At first glance this exhibition in trendy Shoreditch only seemed home to high-end suppliers promoting their premium products, however, surprisingly there was a multi-coloured gem amongst the sea of white marble tiles – we weren’t expecting recycling to inspire us as much as it did, especially here!
‘A large part of the world’s population is wearing flip flops. This footwear is cheap to buy, but not durable to use. Together with an undeveloped waste disposal system, this causes flip flops in developing countries to end up in nature and eventually in the oceans. Passionate about the oceans and aware of the importance of ecosystems, the Kenyan Ocean Sole tackles this problem. The washed-up flip flops are collected, cleaned and glued. The creative team of craftsmen then process the flip flops into colourful animals. Three local and global problems are tackled: prevention and control of pollution of land and sea by the plastics, job creation and limited logging for wood art works’ – www.architect-at-work.co.uk
The environment has become a significant issue in modern day manufacturing, and one that’s extremely important to us individually and as a company, which is why our Sustainability Ethos is so important to us.. Although we’re not collecting flip flops from Bournemouth beach and creating multi-coloured furniture, we are passionate about doing our bit and share Ocean Sole’s environmental concerns. In most industries plastic is a frequently used material, but in particular manufacturing. We aim to change this in our factories and lead by example. For us, one of the main culprits for single-use plastic were the bags used to protect our fabrics whilst in transit. This would range from delivery, returns or simply transferring material from one site to the other.
We decided to take action and create our own internal and external bags from left over fabrics. Here we tackle two issues, firstly, eliminating the plastic packaging for our fabric rolls and secondly, reducing our waste by recycling left over fabrics. Like Ocean Sole we are constantly searching for innovative ways to reuse materials in order to create something new, something sustainable and something to support the planet.
We are only one company, but one that has joined the fight against plastic, and are standing shoulder to shoulder alongside Ocean Sole.
Written by Georgia Winhall – Designer
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