California has a pitiful record when it comes to recycling.
Only about 9% of plastic gets recycled. The rest — bottles, cups, ties, get washed into our oceans, entangling sea birds and when they get pulverized into microplastics, they’re eaten by sea turtles who often die. Tiny particles end up in fish that gets sold at the supermarket and eaten by humans.
They also land in our landfills, which release methane gas, a potent contributor to climate change.
While big changes can require big actions, sometimes the smaller recycling efforts that often go unnoticed are where a green trend can start and grow.
Take the relatively recent program by LA Metro, the mega transit agency giving rides to 1 million people each day in LA County. They are taking vinyl banners, used uniforms worn by bus drivers, train operators and Transit Ambassadors and turning them into tote bags. These unique bags are handed out free of charge to the public at marketing events.
Since 2020, they’ve diverted about 1.67 tons of waste material (equal to 3,300 pounds) from local landfills. And that’s mostly from vinyl banners that are used to announce a new train line, keep the public away from construction zones, or provide information to its employees. They are hung in employee work lounges and plastered at train construction sites to announce an extended line, like at the May 8 opening of three stations on the growing D Line in MidCity L.A. and the Miracle Mile.
The agency has a goal of eventually diverting 50% of its waste.
“It’s always good to reduce our generation of waste and turn them into something useful,” said Alvin Kusumoto, deputy executive officer in environmental services for LA Metro.
First, a few definitions.
The agency practices upcycling. This is a creative process whereby discards are cleaned and sent to factory, where they are cut, re-shaped and sewn into a new end product.
Recycling is an industrial process that breaks down materials such as plastic, glass and paper by shredding or melting, just like they make egg cartons out of old newspapers, LA Metro explained.
In the past nine years, vinyl banners have been upcycled into unique small, medium and large tote bags. So far, Metro and its garment producing partner have manufactured 14,000 tote bags repurposed out of vinyl banners.
A newer aspect of the program started last year using pants and shirts worn by more than 300 Ambassadors who roam trains, stations and buses guiding riders to their destinations and alerting law enforcement to potential criminal incidents. This has resulted in 2,000 bags. Combined, it brings the total of repurposed tote bags to 16,000, Kusumoto said.
In the last six months, Metro has begun collecting worn uniforms from bus and train operators. “We’ve put a collection box at each division. They bring in their old uniforms and we go in to see which ones are still useable,” Kusumoto explained.
Taking scraps of waste and repurposing them into useful products is not unlike an episode of TV’s “Project Runway,” when designers are stretched to use “unconventional materials” to design and make couture garments.
The green aspect of the program is embraced by CR&A Custom, Inc., located on the corner of Pico Boulevard and Olive Street in DTLA, which receives the vinyl banners and cloth uniforms for upcycling. The company was named Green Firm of the Year by the city of Los Angeles in 2019.
“We are environmentally friendly printers. We use environmentally friendly ink,” said Carmen Rad, CR&A Custom president.
Her company also takes scraps of data boards and makes them into different products for other clients, another example of upcycling, she said. “These are scraps that we make into something else,” she said.
At the shop, Carlos Garcia sews as many as a dozen tote bags a day. He is a skilled craftsman whose father taught him how to make shoes in Guadalajara, Mexico, LA Metro reported.
“Vinyl is a very durable material, so it is perfect for making a tote bag,” said Rad. “We create different designs and work through the challenges of using vinyl.”
Workflow can be a challenge, because discarded banners and uniforms are brought to her shop periodically, only after collected by LA Metro, and often not on a regular basis, she said.
After making a batch, production ceased a few weeks ago. “I need the raw materials so we can see the process,” she explained. This week, some materials were sent over and production resumed, but that means stopping the flow of other garment production to make way for this unique product, another hurdle.
She said her company is always up to an unconventional materials challenge.
“We are always trying to find a way to recycle things,” she said.
LA Metro is also looking to branch out the program that was started by an idea submitted by a two-year, entry-level trainee in the environmental compliance division.
“We are always asking for more material,” Kusumoto said. “We are looking at different products besides tote bags. There is another company that does a backpack. We are seeing how to expand our product selections.”
Currently, the totes are not available for sale. All LA Metro merchandise is only sold online at https://shop.metro.net/. Kusumoto is hoping to add the repurposed tote bags to the agency store’s product offerings in the future.