Emmanuel is the founder of the association to reduce marine waste of
[ SAUVAGE MEDITERRANEE ]
Year founded: 2019
Design location, office: France 🇫🇷
Raw material sourcing location: Mediterranean, France 🇫🇷
Manufacturing location, production: Aix-en-Provence, France 🇫🇷
Founder profile
Manu Laurin created the Sauvage Méditerranée association. He lives in Aix and is 40 years old, an eco-friendly person at heart. Before that, Manu worked in events while always having his own non-profit structures then SARL.
What drives him daily in this project, with his team, is to find ways to revalue the waste collected on the Mediterranean coast to finance associations that organize beach cleanups.
About the brand
Manu swam between Marseille and Toulon to collect waste, all filmed to make a documentary "le grand saphir"". Following that, the question "what are we going to do with all this waste?" arose and that is how Sauvage Méditerranée was born.
Sauvage because we are talking about so-called "wild" waste in or around the Mediterranean. Manu trained with the Precious Plastic community in order to work and revalue plastic. Sauvage Méditerranée is a Provençal association housing a creative upcycling workshop of abandoned waste collected from the creative abandoned, associations organizing waste pick-ups on the Mediterranean coast from Montpellier to Menton passing through Corsica.
In this workshop, they create different objects: trophies, paintings, jewelry, bags…. Sales allow to finance a part of their actions, and to create Sauvage Currency – a transition currency usable in committed boutiques. Their products have no added material. The recovered and sorted plastic, washed, ground and then remelted in order to transform it in their workshop by Louis and Lorine who are in charge of production.
As a committed brand, their biggest challenge is lpurchasing power... They have a small workshop and there are 5 of them in this association doing everything by hand so the production cost is high and it is a challenge to combine ecology with social by making low prices. They would like to change workshop to have more space.
The eco-responsible impact
Their brand is responsible, ethical and sustainable because they only use plastic that comes from the beaches of the Mediterranean, they do not add any substance or transformation and they use manual tools to avoid using electricity within the workshop. Their production is mainly for sports associations and a few companies. They allow themselves to refuse companies that are destructive to the environment.
On their part, they have developed low-tech machines to reduce energy consumption: bike-powered washing machine, bike-powered grinder... For packaging, they send in already used boxes.
Their brand answers a major environmental problem with a short-term solution. The goal being the reduction of plastic consumption, they try to reduce this impact at their scale by 100% revaluing the plastic (PP and PE) collected on the beaches of the Mediterranean.
Besides, they also do awareness in schools about the reduction of plastic consumption. Finally, when you buy a piece of jewelry at Sauvage Méditerranée, there is a return policy that allows you to bring back your jewelry when you no longer wear it so that it can be revalued again.
The values of the brand
♻️ Recycling ↓
The brand only uses plastic recovered from the beaches of the Mediterranean.
🚮 Zero waste lifestyle ↓
Their products are not zero waste but are made only with waste.
👤 Know-how ↓
Engineers are at the helm and make designs that are always more beautiful.
🇫🇷 Made in France ↓
Everything is made in their workshop north of Aix-en-Provence, France.
💎 Limited series ↓
They only make small series.
🐨 Vegan ↓
The products are vegan because they do not add any material to the one already existing. They simply heat it.
👐🏽 Social and solidarity impact ↓
The brand reinvests 10% of their profits in waste collection associations via Sauvage Currency.
🏠 Made in Local ↓
Everything is made in Aix-en-Provence in France.
[ Sauvage Méditerranée allows to limit the environmental catastrophe by collecting the stranded plastic and revaluing it in the form of objects. ]
