VIVES students turn discarded festival banners into laptop sleeves in Kortrijk
Updated: 30 June 2026, 12:00 UTC. KORTRIJK — VIVES students in West Flanders are making laptop sleeves from discarded festival banners, Het Nieuwsblad reported in its regional Kortrijk coverage on 30 June 2026.
In 30 seconds
- Het Nieuwsblad reported that VIVES students are making laptop sleeves from discarded festival banners in Kortrijk.
- The seed report says the initiative responds to banners that largely still end up in incineration after use.
- VIVES says it has more than 20,000 students and seven campuses across West Flanders.
- OVAM says worn textiles and other fabrics are now included in Flemish textile collection rules.
The subject is a student upcycling initiative at University of Applied Sciences, centred on making laptop sleeves from discarded festival banners. The main named entities are VIVES, the student community, Het Nieuwsblad as the reporting outlet, OVAM as the Flemish waste authority, and the European Commission as the policy reference for circular textiles.
Background
The broader context is the shift from waste management to circular design. OVAM’s textile guidance shows that Flemish policy already treats worn and non-reusable textiles as a separate collection stream. The European Commission’s 2022 textile strategy places that local change inside a wider EU push to reduce incineration and landfill and increase reuse, repair and recycling.
What to do
Festival organisers can separate banner material after events, contact registered waste or reuse partners, and design future banners with reuse in mind by avoiding unnecessary mixed materials and hard-to-remove fittings.
Impact
Regional — The regional impact is concentrated in Kortrijk and West Flanders, where VIVES has a major student presence and where the project can connect education, event culture and local circular-economy experiments.
EvidenceWell established · 1 primary source + 3 official documentsExplore evidence →Hide evidence ↑
- Published:
- 30 Jun 2026, 02:00
- Retrieved by ODIN:
- 30 Jun 2026
- Publication date unavailable
- Retrieved by ODIN:
- 30 Jun 2026
- Publication date unavailable
- Retrieved by ODIN:
- 30 Jun 2026
- Publication date unavailable
- Retrieved by ODIN:
- 30 Jun 2026
Voices & reactions
What the main actors are doing
Reported positions, summarised — not direct quotationsStudent makers and circular-design educators
This constituency sees the laptop sleeves as a practical demonstration project. The value is not only the number of sleeves produced, but the proof that a short-lived event material can be redesigned into something useful for daily student life.
Waste managers and event organisers
This constituency focuses on scale, sorting and cost. OVAM’s guidance shows that collection and processing depend on clear rules, registered handlers and correct separation. A local reuse project works best when organisers plan material recovery before banners are printed and installed.
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This story was assembled from verified evidence, with its sources and reasoning recorded as it was written.