In 2021, Kotaro Seki was unsatisfied with his work at a major travel agency. He was good at his job, but he felt like something was missing.
Anyone could do the job he was doing at the agency, he thought. And few were bothered — as he was — by the fact that the money spent by tourists wasn't making its way to local businesses.
This frustration turned into a burning desire to do something that actually had an impact on the lives of the people he wanted to support — local businesses and fisheries in rural areas — which led him to ultimately quit his stable job despite having recently become a father.
He initially set up his company, Ellange, in 2021 with the business model of selling locally caught fish to restaurants, but it was when he was making his rounds to pick up fishers' catches that something caught his eye: fishing nets.
“When I would go around having business talks, there would be times when fisheries would have nets piled up (on the side) and times when they wouldn’t,” Seki said.
Without a proper place for disposal, the fishers felt compelled to throw the fishing nets into the ocean after they became unusable, a practice that Seki later learned was widespread in Japan.
Now, visionaries like Seki are on a mission to find a way to turn used fishing nets into materials to make clothes, and give back to fishing communities in the process.
Fishing net waste
Fishing waste is an issue that plagues oceans around the world. A study published in 2018 found that out of the 79,000 tons of plastic waste that was collected in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — a gyre of marine debris found in the North Pacific ocean — 46% of it was fishing nets.
Domestically, 38% of overall waste collected on the shores of Japan is tied to the fishing industry, according to a survey conducted by the Environment Ministry in 2021, with nets ranking fifth by weight out of all plastic materials.
What makes fishing nets so difficult to dispose of is the fact that they are made from materials that do not decompose. Although different types of nets are used depending on the fish, they all tend to be big and heavy and are most commonly made of nylon. Fisheries continue to use the same fishing nets for years, fixing them as they wear, but they ultimately reach a point where they can no longer be used.
Although there are companies that recycle the nets, they require fisheries to pay around ¥100 ($0.69) to ¥150 per kilogram to have the nets taken away, posing an additional financial burden.
This may not seem like much, but nets can be quite heavy — Seki picks up hundreds or even thousands of kilograms from his partnering fisheries at a time. For example, one large bag of fish nets stored in Ellange's storage weighs around 300 kg, which would could cost upward of ¥30,000 to recycle, and Seki usually recieves three or even four of these bags per pick up.
International efforts and collaboration
Seki is not alone in homing in on this issue.
Bureo, a startup founded almost a decade ago that's based in California and Chile, originally aimed to turn fishing waste into skateboards and sunglasses. With support from Patagonia in 2016, they were able to create their own material, called NetPlus, which is made entirely from recycled fishing nets.
Since then, NetPlus has been used to make Patagonia products including shorts, fleeces and hats.
During the early stages of his research, Seki stumbled upon this venture and immediately knew that this was the key to solving Japan’s fishing net waste problem.
“In the simplest terms, (Bureo was) turning what’s considered trash into something that is high quality and adding high value to it,” he said, emphasizing how Patognia's position as a top buyer of the product made him realize that this was a viable business.
From there, Seki began cold contacting Patagonia and Bureo in April 2022, and despite initial rejections, his passion eventually moved the people at the companies to work with him, leading to the forming of a partnership in May last year to make Patagonia products using NetPlus made from Japanese fishing nets.
Seki has also built relationships with over 10 fisheries in Chiba and Ibaraki prefectures, having bought a total of 60 tons of fishing nets from them so far.
Ellange — now comprised of four core employees and other staff members sent from Patagonia — is currently in the process of testing whether the collected nets are made of pure nylon 6 and cutting the nets into smaller pieces by hand. The next step is to begin cleaning the material so it can be shipped to factories abroad where the actual chemical recycling will take place.
They plan to have their first products made by this spring.
“Only when it becomes a product will what we are trying to achieve become substantial. I can’t be satisfied yet,” said Seki. “I can’t wait to bring (the product) to all the fisherman, and say ‘Thank you, this is what (your used nets) became.’”
Giving back
One of the fisheries that Seki now holds a strong rapport with is Seieimaru, which is run by the Tsuchiya family in Asahi, Chiba Prefecture.
Seieimaru was formally established as a company in 1955 but was operating in the area long before then. In that time, there had never been a proper system in place to dispose of used nets, says Naomi Tsuchiya, the current head of the fishing company and the granddaughter of its founder.
She and her husband, Masayoshi, tilt their heads quizzically when asked what they used to do with nets that were no longer usable, saying they are not entirely sure but that they mostly used them to cover up and protect things in storage.
When the couple heard about Ellange, it almost sounded too good to be true — a company was offering to pay ¥5 or ¥10 per kilogram to take used nets that they otherwise would have had to pay money to get rid of.
“But it was less to do with the money — we were struggling to get rid of the used nets, so having it taken off our hands was good enough,” said Masayoshi. “We also thought that maybe this could be a way in which we could give back to our crew members.”
Like many other fisheries, Seieimaru has been struggling to hire, with fewer young people entering the industry. They had been looking for ways in which they could attract new staff members, as well as give back to the around 50 employees they currently have.
“As an effort to make our company more appealing, we make our own merchandise each year like T-shirts and jackets,” Naomi said, ”It just came to me, wouldn’t it be so cool if the fishing nets we used could come back recycled as our own clothing?”
Since their first meeting in August, Seieimaru has sold used nets to Ellange a handful of times.
“I’m just really looking forward to wearing the clothes that were made from the nets that we used to use with my crew members,” beamed Masayoshi.
“I think it will fuel a sense of pride among the crew, that their job is resulting in something,” his wife added.
Fellow challengers
With the potential of fishing nets as a source of recycled material catching people’s attention, more companies are looking for ways to contribute solutions to fishing net waste in their own ways.
In Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, another ambitious young mind hopes to use a small city as a base to run a business that makes the world a better place.
The 26-year-old CEO of Amu, Kodai Kato, says that the issue of fishing net waste and the technology to turn it into a useful material has been around for a while, but more people in recent years are being incentivized to take on or invest in the challenge. As the world begins to wake up to the problem of marine pollution, recycling fishing nets has become a focal point.
Although Kato’s primary goal of helping fisheries in Japan is the same as Seki's, he's taking a different approach by making his own product from recycled nets. The material, called Amuca, is made through a collaboration with a domestic chemical company, and the goal is to then sell it to clothing manufacturers.
”I want to give creative people the materials and see what kind of amazing things can be born out of it,” said Kato. “I like the creative process of multiplying things of value and making something even greater — that's why I reckoned I should go into the business of making the materials.”
Like Ellange, amu is still in its infancy, having only been founded in May. In October, they managed to make a trial version of Amuca for the first time and the company is now in the process of refining its product with a goal of making it available for purchase this summer.
He has high hopes for Amuca, even against international competitors such as Aquafil, an Italian company that is currently at the forefront of recycled textiles, with its material used by high-end brands such as Prada, Gucci and Burberry.
What distinguishes Amuca, as well as NetPlus, from the competition is that they are made entirely of post-consumer recycled materials — namely fishing nets — compared with products mixed with postindustrial recycled materials, or materials that were discarded during the manufacturing of a product. Post-consumer recycling is often considered more valuable in creating a circular economy, since it is more difficult to recycle products that have already been used once.
Kato believes that this competitive edge will allow him to make it globally.
“We are basically taking fishing waste — something that is considered to be trash — and redefining it as a resource by believing in its value,” Kato says. “I think we can improve the world even just a little bit by spreading this way of thinking.”
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