7 Sustainable Beach Towels For Eco-Friendly Summer Fun
Sandy bums, soothing surf, and sustainable beach towels…
The summer trifecta of dreams, right?!
Not to be a wet blanket (er, beach towel), but the material most beach towels are made of is not exactly something that’s out to preserve those pristine beaches we love so much.
Instead, they’re made with either virgin synthetic fabrics or conventional cotton (AKA the world’s dirtiest crop), both fabrics that contribute to plastic and chemical pollution that’s changing the ocean as we know it.
Drying off vitamin Sea (and D), always feels better if you’re using recycled or organic beach towels that won’t leave a lasting negative impact on your future summer fun.
Everything we recommend to you on Sustainable Jungle is independently researched and we ask all brands to confirm their claims. To avoid waste, we test products on an as needed basis. This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a small commission. Learn more about why we do this here.
The Best Eco-Friendly Beach Towels To Sunbathe Sustainably
For those who frequent off-the-beaten-path watering holes and waterfalls, Nomadix has Climate Neutral and sustainable beach towels that are packable enough for adventuring.
Whether you want something as au naturale as your nude sunbathing or beach towels from recycled materials, you have a number of certified ethically made options from Slowtide.
But before you break out your sustainable beach bags, roll over to the bottom of the article to learn about what makes a beach towel sustainable and how we shook off the sand to find the best ones.
The Full List Of Organic Or Recycled Beach Towels
- Slowtide | Visit Store
- Nomadix | Visit Store
- Delilah Home | Visit Store
- Weezie | Visit Store
- Coyuchi | Visit Store
- Stray & Wander | Visit Store
- Affina | Visit Store
1. Slowtide
About Slowtide
Price Range: $35–$70
Designed in Hawaii and California, Slowtide is the place to turn for art-inspired towels.
Considered a “canvas for self-expression,” their cute sustainable beach towels are perfect for kids—but with Grateful Dead collaborative designs, they appeal to the kid inside all of us, too.
Dozens of premium woven designs are available across many styles of beach towels, quick-dry towels, pocket towels, fitness towels, and various types of home towels.
Slowtide’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Most are made with 100% sustainably sourced cotton, except the yoga towels and quick-dry beach towels made from recycled plastic bottles.
The recycled beach towels are GRS-certified, and all products have an OEKO-TEX certification.
Supply chain & labor practices:
While not organic cotton beach towels, theirs is certifiably sourced through the Cotton LEADS program, ensuring the best practices and traceability are used on the USA and Australian farms.
Slowtide has long-standing relationships with their manufacturers who provide fair wages and a safe, healthy place to work.
Their supply chain is backed up by third-party social assessments like SEDEX, SCAN, and BSCI.
Community & charitable giving:
Each beach towel sale helps Slowtide give back through donations, education, and community outreach.
Some organizations they support include Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii, Good360, and Surfrider Foundation.
2. Nomadix
About Nomadix
Price Range: $25–$45
To equip you with “the only towel you need”, Nomadix offers a versatile range.
The Original towels are most suitable for the beach, while the Mini and Ultralight towels are ideal for travel and eco-friendly camping.
If you like to wrap up in a towel but aren’t as fond of the unwrapping part, check out their hooded Poncho Towel. “Part Poncho. Part Towel. Part Beach Blanket”, it’s the all-in-one vacation drying solution.
Each eco-friendly beach towel is lightweight, quick-drying, sand repellent, durable, and ideal for zero waste travel.
Nomadix’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Each sustainable beach towel features a MicroTerry fabric made with GRS-certified post-consumer recycled materials (about 30 recycled plastic bottles).
Eco screen printing creates the designs for these recycled plastic beach towels.
Supply chain & labor practices:
All products are manufactured in the brand’s own solar-powered factory in China, which they regularly visit to ensure ethical standards are upheld.
Carbon commitments & green practices:
Nomadix is Climate Neutral certified, and they plan to further cut their emissions in half over the next few years.
Their sustainable materials for shipping are compostable or recyclable.
Community & charitable giving:
1% of sales are donated via 1% for the Planet.
3. Delilah Home
About Delilah Home
Price Range: $80–$100
The ‘Delilah’ of Delilah Home is a puppy who survived being alone in a North Carolina mountain winter for 62 days.
This is a testament to the brand’s ethical approach to long-lasting products, which includes organic Turkish beach towels, bedding, and other home textiles.
Our tails are wagging over their cute eco-friendly beach towels, which are generously sized and come “with a touch of flirty fringe on the end”.
If you’re an inlander, they have more plush Kiawah organic pool towels.
Delilah Home’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Like their organic towels for the bath, the long-staple 100% GOTS-certified Turkish organic cotton promises you a quick dry.
The fibers are 2-ply double loops, giving them their super absorbent and luxuriously fluffy feel.
Supply chain & labor practices:
Delilah Home is committed to ethical production, which is why they partner exclusively with Fair Trade factories in Europe.
The organic cotton for their towels is woven in Portugal in exchange for above-living wages.
Carbon commitments & green practices:
Three barks for all of Delilah Home’s certifications and memberships: OneCert, Organic Trade Association (OTS), Green America, Textile Exchange, and Vegan.org.
The brand’s CEO is also an OTA Fiber Council Chairman.
Community & charitable giving:
A member of 1% for the Planet, they go above and beyond to donate 10% of their profits to local organizations like Operation Warm.
4. Weezie
About Weezie
Price Range: $47–$264
Weezie is a woman-owned brand that wants to take towels from lackluster to luxury.
Their environmentally friendly beach towels are absorbent, fluffy, decadently soft, and equipped with hanging loops for faster drying.
And because they’re oversized beach towels, they double as an organic beach blanket.
Available in multiple designs (with personalized embroidery options), you can shop individually or save by buying a 4-towel bundle.
Weezie’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Weezie beach towels feature 100% long-staple organic cotton that’s low linting, hypoallergenic, and OEKO-TEX-certified.
Supply chain & labor practices:
Each Weezie beach towel is made in Portugal, by a third-generation, family-owned and operated factory.
Custom embroidering takes place in-house in Atlanta, Georgia.
Community & charitable giving:
The company regularly gives back through sales, where 100% of daily or holiday weekend profits go to organizations like Moms Demand Action.
5. Coyuchi
About Coyuchi
Price Range: $48–$268
Blending luxury and natural, regenerative fibers, Coyuchi is one of the best sustainable towel brands, period.
That’s because their organic cotton beach towels are both shower-ready and surf-ready—meaning you won’t need to buy more types of towels than needed.
The super soft sustainable beach towels are available in various weaves, weights, and textures, but they all share in common the fact that they’re comfortable, highly absorbent, and quick to dry.
Their Mediterranean organic beach towels come in a beach-towel specific size and mean less bulk in your beach or pool bag.
Coyuchi’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Materials:
100% Madesafe certified and GOTS-certified organic cotton beach towels will dry you off after a dip.
Their yarn-dyeing process uses low-impact sustainable dyes.
Supply chain & labor practices:
The cotton is grown and woven in Turkey and Coyuchi works with many Fair Trade farmers and factories.
Carbon commitments & green practices:
All Coyuchi beach towels are sent in either reusable organic cotton fabric or 100% recycled plastic poly bags.
Embracing circularity, they also have a 2nd Home Take Back Program that accepts old Coyuchi linens (including actual linen sheets) to be recycled or reused in new products.
They’ve invested in thousands of acres of regenerative farms, recycle 98% of water used in their textile factories (along with the leftover dye mud, which gets turned into cement), and aim to be climate positive by 2030.
Community & charitable giving:
Coyuchi is a contributing member of 1% for the Planet that supports climate-positive, regenerative farming through White Buffalo Land Trust and Fibershed.
6. Stray & Wander
About Stray & Wander
Price Range: $50–$70
You may Stray & Wander as you search for the most sustainable beach towels, so allow this Canadian brand to help.
Comfy, beautifully designed, and ethically made, think of their organic Turkish beach towels as sustainable beach blankets—though they also offer those, too.
With names like Cove and Coastal, their huge selection of towels are all made with a tighter weave that will keep sand out of the playground.
Stray & Wander Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Materials:
With most of these green beach towels, you’ll be getting 100% hand-loomed Turkish organic cotton.
The only exception is their Hali Towel, which is traditionally used for Hammam (Turkish baths). This one is a 50/50 organic cotton and bamboo beach towel.
Supply chain & labor practices:
Stray & Wander’s towels are ethically sourced from Turkey through partnerships with family-run businesses, individual artisans, and women’s cooperatives.
Artisans set their price and S&W buys from them directly, ensuring fair pay for everyone.
Carbon commitments & green practices:
Ethical purchasing means less purchasing.
The energy and skill that goes into each one of their durable products is valued far more than abundant stocks and mass production. They’ll last you many sustainable summers to come.
7. Affina
About Affina
Price Range: $65–$165
Nature-inspired and woman-founded Affina is influenced by a spiritual and philosophical celebration of Earth’s beauty.
Soothe your sunburnt skin and tired post-swim muscles by wrapping up in one of their oversized organic, sustainable beach towels.
They feature patterns inspired by those found naturally in nature, like the pattern on Diploria Strigosa (brain coral) or Gorgonia Ventalina (sea fan).
Affina’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Materials:
The towels are made with 100% organic cotton that’s GOTS and OEKO-TEX certified.
Only low-impact, fiber-reactive dyes are used.
Supply chain & labor practices:
While they believe in the power of localized, US manufacturing, the shift to Asian factories over recent decades has made it too difficult for them to produce their products in the USA.
Instead, they choose to partner with environmentally conscious Portuguese manufacturers to create these green beach towels.
Did you know we Have a Newsletter?
We cover the latest in sustainable living, fashion, zero waste, beauty, travel, finance and more…
How We Found The Best Sustainable Beach Towels
Before we packed our sustainable luggage and got ready to jet set on our summer vacation, we first needed to search the world for eco-friendly beach towels, Australia to Amsterdam and everywhere in between.
We laid our sustainable and ethical fashion criteria flat on the sand to answer the question: what is the most sustainable beach towel?
Materials:
From a sustainability and quick-drying perspective, organic cotton is the crème de la crème, especially when it’s long-staple cotton.
“Long-staple” means longer threads, making it more durable and absorbent.
Other natural fabrics you may see are hemp fabric, linen, and organic bamboo beach towels.
Recycled plastic beach towels are also making waves, because they take recycled PET bottles and turn them into something quick-drying, versatile, and super lightweight.
Just be sure to use a GUPPYFRIEND wash bag when washing anything made from synthetic fabrics.
It’s best when low-impact or natural dyes are used, too.
- Certifications: OEKO-TEX, Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), OneCert, Cotton LEADS program, Global Recycle Standard (GRS), Madesafe, Organic Trade Association (OTA), Vegan.org
Supply chain & labor practices:
You may want a lime green beach towel, but you don’t want greenwashing.
That’s why we look for brands who share details about the factories they partner with or utilize Fair Trade practices when it comes to farmers, factory workers, and artisans.
Sustainability certifications and manufacturing certifications can also help.
Towel-making techniques have been passed down through generations, so it’s great to see many brands partnering with small cooperatives that focus on keeping these techniques alive.
- Certifications: Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), fair trade, Supplier Compliance Audit Network (SCAN), Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA)
Carbon commitments & green practices:
Between using clean energy, eco packaging, regenerative agriculture, and carbon offsets to become carbon-neutral (though net zero is the ultimate goal), we love companies that are trying to keep our oceans refreshingly cool.
Community & charitable giving:
Cozy ethical beach towels feel better knowing they support beach clean-ups, regenerative agriculture projects, and donations of a portion of profits.
Final Thoughts On Environmentally Friendly Beach Towels
So, are beach towels eco-friendly?
Typically, that’s a resounding no.
Water-guzzling cotton or fossil-fuel-based fibers are the usual suspects, and they’re almost always produced in a way that does nothing to protect people or our planet.
Enter: the best sustainable beach towels, which give us the soothing sea breeze feels.
We want eco beach towels that are made in ways that ensure future generations will also be able to enjoy trips to the beach.
That’s pretty swell if you ask us.
Next time someone drops details on their upcoming vacation, share this list of eco-friendly beach towel brands with them if their current ones are too old for hitting the beach.
Pin these:
