His first project was about collecting Habibeh Spoons (plastic spoons from a bakery in downtown Amman) and creating a lamp shade from them. “After that I continued creating smaller products from used materials for friends. The business then grew until I rented a workshop, managed to buy some machines and started building furniture,”Ziadeh says of his humble beginning.

This is when Ziadat4recycling was founded and chaired by Ziadeh himself to manufacture furniture from used materials. The entrepreneur highlights that they only produce furniture upon customer request and that by doing so they are spreading knowledge about upcycling, showing that “beautiful and useful things at the same time can be created from old and used materials.”

Ziadat4recycling further engages actively in projects that make the idea of recycling and upcycling visible. They also give workshops for youth groups regarding those topics.

“Our clients are mainly expats that live in Amman, a lot of them families with small children. Other than that, we have big NGOs as our customers, embassies, international institutes, cafes, and restaurants,” Marianne Sievers, the initiative’s Project Manager adds.

Ziadeh started with his little workshop in the artsy and old neighborhood of Jabal al-Lweibdeh, facing the Citadel mountain, but now he moved to Berlin and is in search for possibilities to continue his business there.

“We were and still are entirely self-sustained,” he notes. “We are [currently] looking for a workshop partnership or an open workshop space; some initiative that is renting their workshop, etc. in Berlin and of course, like-minded organisations, initiatives, startups, or companies, not only in Berlin but all over Europe.”

Follow Ziadat4recycling on Facebook and through their website.