We're Supporting Seaweed

image credit Nick Pope @nickpopemedia

When you’re sitting on the beach, sand (or pebbles) between your toes, squinting out in the sunlight to the horizon it’s easy to get lost in the grand picture and forget about all the little things that make the beach what it is. We say this because we all love the coast here at Secret Linen Store.  Sisters Molly and Harriet grew up only a stones throw away in sunny Selsey and spent many an afternoon swimming in the sea. We are all dotted along the south coast and many of us grew up here too, but it wasn’t until we started digging into the very best way to do good for our planet that we realised we’d been overlooking a simple seabed superhero, seaweed.

Molly has always loved seaweed and all the beautiful shapes and sizes of it inspire her for patterns and design, but we were so excited to learn all about the impact the kelp beds just off the coast have too. The stringy, slippery seaweed in kelp beds can absorb as much as 20 times more CO2 from the atmosphere as the exact same area of forest on land… wow. Not only that but kelp beds in the UK are home to thousands of different species, help to maintain stability in the sediment and can even reduce the impact of waves.

The kelp beds of the south coast used to stretch all the way from Selsey to Brighton, but sadly a shocking 97% of this has been lost and that’s why we want to help. On our travels around all things green and kelpy, we found a shiny gem of a project called the Sussex Seabed Restoration Project.

Founded by Steve Allnutt, the Sussex Seabed Restoration Project is working hard to protect the inshore seabed and restore the lost kelp all along the south coast. From transplanting kelp to growing it in his garage, Steve is working super hard to bring back the seaweed and we’re excited to follow along with his progress.

We chose to support this project as our local charity and were delighted to help with several donations over the last couple of years.  You can help the kelp too and support their crowdfunding page here.

If you’d like to learn even more about the Sussex Seabed Restoration Project and follow along with their updates, you can check them out here.