The Earthrise TV crew visited the Aquafil facilities last week to film a feature on Healthy Seas. The segment  will air at the end of May on Al Jazeera International. The  Earthrise team spent three days traveling to Croatia and Slovenia to document the story of this initiative. The trip began with a diving expedition in Croatian waters before ending up in Ajdovscina and Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Earthrise explores positive solutions to environmental issues and for this reason they believed filming with Health Seas would make for an intriguing documentary to address the ever-growing issue of marine debris and the recovery and regeneration of ghost nets.

On the first day of their journey, the Earthrise crew joined  diving coordinator Pascal Van Erp and Healthy Seas project coordinator Veronika Mikos for a dive near the Luka Krnika harbor., The favorable weather conditions and calm seas afforded the crew a unique opportunity to film what few get to actually see. The highlight of the day occurred when the team spotted a red scorpionfish entangled in a net. Van Erp cautiously avoided the fish’s venomous spines on its tail to disentangle it before recovering the net from the sea. After returning to port and taking a sample of the net, the team regrouped to prepare for day two and their travels to Ajdovscina, Slovenia. Upon arrival at the waste treatment center in Ajdovscina, the group was greet by a familiar face in the form of Aquafil president and CEO Giulio Bonazzi. Serving as tour guide, Bonazzi showed the team around the facility explaining how waste is prepared for regeneration and what other kind of waste go into the process along with Healthy Seas’s fishing nets.

The last day of filming was dedicated the ECONYL® Regeneration System in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Here a sample of the net recovered from the first day’s dive was tested in the chemical laboratory to see if it was Nylon 6 and suitable for regeneration. The Earthrise crew filmed the entire process of regeneration, from depolymerization to the production of yarn used for sustainable consumer products.

Examples of consumer products, such as carpet tile collections from Desso and Interface, Koru swimwear and socks manufactured by Star Sock and Kaufland, were shown on camera to bring the waste to wear journey full circle.

The TV crew was very enthusiastic about the journey and intrigued by the process of regeneration, the quantity of nets Aquafil recovers on a global scale and other waste materials that is recovered to be regenerated.

The segment will be approximately 10 minutes long and also available online at the same time as broadcast on Al Jazeera International.

THE REPORTAGE IS NOW ONLINE!