For years, the big advertising and marketing banners round Sonoma Raceway sat in storage when theywore out their welcome — whether or not from a sponsorship exchange or the damage and tear of thediverse motorsports around the 2.5-mile racetrack.
Now, those equal vinyl banners are being became cloth for messenger luggage, duffel luggage, computersleeves and different objects way to a Santa Rosa organisation.
The company, Sonoma-united states, released a Kickstarter campaign Wednesday to reveal off its newproducts and help construct enterprise.
“We stay in a throwaway society,” stated Steffen Kuehr, founder and leader govt officer of Sonoma-usa,that’s within the technique of turning into a licensed B corporation. “maximum of these vinyl banners will stay round for hundreds of years.”
Kuehr cited people in 2013 generated about 254 million heaps of trash, in line with the Environmentalprotection business enterprise.
however, U.S. citizens recycled and composted about 87 million lots of this material, more or less a 34-percent recycling price.
“We have to begin searching at a way to make a distinction on a larger scale,” said Kuehr.
Kuehr is extra 9aaf3f374c58e8c9dcdd1ebf10256fa5 within the nearby commercial enterprise communityserving as chief operating officer for Bijan’s protective equipment, which makes the whole lot frommilitary duffel bags to canine raincoats.
In 2014, Bijan produced 10,000 reusable purchasing baggage for the Sonoma County Waste managementcorporation earlier of a plastic-bag ban that went into effect.
For the raceway mission, Sonoma-u.s. took about 2,000 pounds of banner fabric to apply as an initialproduction run, consisting of the ones sponsored via corporations which include Verizon. In flip, theywere converted to luggage that would no longer be out of vicinity in hipster city regions inclusive ofBrooklyn or San Francisco, with a computer sleeve costing $44 and duffel bag $94.
“a number of those banners had race-stimulated motifs … we’ve got the capability to create the racingthing for clients who are strong racing enthusiasts,” Kuehr stated. “at the identical time, not each person desires to stroll around with a race car on his back.”
Raceway officers preferred the provide, mainly as Sonoma-u.s.a. will donate five percent of its income to the Sonoma bankruptcy of the Speedway kids’s Charities. It also stored the price of transporting the clothto a landfill.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity for us, being a enterprise that you would now not typically partner as acompany, that would positioned a priority on sustainability,” stated Steve page, Sonoma Raceway president and widespread supervisor. “We hate to ship them to landfill … we hadn’t observed a very gooduse for them.”
In reality, the Raceway has taken steps to grow to be greater sustainable, installing a huge sun panelsoftware and having three,000 sheep on its assets to graze grass and maintain fire lanes.
while Kuehr offered the idea to recycle the banners to Raceway officials, page said “it changed into only a lightbulb moment for us.”
If the program does properly, Kuehr said he ought to envision using other materials from the racewaysuch as flags, ropes and tents. He ought to even see repurposing drivers’ racing suits.
“We may want to without problems flip a number of the race suits into amusing luggage, tote luggageor other merchandise,” he said. “Race suits are very durable. they’re tons softer to sew and paintingswith than a number of the vinyl cloth.”
