SWIMTERVIEW
BIODEGRADABLE WETSUITS ARE HERE!
An industry first, ZONE3 are launching a biodegradable wetsuit – and it won’t disappear as you swim! Ella Foote meets the team behind the new suit
Wetsuits are designed to be hard-wearing, durable and long-lasting. As an investment piece of kit, they are made of materials that don’t tear easily or break down over time, but the flip-side of this is that they are hard to recycle and will never disappear in landfill. In fact, neoprene is so robust that it is often used to line landfill sites to protect the ground from contamination.
There are lots of brilliant examples in the industry of repairing wetsuits or remaking suits into other items like change mats. Many brands now offer swimwear and suits in Yulex, a plant-based rubber from guayule, a renewable, non-food crop. But this still comes with environmental impact, as a spike in demand for guayule could lead to deforestation as existing trees are replaced with the latest cash crop. So how can we solve the environmental impact of wetsuits? ZONE3 has the answer and it’s the first of its kind: Terraprene, a cuttingedge, biodegradable rubber which, once it reaches its end of life, can be biodegraded in 522 days. The new material, developed by Yamamoto, offers the same performance as standard neoprene.