The fashion industry faces a growing waste problem, with only 1% of all textiles produced being recycled. One DIY company based in Kenya and Nigeria has innovated a way to recycle textiles into valuable and useful products.
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00:00Hi, my name is Whitney Speak, I'm the communications manager at Africa Collect Textiles where we
00:08turn this into this.
00:18Africa Collect Textiles is an organization that is based in Kenya and Lagos, Nigeria
00:25that mainly focuses on solving the textile waste problem that we have in the continent.
00:30We have around 50 collection points in both countries where we encourage the public to
00:35donate their unwanted textiles.
00:37Upcycling mostly entails extending the life of textile, so we take one garment in its
00:43form and then transform it into another form so that it is supposed to continue serving
00:48a purpose.
00:49After pressing, I press the pattern, I cut the pencil case, it is light, I mix it to
01:10dark.
01:11I use the same pattern.
01:29It is the way I put the zip.
01:33We normally get our textiles from donations.
01:46We have such like bins in various institutions.
01:50We have them in malls such as Sarit Center.
01:52We have one at Village Market.
01:55We also have them in schools, universities.
01:57We ask our people or our followers to just drop in their textiles when they are clean
02:02and dry.
02:03And once that is done, our logistics team will go around the collection bins.
02:07They will collect the clothes.
02:08They will be brought back to the organization where they will be sorted.
02:12From here, we are able to do various things with them.
02:14For example, our denim rugs, our African Queen rug is made out of 40 pairs of denim pants.
02:21We also have our aprons.
02:22We also have our kitchenware like the table mats, the place mats.
02:28So that's one of the ways that we use denim.
02:30If you have an item of clothing that has a slight hole, please do not throw it out.
02:35Try and find a way to mend it.
02:37We are also trying to encourage people to adopt the mentality of upcycling and recycling
02:44textiles.
02:45According to researchers, it takes around 7,600 liters of water to make one pair of
02:50denim.
02:51At Africa Collect Textiles, we help extend the life of this denim through our process
02:56of upcycling.
02:57For example, we take around 40 pairs of jeans to make one rug of our African Queen carpet.
03:05If we can do it, you can do it too.