Ternua transforms abandoned fishing nets, plastic sea garbage, walnut shells and wool waste from sheep native to the Basque Country into technical and sustainable outdoor clothing.

A lot of people recognize the brand by its symbol, the whale tail. It’s a nod to the Basque adventurers who would go to Newfoundland (Ternua in Basque) to hunt whales and live off what those animals gave them. The brand, however, has turned that history on its head and taken the side in defense of the sea mammals, making sustainability and respect for nature some of their core values. Since then, Ternua dresses and equips people with adventurous spirits who have a special feeling for the environment with clothing that protects them while doing outdoor activities and, at the same time, protects nature by using environmentally friendly materials and treatments.

Ternua was a worldwide pioneer in using recycled feathers (ISPO AWARD Gold Winner 2016 for their Terranova and South River jackets with recycled feather filling). And it was one of the first European brands to eliminate toxic substances (PFCs) from its water repellent treatments in 2016. Currently, they recycle numerous materials when they make clothing: cotton, feathers, coffee grounds, fishing nets, PET plastic, plastic sea waste, walnut shells, wool, train carpeting or discarded textiles.

Moving from Waste to Resource

Since 2015, Ternua has also been promoting unique initiatives and circular economy projects with a positive impact on the local environment that aim to be a call to action for local companies and other companies in the industry. Redcycle was the first. Through that project, and thanks to the cooperation of Basque fishing associations, Ternua recovered 12 tons of abandoned fishing nets from the Cantabrian sea and in collaboration with Aquafil converted them into Econyl thread. The brand has used that thread to make urban clothing like the Ride On pants (Outdoor Industry Award 2017) and highly technical garments like the skimo Blackcomb competition ski suit (ISPO Award Gold Winner 2019).

Three years later, they did the Nutcycle project. Through that initiative it collected 500 kg of walnut shells from cider houses in Guipuzcoa. A waste product up until then, the brand transformed the shells into natural ink for their clothing with cooperation from Archroma. Ternua presented Seacycle in 2019. In collaboration with AZTI-Tecnalia, the Basque Government (IHOBE), EKO-REC and Seaqual they found a way to use plastic waste collected by three fishing boats along the Basque coast, mixed with yellow container plastic, to make cloth for t-shirts. The latest project is Artileshell (2020). The initiative conceived by the brand aims to make use of a natural resource that is very important locally, like Latxa sheep’s wool. The material was considered waste, but Ternua has found a new use for it as sustainable and ecological thermal insulation that is very inventive and has a lot of technical properties.

Photos: Ternua