Dikkat Dikkat! The Çöp Madam ladies are putting their creative skills to use. With the help of Sabancı University professor Tara Hopkins, trash from Ayvalık is being transformed into works of art that are available throughout the city


Who would ever think that garbage could become something beautiful? Not many. Tara Hopkins, a teacher at Sabancı University has started her own project that helps out the local community in Ayvalık by making beautiful things (handbags, wallets, clutches) out of garbage. Head of the Civic Involvement Projects Department, Tara wanted to create an organization that gave back to the people of Ayvalık, a town where she had bought a house nearly 15 years ago. Having started in August 2008, the project involves the women of the town taking wrappers and labels, cleaning them and then weaving them into handbags and the like. There are currently 3 workshops (including the main one in Ayvalık) and the products are finding their way into department stores and boutiques all over town. The accessories are so well crafted it is hard to know at first that the bag or clutch you see in a store is made out of trash. Being the first of its kind in Turkey, Çöp Madam, is giving a chance to unemployed women to produce something in return for income, something of which they were previously deprived. The project also gives these women a chance to change their second-class status while simultaneously contributing to the betterment of the environment. Hopkins learned more about this sort of civil work upon her visit to a Mexican prison, where inmates were also crafting products out of used products. From there she took the idea and brought it to Turkey where she thought it would be most needed, managing the balance of societal infrastructures within the home and in communities. Gaining support from larger organizations is the main concern of Çöp Madam, for once this is achieved the project will become a fast growing industry with plenty of room for more women to join and utilize their talents.

TOist: Can you tell us a little bit about your project? How it can to be and how it plans on continuing?

Tara Hopkins: Çöp (m)adam – the ‘garbage ladies’ (it is a play on words in Turkish) - is a venue for women who have never earned a salary before, to use their handwork skills to make (cool!) items out of throw-away materials. Our main workshop is in Ayvalik; we have smaller workshops in Istanbul and Diyarbakir, both in cooperation with women’s organizations.

We are actually a company as there is no non-for-profit status in Turkey. It came to be because I wanted to do something to raise awareness about individual responsibility for the environment and provide an opportunity for women with few opportunities to raise their self-esteem.

Right now, we are operating with some help but we hope to be able to hold our own within a few years. For us to be sustainable, we will need to support ourselves.


How does the community react towards your project? Is it widely accepted where you are or are people more hesitant to join in?

Oh, the community is very supportive! Some of the husbands help their wives; people in our immediate neighborhood have made us feel welcome from the beginning and many people in town respect us. Some women are hesitant to join, yes. If you have never worked for a salary before, it is a big step to walk into a place for a job.

What about the products that are made in the village, how are they made, what are they made of and where can we buy them?

Many women in Turkey have been crocheting, knitting, making beautiful handcrafted pieces since they were young girls. We take these skills and apply them to different techniques, making innovative yet useful pieces. Most of our materials are throw-away – potato chip, instant soup, ice cream packages; plastic bags; grain sacks; discarded clothing, for now. Many of our products are bags, of varying sizes and materials; we have just started making cards, stuffed animals and toys. We are still a very new company – operating since August, selling since December – so we don’t want to grow faster than we can handle.

Our sales points are expanding quickly; Karınca in Kanyon for one; Ece Sükan in Nişantaşi sells our wrapper-bags; we are joining a few other friends to open a shop in Ayvalik, near the old Customs building. We are happy to handle special orders – we recently made 200 grain sack bags for the Children’s World Water Forum. Check out our website, www.copmadam.sabanciuniv.edu for more sales sites or to place your own special order!

What do you think is the biggest way that people can help to make Turkey greener?

I think people need to be more aware of their own role in whether a place is green or not; they also need to understand what it means to be ‘green’.  If people who drive would take public transportation – or walk if possible – half the time; if shoppers would use half the plastic bags they are used to using; if people would refuse to use packaged plastic bottles; if people would throw litter in litter bins rather than on the streets – oh, sorry! You wanted one biggest way!! Well, you see, with these examples I think more people need to be responsibly individually.

Do you hope to expand the project to other areas in Turkey?

Oh yes – we have already had inquiries – we just don’t have the capacity right now. If we can become self-sustaining, we can expand. The idea is for more people to have more opportunities and for more people to understand – and act upon – their own responsibility for the environment.

Thanks!
I thank you!