From Ghost Nets to Good Nets

Good Net Project

The Good Net Project is a team effort between FIVB (The Fédération Internationale de Volleyball) and environmental groups, acting as one to remove Ghost Nets from the ocean and give them new life as volleyball nets. The project was launched in March 2019 in Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

To: Make awareness of ghost nets problem
For: FIVB
By: Landor

Problem

Ghost nets are lost, abandoned or discarded fishing nets.

They are the most harmful kind of marine waste: turtles, whales, dolphins — even humans — can become entangled in these traps and slowly die of exhaustion, suffocation or starvation.

Ghost nets can last for centuries, drifting through the oceans while continuing to kill and posing a growing threat to the marine ecosystem.

Around the UK, at least one large sea mammal dies from becoming trapped in a ghost net every week.

Solution

FIVB has teamed up with the Ghost Fishing Foundation, whose collaborators include the Healthy Seas Initiative, World Animal Protection and Greenpeace. Ghost Fishing works with local groups of divers and salvage companies, to successfully remove ghost nets from seas and oceans around the world.

Design

Giving ghost nets new life as volleyball nets is a powerful example of the circular economy that is key to a sustainable future for us all. The Good Net project is already using the traditional techniques used to repair fishing nets in order to upcycle them into volleyball nets. And with ghost nets now being recycling into nylon yarn for widespread use, the next step will be to create new nets from old.

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