Zarah Juan turns campaign tarps into bags
ZARAH JUAN, a Philippine social enterprise, is upcycling discarded tarpaulin materials from election campaigns into fashionable tote bags.
The initiative started after the 2022 presidential elections, when Zarah D. Juan, the creative director, saw potential in discarded campaign tarpaulins that would have otherwise ended up in landfills.
“I said, ‘OK, why don’t we create a design that is fresh and innovative in a way that people would enjoy and use every day?’” she said in an interview. “So I was very ambitious in thinking that if we created a bag out of tarp bags, we would be able to help the environment.”
After that election, the Zarah Juan brand managed to upcycle about 20,000 bags from tarpaulins over a year.
Ms. Juan said they also plan to upcycle campaign tarpaulins from the May 12 midterm elections.
“That’s our main goal again — to upcycle as much as we can so that we can lessen the impact of tarp waste on our dumpsites,” she said. “And the only thing we will change is that we’re releasing new designs. So, it’s going to be a series of bags.”
The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) earlier said 11.8 tons of campaign-related materials, such as posters and tarpaulins, were removed just days after the elections.
If left in landfills, plastic tarpaulins can release harmful microplastics and persist for 500 to 1,000 years.
Zarah Juan gets tarpaulins from local governments such as Quezon City to send them to their production networks, including the Quezon City Jail Female Dormitory, where prisoners cut and clean them.
They have also tapped communities in Bulacan and Quezon City for printing, assembling and sewing. The products are then returned to the company for quality checks and sold on its website and at SM stores.
“It gives me joy as a designer to be able to tickle people’s minds a bit in terms of their perception of the bag, and then give them joy when they realize, ‘Wow, these are actually upcycled, printed, used tarps,’” Ms. Juan said.
She said the company plans to hire more people, especially Filipino prisoners. She also wants more companies to step up and prioritize environmental sustainability, which can go hand in hand with profits. — Edg Adrian A. Eva
