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Meet the maker: Growbag Upcycled

Meet the maker: Growbag Upcycled

Est. 2013, Cape town.

Who is Growbag Upcycled?

Growbag Upcycled is a social enterprise whose aim is to create fun and functional goods with the aim to inspire you to lead a life that is conscious and sustainable. 

The Growbag range has been created to serve only one purpose: To fit into one's life and any living space! 

We’ve got two ranges of planting container/bags:

Colorful Planters - made out of recycled billboard advertising PVC vinyl material that would normally be thrown away. Each item is unique in colour and pattern.

and

Stripy Planters - the body is made out of printed PVC vinyl, the planter base is made out of recycled PVC billboard vinyl - staying true to our main objectives, but creating a more minimalistic look with hand drawn stripes in 6 different colours on white background, which can be reordered.

Each Growbag is handmade in Cape Town with attention to detail in order to create unique planter container/bag range that is sustainable and eco-friendly. We employ a skilled team who pride themselves with quality work and ethics.

 

What was the idea behind your brand?

I always wondered what happens to the billboard advertising banners and so I started brainstorming products. This is when I met the founders of the Soil For Life Org. and participants of the organisations Grow to Live Programme.

Gardening was always one of my passions and so I started working on a planter range. The idea of creating life out of waste material was the most interesting and challenging part of this project. The main drive for the project was to help community gardeners to have more space to grow food by donating planters to them and to empower staff by providing employment.

The gardeners could apply their skills immediately in a funky colourful planters rather than looking on rubbish dumps for anything suitable to grow plants in their gardens. Through Growbag I spread the word about Soil For Life’s work and importance of living life sustainably. 

It's amazing to visit Soil For Life’s home gardeners and hear about how good the raw veggies make them feel and also to see how proud they are about the garden oasis’s they have created with their own hands.

My wish is to show to everyone how people can create life out of waste, feed their family and with this in mind empower anyone else wanting to grow vegetables, herbs, plants and flower no matter of the space they live in.

 

What is your creative process that inspires you to create what you do?

Being part of a bigger picture is what drives me…In this day and age its important that everyone understands the importance of knowing where their food comes from, how to live sustainably and also how important recycling of waste is for the environment and the future generations. 

 

How many people work for you?

We employ 6 people in production and sales, however we have a number of several skilled staff who we get in when we have big orders to help us produce and meet our deadlines.

 

What are your best sellers?

Everything sells well as people love the idea of recycling and empowerment. 

 

What is YOUR favourite product of your collection?

I love the functionality of products and so I love the variable functionality of our planter bags as lifestyle decor products for storage of toys, towels, magazines/newspapers etc. however I also love our ever growing lifestyle product range of shoppers, pouches, bunting flags, floor mats, buckets etc.

 

What to you is the best thing about selling on KNUS?

I love how Knus has managed to create a well curated platform for SA design that stands out with bespoke products like ours :-)

 

How would you say it has impacted your business selling through KNUS?

Spreading the word about sustainability by including our range into their offering of locally produced design brands.