An initiative by a Dunedin business is keeping hundreds of flags out of the landfill and giving the public a chance to carry a part of the city’s history on their shoulders.
Adams Flags and Stitch Kitchen are working together to repurpose flags and street banners once flown around the city, by converting them into tote bags.
Adams Flags director Bruce Adams said the company printed flags for the Dunedin City Council and it was suggested that instead of going to the landfill after being used, the flags should be recycled.
"We make the flags and the DCC has me putting them up on the poles for different events.
"After the flags have been flown for a number of months, they are no good for purpose so they would be thrown out.
"But now they’re not going to be — they will be repurposed.
"They’re some really cool designs printed on them."
Now once the flags were taken down, Alsco NZ washed them for free and community sewing studio Stitch Kitchen upcycled their fabric and turned them into tote bags.
Stitch Kitchen studio manager Fiona Jenkins said three years ago she was offered old flags that had been in storage at the council and needed to be cleared out.
It was pretty easy for her to adapt one of Stitch Kitchen’s old bag patterns to make tote shopping-type bags.
"It was mostly looking at what material the bags were made from and how we could tweak the size and the construction of the bag to better suit that fabric."
Stitch Kitchen was focused on reducing textile waste by running classes and teaching people how to sew, mend and upcycle.
The participants in the classes who made the bags had a variety of skill levels.
"They were people who either have enjoyed sewing in the past, might not have any sewing experience, or are just wanting to learn," Mrs Jenkins said.
The bags were sold through the Stitch Kitchen website to a wide variety of customers from businesses to travellers who saw the tote bags as souvenirs.
They would also be used by community programmes such as the National Library’s Read Share Grow programme which intended to use them as book bags.
