Recycling jeans as a way of life

Fall in love with jeans

By chance, I saw her through a program about green living and environmental protection on TV not long ago. I really admired her and wanted to learn more about the work she was doing. In particular, the appeal of recycled items from jeans fascinated me. Not only did it capture my emotions about the beauty of fashion , more importantly, more meaningfully, this activity is a way to contribute to protecting the environment, making life greener and more beautiful.

Hai Yen's recycled jeans products are extremely diverse.

Fall in love with jeans

By chance, I saw her through a program about green living and environmental protection on TV not long ago. I really admired her and wanted to learn more about the work she was doing. In particular, the appeal of recycled jeans fascinated me. Not only did it capture my emotions about the beauty of fashion, but more importantly, more meaningfully, this activity is a way to contribute to protecting the environment, making life greener and more beautiful.

Ms. Yen has been recycling jeans and creating a "capital" of fashion items made from recycled jeans for more than 5 years now. On a small street in Viet Yen district, Bac Giang , in her store, Ms. Yen's staff is still diligently cutting and sewing from discarded jeans, shirts or school bags. With their creativity, diligence and hard work, they have created fashion products, handicrafts and, more importantly, unique designs of decorative products related to jeans. She often says: "Joy comes to me every day when many brothers and sisters come to visit the new store. Everyone is excited and loves our recycled jeans products."

Graduated from the University of Labor and Social Affairs, Hai Yen decided to follow her own path with recycled jeans, because since her student years she knew and was passionate about this. Participating in many volunteer activities from the environment while still in school, she still cherished the plan of work to contribute to reducing waste, making life greener. So the desire to make recycled products was ignited in Hai Yen.

Development of recycled jeans

From the old jeans collected, Hai Yen has tried to create many useful, creative and highly applicable products. Initially, there were only a few pairs of bags and backpacks, but gradually she and her colleagues have created many other products. Thus, old jeans have more opportunities to be reborn. According to her, some indispensable tools in creating recycled jeans are:

- Specialized sewing machines: industrial and semi-industrial machines.

- Household sewing machine: can sew, but is suitable for sewing soft bags with few layers of fabric such as tote bags, crossbody bags, hats...

- Sewing needle: use needle number 16 - 18 (normal sewing needle is 11)

- Sewing thread: if you sew a little, you can buy a roll of denim thread, the kind used for sewing jeans. You can also use nylon thread or parachute thread.

- Create bag form: for bag models that need a standing form like backpacks, use specialized cotton pads to sew the bag, use an iron to firmly glue the fabric to create the bag's form.

Those are the most basic things to start trying to recycle your old jeans. With old jeans, after being processed, washed, cut, and selected usable fabric and patterns, they can all be recycled. With different jeans materials, they can be recycled into suitable useful items. For example, thin jeans will create a shape for a cute jean hair bow. Or you can use small pieces of jeans after cutting to create unique jean earrings or a unique, convenient phone bag.

From the Recycling old jeans workshop project sponsored by Live & Learn through the Clean Air - Green City Initiative Fund, with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Ms. Hai Yen has learned a lot of experience and been inspired to create many quality recycled jean products. Many recycled products of the girl from Bac Giang have been introduced and displayed at major exhibitions, most recently the Denims and Jeanss Vietnam 2024 exhibition held in Ho Chi Minh City.

Regarding the journey of recycling jeans, Ms. Hai Yen said that she and her colleagues have gone quite a long way in "rescuing" old jeans into beautiful, useful items, bringing the use of recycled products closer to the daily lives of many people, reducing fashion waste. Her group is extremely happy to be able to contribute a small action to the common global ideal of protecting the environment, reducing waste, thereby moving towards a green, clean life.

Spreading value

Ms. Hai Yen, in that way of life, wishes that the spirit of recycling will spread to the community as much as possible. The proof is that she has organized a series of jean recycling workshops in Hanoi , Ho Chi Minh City and many other cities so that many people who share the same ideal of recycling, protecting the environment, and living green can attend. In addition, her group also regularly organizes workshops to experience and learn the basics of sewing recycled jeans to earn extra income. From here, many jobs are created to help many people around her in Bac Giang and neighboring provinces have stable jobs.

Hai Yen spreads love for recycled items to everyone

"About a year ago, I was the only one doing this meticulous work, but I'm glad that now there are many more people who love recycling jeans like me, and have quality and aesthetic products. I feel that the inspiration to recycle jeans has been spreading to many people. Turning discarded items into beautiful products is really not simple. Those will be days of hunching from morning to night, with fabric dust all over my body, and at the end of the workday, I will come home to wash away the fabric dust still in my nose, and there will be more calluses on my already rough hands from making handmade products... But I'm still very proud of the products I make, which contain all my heart and passion. Conquering old jeans is a daily joy. And I'm so happy that people recognize and love those products," Hai Yen confided.

Saying goodbye to Hai Yen at her store in Bac Giang, I still lingered over the images of the bags, school bags, backpacks, and beautifully recycled jeans that she and her team have been making. I was also filled with excitement when I heard about her many promising projects in the future. Surely, many high-quality and creative recycled jeans products as well as exhibitions and workshops by Hai Yen will continue to be implemented in the future. I wish the meaningful environmental work of the girl born in 1995 will always be successful, spreading more good values ​​in the community.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/tai-che-do-jean-nhu-mot-le-song-185240801163527376.htm