Nofir and the cleaning of fishing nets

When we recover ghost nets with Healthy Seas and Ghost Diving, we are not looking for the colorful and beautiful nets that you know from our products. Because they are still dirty and overgrown with algae! Only when our partner Nofir has cleaned them using an environmentally friendly process do they shine again in their many colors and invite you to use them for new purposes.

We introduce our partners: Part 3

If we Healthy Seas and Ghost Diving ghost nets We don't look for the colorful and beautiful nets that you know from our products. They are still dirty and overgrown with algae! Only when our partner Nofir has cleaned them using an environmentally friendly process and freed them of their ghosts do they shine again in their many colors and invite you to use them for new purposes. Nofir makes an indispensable contribution in the fight against ghost nets and in this article we want to tell you more about their work. At the end we will also introduce you to a new Bracenet, so stay tuned!

Who is Nofir?

Nofir AS is a leading company in the collection and processing of old equipment from fisheries and fish farms worldwide. The company has built an international network to create new value from old equipment while combating a threat to the seas and marine animals.

Nofir was founded in Norway in 2008, originally to set up a nationwide system for the collection and processing of no longer used fishing equipment: Nofir collects the equipment from the fisheries and prepares it for recycling. This step was urgently needed, because in Norway alone 15,000 tons of fishing equipment were thrown away every year without any real access to environmentally friendly disposal routes.

Since 2012, Nofir has been supported by the Eco Innovation Scheme European Union to expand its system across Europe. Nofir is also taking on the Healthy Seas and Ghost Diving recovered nets and cleans them so that we can handcraft them Bracenets , dog leashes and more. Nofir has now collected old equipment from fisheries on five continents (Europe, Africa, Asia, America and Antarctica), but is mainly active in Europe.

The work of Nofir in detail

What is Nofir's mission?

Old fishing equipment is often lost at sea or taken to landfills. It is usually expensive to recycle it - because conventional waste management is overwhelmed by fishing nets that weigh up to 50 tons! This in turn gives the fishing industry good (at least economic) reasons to dispose of the nets illegally at sea or to incinerate them (you can find out more about this here here ).

Nofir was founded to put an end to this dilemma. Fishing companies should be given an incentive to dispose of their equipment in an environmentally friendly way, i.e. to recycle it and return its material to the product cycle. Nofir's motto sums up their mission: “Bringing value to marine waste” .

How exactly does Nofir's work work?

Nofir's system provides a simple channel for disposing of used fishing equipment. After being collected by Nofir, the nets are taken to Nofir's factories in Lithuania and Turkey where they are prepared for recycling. At the Turkish factory, they are cleaned using only water and the dirty water is then filtered so that not a drop is wasted. That's why we work so closely with Nofir: because there is hardly a more environmentally friendly and efficient way to clean the ghost nets.

The cleaned equipment is then dismantled into its individual parts and sorted by material. The nets and ropes made of nylon, polypropylene and polyethylene as well as the other components made of steel and lead are passed on to selected, specialized partners for recycling. This means that the nets are completely processed and the recycled products are of better quality because no materials are mixed. Nofir lives up to its motto and creates new value from waste - while preventing new ghost nets from ending up in the oceans.

Nofir hands over most of the cleaned ghost nets to the Aquafil recycling factory. Here, nylon nets are shredded together with textile production waste such as carpet remnants to form what is known as “fluff” and then processed into ECONYL®, a clear nylon yarn that is in no way inferior to nylon made from new raw materials. This is used to make new textile products such as carpets and swimwear. Of course, some of the nets also go to us - but more on that later!

The success

From 2011 to 2018 alone, Nofir collected, cleaned and prepared over 40,000 tons of old fishing gear for further processing. According to Nofir LCA, without Nofir, only 20% of the gear would normally have been recycled, 35% would have ended up as ghost nets in the sea and 45% would have ended up in landfills. But through Nofir's system, a strong 80% was recycled and the remaining 20% ​​was processed elsewhere - for example by us!

With over 40,000 tons of recycled fishing gear, Nofir has made a special contribution to environmental and resource protection. Compared to the production of new materials, Nofir has saved 70,700 tons of oil and ensured that 149,000 tons less CO2 ended up in the atmosphere. To put it more figuratively, between 2011 and 2020, Nofir helped to save the equivalent CO2 emissions of 9,500 fully booked Airbus A319 flights from Oslo TRF to London LTN.

Our collaboration with Nofir

You're probably asking yourself: where do we come in? After all, we don't recycle ghost nets and end-of-life nets, but process them in their original form through upcycling. That's why we always visit Nofir before the nets are sent for recycling and select those on site that are still in good condition. That's not all of them - many nets have been stuck on the rough seabed or wrecks for so long that they are completely worn down.

The nets we select are mostly made of HDPE ( high density poly e thylene), as they are well suited for daily use and can give us pleasure for many years to come. After each visit we have a large selection of nets available - so we can develop many new product variants for you. In our Ecofuencer video we tell you more about the criteria we use to select the networks.

Once we have made our selection, we only have to bring the nets to Germany. To do this, we wait until a transporter with empty spaces is heading our way anyway and book the free space for our nets. This way we transport the nets in the most environmentally friendly way possible.

We say “Thank you, Nofir” – with the Arctic Ocean Bracenet !

BRACENET would not be possible without Nofir. That is why we want to thank them from the bottom of our hearts for their great work: with a special Bracenet edition, the Arctic Ocean ! With its strong blue, it reminds us of the beautiful fjords of Norway and therefore of Nofir's origins. The Bracenet also comes with a bayonet closure and sits particularly securely on the wrist.

How can I find out more?

To learn more about Nofir, visit her Website ! On this website you can also learn more about Nofir's positive contribution to the environment through recycling. Here you will find more information about the success of the Eco Innovation Initiative the EU with Nofir.

You may also be interested in the other topics of our blog: for example 5 things you should know about ghost nets. In addition to Nofir, we also have our partners Healthy Seas , Ghost Diving and that Lebenshilfewerk Neumünster We publish new posts regularly, so please check back soon!

Are you part of a fishery that would like to hand in your old equipment for recycling? Then please contact Nofir directly, you can find their contact details on their Home .