Scrap fabric initiative

Thanks to the generosity of your donations of fabric waste we have been able to set up and run a number of community based projects where together we are making a huge difference to the lives of our fellow South Africans.

Waste fabrics are donated to Upcycle as your commitment as a valuable partner in the green community and is creating awareness that you and your brand is helping save lives.

We identify with the philosophy of waste being a valuable commodity, if looked at with the eyes of an upcycler any waste can actually make a very healthy wage for people that previously have had nothing and had to start with nothing.

Its the little things in life that are making the biggest difference and when you realise just a bunch of fabric offcuts have become a durable well put together shopping bag, face mask or toy for a child, you see the value in uplifting people while saving the planet.

We would like to invite you to take a look at our shopping cart where you can see the your waste transformed into livelihoods.

 Some of our income generating waste fabric projects.

Face mask project

Masks made so far for donation 373 units

TOTAL AMOUNT DONATED R5 574.00

Donations Gallery click here to view:

R35.00 fitted fabric facial mask

R15.00 stright (surgical) style mask

The demand for the facial mask!

This new year and decade 2020 has disrupted our way of living in a way that we just didn’t see coming. Social distancing for one is now a global necessity in an active stop to having the COVID19 virus spread indiscriminately fast. The facial mask or masking of the face has become a daylight accessory of necessity
overnight. An extremely high turnover of the demand for facial medical masks has shown face to criminal disruption in medical facial masks being stolen from hospitals. One of the recent articles I read on facial mask theft is of a theft on Tues 17 th March, a report on a theft of 50 thousand protective face masks intended for medical clinics in Cologne, Germany. The report continues across various cities across Germany reporting theft of medical clothing, sanitisers, gloves, disinfectants, respirators from children’s intensive care unit looking after many young cancer patients.

As you continue to scroll through headlines, you see the demand of the facial mask
as one of the most important commodities as a resultant from the global crisis. Various countries, from Australia to Ukraine to France. There is a certainty of a new
stress that we need to survive without possibly having access to goods as we usually
consume. Businesses at every level of social interaction has had to control & limit interaction of human beings in a workspace as responsible citizenship in response to social restrictions & required social distancing. Small & medium size businesses have had to reboot how & possibly what they trade as business equity in this environment  so having to robustly adapt product & value to respond in innovation to the global impact of this human crisis point. Upcycle has in response to critical measures required, through its innovation hub of Upcycle Creative, quickly restructured its resources, capacity and redistribution of staff to work at home. Innovation of creating new products from the core principal of the Upcycle way – utilising waste products that would usually make landfill because of branding right restrictions and the cycle of waste product in the consumer behaviour ecosystem. Upcycle sanitises / de-brands corporate waste stream and redistributes into
the economy by developing products and projects that feed social impact in
development & enterprise. Redirecting and; minimising the impact on the environment while creating social equity and community dignity. In response to the global crisis & the redistribution of focus on innovation, Upcycle has prototyped & redirected business capacity to introduce two alternate facial mask covers. Both these facial mask options are made from cotton T shirts that are part of a landfill avoidance project that Upcycle handles sanitisation / de-branding processes
for. These cotton T shirts are new, virgin material, not worn before, but branded