REPURPOSING

Brands + Sustainability

Innovative start-ups from around the world are recycling and
reusing waste to make new products. By incorporating sustainability into their brands, they can provide eco-friendly products that consumers can buy with a clear conscience.
Revolve looks at three brands that repurpose the old to create something new.

Bio-Bean

Each year in the UK, 1.8 million tons of CO2 emissions are generated by 500,000 tons of coffee waste with disposal costing as much as £50 million. Currently, most waste coffee grounds are sent to landfill, incinerated or sent to anaerobic digestion.

Bio-bean’s process offers commercial and environmental advantages at every stage. Integrating with existing supply chains and recycling waste into resources, bio-bean transforms the challenges of urbanization into huge opportunities.

Bio-bean is an award-winning green energy company that industrializes recycling waste coffee grounds into advanced biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create carbon-neutral biofuels.

Bio-bean was created to solve the challenge of coffee waste disposal, now our solution is part of a wider social trend. Where others see waste, bio-bean sees resources, demonstrating that urban structures are open to sustainable redesign.

Nudie Jeans

Founded in 2001 in Gothenburg, Sweden, Nudie Jeans has grown to be a leader in sustainable and organic denim production, providing unrivaled collections showcasing the best of understated Swedish design.

The Nudie Jeans Recycle Project seeks to find new use for old, worn-out Nudie jeans. The goal is to be able to recycle every fiber and piece of the jean. 90% of every pair of denim was recycled into two projects that are sure to tie any room together.

Loloi

More than half a million women around the world wear saris, but when the life of dress comes to an end, companies around the world, including Loloi, are finding ways to re-purpose the disposed material and give it a second life.

“We saw the opportunity to re-purpose the materials and scraps found in unwanted saris into beautiful rugs and pillows as a way to support the environment,” says Cyrus Loloi. “By breathing new life into the saris, we have found a way to minimize the amount of waste that goes into landfills every year and create a product that consumers find both beautiful and appealing.”

Loloi has created an entire line of pillows made from Sari Silks that comes in a variety of colors and dimensions. The radiant Giselle Collection by Loloi is hand knotted entirely of refurbished sari silks from India. Each design reverberates in stunning colors like ruby red and sapphire blue that make for an incredibly vibrant collection, ideal for contemporary to transitional interiors.

Nickel

Recycle, re-use, reclaim, refurbish, restore, repurpose and revitalize

Many of my public works use recycled/reclaimed materials, transforming them into new contemporary forms connecting the past and future sustainably: recycle, re-use, reclaim, refurbish, restore, repurpose and revitalize. My goal is to use as much recycled materials as is possible within the limits of time and budget. I feel good using such materials and enjoy the search to find new and different ways to incorporate reclaimed elements into my art

Bruce Taylor, artist

This project was part of the City of El Paso, Bataan Bridge Project, using 100 feet of 6′-9’ high “Art Fencing” over a railroad bridge crossing. Many of the stainless steel elements were reclaimed from scrap yards and cut, arranged, welded and polished into a new work that conceptually conveys the surrounding land, rivers, cities, and means of transportation.