The Australian Beachwear Brand on (Eco) Trend, All Year Round

Ahhhh, Queensland: a state of natural wonders and relaxed dress codes, where Australian beachwear & activewear remain wardrobe staples, even throughout the winter months.

Lucky for us! 😉

As well as marking mid-winter in the Land Down Under, this month the world observes Plastic Free July.

Plastic Free July is a global movement that aims to motivate millions of people to be part of the solution to plastic pollution – so we can have cleaner streets, oceans, and beautiful communities, not just today, but for many more tomorrows too. Plastic Free July urges businesses, communities, and consumers to turn the tide on the plastic problem by choosing to refuse single-use plastics…for a start.

As fashion designers, parents and humans, we are all for this. We are dedicated to being part of the plastic solution for our planet. One of the core principles we built our Australian beachwear business around is the concept of giving single-use plastics a second life as functional wardrobe staples (featuring beautiful original art too!) and we are more committed than ever to delivering a new wave of sustainable Australian beachwear to wardrobes around the world.

Why? Because having worked in the mainstream fashion industry for many years, experiencing first-hand the explosion of fast fashion, and learning more and more about its impact on our planet…we feel compelled to do better in our approach to designing and manufacturing Australian beachwear.

Did you know that 6000kg of textiles goes to landfill every 10 minutes here in Australia?
Worldwide, the equivalent of one massive garbage truck load of clothing (much of it barely worn or BRAND NEW) is sent to landfill or incinerated EVERY. SECOND. OF. EVERY. DAY.

‘Landfill’. One of the major problems with that term is that so called ‘landfill’ doesn’t tend to stay on or in the land. Much ends up in our oceans.
There are an estimated 5.25 TRILLION pieces of plastic waste in our oceans.

Plastics that take 500 – 1000 years to degrade.

Plastics that will sink into ocean ecosystems and be responsible for the deaths of more than 100 million marine animals each year. 

And these stats are set to climb higher and higher, unless we all actively change our plastic habits. Now.

Sometimes, when we think about the plastic problem facing our planet it can feel so BIG.
Sometimes, it makes us wonder if our micro business and the choices we make to do better, at work and at home, matters at all in the big picture.

But luckily, 99.9% of the time, here at Bon+Co, we are incurable optimists who believe that it does matter. We believe that little changes matter a whole lot. Our decision to make sustainable choices in what we make our Bon+Co Australian Swimwear out and how it is made. It matters. Your choice to shop eco-smart. It matters. Every little thing…matters.

So, at Bon + Co HQ this Plastic Free July, we’ve got ways to reduce, re-use and recycle fashion-based plastics on our mind more than ever, both at work and at home.

At work, we’re doubling down on our commitment to reducing our fashion footprint by using high-quality recycled fabrics instead of virgin plastic fabrics in our Bon + Co Australian Beachwear & Activewear.

Every single garment we invest in making using recycled materials instead of virgin fabrics represents a second life for approximately 8 plastics bottles that would otherwise have ended up in landfill. Our supplier, REPREVE, makes the world’s leading recycled fibre and has recycled and upcycled an incredible 26, 294, 213, 555 plastic bottles (and counting!) since its inception. Instead of floating around in our oceans causing issues for life on earth, billions of bottles are now being worn to protect bodies under the sun & in the sea.

Added to that is the energy-saving benefits that creating great quality Australian beachwear out of recycled fabrics rather than virgin fabrics delivers: emitting fewer greenhouse gasses and conserving water and energy in the process.

In real terms, recycling over 26 billion plastic bottles as REPREVE has done:

• Generates enough energy to power 236, 567 homes for 1 year
• Provides 2.9 people their typical daily drinking water for 1 year
• Improves air quality by avoiding 646 million kgs of carbon dioxide emissions.

We are proud that Bon + Co Australian beachwear is one of a growing number of ethical brands committed to finding more and more positive and sustainable approaches to using recycled fabrics in fashion design. Contributing to fashion pollution is not a look, or a cost, we’re interested in wearing. Rocking sustainable Australian beachwear never felt so good!

It’s not just at work we’re looking to reduce, re-use and recycle when it comes to our fashion choices. We want our kids to learn about sustainable fashion and positive choices for their own wardrobes too. As our children become more fashion-conscious tweens who naturally want more choice and control over what they wear, we need to model sustainable fashion and teach them where and how to make planet-positive and plastic-neutral (or negative) choices.  Of course, they’re totally sorted for quality Australian beachwear & activewear with Bon + Co, but what about their wider wardrobe staples?

One of the ways we’re looking to reduce our fashion footprint is by handing down our worn-out or no-longer-worn clothes and shopping ‘vintage’ (note: Op Shops are GOLD for growing kids and tweens!), instead of purchasing mass-produced new garments off the rack.

Throughout their tween years, most kids grow out of their clothes long before they wear them out, so it just makes practical good sense to embrace the planet and pocket-savings that come with the good old tradition of hand-me-downs. Talk to neighbours, relatives, and friends with children a few years older or younger than yours to identify hand-me-downs to come into your household for a second life, as well as knowing where you’ll send them on when your kids have outgrown them.

By using more of the excess that already exists in the fashion industry, we actively reduce the demand for new items to be produced. Where you can’t or don’t want to buy or use pre-loved items (read: underwear, beachwear & activewear!), actively look for sustainable brands who use recycled or upcycled fabrics, wherever possible.

Every little plastic habit change counts – for better, or for worse.

Let’s all choose to make ours count for the better, shall we?

There’s no better time to try than during Plastic Free July!

Shop here for our current range of sustainable Australian beachwear made from recycled plastic bottles.