Sustainable design and #doDifferent

We love ideas that allow people to make a positive impact simply by changing their purchasing decisions. This week we look at a company offering a sustainable choice with far-reaching impact.

Often recycling only redirects waste material rather than fundamentally changing its useful lifespan. Plastic bottles become plastic bags which are once again discarded, and the amount of plastic in use keeps increasing. This means more plastic finding its way into the environment via landfills and ocean pollution. A Cape Town based company is choosing to #doDifferent and making strides to change this equation.

The Joinery is a sustainable product design company. They aim to solve environmental and social issues through design. Working with South African recycling companies they developed a felt-like fabric made exclusively from recycled plastic bottles. They use this fabric to produce a range of high quality, long-lasting, functional products.

The Joinery have taken a holistic approach to sustainability. All their products are locally produced by a network of sewing co-operatives based in informal settlements. This contributes to job creation, supporting families and upskilling workers. Also, all fabric off-cuts are donated to NGOs to further be used in projects and products aimed at empowering and uplifting.

Their focus on sustainable and ethical product design follows through the product design, from eco-friendly tanned leather to packaging made from recycled materials.

The product range includes bags, computer pouches, placemats, masks, planters, and storage boxes as well as custom-designed products for corporate gifting or branding opportunities.

By turning plastic bottles - which spend little time in useful service before being disposed of - into fabric used in products which will last years a lasting micro-impact is made in the amount of plastic in rotation. This initiative has already removed half a million plastic bottles which would have gone to landfill or ocean pollution.

This embodies the #doDifferent approach. Each of our choices has the potential to contribute to positive change. However small, the aggregate of these choices can lead to large scale positive change. 

Why not #doDifferent and make a choice which contributes to sustainability. Check out The Joinery here


Images by: The Joinery