When a company that collects the trash and cleans the city of Barcelona had 1,285 uniforms to get rid of, they wanted to give them a new life so they called a local design school.

The students at the Elisava Design School were given the mandate not just to find new uses for the old clothing, but to do so without creating any waste.

In order to keep the prices competitive with new objects, they localized production (the factory they hired was just a 10 minute walk from the school) and attempted to minimize the disassembly of garments as much as possible. So zippered collars became money belts and raincoat sleeves were turned into thermoses.

In this video, we talked to the students and their teacher about creating a closed loop manufacturing process and about why recycled products as highly personalized items.