Why use(d) rope?

Lobster fishing rope, called pot warp, is designed to handle year-round abuse.  It's used to repeatedly pull up hundreds of pounds of lobstering gear from the ocean's depths.  After many years of hard work the plastic material it's made from weakens from its original strength. Lobstermen replace the old rope to avoid losing the more valuable gear it interconnects.  When no longer used for fishing and with limited disposal options the rope often collects along our coastal communities.

In 2009 and 2014 our local lobstermen had to severely restrict their use of the aptly named float rope because endangered right whales were thought to get entangled in the rope floating between their traps on the sea floor.  A buyback program was introduced in 2009 to collect the float rope. The rule changes resulted in almost 30,000 miles of float rope being removed from the ocean.  However, much of the rope just ended up littering the land.  A few pioneering people started a cottage industry of re-purposing the rope into doormats.  We obtained the remains (about 12 tons) of one of those piles as our base stock.

We have two types of poly float rope, the brighter colored and more firm pure polypropylene, and the softer more muted tones of poly blends. Both are very usable indoor and outdoors, but we recommend the softer rope mats for indoor use where it comes in contact with wood floors and bare feet. The more firm and coarse rope mats stand up to weather and shed water faster so are best for outdoor use.

All our upcycled lobster rope products can be safely cleaned with a hose or pressure washer. The rope is made from plastic, and will not bleed, stain or run.