The 30A Company launched in 2007 as a simple website for people visiting a small stretch of coastal highway in South Walton, Florida. In the decade since, it has blossomed into a widely renowned beach lifestyle brand, powered in part by the iconic little blue 30A stickers you see on the back of cars across the Southeast.
Our company now has a full line of 30A Clothing and Gear, an internet radio station and a Facebook page with over 600,000 fans, all celebrating the joys of small-town beach life.
“30A isn’t just a road on the map,” said our company’s founder Mike Ragsdale. “It’s that happy place we all dream of when we need a little time to unwind, unplug and celebrate life.”
The company is also a champion for the environment, working to protect our beaches and oceans. Last year, we launched our latest innovation, Dumpster Diver, a line of clothing made from recycled plastic. Each piece saves about eight plastic bottles from landfills and oceans.
“Our company mission is to share our genuine love of the beach and our commitment to protecting our world for future generations,” said JoAnn Ribaudo, chief operating officer of The 30A Company. “Using recycled plastic to create our clothing is one way we can have a direct impact every day.”
Plastic is a growing problem for our environment. Every year in the United States alone, we throw away about 35 billion plastic bottles. In the last ten years, we’ve produced more plastic than the entire last century, and that plastic doesn’t go away. Almost all the plastic ever made still exists in some form. Much of that has ended up in our oceans.
The 30A Company hopes our efforts can make a difference through our products and also through spreading awareness of how imperative it is to reduce waste. Our company has banned single-use bottles in the workplace, and we are leading an initiative to boost the availability of recycling in our own community.
The 30A Company’s commitment to the environment (plus our laid-back beach vibes) made us a perfect partner with SweetWater Brewing and Rubicon for the annual recycling efforts at SweetWater 420 Fest, April 21-23, 2017.
Every year, festival organizers incorporate recycling into their festival clean-up, asking attendees to chip in and make a difference. This year, 30A is excited to bring our Dumpster Divers into the mix. For every bag of plastic an attendee collects from festival grounds, they can trade it in for a 30A Dumpster Diver special-edition t-shirt or a SweetWater beer.
“We are thrilled with this partnership,” Ribaudo said. “We saw their commitment to recycling and really wanted to support it. We’re always working to remind people that change starts with each person and this is an amazing way to incorporate that into a festival that draws over 70,000 people.”
The 30A crew will head up to Atlanta in our big blue 30A Radio Airstream to help with the clean-up and spread the word about recycling.
30A Radio will also partner with Sing Me a Story, a nonprofit that takes original stories written or illustrated by children in need and turns them into songs. Festival artists, including Twiddle and The Hip Abduction, will take those stories and write a song based on them and then stop by the 30A Radio Airstream to record them. Proceeds go to benefit children in need and their families.
To learn more about 30A’s Dumpster Diver line, visit 30adumpsterdiver.com
This post was written by Lauren Sage Reinlie, The 30A Company
