Photo: Uzenk Doezenk | Unsplash
When Lauren Mason volunteered to clean up after a festival two years ago, she was dumbfounded by the number of tents left behind by festival goers. Her mother is a great seamstress, so Mason went looking for material to make clothes. “I originally went to clean up with the idea to make my own jacket. But that’s when I realized the problem was bigger than we thought.” Growing up, she had always felt a duty of care to the equipment she was bringing. “It was just a rule that unless your tent got set on fire, you packed it up dry and took it home.” That led her to found Retribe with the aim of collecting tents from festivals and upcycling them into all sorts of new items: tote bags, bottle carriers, clothes, accessories. Every piece is unique and made with as little waste as possible. “Even if your tent’s broken, that material is great for loads of other things. That’s what we’re trying to show people,” Mason says. Retribe is part of a wider fight against such overconsumption and harmful waste. “Even if we’re just encouraging one person not to bin their tent, that’s 10 meters of fabric, minimum, going to landfill for hundreds of years.”
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