About: About Us

FlipCycle-ing
Trash into

Treasure

How FlipCycle started...

FlipCycle started in March 2021 when founder Andy was walking on his local beach in Bali…

“Every day that I’d go for a surf, I’d pick up trash flip flops and take them home, and try to do my bit. I thought that maybe if I got enough I could make pairs and give them away... Pretty soon I had heaps of pairs which I tried to give to friends for free. But the ones that were odd or broken, I didn’t know what to do with...

Then I thought, maybe I could make them into beer coolers?

Maybe I could make them and sell them?

Maybe I could work with a local in Bali so that they could make them and sell them?

Maybe we could turn trash into cold beers and jobs!

I went home and tried making one. And it worked! It looked pretty sweet and it kept my beer super cold. But I needed more materials. Me and my family visited some other beaches in Bali and paid the local kids to collect flip flops off their beaches. We had a lot of fun. I even got called ‘Mr Sandal’ by one bunch of kids!

Now I had hundreds of flip flops. I actually had way too many to handle myself. I needed help…

For a few weeks I asked around our village for anyone who might be interested in helping me make the koozies...without much luck…

Then one day, me and the fam were doing our morning beach walk when we spotted someone sweeping up the trash on the beach. We approached him and it turned out this guy was paid to clean that part of the beach in front of some fancy villas. I asked him if he could collect flip flops for my project and that I’d pay him for them. I showed him one of the beer koozies I had made. He looked at it and said “I could make that”.

FlipCycle today...

Pak Wayan and other local craftspeople have been working together to make FlipCycle beer coolers and other gnarly products. We asked a mate to make this website (thanks Duncan!) and now we are supplying beachside bars and cafes with coolers made out of trash flip flops found on their beaches. Hopefully one day, we run out of trash flip flops!

The ownership of this not-for-profit is local with Pak Sumerta (another FlipCycle craftsman) in charge. Andy is coaching and mentoring Pak Sumerta with his running of the company.

Wayan crafting the flip flops

Andy and Wayan collecting Flip Flops

Staff Snapshot:

Pak Wayan

Wayan is one of the local craftspeople who make our products. He is an absolute gun of a bloke and believes in helping Bali as much as anyone. He’s clever with his hands and smart with his brain, creating lots of cool stuff!

“During covid, I am one of thousands of hotel employees being laid off. The crisis situation continued until finally I had to find another job and become a beach cleaner in the Pererenan area of Bali. It is a hot workplace and a lot of garbage carried from the river causes the beach to be dirty.

In March 2021, I met Andy, an Australian who is now a friend as well as a work partner. He approached me and had a conversation about a lot of garbage on the beach such as plastic bottles, used sandals etc. He asked if I could collect used sandals that were washed away by the waves on the beach.

Honestly at first I thought "What are these used sandals for?" But after a few times we met and chatted and finally I know the reason- he really cares about the cleanliness of the beach and created a very brilliant idea! And born a bottle holder made from used sandals which we call FlipCycle.

Hopefully in the future everyone will care and take part in keeping the environment clean and the FlipCycle brand can help reduce waste on Earth”

Andy and fam