SUNGLASSES AND ACCESSORIES FROM UPCYCLED FLIP FLOPS - THE FLIPYARN STORY

Parkville’s fun and fashionable way to tackle the flip flop waste crisis
Media Release - Tuesday 13 August 2019

SUMMARY

• FlipYarn is a pioneering recycling programme now being launched by Parkville, the eco-friendly manufacturer of sustainable wooden eyewear, homeware and haircare products, to collect and upcycle discarded flip flops (or rubber slippers) across Sri Lanka.
• Flip flops are worn by some 3 billion people around the world and discarded flip flops have become an ecological catastrophe for our oceans, beaches, marine life and environment.
• There are currently almost no flip flop recycling programs which is where Parkville come in. We started our manufacturing business four years ago to fight the use of plastics and are now tackling the flip flop waste crisis.
• We collect discarded flip flops, thoroughly clean and sanitise them and then upcycle them to create innovative and fun FlipYarn products such as high grade affordable sunglasses and accessories – it is a world first to make sunglasses from flip flops! Our FlipYarn offcuts are shredded for use as packing materials in keeping with our no waste policy.
• We will be launching a Kickstarter campaign on Tuesday 20th of August to raise capital for investment in additional machinery and expansion of our team dedicated to FlipYarn.
• JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN, HELP SAVE OUR OCEANS, BEACHES AND MARINE LIFE AND LOOK COOL WEARING OUR INNOVATIVE AND COLOURFUL FLIPYARN SUNGLASSES AND FUN ACCESSORIES!

THE HUMBLE FLIP FLOP – AN INNOCENT KILLER

Flip flops (or rubber slippers) are the most widely worn footwear in the world with some 3 billion people wearing them regularly. They are colourful, cheap and readily available to all socio-economic users. They are the number one footwear in China, India and Africa as well as many other parts of the world including Sri Lanka. For many in the developing world, these are the only footwear they can afford. Global sales in 2019/2020 are projected to top USD 18 billion with many major fashion houses having them as one of their must have accessories.

The humble flip flop may be a great footwear solution but very few of us consider what happens when they come to the end of their useful life of typically 12- years. Discarded flip flops pose a major environmental problem as flip flop waste cannot be recycled.

Flip flops are typically manufactured from cheap materials such as plastic, foam and rubber and create massive non-biodegradable waste that ends up in our oceans, waterways, environment and landfills. Discarded flip flops may take anywhere between 200 to 1,000 years to degrade, in the process damaging ecosystems and killing plants and animals. Large marine life such as sea turtles and whales are dying as they eat them whole, while smaller animals ingest micro plastics that occur as flip flops photodegrade into micro particles. Toxic flip flop chemicals and dyes seep into our water, while clogged beaches and waterways leave animals unable to access their breeding grounds to lay eggs. A recent scientific study of Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean estimated over 1 million plastic shoes, mainly flip flops, had washed up on the beaches of this tiny and previously “unspoilt paradise”.

YET VERY LITTLE IS DONE GLOBALLY ABOUT RECYCLING THIS UBIQUITOUS FOOTWEAR. FLIP FLOP WASTE IS A GROWING MAN-MADE DISASTER AND WE WANT TO ADDRESS THIS ECOLOGICAL CRISIS URGENTLY!

FLIPYARN’S INNOVATIVE FLIP FLOP UPCYCLING PROGRAMME

We are very proud and excited to announce our flip flop waste collection and upcycling program where we collect discarded flip flops and turn them into fun and innovative FlipYarn products! These flip flops are collected from waterways, beach clean-ups as well as designated collection points and sorted at waste sorting facilities here in Sri Lanka where our Parkville factory is located. 

We have teamed up with leading beach clean-up and waste collection organisations, Eco Friends SL and Rotaract District of Sri Lanka and Maldives, to help recycle as many discarded flip flop pairs as possible!

Once collected the old flip flops are thoroughly cleaned and sanitised. We then sand them down and upcycle the fully refreshed material and repurpose them into affordable, high grade, fun and colourful FlipYarn sunglasses, bracelets, necklaces and keyrings. Our FlipYarn offcuts are shredded for use as padding and packing materials. All of our sunglasses are fitted with custom spring hinges for maximum comfort and flexible fit as well as with market leading UV 400 scratch resistant lenses – the top standard in the eyewear industry - in both normal and polarised versions. The product comes in a recycled box with a carry pouch, a microfibre cloth, full warranty and 30 day money back guarantee.

FLIPYARN KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN

We will be launching a FlipYarn Kickstarter campaign on Tuesday 20th of August to raise capital to expand our project. The purpose is to buy additional tools and equipment for our manufacturing process as well as expand our Parkville team dedicated to FlipYarn and so create more employment opportunities for communities directly impacted by flip flop waste.

ABOUT US

FlipYarn

The idea for FlipYarn is something we came up with at our eco-friendly workshop here in Colombo called Parkville. We rescued our Parkville dog from near death as a puppy outside the workshop and this bundle of joy has since become our mascot. Walking her all around the city and countryside she loves to pick up rubbish that she can chew on. This invariably has tended to be discarded flip flops! No matter where we walked her she picked them up and we came to realise they are everywhere! So we decided to start doing something about this urgently.

Parkville

Parkville (see Parkvilleshop.com) is an eco-friendly sustainable eyewear, homeware, haircare and accessories brand started four years ago by two brothers from London to address the environmental plastics crisis by working solely with locally sourced sustainable wood. We proudly make all of our products in our own factory in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a country known for its beautiful ecology, skilled workforce, wonderful culture and extremely welcoming people. 

We started out with the manufacture and sale of high grade wooden sunglasses in response to the ecological threat of the hundreds of millions of largely plastic sunglasses sold every year around the world that are never recycled and can never biodegrade. From there we developed a range of affordable high quality wooden furniture and homeware accessories as well as teaming up with the Valentino Salon in London to develop a range of unique eco-friendly wooden hair brushes and other haircare products.

All our wood is ethically sourced and for every product sold we plant a tree in partnership with Trees for the Future, the non-profit organisation helping communities around the world to plant trees. We incentivise recycling of discarded flip flops by paying the people working with us in waste sorting and collection, thus contributing to the socio-economic wellbeing of directly affected communities.

CONTACT

Thank you for your attention. For any questions relating to this press release or to Parkville or FlipYarn, please feel free to contact:

Email: sales@parkvilleshop.com

Website: www.flipyarn.com

Instagram: @flipyarn / @parkvilleshop

Facebook: @flipyarn / @parkvillesocial

UK phone: +44 787 656 0606

SL phone: +94 76 467 5558