1. Do you believe that upcycled products can lead protection of the environment? Isn’t it negligible?
- I really think it is invaluable to do upcycling. To keep fashion trends and brands power, we`ve got to incinerate off-season stocks till upcycling industry hasn`t started. With RE:CODE`s manufacturing system, we don`t need to burn all the stocks and it would prevent air pollution and squandering of resources. We definitely protect the earth. (RE:CODE)
- Actually we cannot say that we do make huge effect on the environment as a small company. However, I think we can say that it is valuable to upcycle if people think about the environment at least once, because of our name and motifs. Isn’t it better than nothing? (H.Poem)
- We got the call from Coca-Cola around 4 years ago. At that time, Coca-Cola considered about the problem that their PETs which do not have any sustaining power even the PETs recycled to T-shirts or other products. Because we, Emeco, have the national icon product which is the chair, and it can exist over 150 years, Coca-Cola was sure that it can be more valuable method, upcycling, than normal recycling. (Emeco)
- One of our product lines, Waste less Jeans, uses plastic polyester fibers which are made from around 20% of recycled fabrics and 8 plastic PETs in average. (Levi’s)
2. Have you ever experienced that a customer complained the fact that products came from trash and waste? How do you think about this?
- In our case, most customers think that it is a good idea to help the environment by buying the upcycled products. They buy products as participating an effort on the environment. (H.Poem)
-There were some customers who said to us that they figured out there are bunch of banners in our society, which they didn’t know before. Also, they asked me about other alternatives. This kind of change makes us to cheer up. We believe that it was a moment showing that the belief of Touch4Good can trigger a big change among people in indirect ways. There is a huge misunderstanding about environmental actions like recycling. People believe that eco-friendly actions makes people give up something or discomfort their life. This misunderstanding makes people ignore environmental actions and feel guilty. If the small thing does not change, the big one never change. If an individual doesn’t change, the environmental problem never be solved. (Touch4Good)
- In case of us, Zenny closet, we do not make a product and sell it. We receive a request from a customer and we do consulting for him/her. So we didn’t have any problem like that. (Zenny closet)
3. Even though your company delivers the values as much as selling environmental friendly products, it seems that your products are pretty expensive. To speak it as worse, it looks like your company targets eco-marketing as clever business strategy. Why does your company have to be expensive as now? We wonder that upcycling market can be beaten up the common market if the upcycling market is under the niche market. Don’t your company have a thought or mind to change to expand the upcycling market to wider range of customers with much lower prices? If it is yes, Do you have any trials and efforts to change in recent?
- It could be said our targeting market is a niche market. However, as far as for us, we produce the only one product for one customer, which is truly meaningful for us and customers. Furthermore, in terms of prices, It can not help having relatively high prices to reflect how the designer had many efforts to make the products genuinely and uniquely. (H. Poem)
4. Can we ask an abrupt question on your company? Please talk turkey. We are curious about the production cost matter. When you product to make the used items into upcycled new product, It may rarely see the situation that the cost of processing original materials is much smaller to the cost of buying new materials. How about your company? What do you think about this?
- Did not answer exactly. It seems like they didn’t want to answer. (H.Poem)
- In fact, The process of recycling the pet bottles costs twice more to using the aluminum as raw materials, and forth more to using the common plastic as raw materials. (Emeco)
5. Do you believe that upcycled products can lead protection of the environment? Isn’t it negligible?
- Actually we cannot say that we do make huge effect on the environment as a small company. However, I think we can say that it is valuable to upcycle if people think about the environment at least once, because of our name and motifs. Isn’t it better than nothing? (H.Poem)
- We got the call from Coca-Cola around 4 years ago. At that time, Coca-Cola considered about the problem that their PETs which do not have any sustaining power even the PETs recycled to T-shirts or other products. Because we, Emeco, have the national icon product which is the chair, and it can exist over 150 years, Coca-Cola was sure that it can be more valuable method, upcycling, than normal recycling. (Emeco)
- One of our product lines, Waste less Jeans, uses plastic polyester fibers which are made from around 20% of recycled fabrics and 8 plastic PETs in average. (Levi’s)