Take part in a nationwide survey of watersports clothing and equipment

The Green Blue, the RYA's environmental outreach programme, are collaborating with the World Sailing Trust and Sustainable Sailing Ltd, a world leading company in sail recycling, to launch the first nationwide watersports survey. The survey will aim to understand the use and recycling of marine sports equipment and clothing in the UK. 

What’s the issue?

Over a million tonnes of used textiles are generated every year in the UK and of these, only some are resold, repurposed, or recycled. For sports-related textiles, their technical materials mean most end their lives in landfill, releasing microplastics which have been detected across the globe, including in Antarctica. The situation is even worse for composite materials, such as glass fibre, which are used to build watersports equipment. There are over 1.5 million composite yachts and 1 million composite dinghies globally, with about 1-2% reaching end-of-life (EoL) annually. Recently the fibres and resins that fragment from these EoL boats have been shown to be eaten by shellfish and cause ecosystem damage.

What’s a solution?

To address this, Sustainable Sailing Ltd have developed recycling solutions to prevent watersports related textiles and composites from reaching landfill. Their solution can even recover all the chemical building blocks of these textiles. This means that these building blocks can be reassembled to make new, durable garments. 

How can I help?

As they scale up their recycling systems, Sustainable Sailing Ltd. need to ensure their technologies meet the needs of watersports participants in the UK. By taking part in the survey, you will be helping them to explore the current trends, preferences, and attitudes of UK consumers towards their watersports equipment, including the amount it gets used and what happens to it at its end of life. Other key areas include:

Activity participation: Understanding the types of adventure sports people in the UK favour and the textiles and equipment used.

Equipment and clothing volumes: Gathering information about the quantity of sports-related textiles and equipment that consumers own.

Usage patterns: Assessing current processes for end-of-life textiles and how these could be improved.

Green attitudes: Exploring consumer attitudes towards recycling old or worn-out sports clothing and their willingness to adopt recycled products.

Kate Fortnam, The Green Blue Campaign Manager, said: “Watersports equipment and clothing are durable and hard-wearing by design. Your participation in the Marine Sport Textile Recycling Survey will help us gain a greater understanding of the lifecycle of those products and the attitudes of water users towards then. The survey will also indicate the scale of the clothing and equipment currently in circulation and will offer valuable insights to help our sector foster more sustainable solutions.” 

Dr Joe Penhaul-Smith, founding director of Sustainable Sailing adds, “Our clothing and equipment is designed to be hard wearing and resistant to all the abuse of high-performance sports, but this has come at the cost of being difficult to manage at the end of use. This survey will allow us to understand the needs of our consumers, allowing us to innovate and offer environmentally responsible products and services. We encourage all UK residents who participate in adventure sports to take part in our survey and share their valuable insight.”

Take part in the Marine Sport Textile Recycling Survey.

Closing date: Thursday 22nd August or 1000 respondents.