We're on a mission to change the way people think about cat beds. We are going to upcycle textile waste and plush toys into one-of-a-kind cat beds that are eco-friendly, stylish, and most importantly, comfortable for cats. This is a great way to give new life to old textile and plush toys. By supporting our project, you are helping to educate others about the importance of sustainability and the circular economy.
National
Slovenia
{Empty}
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): University of Maribor, Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, (UM FKKT) Type of organisation: University or another research institution First name of representative: Helena Last name of representative: Levičnik Age: 29 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Gender: Female Nationality: Slovenia Function: Project Coordinator Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Smetanova ulica 17 Town: Maribor Postal code: 2000 Country: Slovenia Direct Tel:+386 40 741 686 E-mail:helena.levicnik1@um.si Website:https://www.fkkt.um.si/
In recent years, we've seen a lot of initiatives and products devoted to supporting ethical practices and fair-trade principles. Upcycling is an interesting concept gaining attention in this area – it involves taking waste materials and transforming them into something new, useful, and unique. It's a great way of benefiting people, nature, and cats.
That's why we are proposing this project to collect textile materials at waste sites and charities that are unfit for human use due to their poor quality. We want to offer an alternative approach to managing textile and plush toy waste that encourages sustainability and circular economy.
To help reduce textile waste in our communities and fully integrate shelter cats into society, we are planning to involve students in transforming waste textile into stylish cat beds for everyday use by shelter cats. Through this project, these once-passive cat residents in cat shelters will become visible participants in an effort for a sustainable future. We plan to enrich the lives of both cats and communities alike.
Project is going to address the following sustainability objectives:
• Upcycling materials: textile and plush toys and creating 3 designs of cat beds: classic, cave and simple pillow, filled with plush from plush toys. We are going to create at least one bed from plush toys fabrics (patchwork).
• Education material on sustainability: publication on sustainability and statistics in fields of cats, waste textile and circular economy.
• Involving community to participate for common cause to help shelter cats: high school and university students, shelter workers, and charity organizations.
Connecting cats to community
Creative recycling
Education for sustainability
Circular economy
Green competences
Project is going to address following sustainable objectives:
• Upcycling materials: waste textile is a problem all over the world – EU has revised the Waste Framework directive and from 2025 it is going to be mandatory for member states to collect textile waste separately as an attempt to increase circularity in textiles. Upcycling is a great way to divert textile waste from landfill and give it a new lease on life. This project aims to upcycle waste textile and old plush toys into cat beds. The cat beds will be given to shelters.
• Education for sustainability: experience like this is a great opportunity boost their green skills in encouraging learning environment. We would like to demonstrate to students how they can create in the field of waste upcycling. We are going to do 3 designs of cat beds: classic, cave and simple pillow, filled with plush from plush toys. We are going to create at least one bed from plush toys fabrics (patchwork).
• Education material on sustainability: we are going to publish an publication on sustainability and statistics data in the fields of cats, waste textile, and circular economy. It will be available for free at shelters as well as on their websites.
• Animal shelter: Our project focuses on cats only, as there are much more abandoned cats then dogs. Shelters usually focus on rescuing cats and finding them new homes but there is a need to educate and include community in participating to solve this problem together. With this project we are aiming to connect shelter and their cats to people who are from different sectors than animal protection. We are seeing it as crucial to involve people from different expertise background to this problem. Animal shelters are not often seen as learning environment for other professionals then veterinarians, so we are seeing this as unique feature of our project.
• Shelter cats: this are cats transitioning from one chapter of their life to another. We would like to assist them.
In recent years, there has been an increase in initiatives and products that support ethical practices and fair-trade principles. There is a growing movement of companies and individuals who are rethinking the way we dispose our textile and plush toys. One key area that is receiving attention is the idea of upcycling or taking waste materials and turning them into something new and useful. It can also be a creative way to make unique products that benefits people, environment and in our case, shelter cats.
We are going to collect materials to recycle from waste sites and from charities (textiles they cannot give to people in need due to insufficient quality). There is enough understanding that waste should be avoided when possible so this will also give people involved opportunity to see how they can manage waste textile and plush toys in future.
High school and University students will gain a positive experience to help cats in need with their own expertise of design and sewing. In this way, they will understand they can help shelter cats with the work of their own hands, which will boost their self-confidence and empower their designing skills. We believe students will recognize the higher purpose of their work because beds will be used by in shelters.
Animal Shelters are always in need of donations, with cat food being the most donated object. There are also other things that cats in shelter needs, such as cat beds, so we would like to provide them with them.
There is a cultural belief that animals in shelters should be helped either in money or in goods. We would like to highlight that not everybody is financially able to donate but there is enough of resources that can be redirected towards cats in shelters. In this project we are going to redirect waste material which will become cat beds.
By supporting initiatives like this, we can create a more sustainable world.
We are going to transform the way how animal shelters are seen in our community. We would like to wider the circle of people who are interested and able to assist cats in shelters.
Mostly, animal shelters are a learning environment for veterinarians, students of veterinary and volunteers. Volunteering involves rehoming cats and cleaning their places. With such narrative, there are a lot of people with different expertise left out to see shelter as a place where they can contribute their skills for the good of shelter cats.
We would like to provide high school and university students of design with experience to direct their designing skills in the field of shelter cats and connect them with animal welfare.
When a cat is moved to a shelter, it loses its known environment and is placed far away from community. Community is having the idea, that cats in shelter are looking for a new home, but in the time of waiting, cats are seen as passive members of society, rather than bearers of change for sustainable future. We would like to involve shelter cats as an active narrative for sustainable future, while they are in shelter.
With this initiative we are going to explore concepts of circular economy and sustainability in animal shelters.
Rescuing cats is a very difficult mission because there are always too many cats and too few homes for them. Many of them will stay in shelters for extended periods of time. Shelters are overflown by cats which means they give less focus on educational part. We would like to carry out a project that is positive in the approach of helping shelter cats.
Shelters usually don't have projects where community would be involved in resolving the cat problem. They are usually having possibility for volunteering, but this excludes people who do not have time to volunteer in shelter facility and is also excluding anybody with cat allergies. There are many ways how to help shelter cats that do not necessarily require volunteering in the facility. We would like to demonstrate that it is possible to support the shelters in many ways.
With this project we would like to assist shelter workers who are taking care for the abandoned cats.
High school and university students will be involved in design and sewing of cat beds. This experience will have positive impact on developing their green skills.
We had been exploring the idea of sustainability in animal shelters for some time and with this project we are having opportunity to apply sustainable practices in the animal shelters. We will explore sustainable ways of living with cats, waste textiles, statistics and possibilities for future projects related to these fields.
Municipality of Maribor was having participatory budget in 2022 (EU project), where Helena Levičnik participated in two projects for cats well-being. The first project was about neutralization of the cats and the second one was a 2–year volunteering programme that would benefit cats. Both projects were voted for by the citizens of Maribor.
For the participatory projects, the stakeholder’s analysis was made, and this project is outsourcing input information from that process, too.
The person responsible for shelter cats at Municipality of Maribor did show interest and support for both projects, giving some practical guidelines as well.
People working at the shelters and at veterinarian stations were giving the feedback on the projects, their main observation being that it is better to focus on cats only as opposed to focusing on cats and dogs. There are much more abandoned cats than dogs in Slovenia.
Citizens of Maribor municipality did show the support for the projects as both projects were voted for implementation.
An added value of the participatory budget projects was to gain insight into the local animal welfare sector. The idea of the project was changing while interacting with different stakeholders because new information was realized.
We found the open call of the New European Bauhaus in the time when high school children are having one-week holidays. In this time, many of the employees will also take personal time off. Because of that, we were unable to get confirmation from high schools or cat shelter company. However, we are confident we are going to be able to implement the project.
We had a short phone call with a cat shelter employee. We were informed they are still having a lot of donations from December, also cat beds. Additional information was not given. Implementation of the project will be according to shelter needs and will be realized when the stock of cat beds in shelters will drop down.
In the process of applying for participatory projects of municipality of Maribor, Helena was in contact with the Municipality of Maribor, people working at shelters and at veterinarian stations as well as with the participatory budget officers.
Different stakeholders did not interact with each other. Helena was collecting information from all sides. Each interview with different stakeholders did result in better development of the project.
For the New Bauhaus project, we already had information about how things looked like in practice.
Helena Levičnik has a master’s degree about circular economy on farms. She is an advocate for cats and she developed the basic idea for this project.
For submitting this project, Helena has contacted prof. emeritus, Peter Glavič PhD who had elaborated idea further with his broad knowledge of economy and sustainability. He provided insightful remarks. They developed idea to the level when it can be submitted for the open call.
Usually, cat shelters are having volunteering programs for people who want to volunteer in their facilities. Volunteers are people who decide to work with cats in their free time, even if that is not their expertise. From professional point of view, usually only veterinarians will see animal shelter as a learning opportunity.
There is a lack of projects which connect shelter cats to community. There is also a lack of projects where cats are having a role. From time to time, we can notice posters in the city which are urging the citizens to take care of their animals and to consider the cats in need, but such activities and lack of them are not making connection between community and shelter cats.
Students are looking for work experience in their field of education, but they are not always given that opportunity, which means that at some point they enter job market and they may not have as much experience as they would like to.
Cats in shelter not seen as part of sustainability. It is a cost for a municipality to take care of them. Efforts are usually directed into finding them a good home, which completely leaves out the opportunity to assist them while they are in the shelter. The question of sustainability has not yet been appropriately addressed. With climate changes going on and our climate becoming more and more warm, reproduction season of cats will prolong. This will lead to shelters being more and more under pressure to enlarge their capacities. It is urgent to strengthen animal shelters, find sustainable, innovative solutions and to motivate different groups of people and institutions to address issue of shelter cats. We would like to bring attention on shelter cats with personal experience which will connect different stakeholders to shelter cats.
We are encouraging different people and institutions of different backgrounds, interests, education, and expertise to replicate this project in their own communities.
Individuals, cat owners, group of friends or families can replicate this project in their own free time.
Workshop for sewing cat beds can be implemented as activity on their own, for example by different clubs, associations, or sustainability groups.
High schools and universities can apply this workshop as a part of their sustainable design curricula.
Workshop can be a side event of larger events.
Sewing companies (small, SME or large businesses) can apply this project in their work environment.
Workshop can be implemented by animal shelters and animal associations as well. Workshop for sewing cat beds from waste textile and plush toys can be modified to sew beds for dogs.
We have decided to give cat beds to animal shelters, but it is also possible to have workshop where participants can sew beds for their own cats and dogs.
Streams of textile waste are going to be different in every European Union member state, but they are a large problem which is getting addressed by European Union in 2025. This project is following the idea of cascade use. We would only use textiles and other materials which already ended up as waste or are very close to do so. Textile should stay in circulation for as long as possible and only after that it could end up as recycled material.
Fast fashion and piles of waste textile are global challenges. Many resources are used in the production of fast fashion and only a small fraction of clothes on the market are recycled. There have been some positive changes in this area such as high fashion designers who are only working with upcycling clothes and some large fashion brands offering upcycled designs.
With the European Green deal and Paris agreement, European Union is pursuing sustainable future and while doing so there is a demand for green skills on the work market. Education for sustainability and green skills has not yet been fully implemented in all the high schools and university curricula. It is crucial to implement projects like this one – students can get better understanding where the job market is developing to. Many students will not have opportunity to participate in sustainability curricula, but they will look for the job at the market where it will be high demand for green skills.
Another global challenge, known to many developed countries, is the question of abandoned cats. All over the globe there are individuals, groups and shelters trying to address this problem. Their primary concern is usually neutralization of the cats, so that the number of populations stays under control. With many cats in need, these workers are facing stressful work environment, and it is important to provide support to them.
Many raising awareness campaigns are focusing on responsibility of the cat owners. They are very short in duration or are trying to send only one message. Such campaigns are not connecting community to shelter cats. We believe that only a personal experience in which we are involved, can bring positive changes for a longer period.
