Archive for Recycling – Page 3

Plastic Clothing?

Posted by GoseNP18 
· Monday, October 22nd, 2018 
· 5 Comments

Turning plastic into clothing came from a brother-sister duo at Colgate University. Growing up right by the beach, the brother and sister noticed a waste problem. They realized they wanted to do something about the problem and came up with a solution. The duo pitched an idea to turn plastic bottles into swimwear, earning them $20,000 at a mock Shark Tank. After winning, they raised nearly $25,000 more, and ended up launching the company, Fair Harbor Clothing. The concept is very neat and is quite simple, bottles are broken down into polyfibers which are then spun into yarn and sewn into clothing. The duo started selling by going to over 200 Trunk Shows. Today, the business has grown greatly, Fair Harbor worked with the Brooklyn Fashion and Design Accelerator to create board shorts and woman’s swimsuits using 11 plastic bottles and a little bit of cotton and spandex for shaping. 

The plastic to clothing design is very innovative and is a great idea. I think this idea is a great way to help with global cleanliness and waste reduction, a large problem in the world today. They take and use 11 bottles for clothing and the company is continuing to grow their inventory and options which helps to use even more recycling. I think it would be cool if they took bottles and other plastics straight from the ocean and helped to clean the earth by recycling and actually cleaning the ocean. However, the company is a great idea and is great for the planet and society.

5 Comments
Categories : Business, Clean water, Creating, Engineering, Great Ideas, Manufacturing, Recycling, Shark Tank, Sustainable, Technology, Uncategorized, Upcycling

Package Free

Posted by kocurcm1 
· Tuesday, October 9th, 2018 
· 1 Comment

 

In 2012, businesswoman and environmental enthusiast, Lauren Singer, began “Trash is for Tossers”, a blog in which she documents her Zero Waste lifestyle. Her passion for sustainability and reducing waste has dominated and driven this blog, which holds numerous videos and information regarding the significance of her movement. Taking this passion to greater heights, Lauren Singer decided to create a company that shares this lifestyle with the world and educates those who are unaware of this movement. In her blog, Singer writes, “I created Package Free Shop because I believe that as consumers we all should have convenient access to products that help us reduce our environmental impact. I also started Package Free Shop to empower amazing mission driven entrepreneurs who are dedicating their lives to tackling plastic pollution and waste and help their businesses to grow in a way that was sustainable”. Ultimately, she identified the problem of finding waste-free products conveniently in one place and decided to solve it with a new business.

Singer’s company, Package Free Shop, was founded in 2018 and maintains a store location in New York City as well as an extensive online shop. The products that she sells promote a waste-free lifestyle and include beauty products, cleaning products, pet products, and office products. Thus far, Lauren Singer’s venture has been measured extremely successful. The Package Free Shop website writes, “Since opening, we’ve kept an estimated 4,025,600 plastic straws, 3,061,240 plastic bags, and 1,419,260 non-recyclable bottles and cups out of landfill”. It is incredibly inspiring to learn this story of Lauren Singer, how she was able to use her passion to identify a problem that she created a successful solution for. Singer was willing to take a risk in this industry and spread her passion in a way that impacts others. Hopefully, this company will continue to find success in a market that has strong potential.

1 Comment
Categories : Business, Great Ideas, Recycling, Sustainable, Women Entrepreneurs

Trash to Cash – Wonky Drinks by Karina Sudentye and Maciek Kacprzyk

Posted by crowleyjp18 
· Sunday, September 16th, 2018 
· 4 Comments

Karina Sudenyte, a 22 year-old BA studying for a BA in business management, and Maciek Kacprzyk, a 25 year-old with two masters degrees in law co-own an extremely environmentally conscious fresh juice business, Get Wonky. Their aim is to cut down on the astronomical number of fruit thrown away into the garbage. The fruit and vegetables used are not viable for the produce markets because they are “defective”. Get Wonky takes produce from the growers that would otherwise be unusable due to being misshapen or discolored and makes them into a desirable product. They do this by juicing and bottling the “defective” produce using Grandma’s recipe in 100% recyclable glass bottles and sustainable catering pack to reduce plastic waste.

Related image

I really appreciate this young company because they center their business practice around environmental sustainability, which the marketplace is in desperate need of. Their mission is to “Give wonky fruit a chance”. More specifically, they aim to produce delicious drinks, support growers that can’t shift wonky produce, reinvest all profits into saving more fruit, and reduce food and packaging waste.

https://youtu.be/2qBRATOAib0

4 Comments
Categories : Food, Recycling, Sustainable, Uncategorized, Youngest Entrepreneurs

How Saving the Fishies Saved Sand Cloud

Posted by nakhlacn17 
· Saturday, September 15th, 2018 
· 2 Comments

An Instagram search of the hashtag #savethefishies results in nearly 126,000 public posts, most featuring azure oceans, sea creatures, and people enjoying the beach. The road to this level of success was much less leisurely for Bruno Aschidamini, Steven Ford, and Brandon Liebel, but their love for the ocean and the atmosphere of a self-made entrepreneurial career eventually brought them there.

“The blind faith that we had to pursue freedom and become an entrepreneur—we never questioned it once,” says Aschidamini of Sand Cloud, the environmental-friendly beach towel brand now grossing over $7 million in annual revenue. Back when the business began in 2013 there was no way the three young Californian entrepreneurs could have known the challenges and alterations they’d have to face before their entrepreneurial endeavor, then known as “Cloud Nine,” would finally become the widespread popular business is today.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmPCYASA-Do/?hl=en&taken-by=sand_cloud

Their initial product concept was a towel with an attached pillow, designed for taking naps on the beach; however, they weren’t selling nearly enough at the time to account for all the other expenses attached to a startup—a warehouse, trademarks, and the irreconcilable cost of buying the towels in bulk. The three compartmentalized their lives into a tiny apartment on a strict budget with the intention of investing everything into the business. At a surf expo in 2015, they were attempting unsuccessfully to market the pillow towel, when they discovered that the public was much more interested in a mandala-design towel without an attached pillow. Accepting that their original idea was not catching on and that for the sake of business they’d have to substitute it with something they saw as less innovative was a struggle.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BleDdlgBLwK/?hl=en&taken-by=sand_cloud

However, adjustment of their original idea turned out to be a game changer. Sales soared on the new product, a lightweight, sand-free towel crafted from Turkish cotton and sold in a variety of designs, and Sand Cloud has since added accessories, T-shirts, water bottles, and jewelry to their market. In 2016, Ford, Liebel, and Aschidamini appeared on Shark Tank, which generated even more publicity and gained them an investment. Furthermore, their newly revamped business is now focused around a mission, which they fulfill by donating a percentage of their profits to various marine conservation organizations. I myself, along with others, have had the opportunity to promote them as a social media ambassador. Choosing to invest their resources in a cause important to them has bred immense loyalty with Sand Cloud’s customers, and their willingness to adapt to their market has been instrumental in granting them success.

Shop their website: https://www.sandcloud.com/

Learn More: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/how-sand-cloud-got-on-shark-tank-and-made-millions.html

2 Comments
Categories : Clean water, Recycling, Shark Tank
Tags : , , , ,

Maya’s Ideas

Posted by Katheryn Frazier 
· Saturday, November 11th, 2017 
· 3 Comments

Maya Penn is an entrepreneur, coder, philanthropist, designer, animator, writer, and illustrator. She was just 8 years old when she started her first company. Penn got interested in eco-friendly alternatives when her dad taught her about solar energy. She then discovered how harmful chemical dyes were to the environment and sought to combine that into a business idea. Penn out started by making ribbon headbands out of unused fabric around her house. The businesses started out with a $200 budget and grew from the profits received from there on out. Penn was taught how to sew from her mother. Her father was an entrepreneur and taught Penn about business and computers. At an early age Penn learned how to take apart a computer and even coded basic HTML at age 10. She now codes her own website. Her current online store is called Maya’s Ideas where she sells handcrafted clothes and accessories that are eco-friendly. The fabrics are organic or recycled. In 2013, Penn brought in $55,000 in sales and gave 10% to local charities. Penn always gives back to charities because her parents taught her to share with the less fortunate. Maya’s Ideas 4 the Planet is her nonprofit and Penn volunteers locally to this day. In addition, Penn creates also creates videos that she animates, writes, and produces about the environment. She has also created two children’s books and has a novel on advice to young entrepreneurs. Penn advises to start an idea journal. She also said to “….believe in yourself and what you’re doing. Don’t get discouraged if things are going slower than you expected. And don’t give up too quickly.”

 

3 Comments
Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Fashion, Recycling, Upcycling

Gabe Blanchet and Jamie Byron—Grove Ecosystem

Posted by raabeej1 
· Friday, October 6th, 2017 
· 1 Comment

the grove ecosystem launches a kickstarter for its indoor garden a27a4805

Gabe Blanchet and Jamie Byron were roommates and seniors at MIT. Both were concerned about one of the most threatening problems that we as humans face on this earth today; global food unsustainability. As this was frequently on his mind, Jamie decided to build a DIY aquaponics prototype in the room he shared with Gabe, capturing the attention of many visitors of their room. This prototype would eventually become the idea for a brand called Grove Labs. Grove Labs is a company that produces nearly self-sustaining indoor aquaponics gardens in your home. One such product is the Grove Ecosystem, capable of growing substantial yields of vegetables and herbs, frequently up to a salad per day. The entire fertilization, filtration, hydration, and feeding system is contained within the area of a single bookshelf, utilizing an aquarium of fish and LED lights to allow the plants to grow. Since its inception, Grove Ecosystem has raised nearly half a million on Kickstarter.

Gabe and Jamie’s story is interesting, because it shows how something unique can be created out of passion for a particular subject. In this case, they felt strongly about food sustainability, and brainstormed a product that can answer many of the problems in this subject by creating a self-sustaining home ecosystem. In addition, I appreciate their innovation with this product, as they have taken two concepts (the home and the garden) which are inherently separate and distinct, and merged them into something greater that they are passionate about.

 References:

https://inhabitat.com/amazing-grove-aquaponic-ecosystem-can-grow-you-a-salad-every-day/

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/the-grove-ecosystem-launches-a-kickstarter-for-its-indoor-garden/

 

1 Comment
Categories : Food, Millennial Entrepreneurs, Recycling, Sustainable

Ashton Cofer’s Styrofoam Filter

Posted by Katheryn Frazier 
· Friday, October 6th, 2017 
· 3 Comments

Styrofoam is a commonly used material. It’s useful in so many ways, but often styrofoam ends up in landfills too often. 25% of landfills comprise of styrofoam and takes up to 500 years to decompose. Ashton Cofer and three other students from Gahanna Middle School East developed foam trash into carbon to purify water.  The students were in eighth grade when the project started and are in currently ninth now. The students got the idea from a trip to Central America, where they found that styrofoam littered the area excessively. They began to think of ways to recycle foam because the solutions for recycling styrofoam was very limited and expensive. Cofer and his friends went through many failures to receive their final solution. The group got together a couple days a week to work on the project and divided up the work. Finally, the group found the solution with the correct temperatures, time, and chemicals. The final name for the idea was called Styro-Filter. The idea received a grant from eCYBERMISSION, First Global Innovation Awards, and from the Lego League. The money will be used to get a patent and further develop research. Ashton was even given the honor to explain his story on TedTalks. The project is a great humanitarian and chemical engineering victory. Cofer and his group turned a wasteful material into a useful material with some hard work and brainpower.

 

3 Comments
Categories : Recycling, Uncategorized

Solar Schoolbags

Posted by Hannah Hastings 
· Friday, October 7th, 2016 
· 1 Comment

When Thato Kgatlhanye was 18 and fresh out of high school, she knew she wanted to do something for the underprivileged communities in South Africa where she grew up. She and her friend Rea Ngwane immediately founded the social enterprise ‘Rethaka’ without a single clue what they were going to do. 2 years later, they found the idea that would impact thousands of children across South Africa.

At age 21 in 2014, Thato Kgatlhanye founded the social enterprise Repurpose Schoolbags which takes plastic bags, upcycles them into durable schoolbags, and installs solar-powered lighting on the outside. The bag charges in the sun during the day, and turns into a portable light for the children to study with at night. It is also made with reflective material so the children are easily visible to traffic on their way to and from school.

The idea was inspired by Thato’s mother and the local impoverished communities of South Africa. Thato’s mother studied by candlelight when she was a child, and usually the candle would only last until Wednesday of the school week, meaning she couldn’t study on Thursday or Friday. Currently, many children in South Africa use plastic bags as schoolbags, and don’t have adequate lighting to study after school. Thato wanted to provide a sustainable solution, and so Repurpose Schoolbags was born.

Thato plans to light up 24 African nations, and has won over $40,000 in business competitions to sustain the enterprise. Her business’s impact is growing, and she was featured on the front of Forbes in February 2016. In the future she plans to expand the concept of solar lighting to raincoats for children, but for now her organization’s focus is on getting the solar schoolbags to as many children as possible. Her work has inspired many others, and I hope to see her company featured more as her influence expands across Africa.

Photo courtesy of repurposeschoolbags.com

1 Comment
Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Recycling, Social Entrepreneur, Solar Power, Upcycling, Women Entrepreneurs
Tags : , , , ,

Sword & Plough – Bridging the Civil-Military Divide

Posted by Lizzie Parsons 
· Sunday, October 25th, 2015 
· 4 Comments

S&P 1

S&P 3

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Emily Núñez and her sister Betsy Núñez grew up in a military family, so for them, living on military bases and eating Thanksgiving dinner with hundreds of soldiers in a military mess hall was the norm.  However, when Emily went to Middlebury College, she realized the huge divide between military life and civilian life.  Most of her friends had never met someone in the military and had no idea what military life was like.  During this time, both Emily and Betsy began to realize how difficult it was for veterans to find work as they transitioned from military to civilian life.

These two problems  culminated into a business idea when Emily attended a social entrepreneurship symposium at her college, where the speaker talked about incorporating up-cycling into a business.  Emily had the idea of recycling military surplus into fashionable bags and accessories.  Emily quickly brought her sister, Betsy, on board and Sword & Plough was born.  The name, Sword & Plough comes from the phrase “to turn swords into ploughshares” from the book of Isaiah.  For Emily and Betsy, this means taking military technologies and materials and applying them to peaceful, military applications.

S&P 2

Every stage of their business (from design, to production, to quality control, to sales) is done in the U.S.A. and done by veterans.  They even buy their supplies from companies owned and operated by veterans.  Emily and Betsy want their company to empower veterans and help in their transition back to civilian life.  They donate 10% of their profits to support veterans.  They also want to have their bags be a conversation starting point to strengthen military-civilian understanding and to bring to light veteran issues.  In fact, on their website, they have a “Wall of Heroes” to feature a different military personnel every week.

So far, Emily and Betsy’s idea has been a huge success.  They’ve been featured on shows like Good Morning America and the Today Show, and on sites like Business Insider and Forbes.  I encourage you to check out their website (click here!) to learn more about Sword & Plough, its products, and its mission.  I think that this company is poised to make some really important impacts in the near future.

4 Comments
Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Great Ideas, Military, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Online Companies, Recycling, Social Entrepreneur, Upcycling, Websites

College Hunks Hauling Junk

Posted by Timothy Lowrance 
· Friday, December 12th, 2014 
· 3 Comments

“Let Tomorrow’s Leaders Haul Your Junk Today”

The business idea is simple: capitalize on the extra energy and muscle of college students by hiring them to haul away things people don’t want – things that can be recycled, burned as fuel, or donated to charitable organizations. This three-fold aspect College Hunks Hauling Junk is one of the big reasons this business idea was selected by the Leigh Rothschild Business Plan Contest in 2004. Omar Soliman was the winner of $10,000 in this competition, and he used the money to get his business off the ground.

It was started even before Soliman and his partner Nick Friedman graduated from the University of Miami. But after graduation, they decided to take their idea and make it into something massive. Moving to D.C., they turned their small concept into a large-scale operation. But this wasn’t enough. In 2008, they moved again, this time to Tampa, FL to convert their company into a franchised firm. Since then, College Hunks Hauling Junk has made several “fastest growing companies” lists and in 2013 won the Franchise 500 Award.

The especially noteworthy trait of Omar Soliman and Nick Frieman is that these young men dreamed big. The idea they had designed was a good one, one that would have made a fantastic single firm in D.C. However, they realized that this business concept was one that could be even bigger than that. Today, they have 3 main locations and 47 franchises. That is success on a massive scale.

3 Comments
Categories : College, Great Ideas, Recycling
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