From sea to seat: transport’s first recycled marine plastic fabrics
Camira has introduced the transport sector’s first interior fabrics made from marine plastic waste. Launching on United Nations’ World Environment Day on 5 June 2025, the new SEAQUAL® Collection is crafted from plastic bottles recovered from oceans, rivers, and beaches.
World Environment Day
An estimated 14 million tonnes of plastic enter the ocean every year, and without urgent intervention, it’s projected there could be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050.
World Environment Day, led by the United Nations Environment Programme, acts as a global platform to raise awareness and inspire action for the environment, with this year’s focus dedicated to ending plastic pollution.
In partnership with the global SEAQUAL INITIATIVE, each metre of Camira’s SEAQUAL Collection, which features two flat-woven fabrics Oceanic and Quest, contains up to 35 plastic bottles. A fully upholstered coach interior diverts as many as 2,435 bottles from marine ecosystems.
For bus and coach interiors
Head of Creative – Transport at Camira, Ciara Crossan commented: “We’re transforming one of the world’s most resilient waste materials into a fabric as fluid as the waves that inspired it. Already used in automotive and commercial interiors, now for the very first time recycled SEAQUAL fabrics are available for bus and coach interiors from Camira. The SEAQUAL Collection offers operators a greener textile solution—without compromising on performance or style.”
Oceanic, one half of the collection, is a multi-tonal fabric featuring a diagonal twill weave that contrasts a light warp with a deeper dyed weft. The other half, Quest, showcases a balanced hopsack weave enhanced by discat-dyed SEAQUAL yarn, creating an understated aesthetic that brings a subtle touch of the ocean’s natural beauty to transport interiors. These flat-woven fabrics are up to 42% lighter in weight than traditional plush wool transport fabrics, without compromising abrasion performance, achieving over 100,000 Martindale cycles.
Ciara continued: “Unlike many recycled fabrics that rely on plastic collected far inland, SEAQUAL targets pollution at its source—plastic already harming marine life. This creates a far greater environmental impact while also supporting vulnerable communities.”
The SEAQUAL INITIATIVE is a global community dedicated to transforming marine plastic into new, high-quality products. Camira’s partnership supports initiatives in Tunisia’s Kerkennah Islands and along the Nile River in Egypt, where local collectors are paid fairly to retrieve and process plastic waste, generating jobs and enabling real social and environmental change.
Both Oceanic and Quest feature Camira’s patent-pending Eco FR technology—a lightweight, halogen-free flame-retardant backing which inhibits burning, forming a protective char to ensure fabrics are safe, strong, and environmentally conscious.
