When Anne Bradford, commercial director of Poetic Brands, first met with Barry Kane, md or Upcycle Labs, neither could have guessed they would bond over an ornamental elephant.
But while it looked like the one that was, at the time, sourced from China and retailing in Asda, this was in fact an elephant of the singular most extraordinary beginnings. Because it begun… at the end. Yes, this was an ornament produced under the modus operandi of Upcycle Labs – a firm this is and does exactly what it says in the tin.
Unlike the elephant statues found on those Asda shelves at the time, this was produced here in the UK. It was also completely made from textile waste. And it was at this realisation that Anne knew there was a story to tell.
Looping us in: A circular story
Upcycle Labs is a pioneering outfit that takes waste materials – namely waste textiles, headstock, unsold, and returned clothing no longer in any condition to be resold – and upcycles it in to new products. These can be any and all manner of gifts and housewares products – all made on site at the company’s Nottingham HQ – and all limited only by the imagination.
Attendees of the Sustainability in Licensing Conference earlier this year would have heard that the very first Products of Change SDGs Member Awards were in fact made by Upcycle Labs, created with waste textile product that had been diverted from landfill and given new value.
“And believe me, there’s a lot of waste in those awards,” hinted Barry during the Conference, hinted towards the value at which items of clothing would retail at were they not returned.
For Anne, it was the ornamental elephant that sparked her imagination. Because Upcycle Labs also happens to be part of a pioneering new chain, fostered by the PDS Group (the parent company of Poetic Brands and many others) that started all the way back at the clothing manufacturing sites in Sri Lanka under the Norlanka name. It’s here, in fact, where Poetic Brands’ own baby wear collections are produced before they move through Poetic and onto the rails at George at Asda.
Items that are unsold by the end of their run are recaptured by the clothing reuse and resale specialist, Yellow Octopus – another PDS Group entity – which brings items that cannot be shifted elsewhere into the Upcycling process at Upcycle Labs. It’s a symphonic story of sustainability and savvy systems change that now needs to be told right from the beginning…
