Garbage is often thrown on the ground or burned right away, as there is no established recycling system. Bangura collaborate with bike mechanics in the nearby towns to give the used bicycle tubes a second life in our collection of sleeves and bags. At the tailor shop the tubes are cut up and washed before merged with foam and colourful African fabrics on old pedal-powered Singer sewing machines from the sixties. The use of the Singers is partly proof of Singer sewing machines solid nature and partly due to the fact that electricity is a luxury only available when the generator is twice a week started to power surgeries at the nearby hospital. Each bag gets a dedicated a “made by” signature by its tailor on the potato pressured notes inside the bags, which also gets Alfred’s final “approved by Alfred Bangura” stamp before leaving the tailor shop. The Bangura tailor shop is located in the middle of the jungle facing the extreme weather conditions of Sierra Leone, with heavy rain in the rain season and lots of dust in the dry season. Perfect conditions to make and test doable products. When the tubes, foam and fabrics are merged together our YKK zippers are added to the product, giving our rough gems a touch of fx ruby red, sapphire blue or emerald green. After production we use the rest tube pieces to create key tags, a special extra you will only get from buying your products at the official Bangura webstore.
