Solve a problem
Yet Milner was aware that more than half of her donations would be sold to developing nations, where the cheap shirts would undermine local clothing enterprises. She wondered if they could be repurposed. Looking at the colourful designs, it dawned on her that they might make nice tote bags. At the same time, she knew filling her days with work she wasn't passionate about had to stop. She wanted to try something fun and different. The resulting cloth tote caught the attention of friends. They all wanted one, as did their friends—and an online business was born. ReTeez takes previously loved T-shirts and transforms them into practical items—from baby bibs to crocheted belts.
And it's not as though Milner, now 51, is pocketing all of the ReTeez profits. "I love that my kids' generation is so motivated to give back, while we were all programmed to make money. Well, we've made the money, and discovered that's not all there can be."
Giving back to the community
Milner's 19-year-old daughter, Samantha, is living proof of her mom's observation. For every T-shirt donated to ReTeez, Milner gives her daughter a donation of up to $4. In the summer of 2008, Samantha spent six weeks in Vilanculos, Mozambique, with a charity called African Impact. Last December, her daughter returned there, with ReTeez donations in hand, to help improve local education.
Last year, while hunting for T-shirts in her local Value Village, Milner noticed something else: buttons. Bags and bags of buttons. What if those were made into brooches, earrings and key fobs? ReFashioned became her next venture.
ReFashioned is now carried in more than 1,000 stores in the United States, and in more than 200 stores in Canada. To date, she'd sold more than 120,000 rings made of repurposed buttons that would otherwise have been bright spots only in a dump.
"It's fascinating," says Milner, taking a deep breath, "to take what's already out there and make it into something brand new."
Solve a ecological problem
Sitting in her South Vancouver office, Shannon Boase, 43, is holding up something that resembles a hedgehog. She explains to a mystified visitor that it's actually a palm husk. It's also a useful prop for illustrating how her business, Earthcycle Packaging, has made a difference both in Malaysia and here at home.
Rewind five years when Boase was living in Malaysia and would often find herself coughing from black smoke so thick it would force the local airport to close. Overwhelming smog was partly the result of the Malaysian palm oil plantations, which burned millions of tons of fibrous waste left over from their palm oil pressings. With Malaysia producing about 42 per cent of the world's palm oil, the waste factor was significant.
But Boase saw a way through the haze.
