Vinyl billboards are used nationwide as temporary banner advertisements and are usually discarded into landfills where they create toxic pollution. Upset by this wasteful practice, Nicola Freegard and Robin Janson founded Vy & Elle in 2002 in order to transform this landfill-bound material into durable and vibrant products.
The strength of PVC vinyl makes it an ideal material for reuse, and because of the different images printed on the vinyl, it’s even more interesting as a fabric. The material offers colorful graphics that take urban art into everyday living. Each bag and accessory item Vy & Elle makes is unique: with random colors and designs, every product made is different, offering a chance to carry a piece of art on a shoulder, in a pocketbook or in the home.
In 2006, Vy & Elle entered into an exclusive supplier licensing agreement with MMT for the supply of its billboard needs. MMT is the undisputed leader in the development of large, photographic digital graphics, and they emerged in 1987 with an innovative computer technology that replaced slower, less exact conventional methods. MMT’s national reach has enhanced vinyl pick-up and deliveries, and their relationships with well-known brands have broadened Vy & Elle’s palette of products.
Contact: Vy & Elle, Tucson, AZ.
Find more information in Transmaterial 2.
Sweet post ~ too funny that i got your email just as i was researching some of the best recycled bags out there… check it out http://www.notcot.org/?post=1605
Great stuff. Actually, I tried to contact the two major vinyl billboard advertisers (Viacom and ClearChannel) last week to see if I could procure some used billboards for a shade structure project that I’m working on. To my dismay, they both said that ALL of their billboards are shipped out of the country. Viacom wouldn’t tell me where they were going (landfills in China, no doubt) but ClearChannel told me something interesting. All of their billboards go to Mexico to line artificial ponds that they raise Talapia in.
Delicious fish, for sure… but do I really want my fish raised in toxic PVC cesspools.
Makes you wonder if there could be a better reuse. I’ve seen similar bags as these… but there really needs to be some more options other than shipping them elsewhere.
there should definitely be better reuse options for such materials.
this is something i have been thinking about for some time. i would love to find manufacturers that throw away mass quantities of a material that have potential use.
if anyone knows of anything along those lines, please post suggestions.
Wow, the bags are pretty cool. In a similar manner, Swiss company Freitag make very durable bags from the vinyl used on soft sided trucks.
The answer to the question of waste and reuse of vinyl starts at the source. Why are we producing it in the first place? It’s toxic to produce, harmful to users, and impossible to dispose of. There are MANY other materials far more benign to the environment and users that are just as efficient and cost effective, however, the consumer mass refuses to set vinyl by the way side.
Producing these bags is more of a “well what CAN you do?” resolution than an actual answer to the dilema. As a public we need to vote with our pocket books – don’t buy vinyl!
The bags are cool all right, I have one from http://www.was.co.nz and it has lasted forever! and I give it hammering
Boris Brothers in Vancouver CANADA are doing some cool stuff. They have secured many tons of vinyl to use. http://www.thrillershop.com/borisbrothers.php
Hello. Speaking of old billboard vinyls, we’re barely making a dent in the “big picture” so to speak but have come up with at least some interesting vinyl diversion. My gallery takes “dead” vinyls, stretches them into art canvasses and offers them to artists. Sold over 30k of art on the material to date in the Off The Wall indoor/outdoor art exhibits.
This past April (’07) we also got the display companies to donate billboard space on which 9 artists created 5 original art pieces on recycled 14′ x 48′ vinyls. Were up for 6-8 weeks and seen by over 15 million people. The works are next going to San Francisco. You can see the pieces on the eco-logical.org website, a non-profit.
Here is just one seller of whole billboards for cheap:
http://www.pointonepremiums.com/
There’s a company called The BIG Print in Seattle that prints recyclable billboards (BioGraphixTM.com). They also re-purpose PVC vinyl into bags and luggage tags….pretty cool stuff!
Boris Brothers are also making these sick wallets and shopping bags now. They are pretty durable too. Now they are trying to sample bio-degadable PVC banner fabric that is once used…to target the other comment of why use this stuff in the first place. every bit counts.
“As a public we need to vote with our pocket books – don’t buy vinyl!”
That is not a decision the -public- can make, it’s companies like viacom that buy the vinyl. they don’t have direct dealings with the public so the public can’t let their wallet speak.
You’ll need a different “inroad” to stop vinyl being produced….
In the midwest, several companies make the discarded tarps available to high school performance groups (Marching bands, Winter Guards) to add visual appeal to their fields! The School I work for just got about 3 thousand dollars worth of raw material donated to the marching band in the form of Billboards!