“Our products are rubbish” is Haul’s self-deprecating tagline for its range of upcycled goods. Made from tyres, vinyl billboard advertising and, most recently, offset printing ‘blankets’, Haul’s iPad pouches, Filofaxes and shoulder bags received GECA  certification in 2004. Despite the company’s credentials, Haul founder Scott Kilmartin says the company remains design-driven. “We wanted people to buy our products even if they weren’t aware of what they were made from, yet its sustainability would be the ‘clincher’.”

Since Kilmartin caught the entrepreneurial bug in 1999, his company has been diversifying. Alongside Haul, it has established Rivetting, which provides corporations and conferences with customised Haul products. “It’s helping companies ‘walk the talk’ of recyclability’,” Kilmartin says. Where the big selling point for the inner-city demographic is that each bag is original (as it’s cut from a different piece of vinyl billboard advertising), for corporations such as Virgin, it’s the reuse of its own billboards that makes the products unique. “Part of the promotional program is documenting the process,” Kilmartin explains. “We show the billboards coming down, the design, cutting and sewing which is done locally in Victoria. Delivering that story is key value-add for the brand.”