At street bins around Athens, you’ll frequently see old drawers, bedsteads and pallets waiting to be landfilled. Rokani gives this junk a new lease of life. “It started when one of us was renovating his own home. We experimented with upcycling some of the pallets, and then thought, why not take this further?” says Stratos Hadjiyiannakis, one of Rokani’s five founding members. “We all came from a technical background. After the economic crisis we were looking for an opportunity to start something for ourselves.” 

It’s a practical, durable accessory, a zero-waste product, and a quintessentially Athenian souvenir, all packed into one super-stylish bag. Yet when siblings John and Gary (falia) Pitsaki left their respective jobs, as web developer in London and architect in Rotterdam, to create 3Quarters design in Athens, the entire project was a gamble. “Our idea was to come up with a product that was very low cost, using materials that are super-typical of Athens, used and wasted in large amounts,” explains Gary. Balcony awnings sprung to mind—the swathes of canvas that have been keeping Athenian apartments shady since the 1950s. 

Moving from Mumbai to Athens in 2017 gave graphic designer Diti Kotecha the chance to plant a seed that had been rattling around in her head for 20 years. Starting afresh in a new country where plastic bags were handed out like there was no tomorrow, she combined her skills in crocheting, her creative background and her dedication to sustainability by launching Thela. A vibrant-hued collection of accessories, each piece is made entirely from discarded plastic bags. They are washed, dried, cut into yarn and then crocheted into brooches, earrings, coasters or floor mats. 

Stavros Tsompanidis had his eureka moment walking on Marathon beach with friends. Idly looking at the seaweed banked along the shore created a question mark, he recalls. “What’s the story of this raw material? What are its applications? What are we doing with it now?” The answer to the last question was that the huge quantities washed onto coastlines are mostly cleared by municipalities and dumped into landfill. Finding the answers to the first two questions and providing an alternative answer to the third took a meeting of minds with mechanical engineer Nikolaos Athanasopoulos and three years of R&D before the birth of PHEE.

Tsompanidis was recognised as one of the Forbes ‘30 under 30’ European industry innovators in 2018. Patented PHEE-board—made from dead Posidonia Oceanica seagrass, harvested from the beaches of Achaia, in the Peloponnese—is crafted into sustainable items ranging from phone covers to beach racquets. They even produce sunglasses, in collaboration with Zylo, a Greek eyewear brand. This is just one of many strategic partnerships that PHEE are working on. 

Think Sea invites donations of ‘retired’ windsurf sails at its base on the island of Paros. The design team transforms them into trendy and durable phone/tablet cases, bags, and wallets. Sounds esoteric? Indeed. But as windsurfing sails are not recyclable, every new rig discarded after a summer of wear and tear was ending up in landfill. Who knows, that bold colour-block duffel bag you are eyeing up might once have carried champion windsurfer Nikos Kaklamanakis to Olympic victory! 
Prices from €25 (iPhone cases) to €78 (duffel bags).

Chris Alefantis has his social and environmental awareness hat on. You may have noticed people standing outside metro stations throughout the city in red Shedia vests selling a magazine by the same name. Aimed at empowering people in poverty, Shedia does much more than sell street papers. The leftover issues are used to create art objects, from lampshades to flower pots to clocks to delicate bracelets, necklaces and earrings, by people over the age of 50 who previously had difficulty finding employment. “We’re making the invisible visible again,” Alefantis says, referring to both the people that are being helped and the magazines that would have otherwise been thrown out for recycling. Check out their store on Kolokotroni street, which also just opened as a café and restaurant or the offshoot in the nearby Merchants arcade. Affordability and responsibility is the new black.
Prices from €2 (fridge magnet) to €100 (large handmade lampshade).