Wealth from WASTE
“Our recycled plastic rugs look just like wool”
Tasha Green, 47, lives near Salcombe in Devon with her husband Barney and their three children. In 2016, she and Barney founded Weaver Green, which makes rugs and textiles from recycled plastic bottles.
✢✢THE IDEA
Barney and I have always loved travelling, and had become increasingly concerned by the levels of plastic waste we were seeing in countries like India. In 2009, we were in Turkey and came across a fisherman’s rope crudely fashioned from a cut-up plastic bottle. With a background in textiles (Barney ran a rug business, and I’d worked in marketing for a clothing brand), it made us consider whether there was a way of turning waste plastic into textiles.
✢✢WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
Back in England, we began talking to yarn manufacturers, but they were only interested in offering us textiles made from virgin plastics. We soon realised we would have to develop the product ourselves. We had enough self-belief to give it a go, though it took us seven years– and suddenly the business really took off.
