Branded bags from a client were leftover following an event with giveaways. Typical event bags, they were tote style, cotton material with print on either side. Being consciously minded the creative agency Brandfuel and their client didn’t want to send them to waste and wanted to donate them to a good cause instead.
The bags were being kept in Leyton, London, which is just down the road from one of the scrap stores in Event Cycle’s network. Scrapstores divert usable waste from businesses from being processed as waste and will distribute it to educational, community and arts organisations for reuse. Some scrap stores even organise their own art activity sessions in school holidays. Others sell items to the general public online or in local shops to raise money to fund their activities.
The Children’s Scrap Project in Homerton collects, stores and distributes all sorts including paper & card off-cuts, wallpaper leftovers, fabric remnants, leather cuttings, buttons, trimmings, wood off-cuts, mouldings, plywood, cork, canvas, rope, twine and ceramic tiles to name but a few. And, of course, they would never consider using single-use plastic bags so are always on the hunt for reusable bags for the customers to gather their craft items when they have forgotten theirs. The Brandfuel bags were sent by bicycle to the store for this exact purpose.
Tote bag production
An organic cotton tote needs to be used 20,000 times to offset its overall impact of production, according to a 2018 study by the Ministry of Environment and Food of Denmark. That equates to daily use for 54 years — for just one bag. (New York Times, 2021). So let’s keep the tote bags we have in use and out of landfill, and maybe reconsider producing anymore in the meantime.
Bicycle delivery
The delivery for this donation was 100% emission-free and booked through Xeroe, a courier company committed to helping the UK take another step towards sustainability and breathable air by using emission-free modes of transport only - bikes, cargo bikes, electric vans, cars and scooters. On average each Xeroe delivery saves 3.85kg of CO2 emissions.
Don't know how to donate your leftover event materials - talk to Event Cycle today
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The New York Times, 2021. The Cotton Tote Crisis. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/style/cotton-totes-climate-crisis.html (Accessed 29 November 2021)