454 kilometres of festival wristbands
- Simone Maas
- 2 jun 2016
- 3 minuten om te lezen
454 kilometres of festival wristbands, that is the amount of textile fabric that was thrown away at festivals in the Netherlands in 2015. That’s a lot. To give you an idea, that’s about the distance between Amsterdam and Paris. There has to be something we can do with this fabric? A student from Eindhoven thought the exact same thing and came up with a new purpose for these straps.
What is it?
When you enter a festival area you usually get a special wristband tied around your wrist. This serves as an evidence that you are allowed to be on the festival terrain. Of course not every wrist has the same size, which means that on average 20 centimetres of every wristband is cut off and disposed. Fides Lapidaire, student at the Design Academy Eindhoven, added up these numbers and saw it was time for a creative solution. She collected thousands of festival- and event straps and started experimenting with those. By using two special techniques she was eventually able to make the straps into a new piece of fabric.
Fides starts of with ‘punchen’, this means she will use needles to connect the wristbands. Then she finishes the fabric by ‘hot blowen’. She then will basically heat up the material with a john to make it melt and eventually get hard. The material that is then created can be used in a numerous different way. Your old wristband can be turned into a new pair of trousers, a jacket or even a tent! Fides herself sees a future where festivals directly transform the left-over pieces of wristbands into caps that that can purchase.
Why is it cool?
Making festival wristbands into articles of clothing is a fun way to recycle materials. If you know the left-over of your strap will be used for a cap or jacket, you might be more willing to hand it in (instead of leaving it somewhere on the grass). The same counts for the vintage juke-box bins that have recently be placed in Antwerp. At these special bins all around the city, you can select a song after having disposed your trash. Both the vintage juke-box and the wristband-caps give you some sort of reward for dumping your garbage. That reward makes it more pleasing to actually walk up to the right bin.
These are the kind of innovations we need, those that are both helping the environment and have a fun-factor to them. It is important to find creative ways to get more use out of products that are otherwise wasted. But ordinary recycling bins don’t do the trick. If we want to make a city sustainable we have to come up with ways to motivate its citizens to contribute to that cause. The experience is all in the product nowadays. This does not only have to do with the leisure-sector but also with recycling. If I could save up wristbands to let them be made into a unique jacket, I would even ask strangers for their wristbands. If I could pick out a song for throwing away a piece of paper, I would take my friends with me to dance to it! We need recycling to become an experience on its own. In a sustainable city we recycle just for fun!
What sources did I use?
http://www.omroepbrabant.nl/?news/2493911003/Broeken,+jasjes,+tenten+en+lampenkappen+van...+oude+festivalbandjes!+.aspx (afbeelding 1)
http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/nl/blog/een-eindhovense-student-vindt-dat-het-tijd-wordt-om-festivalbandjes-te-recyclen (afbeelding 2)
Always wonder,
Simone
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