Plastic Negative

Our goal at Youswim is to create swimwear that looks after you by adapting to fit your changing body, but it’s important that this isn’t at the cost of the environment. To reduce our plastic footprint, we already use entirely plastic-free packaging — but our swimsuits still require the use of plastics like nylon.

We knew we wanted to offset this plastic use by removing as much plastic waste from nature as we use in our swimsuits, but have chosen to do more by becoming plastic negative with rePurpose Global.

Our certification ensures that for every ounce of plastic used in our swimsuits, we collect twice as much in the form of nature-bound plastic waste. Through rePurpose Global, we’ll support Project Anant Pranay; a women-owned nonprofit focused on removing plastic waste that would have ended up in nature. Our contributions enable the project to finance the safe recovery of plastic that would have otherwise been dumped in overflowing and hazardous landfills, then ethically disposing of it through co-processing.

Co-processing is a low emission waste-to-energy process that replaces coal with plastic waste. The collected plastics are co-processed in a kiln at a controlled temperature where they emit the least amount of emissions into the atmosphere, replacing fossil fuels like coal as an energy source in producing fresh cement. This disposes of unrecyclable plastic waste without sending it to landfills and reduces the dependence on non-renewable resources in the cement manufacturing process, in turn reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Until our swimsuits can be made as plastic-free as our packaging, we’ll offset our plastic footprint by contributing a portion of our sales to vetted impact programs through rePurpose.