Team Revival: Seeing Value in Discarded Plastic

JA Asia Pacific | JA Singapore

Tina Jiang, Sam Liu, Carlota Pinker Rego, Dhruv Sharma, Guanju Wang, Jackson Wang, Kevin Yu, Terry Zhang, Coco Zhou

Advertisers in Singapore use plastic banners to draw attention to products and events, ranging from restauraunt offerings to concerts. But once each non-recyleable banner has played its part, it’s discarded. Or at least it was, before a  JA Singapore team got involved.

Team Revival saw potential in the strong, waterproof, free materials in each banner and set about looking for a way to repurpose them. The result is the Versa bag, wearable in three ways: over the shoulder, as a cross-body bag, or as a backpack. In just the first few months of production, Revival kept more than 40kg of banner waste out of Singapore landfills. And they intend to keep climbing higher.

When developing its business plan, Team Revival made a decision to use only public transportation to deliver products, in order to further reduce the company’s carbon footprint. Then, Revival partnered with a local nonprofit in two ways: the team outsourced labor to the marginalized community members served by the nonprofit, workers who are in need of demonstrable skills in order to re-enter the workforce. Second, Team Revival gives a portion of each bag’s profit to the nonprofit.

Banners kept out of landfill. A low carbon footprint for delivery services. Marginalized community members gaining skills. And a donation for every purchase. 

Revival is saving Planet Earth, one bag at a time.