Ocean waste recycled : roller blinds

We can’t get away from the plastics problem; the debate about how to deal with our environmentally devastating plastic habit permeates every part of our lives and most of us are keen to do whatever we can to help address the problem.

Local company Harvey Bruce Interiors in Uphall are now supplying a sustainable roller blinds with fabric made from recycled plastic ocean waste.

This unique eco-thread blind fabric, called Greenscreen Sea-Tex, is helping tackle the waste pollution problem in our oceans. The fabric uses an innovative high performance eco-thread called FLX yarn. Created by the engineering company Bionic, it’s formed by heating and spinning dozens of strands of recycled plastic together, recovered from beaches, shorelines, and coastal communities.

FLX yarn is strong and versatile, and comes with a 2-3% openness factor which means the fabric weave is tight; great for privacy, light control and retaining heat and energy in your home.

There are five standard Sea-Tex colours including graphite, haze, sand, pearl and white, as well as custom options available.

There is a conservative estimate that there are currently 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic floating in the world’s oceans with even more continually washing up on shorelines. This incredible amount of plastic waste is having a serious detrimental effect on the environment and marine ecosystems around the world. Types of plastic waste found include cups, bottles, milk cartons and abandoned fishing nets that can all poison or trap marine life including fish, dolphins, seals, turtles and whales. Plastic does not biodegrade quickly, often taking hundreds of years, so any plastic waste remains in the ocean for a very long time.

This build-up of plastic waste has also accumulated into five ocean gyres - large circulating systems of wind-driven surface currents located across the world including the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific and Indian Ocean. Floating plastic trapped within these gyres is estimated to take at least ten years to cycle back out again.

Volunteers around the world are tackling this growing issue through organised cleanups of shorelines and coastal communities. Plastic and other debris is removed and recycled to prevent it from re-entering the ocean.

There is still a long way to go, but finding commercial uses for recycling plastic is one way of keeping it out of the oceans, and as a bonus it makes a very suitable blind fabric.

There is still a long way to go, but finding commercial uses for recycling plastic is one way of keeping it out of the oceans, and as a bonus it makes a very suitable blind fabric.

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Published in Konect June 2019

This article was contributed by Derek Lamb of Harvey Bruce Interiors, Houston Mains, Williamson Garden Centre, Uphall, EH52 6PA. www.harveybruce.co.uk

Tel: 0800 756 5286

#sustainability #interiors #environment