Crazy Arms™ are made from a smooth, cool, ultra-lightweight UPF 50+ fabric, helping protect kids’ arms from dawn to dusk. 

What is UPF?

The ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) rating provides information on how many ultraviolet rays (UV) will pass through a fabric. For example, fabric with a UPF rating of 20 would only allow 1/20th (5%) of UV falling on its surface to pass through it, blocking 95% of UV. Any fabric rated above UPF15 provides minimum protection against UV but UPF50+ is recommended and that is why our Crazy Arms™ are made of UPF50+ rated fabric.

UPF Classifications AS/NZS 4399:2017:

Source: Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency April 2008

Recycling ghost fishing nets

Our fabric is made from Econyl®, a regenerated nylon coming from ghost fishing nets and other nylon waste. These nets, near invisible in the ocean light, can be left tangled on reefs or drifting in the open ocean harming fish, marine animals, and bird life.

Every year, around 640,000 tonnes of fishing gear is lost or discarded in our seas and oceans (source: Al Jazeera – Earth Rise, “Fish Net Fashion”, May 2015). The gear traps, injures, mutilates and even kills hundreds of thousands of sea animals. Abandoned fish nets, known as ‘ghost nets’, are usually lost in storms, snagged on reefs or even tangled when boats operate in crowded waters.

But one organisation, the Healthy Seas Initiative has given these nets a second life. They work with local fishermen to retrieve the nets and instead of just sending them to landfill, they partner with a textiles company who use them to produce a recycled nylon, called Econyl®. This recycled material is then used to make a number of products from carpets to swimwear to our very own Crazy Arms™ sun protective sleeves.

The bulk of the Pacific Ocean ‘garbage patch’ is made of these ghost nets - Crazy Arms™ wants to do its bit and in the process, help educate our kids to care for their environment, while staying safe in the sun.

Econyl® has developed a regeneration system that has been created through an innovative and sustainable way. The yarn is made from regenerated Nylon 6 waste that is collected all over the world and sent to the Econyl® waste treatment centre. The cleaned nylon waste is shredded, compacted, bagged and transported to The Econyl® Depolymerization Plant, where it goes through a radically new purification process. It then goes through the Econyl® Polymerization Plant, where Polymerization transforms the regenerated raw material into Nylon 6 polymers. The Nylon 6 Polymers are then transformed into textile yarn. The Econyl® yarn can be regenerated over and over for an infinite number of times without any loss in quality. 

Reducing chemicals

In addition, popular sunscreens can contain harmful chemicals such as oxybenzone and octinoxate, which leak into the ocean, bleaching already fragile coral reefs.

This resulted in a ban in Hawaii in May of this year, with the Queensland government considering a similar move to protect the Barrier Reef. CrazyArms reduce our children's and the environments’ exposure to these chemicals. And while we endorse the use of sunscreens, we are still keen to reduce – where possible, the number of chemicals that our kids might be absorbing through their skin or that flow back into waterways.