because there is no planet B," are now made from 50 percent recycled cotton, the down jackets are made from 100 percent recycled polyester, and the tote bags are made from so-called Ocean Yarn —a nylon thread made from the plastic that fishermen like Nacho Llorca have just pulled out of the ocean.

"Producing in an environmentally friendly way is always more complex and expensive, but ocean yarn tops everything," says Goyeneche. Not only in terms of the enormous logistical effort, but also because the plastic – as we're currently seeing – is severely damaged and overgrown after weeks, months, or years in salt water. However, in this case, it's not just about optimal recycling; it's also a project close to our hearts and a prestige project. And it all began almost exactly ten years ago with the very man who is currently hoisting plastic baskets full of fish into large freezers.

Nacho Llorca, 54, a funny Costa Cordalis look-alike with curly hair, was still fishing off the coast of Alicante at the time. Goyeneche had previously sourced recycled marine plastic from South Korea until someone from the provincial government called him and said, "By the way, we have a lot of plastic floating in our oceans too. Why don't you use that and we'll give you a subsidy?" Goyeneche researched the appropriate technology, began looking for fishermen who would participate, and eventually ended up with Nacho, the chairman of the southern Spanish fleet. While he was a bit surprised that he wouldn't be paid for collecting, he realized that it didn't really make much sense for him or his quasi-employer – the ocean – to have the same garbage in his nets every day. "The first time I went out, I couldn't believe how much was accumulating," says Goyeneche. According to calculations, by 2050 there could be more plastic than fish swimming in the world's oceans.

Together, he and Nacho Llorca visited the first ports and told the fishermen about their project. The Ecoalf Foundation, founded for this purpose, now works with more than 5,000 fishermen in 72 ports in Europe, Egypt, and Thailand and, according to its own figures, has removed around 1,700 tons of garbage from the sea since 2015. "Convincing the fishermen is relatively easy," says Goyeneche. "But the paperwork in France took a full three years." In Italy, they were still waiting for approval for collection, sorting, and further processing.

"Like I said, I could make my life a lot easier," Goyeneche repeats, laughing. Especially now, when the topic of sustainability is anything but hot . "When I founded the brand in 2009, many people didn't understand our concept. The head of purchasing at the Corte Inglés department store asked me, astonished, who would buy clothes made from recycled materials when they could have them 'new,'" he recalls. Goyeneche himself had previously run "Fun & Basics," a moderately successful accessories brand whose production was anything but sustainable. Then he became a father and wanted to rethink things, to make things better with a new brand. Eventually, the zeitgeist caught up, and sustainability became a real fashion topic that every brand wanted to embrace in some way. Even the big chains developed "Conscious Collections" and encouraged people to recycle together. Ecoalf received a lot of attention and awards, and sales rose by double digits.

Looking back, 2019 was probably something of a peak year for green conscience. Back then, Burberry hosted its first carbon-neutral fashion show, Dior had trees line the runway at Paris Fashion Week, and Marni showcased dresses made from recycled plastic bottles. Currently, however, the trend is to showcase copious amounts of faux fur and invite people to even more cruise shows around the globe. And what about consumers? According to a survey by the polling institute Kantar, while 92 percent of people still say they want to live a sustainable lifestyle, only 16 percent actually put it into practice.

"Has sustainability gone out of fashion ?" was the headline on the website Vogue Business a good year ago, although they could just as easily have turned the question into a statement. No one who spoke in the article made any secret of the fact that for many people, environmentally conscious collections were just a trend like burgundy or Barbie pink. At some point, you get fed up. "Unfortunately, a certain fatigue when it comes to sustainability is not only noticeable in fashion, but in general," confirms Moritz Jäger-Roschko, circular economy expert at Greenpeace. "All the greenwashing that has been going on over the years has of course contributed to this." Mango and H&M have had to withdraw environmentally conscious collections from the market because they were not as sustainable as promised. Jäger-Roschko says he is watching with concern how strongly discounters like Temu and Shein are now growing in Europe. In contrast, pioneers like the label Edun, co-founded by U2 singer Bono, have long since left the market. The sustainable sneaker manufacturer Allbirds is in crisis.

Ecoalf generated sales of €59 million last year, an increase of 22 percent compared to 2023. So won't truly sustainable brands ultimately benefit when the hype is over and the wheat is separated from the chaff? "I see it quite differently," says Javier Goyeneche. "The more brands use environmentally friendly materials, the better and cheaper we can source and produce." For example, if he asks a manufacturer for shoelaces made of recycled nylon, but can only order 2,000 per color, the manufacturer just looks at him with pity. "We're still a small company," explains Goyeneche. "And as long as the really big brands don't demand innovative materials, it will remain difficult to get them at all. They simply won't be developed and produced."

A good example of how sustainability can work on a larger scale is Materra, a collaboration between British entrepreneurs and Indian farmers to cultivate regenerative cotton under fair conditions. Both the H&M Group and the luxury group Kering have invested in this company, and in addition to Ecoalf, the Spanish fashion chain Mango now also purchases the cotton. "The more competition, the better for the environment," says Goyeneche.

There are several reasons why Ecoalf is still growing compared to other sustainable brands. Goyeneche understood from the start that no matter how many certificates and eco-labels he slapped on the labels, "if the design isn't right, no one will buy your product, let alone spend more money on it," says the founder. Ecoalf therefore focuses on good basics. No frills, no trendy products. "One of my sons recently did an internship with us and asked customers about their purchasing motivations," he says. "A woman came out of the store with three huge bags, but she had no idea about our commitment." Interestingly, those who know the brand are happy to give them away. "Because then they can tell a story about the product. 'Your new sweater saved 3,000 liters of water, the jacket is made from old water bottles,' and so on," says Goyeneche.

In marketing speak, this is called storytelling , and the Spaniard doesn't like the word at all. "I think we're storydoers ; we don't just talk, we do." When they discovered, for example, that one of their fleece jackets released 20,000 microplastic particles with every wash, they immediately took it off the market, even though it was one of their bestsellers. Now it's back in a similar form – and still loses about 0.07 fiber particles per wash. The non-profit "B Corp" certification has ranked Ecoalf among the top five percent of sustainable brands since 2022. From the fashion industry, only the American outdoor label Patagonia is otherwise represented there.

The port of Ibiza gradually comes into view; the deck of the fishing boat has long since been hosed down, the nets rolled up. Nacho Llorca and the other two fishermen will soon be bringing the baskets of catch to the small warehouse, where it will be sold this afternoon. But before that, their friend from Madrid gives them a new T-shirt, the classic one with the slogan "Because there is no Planet B." One of the three wants to know how they came up with the slogan. Coincidence, Goyeneche admits. "We were at the Premium trade fair in Berlin in 2014 and had a tiny booth – with a thick column in between that nobody had told us about." So he called a colleague and told them they urgently needed to stick some kind of poster on the ugly thing. "The slogan came to me because I had previously read an economics article that talked about Plan A and Plan B. And I kept thinking, it's easy for you to say that. But our planet has no Plan B."