Our good friends Rapanui have recently been discussing the circular economy with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation which got us thinking about our sail recycling programme.

Regular readers will know our ambitions to be able to shred unusable sails and sell this back to manufacturing, but why not push that even further and say that a sail could be wholly reused without the need to produce new material ever again.   A tall order?  I read recently from another entrepreneur that ‘great athletes set impossible goals and achieve so much by getting half way there…’  (Gil Penchina in Wired).  Well, for one I don’t think it is impossible, but yes it is a big challenge and I am due to speak to the Foundation about how we can make this happen.

We have touched upon the cradle to cradle approach for sail manufacturing before and at the recycling end we believe we can shred sails and sailcloth to a material that is acceptable for use back into manufacturing.  The challenge is making sails from material that can be wholly recycled back into the making of a new sail.

The Island is alive with such forward thinking and we hope to play our part by being the first sail recyclers on the planet!