The Turtle Tribe

The Turtle Tribe was founded in 2018 by eleven-year-old Ned Heaton on a mission to save the oceans.

Ned’s a regular Aussie kid who grew up camping on a wild Pacific island beach (Mulgumpin/Moreton Island) every year with his family, and saw first-hand the issue of ocean plastics washing up daily on his favourite beach. They’d spend a day or two every holiday just collecting plastic rubbish, but every year, it was the same or worse.

They started volunteering with a local charity group, Ocean Crusaders, and after a long day collecting ocean plastics from the mangroves and beaches of Green Island, Thommo, founder of Ocean Crusaders, confessed to Ned, “We could keep collecting plastic off this beach our whole lives Ned, and it’ll just keep coming back, year after year, tide after tide, if we don’t get people to stop throwing away so much plastic.”

And long story short, Ned landed his first national supply contract with one of Australia’s largest aged care providers, forming a world-first inter-generational partnership to help reduce plastic waste. Grandparents and grandkids are natural allies, and Ned’s gone on to supply hundreds of residential aged care homes all around the country, and in the process, becoming one of the largest suppliers of bamboo toothbrushes in Australia. He’s grown his market share by growing the market.

The Turtle Tribe donates 10% of all profits to Ocean Crusaders to clean plastic off beaches. But Ned knows prevention is the key. “If your bath was overflowing’, says Ned, “Would you reach for a mop, or turn off the tap? I’m committed to turning off the plastic tap, by helping people reduce their plastic waste.”