Aquafil commitment towards sustainability began a long time ago. ECONYL® regenerated nylon is our flagship product and a milestone of this journey. The path has been full of challenges as everything was new and we had to set up a completely new supply chain.
We were looking for waste materials made of nylon 6 to produce ECONYL® yarn when we discovered fishing nets as a valuable resource. Since fish farms frequently replace their nets, we saw an opportunity to work together to collect and transform the discarded nets into ECONYL® yarn.

Today, we work with two types of fishing nets: those collected from aquaculture and fishing industries (larger quantities), and those recovered through the Healthy Seas Foundation (smaller quantities).

Over the years, our work with the fishing industry has come full circle. In July 2024, Aquafil joined forces with Diopas S.A. and Philosofish to create the world’s first circular aquaculture net, made entirely from ECONYL® regenerated nylon. This innovative net is created from waste materials and, at the end of its lifecycle, can be recycled along with other nylon waste to produce new products, including new fishing nets, without the need for additional resources. 

On our journey towards sustainability, our partnerships with the fishing industry also revealed an ongoing problem: ghost nets, which are lost or abandoned fishing nets that pose a serious threat to marine life. As a response, the Healthy Seas Foundation was established in 2013 as an initiative to recover ghost nets and help clean up our oceans. The initiative was a result of a partnership with small businesses and non-for-profit organizations.

The Healthy Seas Foundation collaborates with volunteer divers to recover ghost nets from seabeds around the world. The nets are cleaned, sorted, and those made of Nylon 6 and in fair condition are sent to Aquafil’s Slovenia regeneration plant for processing. 

Not all marine litter can be regenerated into brand new ECONYL® nylon as some nets are made of non-nylon materials. As our facilities process Nylon 6 waste only, the rest of the collected waste is sent to different waste management streams or used to produce energy.

The mission of our initiatives are not only to clean oceans and protect marine life but also to raise awareness and prevent fishing nets from polluting our oceans in the first place.

Visit healthyseas.org for more info and to support Healthy Seas activities.