Surfdome collaborates with Patagonia for Plastic Cutback initiative

Surfdome has teamed up with Patagonia to develop a solution for the poly bag problem. The vast majority of them end up in landfill or worse.

Between 16th March and 16th June, when you buy a Patagonia product on Surfdome you’ll be taking part in a trial initiative called Plastic Cutback.

The product you receive won’t be wrapped in a clear plastic bag, which in turn won’t end up leaking into the environment, as so many of these bags do.

80 billion items of clothing are sold a year, and most of these items is at some stage wrapped in a poly bag. These bags can’t be recycled curbside, which generally means they don’t get recycled at all.

72% of plastic still winds up either in landfill or escaping into ecosystems. For poly bags that figure is as high as 90%.

Surfdome says: “In 2019 our own packaging was 99.81% plastic-free; 99.44% was made up of recycled natural fibres. But that’s just ‘outbound’ packaging, the packaging on top of the packaging. There’s still the ‘inbound’ packaging to worry about – products arrive at our warehouse in poly bags, which are passed on to customers, who inevitably struggle to reach one of the few collection points where poly bags are accepted for recycling.”

“So for every Patagonia product purchased during the Plastic Cutback trial, we’ll do that bit for you: remove the poly bag for the last and least intensive leg of its journey. It’s easier for us, as we can recycle in bulk via a trusted third party. Your Better Sweater still gets to you safe and sound, and we’ll make sure the poly bag is recycled properly.”