THE WASTE STREAM 

Issue No. 2: Every SUPcycler™, an Ambassador for the Sea

SUPcycled™ Prints Speak for the Seas

Written by Tu Tiki founder Tatiana Heckles

I live on an island; its shores are a stone’s throw from my door. I can see the ocean glistening from my desk. Daily, I go to peek into the lives of tide pool creatures, to pet sea slugs, to swim out and wait for the Jeju dolphins. I go to watch the Haenyeo work. Sometimes I go just to float around and look. I sun-soak on its sandy shores and run my dogs there.

Living beside the ocean this long changes the way you see it.

Wearing swimwear and sun-protective ocean apparel almost daily myself, my wet wardrobe reflected the ocean imagery common throughout the industry: ethereal jellyfish, the glowing constellations of a whale shark’s spots, the glimmering scales of parrotfish, and dreamy underwater worlds. Ocean-inspired swimwear celebrates the wonder and beauty of marine life.

And rightfully so. The ocean is extraordinary.

But after spending years by the ocean — swimming, exploring tide pools, cleaning its beaches of trash — I began to feel the sea was asking for its Anthropocene patterns to be acknowledged alongside its beauty.

So I decided to speak for the seas.

I created a new kind of ocean-inspired print pattern — designs shaped not by marine beauty, but by the plastic trash of our era. These prints communicate the realities of the modern ocean while turning every wearer into an ambassador for the sea.

My SUPcycled™ prints invite curiosity. From a distance they appear colorful and abstract, but up close people begin to recognize bottle caps, plastic utensils, take-out containers, and other objects repeatedly found during beach cleanups. The clothing becomes a conversation starter — an opportunity to speak about oceans not only as places of extraordinary beauty, but as environments increasingly shaped by human consumption.

Tu Tiki SUPcycled™ is not about fashion trends.

It is about using wearable design to raise awareness and create conversation around what is happening to the environments we still deeply love. The apparel itself is made from SUPcycled™ recycled plastic materials recovered from the waste stream. The fabric and the imagery tell the same story from different directions.

I think many environmental conversations unintentionally present nature as something distant, pristine, and untouched. But that is not the reality many of us experience anymore.

The ocean I swim in is still breathtakingly beautiful. It still contains Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, octopus hiding among volcanic rocks, electric-blue speckled nudibranchs tucked into tide pools, sea slugs grazing in algae beds, and schools of silvery mackerel and damselfish shimmering through the waters. It also carries the waste of human consumption.

Tu Tiki is not a guilt-driven brand. Tu Tiki is observational. Honest. Colorful. Alive. A company created by someone who spends her days in the environments she is talking about.

I wanted to create clothing that acknowledged what the ocean has become while still insisting it is worth loving, protecting, swimming in, and paying attention to.

Because despite everything, there are still many days where our pods of endangered Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins surface offshore.  Many are recognizable by the unique markings on their dorsal fins, known individually by the researchers and conservationists who have spent years documenting and protecting them. They still move through these volcanic waters alongside the Haenyeo.

And that still feels worth fighting for.

 Haenyeo & Dolphins: A Morning in the Waters of Jeju Island