‘So Much of Our Mission Is About Building Circular Relationships’.
Whether it’s to clean out a closet or offer support after a natural disaster, many Americans eagerly donate worn clothing, with the expectation that their unwanted garments will become a much-needed item for someone else.
The reality, however, is that those donated items often end up in a landfill in East or West Africa, rather than in the possession of a new owner.
Second-year MPH student DL Lundberg has cofounded a nonprofit social enterprise called Make Fashion Clean (MFC) in an effort to disrupt a US textile system that generates 25 billion pounds of wasted materials each year, leading to adverse economic and public health consequences in several African countries.
“Many people in the US aren’t aware that 50 to 80 percent of clothes they donate isn’t actually resold in their community,” Lundberg says. “Many Ghanaian artisans no longer have a local economy to sell their own goods because there are so many secondhand goods shipped and sold there from the US.”
Earlier this month, MFC launched a Kickstarter campaign for its new product, Blue Circle Bags—denim handbags that are assembled in Ghana from discarded American jeans and then sold back to US consumers, creating a full circle of upcycling.
“With MFC and Blue Circle Bags, we want to create employment for artisans who have been affected by this, and also use secondhand material that would otherwise end up in a landfill,” Lundberg says.
Lundberg witnessed the burden that US clothing donations place on Ghana’s local textile industry and environment after studying and living in the West African country for two years to research disability rights. They formed a friendship in 2014 with a Ghanaian seamstress named Matilda Lartey, who is also the mother of a child with a disability. In 2016, Lundberg and Lartey’s rapport blossomed into a business collaboration that sparked the creation of the Matilda Flow Inclusion Foundation (MFI), based in Greater Accra, Ghana, and Lundberg’s US-based MFC project, cofounded with Boston College professor Julia DeVoy and qualitative researcher Sarah Bibbey. In the sustainable fashion partnership, MFC leads the product testing and marketing efforts, while MFI assembles the Blue Circle Bags and manages its social impact programs.
Together, MFC and MFI aim to empower Ghanaians through an environmental, social, and racial justice lens. Not only is the Blue Circle Bag produced with recycled US materials, but MFI also employs underserved artisans who have physical disabilities and limited options and resources for consistent employment.
Preventing clothes from being discarded in landfills also leads to safer living conditions, as chemicals from decomposing fabrics can seep into the ground and make it less able to absorb water. Lundberg says certain materials, such as polyester, can take up to 40 years to decompose.
“The standing water can lead to malaria and other communicable diseases,” they say. “It’s really detrimental to a lot of the public health goals that we all desire.”
Lundberg honed the business and marketing skills needed to launch MFC and the Blue Circle Bags during their practicum last summer at BUild Lab. They participated in the lab’s intensive Innovate@BU Summer Accelerator program, a 10-week program for entrepreneurial students who wish to turn their start-up ideas into reality. The accelerator program included workshops on topics such as marketing research, team-building, design quality control, writing a business plan, and legal considerations, as well as mentorship by other entrepreneurs.
“Being at the BUild Lab was the best experience I’ve had at BU,” Lundberg says, adding that the program helped them develop a succinct elevator pitch as well as a communications and marketing strategy for MFC.
“Marketing is definitely the biggest challenge with starting a creative enterprise in the sustainable fashion industry,” Lundberg says. “The work that we do is very intersectional and there are so many angles to it—upcycling, individuals with disabilities, environmental equity, women’s empowerment, and health—so we have to be able to explain ourselves clearly.”
MFC has pilot-tested several iterations of the Blue Circle Bags, as well as other products, such as tie-dye T-shirts. Through market research, MFC discovered that customers wanted a product more durable than T-shirts—which led them to ideas using denim.
“We had a good grasp on social impact and developing community partnerships and doing the public health work, but what we really needed was a product that would stand on its own—one that people would want to buy and carry, not just because of the mission, but because it’s a beautiful thing,” Lundberg says. “It’s art.”
Lundberg says their long-term vision is for MFI to operate independently and for MFC to build similar partnerships with other companies. MFC’s cofounders have already expanded their team to include an advisory board of 10 members, and have amassed a sizable following on social media.
As a student studying Design and Conduct of Public Health Research and slated to graduate in May, Lundberg plans to establish a career in quantitative research—but is committed to MFC and would eventually like to transition into a board or advisory role.
“I love the fashion elements of this project because it allows people to look at our bag as a circle, and so much of our mission is about building circular and equitable relationships,” they say. “It’s cool that someone can get a sense of that just by looking at the product.”
The Blue Circle Bags Kickstarter campaign relaunches in January 2019.
Comments & Discussion
Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.