This article is a translated extract from a podcast episode of Te Damos Voz. You can listen to the full interview in Spanish here.
Te Damos Voz (we give you a voice) is an initiative from Bioguia, Efecto Colibrí, ES2 Latam, LeFil Consulting y PES Latam, that supports social enterprises in Latin America and the Caribbean and lets the whole region know their impact story.
Host: In this episode, we are going to introduce Biotico, an ethical fashion company. Can you imagine having a purse made from plastic milk bottles? Interesting, right?
Biotico make high fashion purses and clothing from plastic waste. Adults with learning disabilities, who are at the heart of the project, are involved in the manufacturing.
Jesica: The purse is the pretext for the clothing, it’s the pretext for generating all of this transformation in society. We have to really look outside of ourselves, look at our fellow man and ask, – how can I make your life easier?
Host: She is Jesica Pullo, founder of Biotico, designer and fashion industry activist. She is a waste alchemist and is convinced that we can create a more inclusive reality. We asked her what are the changes we have to make as a society.
Jesica:
The first problem is the exclusion adults with learning difficulties face in society.
Because even though they have spaces while they are young, they go to educational institutions, in society views them from another perspective. Then, when they grow, the inequalities intensify, because their parents start to grow older, they don’t have the energy they once had or even pass away. These people with intellectual disabilities need spaces, they need to always be included. There is also a quota law and this law is not being abided in private companies. So, in short, it’s necessary for all the actors in society to work together to include these communities.
Another problem that we found are landfill sites. Waste incinerators are also included. We focus on single use plastics. We identify and work with two plastics that are polythene, which the milk sachet is made of, which we identified as something easily avoidable, there are other alternatives to cow’s milk, there’s a ton of other natural or vegan milks that we need to be looked at because if we bought a 3 pack of almond milk we’d be stuck with the same problem. We also identified bimetal polythene which make up biscuit or snack packets, made of plastic, and on top of that are not recyclable because they have three layers, so they have to be seperated and that’s really difficult and super expensive.
We want to make society aware in order to avoid waste accumulation. These plastics give off greenhouse gasses when in contact with the sun and we want to avoid this type of consumption, because as well as this, when we avoid this kind of packaging our food is healthier.
The third problem is that we are buying non recyclable products. What we know is that in order to break the cycle we have to buy recycled products, because it’s not just separating rubbish, but also buying these products. Governments and society in general can start to buy recycled products made by communities and local start-ups to move towards responsible consumption. We also see that as a problem and a solution at the same time.
Host: These multiple, complex problems can seem too big for just one person or project. They clearly are. However, the agents of change choose to be part of their solution and ask themselves: how can we make the actions, as small as they may be, have the most positive impact? Alliances are a sure way of creating more and better impact. Let’s find out how they do it at Biotico.
Jesica: Since 2016 we’ve worked with Alpad, an association that works with adults with intellectual disabilities in their 30’s who are local to the Saavedra area in Capital Federal. We got together that year and went and trained people at the institution with techniques that we developed, especially so that they can be replicated by people who have no prior craft or design knowledge.
What we do is: ask for the the neighbours’ sachets who as a majority are women who deliver them to us, clean and dry. We also receive them from the Florencio Varela Ecopoint where they seperate them for us. We take the sachets to Alpad and right now, in the pandemic, they distribute them to the supply houses of the Alpad members. But what we did before, I hope it comes back to this soon, is that we receive the sachets at the workshop and using an organised system the cleaning process starts, I mean, they come to us clean, but we disinfect them with alcohol.
Then we cut them into rectangles and we fold them to make textiles. Later we get these textiles by the metre at the Biotico studio and we sew them together by hand, because all the processes at Biotico are artesanal and from there we finish up making the designs according to what we have planned out. But all the pieces are done one by one, they are bespoke.
The second problem, which are the landfill sites. In Argentina, around 4 million sachets are consumed daily, according to the figures from the Argentine Dairy Chamber. This also sets off alarm bells for us, understanding that we are not making a transcendental change with those 100 sachets per purse, but what we are doing is raising awareness, well that’s a little of what we do.
Host: Producing a lot, quickly, buying things we don’t need then throwing them away just to go out and buy them again is going out of style.
Sustainable fashion is also called slow fashion. It promotes production centralised on quality, it chooses materials and processes that look after the planet, it means to be fair to all people involved and it promotes less impulsive and more conscious consumption.
That’s the kind of fashion Biotico make. That way, they have a notion of success that could be very different to that which other companies have.
Jesica: We don’t see success by walking the runway as fast as possible or selling as many pieces as possible, as fast as possible. We see success in our productive chain being transparent, real and trustworthy. As well as being a producer, I’m also a consumer. As for society in general, the first thing we have to ask of brands, the companies whose products or services we buy, is that they be transparent. Sometimes it’s exhausting having to navigate through all the ‘green-washing’ companies do where they make unreliable claims. Many brands imply reward them self without doing as they claim to be.
For example, on the Biotico website we have the costs visible so that people can see the percentage of what they are paying and where that money goes.
They can also check this information. We also make visible the situation of the workers who are there on the other side, who we never normally see, because that is not what they show us in the advertisements or in the photos.
What is the carbon footprint of that product? Because for them the product was produced on the other side of the world and it has to get here, that also has an impact on the climate emergency we are experiencing now.
So, even if it’s difficult, we must always keep ourselves informed using critical thinking to come to our conclusions about what we are going to finance with your money. We need to think about what kind of world and what kind of production you are going to finance with your money, because every purchase decision counts in the end.
Host: We think it’s amazing what Biotico is doing, promoting the use of money as an act of activism, raising awareness to avoid plastic, giving a new use to discarded plastic that has already been consumed, including people who don’t usually receive work opportunities. We’re interested about what kind of effects, impacts does the work of Biotico have on the people who are part of it?
Jesica: Our work is all handmade and manual. In the Biotico textile process, the conversion of a sachet of milk into a textile to create a product. We’ve also found that the work helps to develop peoples fine motor skills which is a great benefit.
We are concerned about personal development as a whole and I think that this should be in all companies, that they are really thinking about cognitive development, psychological development, and supporting people in the tasks they carry out.
I remember when I first met Laura, one of our workers, she said that she didn’t know how to use scissors. And she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to cut, that she couldn’t use them. So I told her: Laura, you will be able to do it, and now she is one of the people who cuts. For example, she cuts and she feels empowered in that, which I think is great. It has also taught me that the little things are very important and sometimes we get into trouble for some things, and to understand the simplicity of life, the importance of bonds and being able to share with others.
Host: Since childhood, it was clear to Jesica that she wanted to be an entrepreneur, some experiences in her early years marked her forever and explain why she does what she does today.
Jesica: I have been an entrepreneur for as long as I have been aware of it. I was born in La Salada and until I was about 10 or 11 years old, in the Central Market there was some land where there are now some warehouses of well-known brands, which used to be open-air dumps. I would always pass by and the smoke from the burning rubbish would come through the bus windows, it made me sick and I would make a fuss, I’d cover my face with my clothes. I couldn’t believe that people were just passing by as if it was nothing to them.
Then came the La Salada fair, when I was 11 years old, I started to see systematic pollution in the Riachuelo, that is, it had always been polluted because of the tanneries in the 90s, but there was also a lot of plastic pollution. Then people started to throw textile waste in banks of the Riachuelo which generated a lot of burning and rubbish, waste, residues. And I said this can be reused to make a lot of things. I even saw people who went and picked it up, it seemed unfair to me that people had to pick it up from the ground like that, as if it was devaluing.
So we kind of have to really look outside of ourselves and look at our fellow man and say well, how can we make life easier? I’m an activist in the environmental fashion industry, vegan, fundamentalist in my life, I try to make the best of everything and have the biggest positive impact always.
That’s why I think Biotic continues and will continue because that energy and that need there is for things to be more inclusive, to be healthier, both for humans and for the planet. So, the engine is inside me and inside the people who are part of Biotico.
How can we transform our anger? Maybe a lot of things that we have inside us to transform that into gratitude, into love, into working towards others, which is also towards yourself, because those feelings are transformed and make you feel happy.
Host: It is very inspiring to hear change agents like Jesica manage to transform anger, feelings of injustice, sadness into committed action. It’s amazing to see so clearly those changes inside people and to see how they can energise changes on the outside, in society and in the environment.
In addition to the individual work, there is one component we can’t forget: the community. Systemic changes are never made alone, they are the result of what we do in a network, in alliances, with other people.
Jesica: Obviously, Biotico is a mini grain of sand in a huge transformation that needs to be made, but the idea is to be part of it, and I think we understood this well in 2020. Working together for the common good and as they say, you don’t save yourself alone. That is to say, you are part of a giant planet, but every action counts positively or negatively.
We always link up and we understand that the only way to make a real change is to link up with colleagues and even with people from other areas, to be able to carry out this responsible consumption and environmental education, and to start being cultural managers, which is a bit what we designers are, it’s the role we play in society. Also from Biotico we are part of SUPRA, which is a Latin American community of supra-recyclers and we are actively generating projects.
Sometimes thinking that the designer is the only person who is working, thinking and doing this is an atrocious lie. It is the dedication of a lot of people who can move a project forward. Now you hear my voice, but next to me there are a lot of people who work, who are part of it and who also feel responsible for what is happening on the planet and want to make a change.
“I think there are a lot more people who want to do good than bad in the world”.
When you work for the common good, there are a lot of people who appear throughout your life, along your path, who want to help you and who want to contribute in a selfless way, and the truth is that I am very grateful.
Host: Biotico and all the organisations that promote this programme are working to accelerate the transition towards a new paradigm that is more conscious, collaborative, inclusive and part of a community. We invite you to join us, to contribute from your place and to do it now.
