Starter Kit. Idea 400 of 500. Cluster 20
Surplus and off-cut businesses: the factories' waste as a design material
The mechanism, from the book
Sri Lankans make the world's underwear to the world's standard, and the country has no fashion brand of its own that the world has heard of.
The first step
Visit one factory's waste manager and ask what happens to off-cuts and surplus stock, and whether you could buy a bag of it. Make a small batch of products from that bag, patchwork bags, cushion covers or children's clothes, and sell them at a weekend market. The price the batch reaches, against what you paid for the waste, is your proof.
- Who pays first
- A shopper at home or a visitor who likes well-made things with a story, with the factory's waste as the selling point.
- What leaves today
- Factory off-cuts are dumped or sold as rags; turning them into products captures value from material that has already been paid for.
Ask first
- Central Environmental Authority. Ask what rules apply to collecting and reusing factory textile waste.
Check before you spend
The factory's written agreement to sell its off-cuts, that branded surplus is not resold under the brand's name, and safe storage of the material.
Find out these three numbers
- What does a bag of off-cuts cost?
- What price does a batch reach at market?
- How much waste does one factory produce each month?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.