Bagging it up
Published 21 July 2011
University of Brighton design student Richard Simmonite's idea for a recyclable carrier bag 'Bag Re:Born' has gained him a position as a finalist in a national competition aimed at supporting enterprise and innovation.
The Venture Candy competition aims to transform budding businesses into big brands. The winners of each category, who are being voted for by the public, will receive national advertising, marketing, branding consultancy and other benefits worth over £50,000.
Richard, who has just completed his PGCE in Design and Technology, is a finalist in the competition's Fashion and Interiors category and Richard's Bag Re:Born business offers an innovative range of re-usable and transformable multi-use carrier bags, aimed at combating the over-consumption of single-use bags.
Richard's bags have two patents pending and will offer a wide range of specific second life uses for each bag, including boxed storage, recycling container drawers, clothing protection, charity-donation packages, composting containers, waste bin liners and refuse sacks.
Aside from the competition, Richard is about to trial his bags with Oxfam and a partnership of other leading charities in Wales. Richard said: "Research undertaken by The Environment Agency has found that the environmental impact of all types of carrier bag is dominated by resource use during the production stages and the key to reducing impact is to simply reuse bags as many times as possible. The bags are intended to be another option to the 'bag for life' options available at supermarkets, and will be particularly useful for the impulse buyer and forgetful people, who have left their bag for life at home."
Richard has been supported by the university's beepurple entrepreneurship network. He attended workshops over two years and benefitted from one-to-one support to help focus and refine his idea, assist with business planning, provide advice on company formation, contracts, manufacturing and potential routes to market.
An article on Richard and Bag Re:Born is featured today (Thursday 21 July) in The Metro, the free newspaper which distributes 1.3 million papers over 50 cities across the UK daily. Online voting also opens today at www.venturecandy.co.uk and remains open for one week.
Find out more
Read more business news...
Contact: Marketing and Communications, University of Brighton, 01273 643022
