Recycle and Reuse
Our goal is to try and maximise our use of recycled resources as we produce products, while still retaining to ability to assess the quality of these resources and the chemicals used in them (which can be a challenge with recycled materials). We also want to do our best to reuse existing goods and byproducts – like the fibres left over from the production of cotton. When treated correctly, cotton waste can be turned into yarn to make towels. Leftover fabric from other manufacturing processes – so-called 'dead stock' – can also be used to create brand-new products, like our Aberdeen towels, our Sovano kitchenware collection and our NorBo denim range, produced in Sweden. We also use recycled polyester from plastic bottles, incorporating it, for example, into the outer shell of our Sortino and Sloane bags.
Packaging guide
HACK your PACK is a creative video guide with plenty of examples that we produced to inspire people to give Vinga packaging a second life. Even though our goal is to always use as little packaging as possible, products always require at least some packaging to protect them as they're being transported and handled in different warehouses. Instead of instantly throwing packaging into the recycling bin, why not reuse it in other ways? Check out our video here.
Vinga hacks
The Vinga Hack project was first launched on Black Friday in 2019. We renamed Black Friday 'Hack Friday', which led to Vinga Hack. When you hack something, you turn an existing object into something completely different. We challenged people to hack one object a month from Black Friday to summer. The idea behind the project was to promote the concept of using existing objects to fill an unrelated need or create something new. We wanted to inspire people and have them come up with novel ways of interpreting a product.
Recycling and Chemicals
We do our best to incorporate reused or recycled materials in our products, but we are aware of the fact that this can create problems in terms of traceability and chemicals. One of Vinga's main priorities is to stop the use of toxic chemicals and proactively work to replace them with safer alternatives – a goal we'd never compromise on just to be able to use a recycled material. We no longer produce bags from fabric previously used in awnings, for example, because it turned out that, as it was produced, this fabric had been treated with a solution to make it water-resistant – while Vinga's policy is to never use materials that have been treated with fluorochemicals.
