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Ghost Nets to Good Nets

The Good Net project is a team effort between FIVB and environmental groups, acting as one to remove ghost nets from the ocean and give them new life as volleyball nets.

Intro gradient
Net pattern

A Marine Conservation Problem

A Marine Conservation Problem

Ghost nets are lost, abandoned or discarded fishing nets.

They are the most harmful kind of marine waste: turtles, whales, dolphins - even humans – can become entangled in these traps and slowly die of exhaustion, suffocation or starvation.

Ghost nets can last for centuries, drifting through the oceans while continuing to kill and posing a growing threat to the marine ecosystem.

Around the UK, at least one large sea mammal dies from becoming trapped in a ghost net every week.

An
average of 70
large whales
become entangled in
ghost nets every year
along the US
west coast

Entanglement
has become the leading
cause of death for whales
in the atlantic
ocean

837 nets
were recovered
in washington with over
32 000 marine animals
trapped inside

Around the us,
at least one large
sea mammal dies from
becoming trapped in
a ghost net
every week

A Plastic Pollution Problem

A Plastic Pollution Problem

By 2050, the plastic in the sea will outweigh the fish. A vast amount of the plastic in our oceans is abandoned fishing gear. Ghost nets are the deadliest kind of plastic waste and 640 000 tons of fishing gear are left in the oceans every year.

At least 46% of the plastic in the Great Pacific garbage patch - a floating gyre three times the size of France made up of plastic - consists of abandoned fishing nets.

Net pattern

Our solution:
Removing ghost nets...

The FIVB has teamed up with the Ghost Diving, whose collaborators include the Healthy Seas Initiative, World Wildlife Protection and Greenpeace. Ghost Diving works with local groups of divers and salvage companies, to successfully remove ghost nets from seas and oceans around the world.

...and
transforming
them into beach volleyball nets.

Giving ghost nets new life as volleyball nets is a powerful example of the circular economy that is key to a sustainable future for us all. The Good Net project is already using the traditional techniques used to repair fishing nets in order to upcycle them into volleyball nets. These transformed ghost nets have already featured as volleyball nets at an array of FIVB events, bringing joy to fans and protecting marine wildlife. And there is still so much more to come!

The Good Net journey.

The Good Net project was launched in March 2019 in Copacabana, Brazil. For the first time, disused fishing nets (ghost nets) were given a new lease of life and repurposed into volleyball nets. These nets were then welcome by renowned volleyball champions and fans alike at FIVB events across the globe in 2019.
Why Copacabana? Well, as the home of beach volleyball, the most recent beach volleyball Olympic venue and a commercial fishing community, there was no place more suited to be the home of this marine sustainability initiative.

Here is the list past and future events supporting this project:

2019 March Copacabana, Brazil Good net is launched
July 5-6th Hamburg, Germany Beach Volleyball World Championships
2020    
September 4th Rome, Italy BVB World Tour Finals
July 6th Den Haag, The Netherlands SBVC Mega Beach
More to come soon!
* With the postponement and cancellation of FIVB events due to the global coronavirus pandemic, all of the activations have been put on hold. However, the need to protect our environment by removing ghost nets from the ocean and promoting marine sustainability has not been postponed. the Good Net team are continuing to plan many future activations to help humanity protect our oceans in the post-coronavirus world.

Sustainability.sport

Goodnet is recognised by and included on Sustainability.sport. This is a free online platform dedicated to sport and sustainability. Created to collate sport’s efforts in sustainability onto one single platform, this portal features a vast array of resources to inform, educate and inspire.

Good Net awards.

The Good Net project has won several awards:

Volleyball

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