prada chronicles stories of sustainability in docu-series with national geographic

in june 2019, prada announced its commitment to using only recycled nylon by 2021. spanning five continents via land and sea, its ground-breaking re-nylon sustainability initiative leads the way for a cyclical, renewable supply chain, using sustainable, regenerated ECONYL® nylon from discarded materials and products.

to narrate this complex processes and its intriguing backstory, prada has partnered with national geographic to create a series of branded content short films dubbed what we carry, featuring prada reporters, global activists and national geographic explorers.

in the second episode of prada’s what we carry series, the camera follows south sudanese-autralian model and prada reporter adut akech bior and joe cutler, national geographic explorer and freshwater conservationist, as they travel to lake ossa in cameroon. during their journey, they speak with local experts while observing another side of the prada re-nylon supply chain. the soundtrack is built around a live vocal recording of the president of one of the local community banks in lake ossa.

with a surface area exceeding 4,000 hectares, lake ossa is one of cameroon’s largest lakes and a natural habitat for a multitude of species. while it provides livelihood for its surrounding communities, it has also been known as the place where finishing nets are discarded, clogging the ecosystems, proving fatal to plants and wildlife.

to counteract this, neighbouring communities are working with net-works, a project supported by the zoological society of london to retrieve the nets from the lake. over six tonnes of nets have been collected and re-sold, generating a new revenue stream that benefits the local community. the nets, together with other waste, are then recycled, de-polymerised and transformed into ECONYL®, a regenerated nylon made by aquafil, and used by to weave prada’s regenerated nylon fabric that result in the company’s re-nylon capsule collection.