Microplastics
Recycling Microfibres to Power the Clean Battery Future.
At Cleaner Seas Group, we’ve always believed that tackling ocean pollution and advancing clean technology...
4 min read
After years of planning, problem-solving and a fair bit of Cornish grit, we’ve finally done it. On 12 June 2025, we opened the doors to our new Cleaner Seas Group® Headquarters and with it, the world’s first Microfibre recycling facility.
It’s been a long journey to get here, but this milestone feels like a turning point not just for us, but for everyone who cares about protecting the ocean.
Why We Built It
If you’ve ever washed a fleece, yoga leggings or a favourite bedsheets, you’ve probably released thousands of microscopic fibres into the water without even realising it. These fibres don’t just disappear — they make their way through drains, into rivers, and eventually the sea.
Laundry wastewater is now known to be the largest single source of primary microplastic pollution in our oceans. It’s one of those hidden problems that’s easy to ignore, right up until you can’t.
We’ve always believed there’s a better way. So, we decided to build one.
What Happens Inside
Our new facility brings everything together under one roof:
- HQ and Filter Hub is home to our expanding domestic, commercial and industrial filter range, providing a scalable manufacturing base for increasing the fight against microplastic pollution.
- Return + Recycle Centre is where all full filter cartridges are returned, opened and microfibres retrieved and made ready for recycling. The recycling of the microfibres is through a new pioneering process that has zero emissions, powered by sun and cooled by rainwater harvesting. None of the microfibres end up in landfill. This is super important. The microfibres are recycled into new sustainable materials that are made available to our partners. The cartridge casings are washed and rebuilt by our engineers and designed to be made available to our customers under subscription
- The Microfibre Recycling Lab takes things a step further. Here, our engineers and PhD scientists collaborate with our partner and customer base to deliver new sustainable materials that support their operations and meet their sustainability goals.
The current facility recycles up to 86 tonnes of microfibres each year, stopping them from ever reaching the ocean.
Simple idea. Big impact. A circular economy in action.
Why Cornwall?
We never considered being anywhere else. Cornwall is part of who we are, it’s where the idea for Cleaner Seas was born, and it’s where we’re proud to keep investing.
Thanks to funding from the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Good Growth Programme, supported by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, we’ve been able to turn a big idea into something real.
It’s more than just an environmental win. The new HQ also creates skilled green jobs and keeps innovation rooted in our local community, proof that global change can start in Cornwall.
What’s Next
We’re only just getting started. This new facility gives us the space and tools to keep pushing forward, testing new materials, building more partnerships and developing bigger industrial systems for global use.
Whether you’re running a hotel, managing a laundry service or just trying to make your home more sustainable, you can be part of this.
By filtering, returning and recycling, we can all play a role in keeping microplastic out of the sea.
