Want To Save The Oceans? Then Go And Buy A Bikini

Not that long ago Fourth Element launched their Ocean Positive range of swimwear. The idea behind the range was to give people a purchasing choice. You can either buy a bikini or a pair of budgie smugglers that has a direct impact on ocean welfare or you could buy something else and live with the guilt. What impact can buying a bloody bikini have on ocean welfare you might well ask. Well for a start the Ocean Positive range are made from recycled fishing nets. These “ghost nets” are abandoned by fisherman after snagging on reefs and wrecks and pose a significant threat to marine life. In short they continue to fish even though abandoned, trapping a staggering variety of marine life and resulting in the loss of thousands upon thousand of creatures each year. They also destroy coral as currents drag them across reefs, literally scrubbing the reef clean. But thanks to a recycling process created by the Italian company Aquafil and the Ghost Fishing Project which enlists teams of divers to recover the nets in the first place, this scourge of the ocean suddenly becomes a high quality nylon yarn capable of being turned into a bikini. 

Anyone who has read about ghost nets and their sickening impact on the marine environment would be hard pressed to argue that their removal is a bad thing. And, if you watch the video messages from such people as Amanda Cotton, Dave Schott and others which are on the Ocean Positive website, you would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the images of fish, sharks, seals and turtles that have died after being trapped in the nets. So the concept of Ocean Positive is a noble one and unlike some other noble concepts that often turn out to be nothing more than hot air, the team at Fourth Element have turned the concept into a tangible product that you can buy.

The oceans are cleared of ghost nets by heroic divers around the world so saving marine life. The Italians recycle the nets into nylon yarn which apparently means that twelve thousand tons of waste has been eliminated, seventy thousand barrels of oil have not had to be used, forty-two thousand tons of CO2 hasn’t been released into the atmosphere and enough energy has been saved to power a small town for a year or the city of Rome for ten days and to square the circle in all this, all we as consumers have to do, is buy a bikini. What is there not to like about all this? Without wanting to sound like cheerleaders for Fourth Element – whose advertising is pretty dam slick anyway - we can't find much wrong with any of this. It all looks and sounds like a true environmental business success story. There is just one thing though, something that could be a real deal breaker. What if those bikinis aren't any good? You see no matter how noble the idea is, if the resulting product is, shall we say, a bit crap. Then the whole concept falls flat on its noble nose. So there was nothing else to do then but buy some Ocean Positive swimwear and compare them with a brand leader in swimwear to see if the noble idea held water so to speak. The brand we choose was Speedo. The reason is simple. We all own a pair of Speedos already and didn't have to buy anything else to do the comparison. We want to give you a honest review here but we don't want it to cost us too much, we've got beer money to think about after all. Now, we have no idea about how Speedos are manufactured or whether they are recycled or not but that's not the point. Speedo is the leading player in the market and they make very, very good swimwear.

Anyway we bought some Ocean Positive bikini's and swims shorts and put them to the test in the cold waters of Britain. The first thing to note is that Ocean Positive uses some very attractive and very athletic looking models in its advertising. Such people would look good even after running a marathon dressed in nothing more than a refuse bag. We, on the other hand, and we suspect a great many of you are not these people. Though we like to think of ourselves as relatively fit and toned individuals, we do tend to sag a bit in places. The second thing to note is that Ocean Positive swimwear is designed to be worn under a wetsuit and the third thing to note, as we have pointed out before in our review of the Fourth Element Pro Dive Amphibious shorts, is that Fourth Element have a bit of a sizing issue. Now either everyone in the Fourth Element sizing department is an attractive, athletic model who has never met the average diver and his belly or they are confusing the metric and imperial systems of measurement. The result of all this is that the swimwear is pretty snug. So snug in fact that, if you're a man your voice is going to go up a few octaves and if you are a woman you might find you bulge in places you rather wish you didn't. So we recommend that you err on the side of caution and go for a larger size than normal. Interestingly we found no problem with the Speedo sizing, all fitted perfectly. Once the size issue was sorted both sets of swimwear were equally comfortable. Both Ocean Positive and Speedo bikinis' were easy to get in and out of, having no “annoying” ties and clasps that you find on fashion bikinis. We did find that the Ocean Positive fitted more easily under our wetsuits and didn't bunch up in those awkward uncomfortable places like the Speedos did. However we suspect that had we bothered to purchase a more expensive style of Speedo this would not have been a problem either.

The Malaku Bikini won't look this good on everyone!

The Ocean Positive range is rather limited at the moment, but the designs that are available were generally well received, the bikini wearers among us preferred the black Malaku design to any of the others. Black, apparently gentlemen, is more slimming. The deeper voiced among us had even less choice having to settle for either a black or blue pair of budgie smugglers or a pair of black or blue Cayman swim shorts. The swim shorts won the vote as only “twats wear trunks” or something like that. Speedo, as can be expected, has a massive range and Ocean Positive can't really compete on that front. It can however compete on price. Speedo's vast range means that there are decent swimsuits available from around £16 to well over £70 whilst the Ocean Positive range is priced at around £40 for women and £23 for men which is hardly expensive. Then again neither price nor limited range means much when you consider the benefits of the underlying concept. This then is the crux of the matter. In general we found no real difference between the brands. Both performed well, both looked stylish and both were relatively inexpensive. So what it all boils down to, is the concept of how Ocean Positive are made. Take that into consideration and there really is no contest. Ocean Positive then, doesn't fall flat on its noble nose and is, in our opinion, pretty damn good.

In fact we think they are so good that every diver, snorkeller, water enthusiast or beach lover should go out and buy a rash vest, a bikini or even a pair of twat trunks. Yes, the range is a little limited at the moment and yes they might feel a little snug in places and yes, you might sometimes be a little creeped out by the fact that the piece of material cradling your crotch was once full of dead fish but none of that matters because you will feel good about yourself. You have done something positive about ocean welfare. And all you had to do to get this euphoric sense of doing something noble and worthwhile was to buy a piece of swimwear. So go and buy some Ocean Positive stuff and feel good about yourself.

Ocean Clean Up - Divers Do While Surfer Dudes Don't

The people at Fourth Element have recently launched their Ocean Positive swimwear range. So what you might ask? Well the thing about this particular range is that it is made from recycled fishing nets. These “ghost nets” are abandoned by fisherman after snagging on reefs and wrecks and pose a significant threat to marine life. In short they continue to fish even though abandoned, trapping a staggering variety of marine life and resulting in the loss of thousands upon thousand of creatures each year. They also destroy coral as currents drag them across reefs, literally scrubbing the reef clean. Now however, working with divers around the world, Fourth Element are collecting up these nets and putting them to good use by turning them into snazzy swimwear. The whole range is a bit limited at the moment (the men’s swimwear also looks a little snug for those of us who are more generously sized in the waistline department) but they are surprisingly low priced and the company will soon be releasing rash vests made in the same way. The whole process of turning nets into bikinis is demonstrated below.

Reading about all this recycling, our minds turned to Riz Smith. Do you remember Riz Smith? We do. Riz Smith makes boardshorts and sometime ago he had an aspiration that by 2016 he would be making boardshorts out of ocean plastic. When we first heard about Riz’s desire to create surfers apparel from the plastic garbage that pollutes our oceans we were rather dismissive, in fact we said that Riz’s idea was nothing more than fashion world tokenism that generates sales by playing on middle class guilt. You can read that post here and our follow up post here. Now spurred on by Fourth Element's successful recycling of “ghost nets” we thought it would only be fair if we had a look to see how Riz and his “bottles to boardshorts Journey” was getting on. Back in June someone at Riz’s company called Lou released an update on their website. Yes we know it’s October and the statement was released in June, but to be honest we really haven’t been paying much attention. Anyway before we get started let’s just remind you of those original problems we had with Riz’s plan when we first heard of it. We had concerns over the whole feasibility of making boardshorts out of ocean plastic. How would Riz collect the ocean plastic, who would do the collecting, would they be paid and would that collection have an impact on the mass of plastic floating in the ocean gyres? So let’s see if any of those concerns have been addressed. Here’s the statement:

While it's hard to know exact figures, it is reported up to 8m tonnes of plastics enter the oceans each year. In the UK, we use 15 million plastic bottles per day of which only 50% are recycled. We launched our bottles to boardshorts campaign because we want to encourage customers to recycle but also to show that plastic bottles littering our beaches and oceans can be put to good use. We’ve always talked about the Bottles to Boardshorts project as fitting together pieces of a jigsaw –getting the bottles on beaches to a recycling plant and then linking up the plant with a fabric manufacturer who can then send that fabric to our factory. 

Through our partnership with the Marine Conservation Society, we now know that about 10% of the litter found through beach cleans are plastic bottles.  We need close to 5,000 bottles to make 250 pairs of shorts so we are going to need to collect bottles at more than one beach clean! That’s why we’ve been in discussion with a number of beach cleaning charities and organisations who(sic) work with fishermen to find ways of sorting out plastic bottles and then amalgamating them to send to our recycling plant. Logistics are going to be challenging, as we don’t want to use loads of fuel transporting the bottles from beach to plant. And we’re going to need somewhere to store all those bottles in the short term! 

The reassuring thing we’ve learnt is that it doesn’t seem to matter how dirty or water logged the bottles found on the beaches are – they can still be recycled.  But we do now know we can only use clear Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles to make our shorts which further increases the need to work with a number of beach cleaning organisations to source these.

It’s also been great to start to talk to recycling partners in the UK who can take our beach bottles and transform them into PET pellets or flakes. The bit of the jigsaw we now need to fit together is working out whether the company that currently make our fabric from recycled bottles can use PET flakes made from beach bottles instead. If so, we also need to test whether it can be made from 100% beach bottles or, for quality and durability’s sake, it needs to be made from a combination of beach bottles and standard recycled bottles (i.e the ones you put in your bag at home). 

So, as you can see there are still a lot of questions for us to work on but we feel we are making great progress and learning loads on the way. 

A lot of questions Lou? A lot of questions? Are you serious? Are you telling us that you have only just found out that most of the litter on the beaches is not actually clear PET plastic bottles? Are you also telling us that you still haven’t figured out how to effectively collect, transport and store the plastic bottles. And, and this is really fundamental Lou, are you telling us that you still haven’t figured out whether you can make the fabric from ocean plastic in the first place? There’s another thing Lou, something that has got us confused. Your statement seems to suggest that you are already making fabric from standard recycled bottles, (i.e the ones you put in your bag at home), but as of yet not from ocean plastic. Which begs another question Lou, are you really just planning to make the fabric from standard recycled bottles and using the ocean plastic thing as nothing more than a marketing plan? Are you Lou…? Then there’s another problem. In our original post on the subject we pointed out that beach clean-ups are a good idea but most of the plastic polluting the oceans are not on beaches they’re in the ocean gyres – the ocean gyres Lou! Those great big whirlpools out in the middle of the oceans, and even if the plastic does wash up on the beach Lou we think you’re being a bit optimistic if you think it’s going to be on the single beach you’re planning to clean up.

Now we know that there are people out there in the big wide world who aren’t as cynical as us and will say that although Riz’s journey has, so far, been a little disappointing but at least he is trying to do something. To those people we would say, you probably aren’t one of the many people who gave Riz over £16,000 via crowdfunding in order to get the journey off and running in the first place. If you are one of those crowdfunders we would say, what are you doing? Why are you donating money to an established commercial company in order for that company to research the commercial viability of bringing a product to market? Still you probably got a t-shirt for the effort. Okay, maybe we are being a bit hard here. Maybe Riz and Lou just need more time. After all if they can make ocean plastic into boardshorts, even very expensive ones, that would be a good idea right? And maybe this isn’t just fashion world tokenism or a cynical marketing ploy. Maybe Riz needs to stop telling us about his aspiration and actually get busy turning that aspiration into reality. In which case we have a suggestion for Riz and Lou. Go and have a chat with the chaps at Fourth Element because they seem to have got this “waste material to commercial product” idea well and truly nailed. If you do that Riz, if you have a chat Lou, we think you might find out that it is better to make the product first and then market it. Rather than market it, and then try to work out if you can actually make it. In short Riz it’s the difference between simply aspiring and actually doing!

Fourth Element Pro Dive Amphibious Shorts – Your Grandad Would Love Them

Fourth Element began their mission to create a range of casual and technical diving clothing in 1999. Since then this company with it’s pro-eco philosophy has taken the diving world by storm. Quite a few people even believe, with good reason, that Fourth Element may soon become the predominant player in the dive clothing market. Not bad for a company that was formed over a few beers in Sharm-El-Sheikh. We like Fourth Element. We’ve bought their t-shirts, hats, rash vests and more and all of these products have never failed to impress so we were rather looking forward to trying out their Pro Dive Amphibious Shorts on our recent trip to the Canary Islands. The company blurb states that the shorts were designed for use in and out of the water. The Amphibious Pro Dive Shorts are ultra quick drying with quick draining mesh lined pockets; cargo and back pockets with hook and loop closure (that means Velcro to the rest of us) as well as a crotch gusset for superior comfort. The shorts got a big plus in the looks department, at least from the men. The women, however, were not that convinced. “A bit wannabe SAS” and “too James Bondish” were just some of the comments. Still, since they weren’t designed for women we ignored the smirks and raised eyebrows from our female brethren and proceeded to put the shorts to the test.

The material is indeed as soft as a bunny rabbit’s tail and on land the pockets do what pockets are meant to do. Meaning you can carry keys, a wallet and whatever else you stuff in your pockets. In the water, the large cargo pocket comes in handy for carrying a spare camera lens or torch, as long as both are small. The material did indeed dry fairly quickly, but not as quick as we imagined. There are a number of other problems too. The shorts we tested were medium size (mainly because the guy who bought them swore blind that he was a medium) which equates to a 32-inch waist and yet, the fit was significantly tighter than was expected. So significant in fact that we had to check his other clothes just to make sure he wasn’t telling fibs about his girth. We checked his jeans; his other shorts and even his underwear (much to his protests) and all clearly indicated that he did indeed have a 32-inch waist. Odd then that the shorts were so tight at the waist. The problems didn’t stop there however. The waist may be tighter than a girdle, but the legs flared out at the bottom to an alarming degree. James Bondish they may look in the marketing pictures, but wearing them in reality, our man looked more like Lofty in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. When snorkelling, this flaring also led to a significant amount of drag. So what do we have here? The shorts are only available in black, which is a touch unimaginative and you’ll pay around £50 a pair, which is a lot of money for shorts that don’t fit very well. Then there’s the flaring cut of the legs that not only looks rather silly on land but also becomes a significant irritation in the water. It was, our man informed us, like swimming with a sail flapping around your legs.

Of course our man may have fallen foul of the problem of Internet buying and should have gone to a shop to try them on – but who has the time? There is also nothing to suggest that buying a larger size would have meant a better fit. Then there is the issue of flaring, if the medium size makes you look like you’ve got a coat hanger in your pockets, the larger size would no doubt double the “billowing problem”. If you have a waist like a wasp and thighs like a Rhino then these shorts are a perfect buy. For the rest of us however, appearing as if we’re wearing our grandad’s shorts on the beach is not the look we want for £50. So we hope that Fourth Element get their fingers out and do something about it – better sizing, better cut and more choice of colours please chaps. 

I like the design Smithers, but they simply aren't baggy enough. Make 'em black and make 'em very baggy d'ya see