Profit-making idea: Old clothes – restyle, reinvigorate, burn

Profit-making idea is a series of short posts, each with a piece of information that we think you might find useful: for investment, for growing your company or to start a new business. Read our previous posts here.

In a past interview, we asked Deepa Dosaja, the founder and CEO of the eponymous Deepa Dosaja label, to name a business opportunity she would still like to pursue. Here is her response:

“In my industry it would be wonderful if a qualified designer would start an up-cycling and recycling brand. The designer would encourage clients to bring in old garments – for example, [an] old, favourite dress – and recut it and style it into a new garment. This would be profitable; as I believe if someone has sentimental value for a garment they would only want a qualified designer to restyle it.

“This would be profitable in that the designer would have no outlay in buying fabric and they would be able to charge a sufficient amount for their skill and design.

“In another unrelated industry, I believe if one were to collect all the old clothes and garbage around the world and import them to Africa, and set up an industry whereby these objects would be burned at high heat in order to produce usable gasses — these useless items can be used to create energy.

“This is possible because in Sweden they have successfully managed to take this up as a business opportunity; not only could this be profitable, but it could also reduce the environmental load on our universe.

“I believe the energy used to burn these at high heat, outweighs the benefits of creating this renewable source of energy.”