Episode #37
EP #37: Jasper Eales - The Upcycled Human | Perfect Imperfection | Why Waste Is a Design Problem
Jasper Eales calls himself "a living upcycled human." Diagnosed with Crohn's disease and Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis as a teenager, he underwent a liver transplant in his twenties after a ten-month wait for a donor match. That experience reshaped everything: his relationship with time, with risk, and with the idea that something broken or discarded can be rebuilt into something better. A consulting project put a pile of retired yacht sails in front of him, and in 2015 he and fellow surfer Mike Schlebach co-founded Sealand Gear ,handcrafting bags and apparel from upcycled sails, Bedouin stretch tents, and advertising banners. They launched at The Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock. A decade later, Sealand has upcycled over 105 tonnes of material from landfill, holds B Corp certification, and is a member of 1% For The Planet. The brand has been featured in MR PORTER, Design Indaba, and Men's Health South Africa, and won awards including the 2019 Twyg Sustainable Fashion Award and the 2024 V&A Waterfront Our Better Nature Sustainability Award. Behind the product sits the Protect Our Paths Foundation, co-founded by Sealand and Skybound Capital, which employs previously unemployed custodians to clean shared natural spaces across Cape Town, inspired by a man named Keith Kleans who was already keeping Saunders Beach clean on his own. In this episode, Jasper and Aaron explore: The transplant and what came after: what it means to receive an organ from another life, to call yourself "upcycled," and how that experience became the foundation for a design philosophy built around the beauty of things that have been repaired rather than replaced The consulting project, the sails, and the Old Biscuit Mill: how a freelance job revealed an opportunity in discarded yacht sails, what those early days looked like selling furniture from a market stall, and the leap from noticing waste to building a company around it "Perfectly imperfect" and the stamp inside the bag: why every Sealand product carries the name of the machinist who made it, what Sealand means when they use the word "responsibility" rather than "sustainability," and how the founding WHY shapes decisions a profit-first framework would make differently Protect Our Paths and the custodians: the story of Keith Kleans and Saunders Beach, how one man cleaning a beach on his own became a registered foundation with seven custodians across four Cape Town sites Scaling impact when your raw material is waste: whether access to discarded sails and banners is the real constraint on growth, and what it looks like to commercialise upcycling at scale while keeping each product handmade Freedom over funding: why Jasper is not chasing the next raise, and what the breathing room lets him focus on The upside-down reader: how learning to read differently made him a better designer, and what it taught him about education systems that reward conformity over curiosity Family, the ocean, and the next twenty years: how having kids changed his urgency about the planet, what flexibility means to someone whose body nearly failed him, and what he hopes the next generation does differently This is a conversation about the gap between what we discard and what still has life in it, about a man who knows that gap in his own body and in the materials he works with every day. Learn more about Jasper's work at sealandgear.com , and follow @sealandgear and @jaspereales on Instagram. ️ What is Impact in the 21st Century? Impact in the 21st Century is a podcast that celebrates the impactful work being done around the globe and shares the stories of the inspiring individuals behind it. Who hosts the podcast? Aaron Friedland is a National Geographic Explorer, PhD Candidate in Econometrics at UBC, and Founder of the Simbi Foundation . Who makes it sound good? Tom Foster is an Award-Winning Recording Engineer and Cinematographer, Up-and-Coming Composer, Film Scoring Graduate at Berklee College of Music, and Head of Audio & Music for the Sea Change Project. This podcast is brought to you by Simbi Foundation & The Goood Life. Proudly recorded at Waterfall Farm
