Meet the Couple Cleaning up Bali's Rubbish through Innovation - 30A

Meet the Couple Cleaning up Bali’s Rubbish through Innovation

Known as the Island of the Gods and one of the top surfing destinations in the world, officials from the Indonesian island of Bali have helplessly declared a Rubbish Emergency, for both land and sea. This global headline has weighed heavily on the hearts of surfers Luise Grossmann and Felix Wunner.

This power couple has created Five Oceans ecoFins, the world’s first, high-quality surf fin made from recycled rubbish from Bali. Yes, you heard right, rubbish!

We caught up with them to find out how they’re shrinking colossal piles of rubbish, one fin at a time.

This idea of turning plastic rubbish into surf fins, when and how did this incredible idea come about?

The idea was born out of our extensive travels while searching for the world’s best waves to surf. Along the way, we’ve been shocked and saddened by the amount of rubbish in the ocean, so we started researching about the topic of ocean pollution.



The more we got lost in the research, something called from within: somebody needs to stop this.

But there was nothing out there at the time. I personally never felt like a huge mover and shaker, but suddenly felt the desire to act. Felix was working on a surfboard fin concept, and we thought this is the ideal product, to involve surfers as role models, promote recycling, and most importantly raise awareness about the issue.

Check out this award-winning documentary summarising their mission: