Got a Dead Rope in the Cupboard? Post It To Me.

Every climber I meet has one. A retired rope, coiled up in the back of a cupboard or living in the boot of the car since about 2019.

You cannot climb on it. You feel sick binning it. So it just sits there.

I know that feeling well, because that cupboard guilt is basically how Forma started. I had a dead rope, no plan, and a very stubborn refusal to put it in the wheelie bin.

So here is the offer, plain and simple. Post it to me. I will make it into something.

What to do with old climbing rope

Ropes retire after five to ten years even when they look grand. The core wears where you cannot see it. That is the whole problem. A rope can be perfectly ugly and perfectly strong, or perfectly clean and completely finished. You cannot tell by looking.

Once it is retired for climbing, it is still one of the toughest materials most people will ever own. Nylon takes hundreds of years to break down. One rope costs about 46 kg of CO2 to make. All of that has already been spent. Binning it wastes it twice.

Kerbside recycling will not take it. It is a mixed nylon construction and the machines cannot deal with it. So it goes to landfill, or it goes to a person with a sharp knife and too much time. That is me. I am the person.

Almost nobody is doing this

Mammut ran a rope collection scheme in Switzerland. Fifty drop-off points, three months, and they got 748 kg of rope back. That is a brilliant result and also a tiny number when you think about how much rope the sport gets through every year.

In the UK there is not much at all. A few walls have a bin. Most do not. So the rope goes in the skip and nobody feels great about it.

In January alone we saved over 5 km of rope from landfill. Some of that came from climbing walls around the UK who now put it aside for us instead of skipping it. A good chunk came from ordinary climbers who just posted me their old rope in a jiffy bag.

How to send me yours

Nothing complicated. Coil it, bag it, drop me a message and I will send you the workshop address. Dry is better than wet. Muddy is fine, I have a bath and no dignity.

Half ropes, twins, single ropes, chopped bits, the frayed end you cut off two winters ago. All useful. Even short offcuts become a climbing rope keychain or a bracelet.

And if it is your rope, tell me the story. Where you climbed it. What it caught you on. I will keep that with the coil, because that story is the whole point. Recycled gets scrolled past. This rope already saved someone's life and now it is a belt stops the thumb.

Loads of folk ask me to turn their own rope into something for them. I can do that too. A recycled climbing rope belt made from the rope you actually climbed on, cut to your exact waist size, from 22 inches to 50 inches. It is the most personal thing I make.

No cash for rope, sorry. I am a one man workshop, not a scrapyard. But you get the warm glow, a photo of what it became, and the smug knowledge that your rope is out there holding up someone's trousers instead of sitting in a landfill for 400 years.

Not got a rope but want the gear? Have a look at the gifts for climbers or grab a Forma gift card from £10 and let them pick.

Less waste. More miles.

Stay classy and remember,
Make Waste Useful.

George