Draft:Sjoerd Fauser

Sjoerd Fauser is the founder and CEO of sustainable materials engineering group Archwey.

After reading an article about illegal logging, Fauser decided to manufacture wooden clothing hangers from sustainably-sourced wood that was certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Fauser and his team also spent 18 months developing an alternative to single-use plastic hangers, which some describe as "the plastic straws of the clothing industry." Fauser estimates that 128 billion plastic hangers are used worldwide every year, and most of them end up being thrown away. Once in landfill, they can take 1000 years to decompose.

While researching marine plastic pollution, Fauser realised that the plastic that clogs up the world's oceans and rivers could be repurposed and recycled to form a new material. He trademarked this material as BLUEWAVE® in 2019.

Most of the plastic that is used to make Bluewave comes from the Yangtze River, the Hai River, the Pearl River and the Yellow River, in China.

Arch & Hook's Bluewave hangers have since been used by fashion brands including Roland Mouret, Nike and Levi Strauss & Co. , shops such as Harrods and at events including London Fashion Week. . The material used to make Arch & Hook hangers is 80% recyclable.

In July 2022, Fauser launched PlasticBean, which supplies recycled plastic pellets for manufacturing, as well as a holding group for the companies, called Archwey.

Archwey has converted more than 32,500 tonnes of plastic waste from four of the world's most polluted rivers into usable plastic.

Archwey’s headquarters are in Singapore because “Asia has been the end destination for plastic waste for decades, and nobody has done anything about it,” said Fauser’s colleague, Allen Lim in an interview with Singapore Business Review in 2022.