A partnership for ocean preservation

The GUYOT environnement - Team Europe is proud to announce its partnership with Archwey as its Official Waste Circularity Partner © Charles Drapeau

Maybe it is obligation, maybe necessity - for Benjamin Dutreux and his crew of GUYOT environnement - Team Europe it is more than that. It is a matter of the heart: the protection of the environment and especially the oceans.

The team for The Ocean Race is not only sailing in the world race under the name of its French partner, the recycling company GUYOT environnement. Benjamin Dutreux has also been an ambassador for the non-profit organization Water family since 2018, which has made it its mission to educate the sustainable use of water as a resource. And already at The Ocean Race Europe, the team got involved with Relay4Nature.

The fragile balance of the oceans is obvious to any sailor who has sailed around the world like Benjamin Dutreux or Annie Lush. It is therefore a great pleasure for the team to announce today its partnership with Archwey as its Official Waste Circularity Partner. The Singapore-based company aims to end the world's reliance on fossil fuel-based virgin plastic and help create a circular economy, driving decarbonisation through recycling. Archwey takes ocean-bound plastic from some of the world's most polluted rivers and recycles it into BLUEWAVE®, a material that can be used to make countless new products.

"It is a great adventure to sail across the oceans. But it is also a painful experience to see the destruction of the sea. I am happy to have the opportunity with my partners to raise awareness about the need for protection of this habitat, to raise awareness about the need for conservation of our environment with educational programs for children and adults," says Benjamin Dutreux. "The partnership with Archwey strengthens us even further in these efforts. Archwey's efforts to stop the use of fossil fuel-based virgin plastic and instead use recycled and recyclable alternatives is completely in line with our ideas."

Annie Lush also had to directly experience the pollution of the oceans on her circumnavigations and still has the striking images in mind: "There is a video clip from my first Volvo Ocean Race with the 'SCA': the onboard reporter pointed the camera at the water, and there was garbage floating on every square meter of the ocean surface. It was really sad to see that. We weren't near land, but the ocean was full of rubbish. When you're out there, you realize that the scale of the problem is huge. We need to do everything we can and fundamentally change how we treat the ocean and how we operate before it's too late! It's great to have Archwey as a partner for the team, dedicated to doing just that."

Archwey is the Official Plastic-Free Ocean Partner of The Ocean Race and now Archwey is extending this collaboration to a partnership with GUYOT environnement - Team Europe as part of its wider commitment to inspire action to end plastic pollution.

"There's not a minute to lose in the race to save our oceans, and we know how to win," says Sjoerd Fauser, CEO of Archwey, "By removing plastic waste from our waters and recycling it into new products using our BLUEWAVE® programme, we can improve the health of our oceans and help prevent further harm to our planet. We want to reshape the world's building blocks and combining our knowledge and solutions with the expertise of GUYOT environnement - Team Europe is an important part of this mission. We look forward to accompanying the team on the race around the world. For us, this will be a race to save the oceans."