After years of Patagonia producing neoprene-free wetsuits made from natural Yulex rubber, Alpkit recycling its wetsuits into new neoprene since 2023, Decathlon recently starting to produce wetsuits made from Yulex100 and Quiksilver just announcing that it is upcycling wetsuits into sunglasses, Australian surf and lifestyle brand Billabong has now introduced Upcycler, its most sustainable wetsuit offering to date. The project has taken years of preparation, says the brand, and represents a world first, combining multiple technologies into a single wetsuit that is now included across the entire product range.
The initiative uses discarded textiles for jerseys and wetsuits and reprocesses discarded wetsuits into raw materials for the inner rubber. In addition, Billabong has made a decisive change by switching all synthetic rubber to an all-natural, FSC-certified rubber formula derived from the Hevea brasiliensis tree.
“At Billabong, we design, build and repair all of our products to be as durable and long-lasting as possible,” said Scott Boot, Global Director of Wetsuits at Liberated Brands, the brand’s core operating partner across North America. “Unfortunately, products eventually do reach a point where they can no longer fulfill their duty, but innovative solutions like upcycling old clothing and wetsuits eliminates the need for new/virgin petroleum fossil fuel derived materials and prevents them from entering landfills.”
Traditionally, wetsuits are still made primarily from neoprene, derived from chloroprene polymerization, and contains about 25 percent carbon black, a petroleum by-product. Billabong’s partnership with Bolder Industries, a Colorado-based manufacturer, processes old neoprene and produces a type of recycled carbon black known as Bolder Black.
