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PADUA, Italy—Safilo Group has announced the first eyewear product made from recycled plastic especially made for The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch nonprofit environmental organization that develops advanced technologies to extract plastic pollution from the oceans. The Ocean Cleanup Sunglasses are made with injected plastic that is derived from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), and created using an innovative upcycling process that includes types of plastics which have traditionally been more difficult to recycle. Each pair of these limited-edition sunglasses will carry a unique QR code that directly connects the user to information about the product, the project and the specific place from where the marine plastic pollution was removed. Each pair of sunglasses is estimated to enable cleaning an equivalent of 24 football fields worth of the GPGP—when every pair of frames from the first batch is claimed, this will equate to approximately 500,000 football fields of cleanup.



The sunglasses will be available exclusively on The Ocean Cleanup website, and 100 percent of the proceeds will go toward the continuation of the cleanup mission.

Angelo Trocchia, CEO of Safilo Group said, “I am very proud of this new project which we have developed in conjunction with The Ocean Cleanup. More than a year ago, Boyan called us and explained the project he had in mind, and we felt honored to be part of this mission to give a second life to the plastic collected from the ocean.

"Our design team worked hard to combine our long history of eyewear manufacturing with material innovations to ensure the high quality, stylistic content and uniqueness of this final product. Our investment in using recycled materials is aligned with our continued efforts toward promoting a responsible business and is part of Safilo’s commitment to People, Product and Planet.”

Boyan Slat, founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup said, “We are happy to have joined forces with Safilo, one of the top global eyewear companies, for the creation of our first product made from the trash we collected in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s important that we team up with reliable brands, so I’m happy to see them added as another reputable name on our list of most valued partners.

"The partnership with Safilo proved crucial in transforming the plastic we removed from the ocean into useful, durable products: these beautiful sunglasses. The proceeds from this product will help fund our mission, and we hope they serve as another way to increase global awareness of the urgent need to remove plastic from our aquatic ecosystems,” Slat said.