Five Oceans: Making a difference

DID YOU KNOW? PLASTIC CONSTITUTES APPROXIMATELY 90 PERCENT OF ALL TRASH FLOATING ON THE OCEAN’S SURFACE, WITH 46,000 PIECES OF PLASTIC PER SQUARE MILE.

Five Oceans’ very own Luise and Felix know all too well the impact that plastic rubbish is having on our oceans. It all started when the duo took their innovative idea to Rusty Miller and Tricia Shantz to discuss their ideas on how to make surfboard fins out of ocean waste. Their philosophy is that you have to make the change as others will not do it for you. Rusty believes that despite many large businesses supporting recycling and reusing, we all could be doing more for the environment.Rusty knew that there would be a number of challenges along the way and sent them on a journey to find out if their idea was really possible. Three months later, they came back to Rusty with their first prototypes. This was ground breaking. They presented him, with the ecoFin.

WHAT IS IT?

The ecoFin is made from post-consumer waste from Indonesia, where the beaches are full of rubbish and the rivers are choking in trash. Five Oceans wanted to show the world, that there is a value in rubbish and made the first surfboard fin from recycled waste. The up-cycled material is collected, sorted and shipped from Indonesia to Australia, where the material refinement, production, printing and packaging is done. The biggest part of this project for them is raising awareness. Being an example for making a change makes them proud every day.

HOW WE HELPED

As a product development company based in Brisbane we were able to support Luise and Felix to facilitate their design and the plastic production of the ecoFin. We were able to assist them with their design to make it streamline and as environmentally sustainable as we could. Using the recycled plastics from Indonesia as a base for their ecoFin was a brilliant idea on their part and we were extremely excited to join them on their journey.