Benthos Buttons: The most sustainable and ethical garment button available

At Benthos Buttons we use ethically sourced, reclaimed Marine Nylon plastic to produce sustainable fashion garment components.

Even some of the most sustainably conscious clothing brands, known for choosing ethically sourced cottons and linens, often make the mistake of choosing virgin plastic buttons. Unfortunately, virgin plastic buttons can cost as little as £0.04 per button, making it an easy choice from a value perspective yet they are so environmentally damaging, and seriously unethical. Around 25 million virgin plastic buttons are being produced annually. This product alone makes up for nearly 50,000 tonnes of virgin plastic being produced each year. Production of the material alone produces nearly half a million tonnes of CO2 each year, not to mention the emissions of transporting the goods from China to locations around the globe.

The Marine Nylon® has a 97% less environmental impact in comparison to virgin nylon. This means Benthos Buttons can produce 46 buttons before we hit the same environmental impact of 1 virgin nylon button, and that is just the manufacturing process alone.

The name Benthos Buttons derives from the meaning “Benthos”, which is the community of organisms that live on, in, or near the seabed - This is where the fishing nets we use could be situated, causing harm to marine life. The name and the products themselves are a constant reminder of the damage we are doing to our ecosystems through disregarding our waste to the ocean, and how we can instead benefit from that waste. The Marine Nylon® can be continuously recycled, making it a very circular product.

The material recycling and production is carried out In Newlyn, Cornwall, and the production of the buttons is carried out in Truro, Cornwall. The entire production line, from the disregarded fishing nets, to a button ready for garments is conducted entirely in Cornwall (All within 20 miles). We produce our buttons to order so that there is no waste during production and, as a result, we can offer custom button specifications for different brands rather than an off the shelf product.

Benthos Buttons have plans to grow as a business and become a widely known symbol of understanding within the clothing industry and consumers. Due to the nature of the material, and the button as a product, the buttons are very recognisable and unique with their own distinguishable colour. The idea of wearing buttons that once served a very different purpose in the world is fascinating, and with hope, this little solution will generate more innovative solutions to our vast ocean pollution problem.

Read more about Benthos Buttons on the brandpage: fashionunited.com/companies/benthos-buttons