Small Business: Upcycling - Helen Copplestone, KARKT

Helen Copplestone, co-founder of KARKT.

Small business editor Caitlin Sykes this week interviews a handful of small business owners about upcyling.

Helen Copplestone and her husband Samuel Wyrsch founded KARKT, which makes bags from upcycled materials, late last year.

Can you tell me a bit more about what you do at KARKT?

KARKT is a company my husband and I set up that blends together various materials destined for landfill into messenger and gear bags. The bags are primarily made by reclaiming expired or damaged truck curtains, but we also use seat belts, bike and truck inner tubes, and street flags in various aspects of the bags.

We see what we do as a double eco-whammy because we're diverting quality reusable materials from the landfill plus we're creating high quality products from them that will last and won't need throwing back in the landfill or replacing any time soon.

Where did the idea for the business come from?

My husband is from Switzerland and we lived in Europe for three years, and that's where we originally saw the concept. A Swiss company and a German company started out repurposing unwanted truck curtains into bags about the same time 20 years ago, and since then companies in Canada, the UK and South America have been doing the same. We guessed no one was reusing truck curtains in New Zealand and that they were ending up in landfill, and when we came back to live here and investigated we found we were right.

How did you develop the business from there?

We produced some initial bags and tested market and customer feedback by selling them at markets in Auckland and at some large festivals like the Grey Lynn Festival and WOMAD last summer. They were really well received - people seemed to like that they're made from recycled materials, that they're tough and that each bag is unique in terms of its graphics design.

Now we're focusing on getting more exposure online through our own ecommerce website and finding retail stockists around the country; we've got three so far. We've been collaborating with 3R Group - who find solutions to reuse industry waste rather than send it to landfill - by recycling their child car seat belts into our bags, and other recycling opportunities are in the pipeline as they expand their recycling project base. We were also approached by a Norwegian company called Velg Bedre - which sells high-end sustainable products to corporates, other organisations and conferences - and we're now supplying KARKT bags as part of their offering.

Why have you been motivated to start a business using upcycled materials?

We're a simple living and green-at-heart bunch, and I happen to also have a background in business; I have a Bachelor of Commerce in accounting and spent years as a production accountant in the film and TV industry. To locally manufacture something that's reusing materials that are no longer wanted, rather than putting more pressure on new resources, aligns with our personal beliefs. I think that's an important factor for being passionate about the business you're in.

What have been some of the particular challenges you've faced starting a business based on upcycling?

As with any small business funding is an issue. Unless you upcycle on a large scale it's difficult to get funding for recycling initiatives, and we'd like to see more funding given to environmental and education initiatives that are done on a smaller scale too. Also, unlike nice new raw materials, truck curtains don't come to us clean and shiny after years on the highways, so cleaning them is our major physical challenge.

Price perception has been another hurdle, but that's slowly changing. There's a lot of work involved in handling and manufacturing products made from upcycled materials that are locally made on local wages. This converts into a price that consumers need to be prepared to pay to reflect that, but it's something some people don't understand when they're used to paying for cheap imports. But thanks to media coverage I think there's an increasing group of educated and eco-informed people - the 'conscious consumers' - who understand that paying more initially actually means paying less in the end. When you buy lasting quality, it will withstand several cheaper versions. Plus their purchase is supporting the local economy.

What's next in terms of developing your markets?

This year we're releasing a school bag because we've heard time and again they're usually replaced yearly. We'd love to take this one step further and combine that with an education roadshow or project on sustainability that finishes off with participating school kids cutting their own choice of graphics from a truck curtain for their own self-designed recycled school bag.

Corporate and conference gifts is another area we'd like to focus on, and we'd also like to see more New Zealand companies walking their sustainable talk and offering employee-selected Christmas gifts. And we're also expanding our retail stockist base throughout New Zealand, because I think being able to experience the product first hand helps communicate its quality.