For Shore Buddies, Plastic Waste is the Last Straw!

SAN DIEGO— In 2010, Matle Niebelschuetz left his corporate job in Duesseldorf, Germany, and moved to San Diego, where he accidentally founded his company, Shore Buddies.   Shore Buddies are stuffed animals made from recycled plastic bottles. It takes six bottles to make one shore buddy, and by 2021, Shore Buddies have saved over one million plastic bottles from entering the oceans.   Niebelschuetz came across an article from Patagonia featuring one of their outdoor jackets made entirely from recycled soda bottles. After finishing the article and closing his laptop, Niebelschuetz caught sight of a stuffed animal. That’s when the idea came to him to make a stuffed animal out of recycled materials.   “He [Malte] looked locally in San Diego, and eventually stateside for a factory that could make recycled plastic materials,” said Operations Manager Raylee Crawford in an email from Feb. 8. “He was met with many “Nos’” due to it not being done before…until China came along! ‘China has historically had a long history in fabrics. China and India used to be the ones developing new styles of fabric. They were ahead of the curve when reutilizing plastics.'”   The bottles are collected and sorted by recyclable collectors, then cleaned and shredded into plastic flakes....