Cristina Escura Esteban and Carla Soler Esteban set foot in Bali (Indonesia) for the first time in 2018 and, since then, this paradise island has become their second home. “We went to volunteer with turtles and we fell in love with the island,” Escura acknowledges. “We repeated the volunteering several summers, in which we saw how each year the accumulation of plastics in the sea is greater,” adds Soler. The problem: “The Government is doing practically nothing about recycling; “What is not burned ends up in the sea,” laments the first of them.
Their passion for the island, together with the desire to start a business together, encouraged the cousins to promote a project related to Bali and its beaches. “At first we didn't really know what we wanted to do, until we met a Balinese who is dedicated to collecting plastic waste to create boards with them,” explains Soler. The design training of both young women, aged 24 and 25, was what led them to create furniture with those plastic boards.
Just a month ago, the entrepreneurs began to market their first items through their own online store and social networks. “They are furniture in puzzle format, which the client has just assembled at home, so that they are easier to transport,” says Escura. They have named the brand Duamadé, from two in Balinese (dua) and the female name Madé, very common among the second daughters of a family.
Escura and Soler, who have established the company's headquarters in Barcelona, fight to be able to live exclusively from their company and to be able to rescue plastics from the seas of many other islands that, like Bali, do not have recycling systems either. For the moment, the founders have begun to contact furniture stores and brands with which to do collaborations.
In addition to helping to clean the seas of plastic, Duamadé aims to help generate employment among the most disadvantaged groups. “Many people participate in the manufacturing process and they are all like family,” says Soler. For greater transparency, the entrepreneurs publish the entire manufacturing process through the brand's profiles on social networks.
