Everyone has an allocated space or a drawer where they collect the plastic bags that cumulate at home. For Nour Kays, this place was under her kitchen sink, when she was living in London, and finishing her Master’s degree at Kingston University, in 2013. Like many of us, she was perturbed with the amount of plastic going to waste, prompting her to start experimenting and using it for other purposes.

The experiments led her to develop a new material which is light, water-resistant, and can be used to produce new products. It is made of 30 used plastic bags per square meter, and each piece is as unique as the mix of plastic bags that are used for it. From this material, she creates handmade and stylish designer bags that are quickly gaining her fans not necessarily because they are ecological, but because they are beautiful, useful, and each of the unique bags tells a story. This is how NK by Nour Kays started.

Going green and entrepreneurial:

In 2014, Nour joined the SwitchMed Green Entrepreneurship program designed to support enterprising individuals looking to build their own sustainable startup. She received comprehensive training materials, coaching from local experts and the support of the SwitchMed infrastructure to develop her product and attract her first customers.

In addition to her product strategy, NK aims to raise awareness about waste, inspire upcycling, and encourage reducing waste and pollution in Lebanon. They inform and educate people about the environmental consequences of plastic and leverage social media to spread messages about plastic bags, sustainability and the environment. They also regularly attend fairs and schools to speak about the amplitude of plastic waste on the environment.

How does NK build a better environment?

NK reduces the amount of waste polluting nature, harming (marine) animals, or ending in landfills by taking the waste material and turning it into a new material to use for new products. This is a brilliant example of the upcycling principle – traditional recycling is usually a process of downcycling – meaning that after each cycle, the material becomes less and less valuable. The result is that eventually, the material will go straight to a waste basket anyway, but the process has only been delayed.

Upcycling on the other hand gives materials a more valuable use; in this case, NK turns a very low-value product (a single-use plastic bag) into a high-value item such as a stylish designer bag. Furthermore, NK doesn’t use raw materials and does not mix materials, making it easy to disassemble and recycle in the end.

In addition, NK has set a number of rules to implement while operating. For example, rather than throwing away the small cuts from bigger items, they reintroduce them into the production process to produce smaller items, e.g. key chains that represent the animals endangered because of the plastic bag waste in the ocean. They also minimize transportation by only working within a small radius and not shipping their produce.

How does NK care for the community?

Each piece is handmade. NK works with local artisans and technicians to produce the bags and pouches, creating jobs and building relationships for continued economic prosperity in the local area. They follow a partnership strategy of fair and equitable growth that aims to allow each artisan to progress at a rate of production that is in harmony with their personal lives.

Nour Kays is also part of Recycle Lebanon, a hub for sustainable development initiatives in Lebanon, where she is part of the EcoSouk, an alternative shop for the community.