Revoada addresses the problem of valuable material loss by recovering thrown-away umbrellas and bicycle inner tire tubes and repurposing them into new designs.

Umbrellas and inner tire tubes are often discarded after use with no valuable materials being recovered. These materials end up in a landfill and contribute to the waste problem.

Founded in 2013 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Revoada is a design and consultancy studio. 

As a design studio, Revoada makes garments, accessories and corporate gifts from discarded umbrellas and inner tire tubes. It sources materials through waste collectors and sorters (also pre-consumer inner tubes that didn’t meet quality standards) and encourages sorters to sell umbrella structures to metal recyclers. A certified industrial washing facility cleans Revoada's raw materials with captured rainwater and proper water treatment. Products are designed for durability, assembled by women’s sewing cooperatives they partner with, and released in limited, seasonless ‘batches’. For worn-out products, Revoada has a take-back program, repurposing materials into new designs. 

As a consultancy studio, it offers lectures to companies in several circularity methodologies, vocational sewing and pattern-cutting courses, and public technical workshops. Revoada also measures and publishes its impact in reports. 

Since 2013, Revoada repurposed 14 tonnes of bicycle inner tubes, 13.000 umbrellas, and provided more than 300 families with income sources.

Photo: Jereme Rauckman (CC) Flickr