Our Story
Ecotribo was founded by Tyrone, a devoted and life long surfer from South Africa. Joined by his partner Carrie, they bring their art and design backgrounds to create thoughtful designer products that benefit the ocean.
While traveling in SE Asia in 2014, they joined a group cleaning the beaches of plastic in the Andaman Sea. Sailing to remote islands the traditional Thai boats returned laden bags of plastic. This global volunteer movement is still going strong and is now known as Trash Hero World. We have been on a journey to find positive solutions to ocean plastic pollution using sustainable design ever since.
"A trip to Asia in January 2014, where they discovered a polluted beach littered with ocean plastics, set Ty on his path to finding his purpose in life. "
The next question is: what to do with all the collected plastics? We believe humans need to be more like nature - circular in design. With faith in design and creativity, Ty committed to transforming waste into beauty. Inspiration came from pioneers such as Dave Hakkens at Precious Plastics and Bureo in South America, who had started making items from ocean plastics.
Despite a curiosity-driven diversion into sustainable material design, the polluted beaches are ultimately where we are drawn. 'Ocean Chair' in 2018 was an early experiment in using recycled plastics.
Ecotribo's first product was a plant pot combining fishing net fibers and crushed oyster shells from our favourite local Italian restaurant.
Ecotribo works with several ocean cleaning and recycling initiatives and we are passionate about regenerating our environment. We are committed to using recycled materials and sustainable practices and are always looking for new ways to reduce our environmental impact. If you have any more questions please check out our FAQs or reach out to us
We realise we can be better and understand sustainability is not a destination but a journey. We aim to exemplify how businesses can be profitable and environmentally friendly through thoughtful eco-design. Thanks for joining us on the journey.