Oris X Bracenet Collaboration Raises Environmental Awareness
Introducing the Oris X Bracenet and our new collaboration with the social enterprise Bracenet, which upcycles ‘ghost’ fishing nets into accessories.
Ocean plastic statistics make difficult reading. For example, scientists believe the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), an area of plastic waste drifting between Hawaii and California, is four-and-a-half times the size of Germany.
That figure was calculated by the environmental engineering organization The Ocean Cleanup, which also estimates that 46 percent of the GPGP is made up of fishing nets that have been lost or discarded. This is particularly serious because while they may no longer be in use, these ‘ghost’ fishing nets still catch and kill marine life as they hover in the water.
Experts estimate that up to a million tons of fishing nets enter the oceans every year, and that a ghost net will keep fishing for 400-600 years.
It’s only recently that awareness of ghost nets has begun to rise, thanks to the vision and efforts of people like Benjamin Wenke and Madeleine von Hohenthal, founders of our new partner, the social enterprise Bracenet.
They became aware of this grim phenomenon while diving off the coast of Tanzania in 2015 and determined to do something about it. They began making bracelets out of upcycled ghost nets, and Bracenet was born. Today, the company makes a catalogue of products and accessories that transform this potentially life-threatening waste product into something beautiful that also makes a statement: change must come.
Now, we’re very proud to introduce the Oris X Bracenet, a special-edition version of the Aquis Date diver’s watch with a spectacular dial made of recycled ghost and end-of-life nets.
Making these kaleidoscopic dials involves taking small green, blue and white offcuts and gently warming them until they melt into the raw material. As they cool, they harden into a thin sheet of material. This is then cut to size, planed, and sanded down until it’s just 0.3mm thick. The material contains no additives, fillers or glues. No two dials are the same.
There’ll be two stainless steel versions of the watch, one with a 43.5mm case and a second with a 36.5mm case. Both have automatic mechanical movements and uni-directional rotating bezels, and are water-resistant to 300 meters. More importantly, both are symbols of the change we want to see.
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