UK based planet-conscious brands for your home

Meet Been London


We start with the problem...

Planet conscious principles.

  • Repurposing waste into new products : recycled leather, recycled nylon, recycled cotton, vegan pineapple leather, recycled polyester, vegan apple skin leather, recycled felt (Learn more below!)
  • Zero waste design - square or rectangular panelled designs to ensure little to no waste 
  • Thoughtful design - timeless and trend-proof
  • Offer repairs on all purchases to extend life of each piece
  • Minimise carbon foot print - local makers / team
  • Female run brand
  • Handmade in East London

About the brand. 

Founder Genia Mineeva started off as a political journalist, spending years working in the BBC newsroom. Her inquisitive nature took her into the world of campaigning, where she ran campaigns for the UN, Change.org and Natalia Vodianova’s Naked Heart Foundation amongst others.

But one story really got under her skin: coffee cup waste. How could these recyclable objects be wasted — simply because there was no market for the recycled material? 

Determined to act, but unsure of how, Genia did what she does best — she talked to people.
She talked to local and international recycling plants, she talked to innovative material manufacturers, she talked to lecturers and craftspeople and designers and sustainability experts. And each meeting led her to the same conclusion — there was so much potential in ‘waste’ that wasn’t being realised.

Genia dug deeper, studying Sustainable Value Chains at Cambridge University and discovering the untapped potential of innovative recycled materials rescued from landfill.
Been London is now an all-female team based a stone's throw away from Victoria Park in East London, and take enormous pride in naming every bag we make after our favourite places around the area.

Everyone involved has the same intention: to help BEEN London have a real, measurable impact on the fashion industry by proving that waste can become beautiful, inside and out. 

Shop Been London here

Learn more about Been London's fabrics

Recycled Leather

THE ANNUAL GLOBAL EMISSIONS FROM LEATHER PRODUCTION ARE EQUAL TO THAT OF 30 MILLION CARS

70 PERCENT OF RAINFOREST HAS BEEN CLEARED TO MAKE WAY FOR GROWING FEED CROPS FOR THE LEATHER INDUSTRY

THE PROCESS

Virgin leather has an extremely negative environmental impact. This is linked to deforestation, excessive water usage, waterway pollution and huge CO2 emissions that are inextricably linked to global warming. Our recycled leather is produced from tannery offcuts and trimmings which are diverted from landfill and re-formed using no adhesives, only high pressure water jets. Here at BEEN London we use recycled leather as part of our continued journey to divert waste from landfill. 

Recycled Nylon

MORE THAN 90% OF THE RUBBISH IN THE SEA IS PLASTIC WITH THE MAIN CULPRITS BEING NYLON FISHING NETS

APPROXIMATELY 400,000 TONNES OF CARPETS DISCARDED IN THE UK ALONE ANNUALLY

THE PROCESS

Our partners at ECONYL® rescue nylon nets from the sea and carpets from going to waste. They sort, clean and purify nylon. A polymer is then added to this material and it is woven into textiles. This regenerated nylon is used at BEEN London to help support marine life and clean up our oceans.

Recycled Cotton

IT TAKES 10,000-20,000 LITRES OF WATER TO PRODUCE 1KG OF VIRGIN COTTON

13 MILLION TONNES OF TEXTILE WASTE IS PRODUCED EACH YEAR 

THE PROCESS

Cotton is the world’s largest non-food crop. It demands large amounts of water, is heavily reliant on pesticides and can often be thought to have questionable practices in terms of labour. To make our recycled cotton, discarded clothes are sorted by colour and mechanically shredded. These are then spun into yarns and re-woven. We use recycled cotton as a lining across our entire range at BEEN London to give discarded clothes another chance! 

Vegan Pineapple Leather

PINEAPPLE FARMING PRODUCES 13 TONNES OF PINEAPPLE LEAF WASTE EACH YEAR GLOBALLY 

BY USING DISCARDED PINEAPPLE LEAVES AS A BASE MATERIAL FOR PINATEX, 264 TONNES OF CO2  IS SAVED FROM ENTERING THE ATMOSPHERE

THE PROCESS

Our partners at Ananas Anam collect pineapple leaves, an agricultural waste product of the pineapple harvest. Fibres are then extracted, cleaned and purified. This is then mixed with a corn-based polylactic acid and goes through a mechanical process to create a non-woven mesh, the base for a PETA-certified, vegan leather alternative.  

500 BILLION PLASTIC BOTTLES ARE USED EACH YEAR

FOR EVERY TONNE OF PLASTIC RECYCLED, 7.4 CUBIC YARDS OF LANDFILL SPACE IS SAVED

THE PROCESS

Our partners at YKK, created NATULON® eco-friendly zips from single use plastic bottles. Post-consumer PET goes through the steps of chemical recycling (granulation, purification, and polymerisation) to create a recycled polyester yarn. We use these zips with recycled polyester tape across all our products. 

Vegan Apple Skin Leather

25 PERCENT OF THE BYPRODUCT FROM APPLE PRODUCTION ARE DISCARDED

AN ESTIMATED 3.7 TRILLION APPLES ARE THROWN AWAY EACH YEAR FOR IMPERFECTIONS

THE PROCESS

FRUMAT apple skin leather, born as a solution to apple juice production waste in Northern Italy, is an innovative vegan 'leather'. It is formed from the unwanted peel and core of apples which are dried and ground into a powder. The power is then mixed with a binder and pigment to be spread onto a canvas until it turns into a leather-like material. 

350 TONNES OF CLOTHING WASTE GOES TO LANDFILL EACH YEAR 

90% OF CORPORATE UNIFORMS IN THE UK ARE SENT TO LANDFILL EACH YEAR 

THE PROCESS

Used corporate uniforms are collected from KLM airlines and IKEA in the Netherlands. These uniforms are shredded until they became a fine fibre. They are then mixed with recycled PET from plastic bottles and needled onto a polyester core. This beautiful recycled felt is then used at BEEN London as a protective layer in the Dalston Laptop Case and as a structural element of the Islington Backpack.