JunkNot!: Protecting communities, the environment and furniture made from waste
April 22, 2021
“There’s no such thing as waste, only resources out of place.”
This is how licensed interior designer Wilhelmina “WIllie” S. Garcia described the green philosophy of JunkNot!, a social enterprise she founded in 2015 to upcycle plastic and other wastes into chairs, tables, and other accessories and other useful creations.
To an environmental designer like Garcia, a dump site is a trove of raw materials that can help bring and build her imaginations to life––or even into award-winning art which she does. The challenge, however, is in the design and development of more functional, marketable products that can absorb as much waste and significantly help in the global fight against mounting waste.
To date, the MSME has produced thousands of chairs, stools, tables, lamp fixtures, pillow cases, bags and other pieces of handicrafts and furniture.
From these creations, tons of waste have been upcycled while in the process, proper waste management practices have been instilled across various communities in partnership with JunkNot!
From free spaces to a storefront in Paris
In starting her social enterprise, Garcia leveraged several government support programs, such as the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) One Town, One Product Next Gen which provides product development assistance, capacity-building workshops and free trading spaces to MSMEs.
She recounted how she nearly abandoned JunkNot! in her first trade fair until an answered prayer told her to carry on.
“Five days na kami walang benta, kahit yung item ko na maliliit. Nawawalan ako ng gana pero nagdasal lang ako,’Lord give me a sign if you want me to continue this journey.’ Kasi lahat ng chairs na yun, yun na lang pera ko” [It’s been five days and we still did not have a sale, even with our smallest items. I was losing the motivation but I just prayed, ‘Lord, give me a sign if you want me to continue this journey,’ All those chairs, that’s where I invested all my money,”], Garcia said.
A day after her prayer, a resort owner passed by her booth and was immediately drawn to her pieces and JunkNot!’s livelihood project that benefits the rural poor. The buyer bought all her chairs and became a repeat client who ordered in greater quantities.
With renewed hopes from a quickly answered prayer and a sweeping sale, Garcia more actively participated in trade exhibitions, including the prestigious Manila FAME, where entrepreneurs gather annually to showcase their premium artisanal fashion and lifestyle products.
From starting off with free spaces, Garcia was able to finance her own bigger and more strategically located booths, expanding her visibility that international exhibitors, one after the other, began inviting her to fly and bring JunkNot! at their trade fairs.
Today, select JunkNot! products are present in Paris, Germany and Japan. You will find them in storefronts or, sometimes, on national television with a morning show featuring not only the ingenuity of JunkNot’s designs but also the riveting stories of the women who gained empowerment from the enterprise.
Mothers with steady incomes
Garcia’s first encounter with the women of Barangay Alas-as, San Nicolas, Batangas was in 2014. She was commissioned then by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to conduct a solid waste management training program in the community.
In her training, she taught them the practices in properly segregating their household wastes and the techniques of twining upcycled plastic wastes into ropes that will be assembled into JunkNot! pieces.
“At first only four women participated. Then I paid them a total of P11,000 which was a big thing for them from having none. This income inspired other women to join,” Garcia said.
Today, there are 83 women twining for JunkNot! Each is given P500 per yard of twined plastic waste and while their community receives an additional 5% as development fund for each sale of a JunkNot! finished product they helped make. On average, one member can make P4,000 monthly.
Gaining a degree of economic independence, JunkNot!’s women, who were mostly mothers, were more able to spend for the needs of their families and of themselves, from little pleasures such as a sofa they have been meaning to buy to big ticket purchases like second-hand cars and a set of solar panels.
“Nagkaroon talaga ng kabuhayan sa Taal,” Garcia said.
Rising from ashes
During the January 2020 eruption of the Taal volcano, the women of JunkNot! were among the tens of thousands forced to leave their homes and take shelter in evacuation centers for days.
Like the Taal island blanketed in lahar, the women of JunkNot! were shrouded in anxiety, not knowing until when they had to remain in evacuation and, more distressingly, not knowing whether there will be a home to return to.
Fortunately for them, twining only needed a pair of scissors, their skilled hands and plastic wastes which were also readily available. So in the overcrowded evacuation centers, they put their hands and minds to work and twine, hoping to recover what may have been lost to the mud flow and ashes.
“Naging therapy nila ang twining. And bumilis sila sa paggawa para lumakas ang kita,” Garcia said as she shared the emotional moment she visited them at the evacuation center.
“Sobrang umiiyak sila nun nung nakita nila ako. Sobrang nakakalungkot yung situation nila dun, sobrang dikit dikit at sobrang emotional kasi lahat ng gamit nila na naipundar, either natabunan ng ash o nanakaw. Kaya nabuhayan sila nung nakita ako kasi ang dami nilang nagawang twines nun so may pera sila pambangon uli,” Garcia added.
A year has passed since the tragedy and, thankfully, many were able to return to their homes and recover. Some, however, had been permanently displaced, scattered in various municipalities across Taal but, nevertheless, learned to adjust and start their lives anew.
And now in their new communities, they are influencing other women to join the JunkNot! cause.
Eco-innovation and women empowerment thru IP
For one of its chair designs, JunkNot! owns a utility model that is registered at the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL). Her intellectual property (IP) registration was made possible by the Design Center of the Philippines, a member of IPOPHL’s Innovation and Technology Support Office Program which extends filing assistance to creative and innovative people like Garcia.
For Garcia, IP protection is indispensable and women entrepreneurs, who are typically “very creative, with very wild, new and innovative ideas,” should see this in the same light.
“It’s very important to register our intellectual property. It’s a long term protection. For us to sustainably profit from our registration, we have to understand all our rights so we can be sustainably protected with IPOPHL,” Garcia said as she called on women entrepreneurs to safeguard their IP assets.
As a community leader, the JunkNot! founder also sees IP protection as critical to sustaining livelihoods.
For each JunkNot! piece, Garcia said, represents not only a milestone in alleviating the waste problem by the kilos but also the skilled hands of women who have been empowered by the MSME’s values.
“From my experience in the community, the learning of proper waste segregation and waste management alone has been very empowering to them. As the guiding light of the household, they can transfer the knowledge to the next generations so we really need to empower the women for a better future,” she added. ###(Janina Lim, Media Relations Officer)
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