It started with a sewing class.
Berlin, 2013. Two design students from Cairo, Yara Yassin and Rania Rafie, walked into a sewing course at betahaus Academy. They noticed German supermarkets charging for plastic bags. They thought of Cairo's streets, where the same bags flew free through the air. They started fusing plastic bags into leather-like material. They travelled with handmade backpacks named after the cities they visited. By 2015, Lama El-Khawanky joined as the third partner. By 2017, after winning the World Bank's WeMENA Challenge, Up-Fuse was officially incorporated as a Cairo-based social enterprise focused on upcycled fashion.
Up-Fuse transforms waste into opportunity. Each piece starts with discarded plastic bags, bottles, or tires—materials destined for centuries in landfill. Through bold design and careful handcraft, they are reworked into vibrant, durable fashion and lifestyle pieces made to last.
Creating sustainable fashion with purpose.
Our process is deeply human. We collaborate with women artisans and recycling families from Cairo's Zabaleen district, home to one of the world's most effective community-led recycling systems. We offer flexible working conditions and wages above market rates. Every item is handmade in Cairo, which means no two are ever exactly the same. The patterns, textures, and subtle variations carry the marks of the hands behind them. Each stitch reflects skill, resilience, and creativity.
We produce zero waste. All items are repairable and mendable. We use mechanical upcycling processes only—no chemical recycling, no water, heat, or solvents. Our production spaces are not registered as factories. They are workshops.
More than a Sustainable fashion brand: a community
We run three programmes that shift how people think about waste and work.
Vocational training offers continuous sewing and upcycling programmes for refugee and underprivileged women, partnering with IOM, UN Women, and local NGOs. Skills that travel with them, whatever comes next.
Hands-on workshops in our Cairo studio serve schools, universities, and the public. The fastest way to shift a mindset is to fuse your first piece of upcycled plastic yourself.
Corporate upcycling gives leftover banners, uniforms, and branded plastics a second life as corporate gifts, retail capsules, or runway pieces with Egyptian designers and on red carpets like El Gouna.
Every workshop, every collaboration, every repurposed banner is a small argument that the circular economy isn't a future. It's a practice.
Mission and Vision
Our vision is to create sustainable fashion that supports local communities while raising environmental awareness through various waste management techniques, turning problems into opportunities.Our mission is to become a leader in the fashion market through sustainable practices by creating green opportunities for underprivileged communities and reducing waste through recycling and upcycling strategies. We strive to produce timeless, practical, and one-of-a-kind pieces that serve unique individuals all over the world.
Garbage Dreams
"Garbage Dreams" follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world's largest garbage village, on the outskirts of Cairo. It is the home to 60,000 Zaballeen, Arabic for "garbage people." Far ahead of any modern "Green" initiatives, the Zaballeen survive by recycling 80 percent of the garbage they collect. When their community is suddenly faced with the globalization of its trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact his future and the survival of his community.
Credit: Garbage Dreams for the video. This content is sourced from the internet and is not owned by Up-fuse.