Step 1: Tas Perca

Hello,

Please meet Tas Perca (or Scraps Bag in English). Tas Perca is our first step to reduce the plastic bag usage in our operational process.

What is Tas Perca?

Tas Perca is a cloth packaging bag with scrap fabrics as the main material combined with waterproof fabric as the lining. Scrap was chosen for the reason to reduce the fabrics waste from the production. The early batch was combined pretty much as I like (as you can see the 'wild' combination in the pics -- Desi). The size varied depends on the handmade item it contains. 

The waterproof lining was chosen to secure the handmade item from weathers and any other aspect that may cause harm to the handmade item inside. By securing it we hope to stop using a disposable plastic bag in our package completely.

The Potential Plastic Sources

Here is the brief description of the steps we take to produce one product, from the beginning to an end.

Sketch of Fili&Lino Operational Process.

By making a list and inspecting the steps, we identified steps that potentially engaging to plastic usage, 

At Input Section

• Materials. Most of the packaging of the materials was plastic wrapped. For example, a dozen spools, a dozen zippers, a roll of interfacing, etc.
• Plastic wrapped package for materials we buy online. Example, a package of fabric comes from the seller with plastic wrap plus extra plastic on the outside from the shipping agency.

At Process Section

•  Shipping. For a safety reason, most of the customer prefer their order to be secured with a plastic wrap. Understandable for the package had gone through a long journey and Indonesia weather can be unpredictable. Apart from our direct involvement as a plastic 'donor', the shipping agent also take a part on this by putting extra plastic wrapping when the item shipped.

    

                                    

The Goal

After discovering the sources, we see the possibility to cut the plastic usage in the Process section, specifically at the shipping process. To secure the handmade item at this process we came out with the idea of Tas Perca. Start from last month we try to ship the package with Tas Perca beside the paper wrap and approach the shipping agent not to put extra plastic wrapping to the outer package, which we found out that four out of five agents were able to comply with the request.

We hope Tas Perca will be our first step out of many in the near future to reduce plastic usage and also to developing the design as well.


Cheers,
Desi
Fili&Lino