A Durban entrepreneur has a passion for transforming litter into designer interior décor pieces and for training unemployed people to create wealth from waste by turning random junk into treasures that can be sold to earn a living.
Michelle Markram, 41, the owner of MSQ Interior Design, started her small business from home working with just one seamstress. She is passionate about the beauty of creation in nature and re-purposing discarded junk. She has now, together with her business partners Hayley Colpo and Ralitza Macheva, come up with an innovative African Green Revolution low-cost home. It is made entirely from recycled goods, including two-litre plastic bottles for bricks, a rooftop vegetable garden, and plastic bottle lids for flooring.
It got the attention of the East Coast Radio House and Garden Show, which has invited her to exhibit the one-roomed house at the event.
“We are focusing on providing sustainable homes to displaced families living in informal settlements,” said Markram. “We’ve used solid waste to form the house’s key building structures. In this way we have the ability to re-purpose tons of rubbish, thereby reducing the amount sent to landfills, and environmental impact in general,” she said.
Markram is working with a team of professional development consultants, including specialist town planners, engineers, and environmental and legal consultants to develop the project.
“Our goal is to both solve sustainable building issues and inspire new innovations,” she said.
Markram, who went to St Mary’s Diocesan School for Girls in Pretoria and matriculated at Port Shepstone High School, originally studied psychology through Unisa but before she completed her degree she switched careers to follow her passion for art and working in communities. Her first business was a small flower shop in 320 West Street.
She moved to Joburg, and it was there that she made a name for herself decorating the homes of affluent families.
Her work gained major traction after her home was featured in Home and Garden magazine.
But it was only after she moved to Durban that she eventually moved her small home business into studio premises in North Coast Road in 2014. Disaster struck when a pipe burst in the building and water flooded the studio, damaging an extensive amount of stock and almost crippling her business.
Today, she operates from a spacious studio in Greyville that exudes her love for things green. A huge “recreated tree” made from logs stuck together and covered with glycerin-preserved leaves gives a jungle feel to the space, which is scattered with stylish interior décor ranging from lounge and dining room suites to coffee tables, ottomans made from old tyres and light fittings constructed from sticks.
She employs 14 staff who she has trained to work with waste such as plastic, paper, wood and glass. Beer and other bottles are delivered regularly and stored in a special stock room waiting to be re-purposed.
Markram said one of her major challenges had been handling the financial aspect of the business, and it hadn’t been easy learning that not everyone can be trusted in business.
But Markram is not working with waste and training people just because it’s business as usual and trendy or the right thing to do – she exudes artistic passion and a love for teaching people how insignificant junk items can be transformed into treasures.
“What you see before your eyes was built from nothing, so this is a shrine to the discarded,” Markram said.
She is well known by the eThekwini Municipality’s parks and gardens staff for she is always on the lookout for uprooted trees and discarded branches that she can use to build her creations.
Markram spends a lot of time in townships in Briardene, Inanda and Verulam where she pays people to collect waste, and she also trains unemployed people at her factory to re-purpose waste materials. She believes it’s important to teach people and the next generation about the “value of the smallest thing” because where others see trash, Markram sees “litter that glitters” which unemployed people can use as creative working materials.
“I sculpt, I work with lightweight concrete, plastic chip packets and pieces of paper to create all art forms. My absolute passion at the moment is showing the public that out of nothing comes something. If we can have respect for the smallest things, then great things will come,” she said.
“I am at the point where residential homes is not where my heart lies – my heart lies with the community, and that is why I started the business, so I could assist people who don’t have skills,” she said.