Welcome to ReMan Tech in the heart of the circular economy hub at the quay. I’m Zor, one of 20 engineers working with robotics and AI to repurpose high-value electronics, giving them a second life for resale here and internationally. Anything we can’t repurpose goes to our friends in the UK, specialists in recycling. 

My last project stayed very local! It was bought by Ecovigilance Ltd next door! Their marine arm is headquartered here, exporting world-class marine health monitoring equipment from the Island for 20 years. The Isle of Man has connections with marine research facilities and universities worldwide, and because it’s known as a great place to do business, it was a perfect place for them to set up. 

I wasn’t born here, but the Island is my home. I’m woven into its fabric and it into mine. Talking of fabric, I see you admiring these jeans. They’re rented from a denim specialist in Copenhagen. When I’m ready, they go back for restyling and I get a new look. I love fashion. I mostly rent and buy second-hand, then invest in a couple of key pieces a year. This Loagthan wool hat is my latest buy. There’s a boutique industry here of flax linen and rare-breed wool producers, who supply local makers. 

Do you want coffee? I buy this one because it grows in the hills above where I was born. It’s shade-grown, supporting the soil and wildlife there. I introduced Café Kenjallys to a grower I know, and they import and roast it here, and I refill my jar every couple of weeks.  

My weekly shop is local wherever possible; vegetables, grains, pulses, eggs and, for special meals, the delicious meat, dairy and fish we have here. It’s local first for me, and when I buy from further away, I like to know where it came from and what impact it has had along the way. 

We’ve changed how we move things around the world. Cleaner travel, new fuels, new technology. There’s the new boat coming in now. A friend I studied with was a fuel-efficient engineer on that design. When I was a boy, I loved the smell of diesel in the port. It smelled like progress to me. But it was the fossil fuels that were holding us back.  

We used to take, make and waste, as if we had a spare earth if we used this one up. It stopped working and we all started to feel the impact of the harm being done. So, we changed. We stopped seeing problems as blockers and started getting creative, new skills, new collaborations, new ways of doing things. 

Maybe it’s our own evolution story, from humans the consumers to humans who restore too. We can hold our heads high to have been part of that.