East Coast Wetsuit Recycle Project

Get to know more about the East Coast Wetsuit Recycle Program

Based in Cocoa Beach, Florida, I started the project way back 1981 and now being revived.

I started making pads for my bicycle gloves for my butt pad.

Before that I made a chest pad to keep warm in extreme skiing conditions. It doubled as a cushion for my pre- walkman which was a portable player that weighed a few pounds and was a block of metal hanging around your neck as you zipped through snow with music blaring in your headphones.

I am the person that spent 1996 to 2000 setting up a beach cleanup with each mayor along the beach in Brevard county . I walked the beaches for four hours on Sunday’s only with Keep Brevard Beautiful.

I was escorted before serving out a sentence calling for community service.

I put together a research study with the help of Marine Science Research Institute.

I led a sincere group of volunteers and these caring citizens collected and measured the trash on the beach for the same mile once a week for a year. Each person or couple had a different mile spread across the 80 miles of Brevard County. 80 miles with no beach cleanup and no trash removal.

At the Annual Finance Meeting with the tourist board, it was decided that “Keep Brevard Beautiful” would expand what they are doing.

Further discussions led to the innovative method that I developed. One person on a four wheeler, once a day. Sounds simple. Every mayor fought the idea.

During those same years, I received training to plant mangroves. A plant vital for Florida shorelines.

It was clearly necessary to restore the terribly depleted shorelines everywhere in the area. I taught the first volunteers who went on and taught others and together a shoreline restoration was accomplished in Brevard county’s rivers and estuaries. – Sam Barber

How the East Coast Wetsuit Recycle Program Works?

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We collect your wetsuits from our dropoff locations.

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We recycle and create new products out of the donated wetsuits.

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