Odyssey Innovation Limited (OIL) was born out of a passion to rid the seas of plastic pollution. Our Founder and Managing Director Rob Thompson's marine conservation journey started in 2014 when he established a volunteer group called Fathoms Free. Rapidly this group became a movement of divers, artists, photographers, engineers and people from all walks of life eager to take action. The volunteers undertook regular marine plastic retrieval dives, awareness events, ghost gear dive retrievals and beach-cleans.
Rob met Their Royal Highnesses, Prince Charles and Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall during The Ocean Plastics Awareness Day in July 2015, where he signed a Statement of Intent, as a pledge to explore ways to develop a circular economy around marine plastic. Taking this responsibility seriously he started to contemplate what he could create from marine plastic.
The eureka moment came after participating in a litter pick using kayaks, at the end of which all participants stood around a great haul of bin bags to have their photo taken, he had an idea. The knowledge that these bin bags ended up in landfill had always played upon Rob's mind and it occurred to him that he could make the kayaks out of the plastics gathered and then use these kayaks to gather more plastic. Today OIL has moved on to develop more products which champion the circular economy, all of which are made out of marine plastic and cater to various industries such as the fishing industry and water sports/outdoors industry.