Why did we develop sail recycling?

What we do // Sustainable Sails

Sails can be plastics or composites

Sail cloth spans the continuum of modern plastics technologies, from woven Nylon and PET fabrics, which are chemically very similar to ordinary clothing, all the way to high technology carbon fibre composites, which are chemically closer to Formula One cars or America’s Cup boats. This chemical complexity means any recycling solution for sails can also be used for everything from clothing, to end of life boats or car bodywork.

Sails are designed to be durable, high performance and UV resistant, to ensure we can all sail to our maximum potential. This means there are a lot of additives and coatings which chemically “poison” common recycling technologies, which is also why a lot of clothing can’t be recycled easily. So we have had to develop something brand new: Extricko.

When we started, less than 1% of sail cloth had a second life after its time on a boat. If it did have a second life it was generally as a bag or jacket.

This meant that the other 99% of sails were incinerated or landfilled (sometimes after decades of storage). This has had an enormous environmental impact. Sail cloth manufacture produces a lot of greenhouse gases and, when landfilled, they release a lot of microplastics which can leach out of landfill sites. Not only that but these microplastics also accumulate heavy metals as they seep out of landfill sites. Without intervention, this is going to continue to be an issue as most sail cloth doesn’t degrade in landfill and we keep producing sails.

The sail cloth market is bigger than you might expect

The sail making industry was valued at over $500 million in 2022 and produces 13 million square metres every year. This is about 2000 tonnes of sails, which would cover the same area as Greater London if laid out. About the same amount of sails reaches the end of life every year.

With over 1.5 million yachts and 1 million dinghies globally and market growth of 3% annually, this source of waste is one which is both growing and is not being addressed within the industry.

Sails are now being used on ships once more, because sails can be used to generate power or motile force. The wind assisted shipping market is already valued at USD$ 1 Billion (International Windship Association., 2023) and is growing rapidly. So sails are becoming more common.

What have we been doing about it?

With a growing market, large environmental impacts and extremely limited solutions for end of life sails, we embarked upon our Sustainable Sails program to develop recycling solutions for all sail cloths currently on the market.

Our research and development program has been successful and Sustainable Extricko has been the world’s leading sail recycling company since 2022. We can recycle all sail cloths ever built and are working with organisations to ensure future cloths are recyclable by design.

Sail recycling is now available across the UK for individual sailors, teams and organisations such as sail makers.