Short skirts made from bicycle tyre tubes, earrings from trashed Pepsi and Coke cans, waste grounded coffee beans converted into T-shirts, sneakers made out of discarded blankets. Zapped?

Yes, fashion designers in several parts of the world are recycling your and my trash to develop clothes and jewellery and contribute in their own way to reduce garbage.

These designers are environmentalists who make fashion garments and accessories using discarded materials like aluminium cans, tyre tubes, newspapers, bubble wrap, shower curtains, video tape, et al. Their avowed purpose is to educate people about the importance of recycling.

A drop in the ocean, one might say. But considering the numbers and the projections of the waste that the world generates – and will generate -- every single drop counts.

According to estimates, the urban Indian generates about 0.6 kg of garbage daily, which is due to go up to one kg per head by 2030, with an increase in population to 600 million.

Waste generation by Indians increased from 46 million tonnes in 2001 to 65 million tonnes in 2010. Delhi and Mumbai each generate 7,000 to 8,000 tonnes per day. Hyderabad generates 3,800 metric tonnes of municipal solid waste daily, of which only 12 per cent is recycled or recovered.

Environmental NGO Toxics link says that between 2000 and 2025, the waste composition of Indian garbage will undergo major changes:

Organic Waste will go up from 40 per cent to 60 per cent

Plastic from four per cent to six per cent

Metal one per cent to four per cent

Glass from two per cent to three per cent

Paper will climb from 5% to 15%

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, America produces approximately 220 million tonnes of garbage a year. This is equivalent to burying more than 82,000 football fields six feet deep in compacted garbage. There are no world statistics readily available, but keeping in mind that the US makes up about four per cent of the world's population, the world’s yearly production of garbage could be somewhere in the vicinity of four to five billion tonnes.

Fashion designers are reducing our garbage footprint by making dresses and accessories out of discarded materials that are also trendy and easy to wear. You can find dresses, gowns, jackets, pants, handbags, boots, stilettos, pendants, earrings, necklaces, you name it.

Is that my coffee you are wearing?

Waste grounded coffee beans are recycled into fabrics. Grounded coffee beans are converted into yarn, which is woven into shirts. Two T-shirts can be made from one cup of coffee.

Empty Starbucks cups are cleaned out and their mylar lining is used in gowns.

US designer Nancy Judd uses her Dumpster couture, or "trashion," to illustrate the solid waste problem and to raise awareness through instructive art exhibits. She designs garments using phone book pages, shower curtains, junk mail, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, castoff plastic bags, electrical wire and old cassette tapes. Companies like Coca Cola and Toyota have used her to design clothes using their trash.

Coke cans were cut into the shapes of leaves, petals and vines and used to make earrings, necklaces, dresses, purses and shoes. One ensemble took her 135 hours to create. Nancy Judd says she invites people to redefine their understanding of trash and strives to transform the concept of “waste” into “resource”.

Nancy Judd used fliers from Barack Obama’s election campaign and spent 200 hours in designing a coat for Obama. She once spent 400 hours unspooling cassettes and crocheting the crinkled tape into a fake-fur coat.

Want some?

Old billboard signs, made out of vinyl, are used by Greenloop to make heavy duty bags.

Empty plastic bottles are converted into strands and used in making fabrics for apparels and home furnishings.

A US company designs shoes using waste leather, waste synthetic materials and other substances available on the factory floor. Shoelaces and sock liners are made from eco- friendly materials. The shoe is even packed in a cardboard shoe packing box, which is made out of recycled materials.

Terra Plana makes sneakers from discarded parachutes, blankets, T-shirts, jackets, leather from car seats, coffee bags, jeans, fireman uniforms, and men's suits.

Clothes Made from Scrap weaves T-shirts from scraps of fabric left over on stitching floors.

Artisans in Mexico and Peru weave sweet wrappers into handbags. If not reused or recycled, plastics--like these wrappers--can stick around in landfills for decades before they degrade, or break down.

n Designers are using toilet paper to make wedding gowns and phone directories to make party dresses.

Robin Worley, a fashion designer in Seattle, studs her clothes with gears from discarded watches.

Joseph Palmer designed flip flops from used chopsticks, collected from the dumpster of his local Japanese restaurant. Dental floss was collected to lash the chopsticks together, as well as sew them to the sole.

Plastic CD trays are converted into crystal earrings by APU Design.

Online boutiques market belts made from the inner tubes of bicycles.

A designer in Chile recently pulled apart the filters in discarded cigarette butts and wove them into a coarse thread to crochet vests, ponchos, hats and even made an exfoliating soap.

In Recycle Now Week held in the US every year, designers team up to make dresses out of trash like old packaging, cans and newspapers to promote their passion for fashion and raising environmental awareness.

A few years back, PETA sponsored a fashion show by the Manhattan-based design team Gaelyn & Cianfarani. These designers recycled inner bicycle tubes into runaway fashions rather than putting them into landfills where they would take years to break down. Gaelyn & Cianfarani’s collection included biker-style jackets and motorcycle pants, trench coats, laced-up harness tops, short skirts and a wedding dress -- all made from recycled rubber.

Designer Atom Cianfarani says she is an environmentalist, who wants her life work to support the planet, not destroy it.

It’s fashionable to recycle. It not only keeps trash out of the already overflowing garbage dumps, recycling also provides raw materials to make new products.

Since converting trash into fashion is time consuming, it is still being done on a small scale. But such designs are increasingly finding favour with conscientious and trendy customers.

The writer is an environmentalist and former head, Peta, India