Have you ever thought about how many zip-lock bags you use each year?
Well, Christine Quirion and her two daughters had this thought five years ago, and it led to the creation of Mother Made—a sustainable product line that reduces waste, all made using second-hand fabrics.
If you’ve been to the Squamish Farmers Market this past year, or a number of other markets across the Sea to Sky, chances are you’ve seen Mother Made.
But the idea for the business venture came as a surprise for Quirion, after her daughters decided they wanted to stop using zip-lock bags for their school lunches.
How Mother Made came to be
“I moved to Squamish in 2019 [from Quebec], and I have two daughters who are 14 and 16. Five years ago, when they were in elementary school, they had an environmental conference at school talking about the impact of our own actions,” she said.
After realizing they could be taking more steps to reduce their waste at home, Quirion set her girls, Alix and Ariane, a task to find one way they could improve their sustainability as a family unit.
“So they came back after a week, and said, ‘Mom, we found an idea’, and they had calculated how many zip lock bags they were using in their lunch box per year at school,” she said.
“It was around 400 plastic bags per year. So they said, ‘Let's stop using them.”
But this proved to be a tougher decision than Quirion anticipated, as reusable zip-lock alternatives weren’t available in Squamish.
She explained that multiple plastic containers were too bulky to fit in the kids’ backpacks, and ordering re-usable food-safe products off Amazon wasn’t good for their environmental footprint, so instead, she decided to make some herself.
“I bought a sewing machine and started to learn to sew. I watched a million YouTube videos and called my mom a million times, and after lots of practice, I figured it out,” she said.
“I never planned to do a business with this; it was to do an educational process with my kids and to show them that I can be better and we can be better. So, it's been since 2019, and we have zero plastic bags at home.”
How the products are made
Quirion buys her fabrics from Pearls Value & Vintage, which she then combines with food-safe polyurethane laminate fabric (PUL) to create a zip-lock alternative that is both waterproof and machine washable.
“I put all my veggies, my fruits and my meat, and bread in the bags,” she said.
The pouches can also be used in the freezer.
Alongside the reusable food bags, she also makes tote bags; reusable make-up pads and pouches and soap-saver mitts—a solution to the last part of a bar of soap that no one seems to use up.
The innovative mitt works by putting the remaining bit of soap—that often ends up in the corner of your shower—inside a pouch which can then be used to wash your body with. The mitts also have a strap attached to make it user-friendly for all.
Quirion launched her business almost 12 months ago at the Sea to Sky Artisan Market last November and has been at every Squamish Farmers Market since March this year.
While some of her products can be found at the Treeline Collective and Random, Quirion said she prefers the market life so she can connect with people about the importance of being environmentally conscious.
“When I'm at the market, I can explain why [using the items is better for the environment], how to use them, how Mother Made came to be,” she said.
Environmental impact
One message she really wants people to take from Mother Made is that it doesn’t take an extreme change to make a difference.
“You don't have to change your full system to have a real impact in life. You can do a small action and have an impact.”
It’s this notion that led Mother Made to its first award nomination at the Squamish Chamber Business Excellence Awards in the environmental impact category.
Quirion was nominated alongside three other local businesses for the award; Celerity Craft, Porcupine Mechanical and the Squamish Climate Action Network Society.
“The fact that a vendor, a small business owner, a craft maker, can be nominated for the environmental impact category is just an amazing feeling,” she said.
“I felt very proud of myself, of my family and to be a part of this community.”
This year’s Squamish Business Excellence Awards, presented by RE/MAX Sea to Sky Real Estate, will take place on Friday, Dec. 6, at the Cheakamus Centre in Paradise Valley.
