Use one less plastic bag
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Yes its Onelessplasticbag | |
The People behind Oneless
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Jessica and Nadira at Royal Exchange
Theatre Craft Shop |
One day Jessica Symons bought a 1970s National Trust red zipup bag from Oxfam. It made a great alternative to plastic bags and she thought about getting them made. She decided that the plastic zip on the bag was unsustainable and tried to think of a way of putting a fabric bag into a pocket without using any type of fastener. One bright day, she came up with Onelessplasticbag where the pocket is sewn onto the bag in such a way that it tucks in neatly with a little hood that goes over to hold the bag in place. Jessica asked Nadira Kabir to make the bags. Nadira sewed for Marks and Spencers in Rochdale for 20 years before they closed down the factory and moved it to Asia. Nadira is originally from Bangladesh where the people are very aware of environmental degradation. They try not to use plastic bags and have their own bags or use thin cotton bags provided in the shops. Nadira now works from home and makes each bag by hand, cutting the saris up to make the most of the beautiful patterns. We are also working with Heba, a social enterprise in Brick Lane, who provide sewing training and opportunities to women in the area. They are sewing the bags for the Oxfam order and we hope to have a picture of them soon too! We have also sourced bags from TARA Projects, a fair trade organisation in Delhi. They use a similar production process as us in the UK, buying leftover fabric from the market and co-ordinating homeworkers to produce the bags. A UK retailer, Bolly Bazaar, who are fair trade accredited, have checked out the whole production process and acted as our intermediary. |
The Onelessplasticbag project was also supported by UnLtd who gave Jessica a grant to pay her expenses when starting up. Nickala Torkington, Jessica's adviser at UnLtd was brilliant at helping find focus and work through seemingly unsurmountable problems.
When we first started the bags were made from saris collected through 'Donate a sari' campaigns run by Sari UK. They use the vintage and embroidered saris collected to make couture clothes. We bought the polyester and rayon ones which were perfect for strong bags and the money was donated to charity. At Sari UK, Sital Haria was also kind in giving Jessica very useful advice in the early days of the project.
Oxfam provide unwanted scarves and saris that end up in their Wastesaver processing facility in Huddersfield. Clothes that don't sell in Oxfam shops are sent to Wastesaver and then shipped out to other countries. We think it is better for the environment to avoid shipping pollution and find a use for fabrics here in the UK, so we are using their scarves and saris to make bags that are sold mainly though participating Oxfam shops. Stocks are very limited so get there soon.
Farhat Zaheer Flaherty, a friend, neighbour and top quality brand consultant gave very useful advice on understanding how the bag should be conceived as a brand.
Brenda at On the Eighth Day in Manchester was our first buyer. They stopped providing plastic bags over a year ago and Onelessplasticbags are the alternatives offered. Customers at On the Eighth Day have been very enthusiastic about the bags and they are our largest client.
Adili and Oxfam have introduced us to the world of large retail with buyer negotiation on prices, supplier questionnaires and contracts. It has been an interesting and useful experience.