Charles Brownlow has been running a Scottish fishing agency for the last seven years based in the Scottish Borders. He discusses his upcycled wader project and how it came about
Being an agent with no land and no direct tie to any estates is fantastic as you have no pressure to shoe horn guests into unsuitable estates or beats. The big issue for me is that it is sales pure and simple, my wife is an artist who paints using pheasant feathers like a quill and ink which she sells and puts onto products like cushions and mugs. I have always been slightly jealous of that pride and control she has over her products. Don’t get me wrong I take pride in the services I offer but somehow it is not the same as I am selling someone else’s product. This thought kept nagging at me and one evening in 2015 whilst I was looking through Clare’s pintrest account I saw some amazing products made from recycled things. Our friend Steph had also been creating some amazing products using shot gun cartridges which got me thinking about fishing.
There is not a lot of waste from fishing, as long as we are all careful about how we dispose of our nylon. However It is a source of amazement to me how many pairs of waders end up in landfill each year. Either from the returns or from age, they are binned with no real thought of the useable material still in the waders. I looked into the idea of using old wader material to make new products. I found that recycling or upcycling waders is not a new idea and there is a company in the USA doing a similar thing. My plan was to produce simpler products to those produced by them and what was the point in recycling something and sending it half way round the world when we are filling our land fill with the same materials?
A chance conversation in what is now Fin and Game, Kelso with Sarah Purvis who, it turns out is a wiz with the sewing machine meant I had found someone locally who could produce the products. The biggest issue was how to find the material. I approached several manufactures but contrary to what I had heard they said they had no old material to spare or would not release it. I then found Diver Dave the UK's best wader repair man. If Dave can’t fix it then the waders are beyond repair. I gave him a call and then went up to Aberdeen to meet him to discuss what he did with the material he could not use and found he had a surplus of dead waders which he was not sure what to do with and was happy to let me have.
So I had the means and the material, now I had to decide what to make and I went a bit crazy ending up with so many prototypes of products my office began to look like a weird fishing shop. We ran with a large selection, but with a sporadic supply of waders and without the ability to keep total uniformity in the products and keep up with orders was causing issues. So heading back to my original idea I cut the number of products and simplified the designs much to the relief of Sarah. We now have a core product portfolio of bags, reel covers, ear defender covers and key rings all of which can be found on our website.
We go through a fairly lengthy process when we get hold of the material to the finished product. The first port of call is for me to select and cut up the material we can use. The best material goes into our lined bags and fly wallets, the material that has seen the most ware and repair is used for our unlined kit bags. The thought being that kit is not fussy about the quality were as our clothes like to be looked after a little better. The waders are then cut up and cleaned by me and my boys with a pressure hose and disinfectant. Sarah then comes over and picks up the material that is ready. She then stores it at her home whilst she fits in my making around her horses and other employment (I could not keep up her work rate!) she also makes stuff for Clare my wife’s business. The material is then washed a second time and cut to shape and hand and machine stitched to make our quality products.
This is not a business that will make me into a millionaire but I love the fact that although I am not actually making the products I have helped design and create them, I have made it possible. I love the idea of keeping this material from our waste sites and giving it a new life to head back to the river. As fishermen/ women we are the litmus paper of the health of our rivers and we respect our environment, as such I think we have a responsibility to use and reuse all of our gear before it even gets a sniff of the bin. We are keen to take donations of old waders and we would love to hear from the manufactures who feel that their waste material might be better served being used than buried. We are also happy to make you products out of a particular favoured waders should you wish.
More info on products here www.upcycledwaders.com