The watch has decent water resistance of 100m or 10 ATM. While that’s perhaps not enough to make this a true dive watch in the technical sense, it’s more than adequate for swimming, paddleboarding and snorkelling. So, the TRIWA Sub is a good choice for holidays and outdoor adventures.

Eco Credentials

As mentioned, the case and nylon strap as both made from sustainable recycled ocean plastic. This has been produced in partnership with Tide Ocean Material, a Swiss company that specializes in collecting plastic waste from the ocean and turning it into useful material for industry. Since plastics like nylon are ultimately derived from petrochemicals, this also reduces fossil fuel consumption. What’s more, TRIWA have also calculated the total carbon footprint of each and every watch produced, allowing you to monitor your own footprint and perhaps offset the carbon cost of your purchase.

Construction and Performance

Just like the case, the dial is also plastic, finished with printed lumed indices and an attractive 3D wave texture, which adds plenty of visual interest. A chunky handset with contrast pops of colour ensures easy readability. Around the edge of the dial, the chapter ring features printed ‘TIME FOR OCEANS’ text, highlighting the message of the watch. The crystal is mineral glass, which offers decent impact protection and scratch resistance, though slightly inferior to sapphire. But at this price point, it’s a reasonable choice.

This is a fairly compact watch, with a 40mm case that will suit most wrists, both male and female. Thanks to the use of lightweight plastic, it doesn’t feel heavy or unwieldy – in fact, it’s easy to forget you’ve got it on at all. And even though the exposed crown protrudes a little from the case, we didn’t find that it dug into our hand or snagged on cuffs or sleeves.

“If you want a plastic watch, you should definitely buy the TRIWA.”

The TRIWA Sub comes on a 20mm two-piece strap made from robust nylon webbing. This is a common strap size, so if you wanted to switch it up, it’s easy to do so.

The watch is powered by a Japanese Miyota 2015 quartz movement, which is a cheap and reliable three-hand movement that pretty much allows you to set and forget the time. It also features a date window, placed at 3 o’clock on the dial. Unfortunately, the window itself is pretty small and hard to read, which limits its usefulness. In all honesty, we’d have probably preferred a cleaner, no date dial – but it’s no biggie.

A unidirectional 60-click plastic bezel with infilled and painted 60-minute markers adds elapsed time functionality, just like a traditional dive watch. The bezel action isn’t the crispest, and does have a little bit of play, but it is well-aligned and functional.

The lume on the hour and minute hands as well as the dial indices isn’t the brightest or longest-lasting we’ve seen either, but again, it does the job. It’s a slight shame that there’s no lume pip on the bezel though. Ultimately, however, to criticise perceived shortcomings of this watch is sort of missing the point. Really, TRIWA want people to be talking about the issues facing our seas and oceans.

Verdict

This is a fun adventure watch with a serious message. It takes the classic looks of a Submariner dive watch and reinterprets the design in eco-friendly ocean plastic, making a statement about sustainability and the state of our seas.

On the wrist, it’s compact, comfortable and extremely lightweight. And while plastic won’t be as robust as stainless steel or titanium in terms of outright toughness, this is still a functional and practical outdoor watch. We like all the colourways but were especially drawn to the ocean seaweed green version, which looks particularly ‘adventure-ready’, whether on land or sea.

In many ways, you could argue that the TRIWA Time for Oceans watches share the same appeal and aesthetics as classic plastic Swatch watches. Swatch does use a sustainable Bioceramic material for some of its timepieces (like the recent Omega ‘MoonSwatch’ collaboration), which is a blend of ceramic and bio-based plastic. However, TRIWA’s Ocean Plastic is both more innovative and more sustainable than Swatch’s Bioceramic material, and in that sense the TRIWA Sub deserves to have made a bigger splash than Swatch’s frankly overhyped Moonswatch.

Moreover, unlike the Moonswatch, TRIWA aren’t just playing on the cachet of a luxury name or iconic design to boost sales figures, despite this being ostensibly a ‘Submariner’. Instead, TRIWA is helping to get plastic out of our oceans, whilst also raising awareness for an environmental issue that is of vital importance. There’s no such virtuous cause at the heart of Swatch’s Moonswatch. I guess what we’re saying is that if you want a plastic watch, you should definitely buy the TRIWA.