Recycle Your Wetsuit With Rip Curl And TerraCycle
Rip Curl, in partnership with TerraCycle, announces the expansion of the ‘Recycle Your Wetsuit’ global recycling program
Trenton, N.J.—Leading surf brand, Rip Curl, is calling on surfers across the United States, Australia, and Europe to reduce their environmental footprint, with the expansion of Rip Curl’s ‘Recycle Your Wetsuit’ program to customers globally, in partnership with international recycling leader, TerraCycle.
Originally launched in Australia in 2021, Rip Curl’s ‘Recycle Your Wetsuit’ program, has expanded beyond Australia, and is now available in the United States and Europe (France, Portugal, and Spain) to offer environmentally-conscious surfers the opportunity to recycle any surfing wetsuit at participating stores via in-store drop-off or via mail. The expansion is part of a global effort to reduce the impact of wetsuit waste.
Select Rip Curl stores will accept any surf-branded neoprene wetsuit and hood, not including booties, gloves, or heavy-diving dry suits. Customers can drop off their used surfing wetsuits in-store at no cost. If proximity is an issue the selected stores are also accepting wetsuits via mail.
Once collected, the wet suits will be broken down by their components and the collected rubber will be repurposed for use in applications such as the safety matting used at playgrounds and outdoor gyms.
“Since the program launched in 2021, we are pleased to have seen over 1,600 Australian customers dedicating time and effort to return their surfing wetsuits for recycling. We’re proud to be able to extend this program to our US, France, Spain, and Portugal customers, helping to provide them with an avenue to do their bit for the environment,” says Shasta O’Loughlin, Rip Curl’s Environmental, Social, and Governance Manager.
“We are incredibly proud of our partnership with TerraCycle as a leader in the recycling space. With some of our core values at Rip Curl being Community and Environment, the ‘Recycle Your Wetsuit’ program is extremely important to us. We have seen a significant uptake of the program on our home soil and look forward to the response internationally,” O’Loughlin continues.
“Most surfing wetsuits are made from synthetic rubber, a complex material that isn’t accepted in curbside recycling,” says Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO of TerraCycle. “But through the Recycle Your Wetsuit recycling program we are providing a new use for this material and offering consumers the opportunity to think twice about what can be repurposed and what truly is garbage.”
Established in Torquay along Victoria’s surf coast in 1969, Rip Curl has earned a reputation as one of the largest and most influential surfing companies in the world. For more information about the initiative, visit the links below for Australia, the United States, and Europe.