ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Josefina is a seamstress at Sew Green in Rochester.

“If I’m wearing just like a normal mask, I think it's boring,” she said. “You have to wear them. Let’s have fun with them.” 

What You Need To Know

  • Josafina and her team at Sew Green in Rochester made nearly 10,000 masks at the beginning of the pandemic

  • Ocean Asia reported in 2020 that billions of masks are entering the oceans that could take almost five centuries to decompose

  • Josafina is repurposing cloth masks into bags to reduce the waste of materials

Her creativity bloomed when the pandemic hit.

“The beginning of the pandemic, there was no masks available,” she said. “Well, we started making masks and we probably made 10,000 masks.” 

 It wasn’t long for her to realize they were doing much more than keeping people safe.

“I remember walking on the street and seeing disposable masks everywhere,” she said. “Like people would use them once, get out of the supermarket and throw them away.” 

According to Oceans Asia’s 2020 report, that led to billions of masks entering the oceans.

It’s something environmental researchers say could take almost five centuries to decompose.

“It’s not just the United States, its everywhere in the world that we are doing that kind of things,” she said. “Then we really need to think a little more on that. And at least for that reason, we start making clothes for one because they are recyclable. You can really reduce them and reuse them.”

Josefina kept giving back to the community, one stitch at a time, until this past March when Gov. Kathy Hochul lifted New York state’s mask mandate, leaving Josefina with more masks she feared would end up in the garbage too.

“I realized I have, I don’t know, 100 masks at home,” she said. “We wash them. They are clean, and I was thinking, what are we going to do with this? And you see a lot of masks in the trash and I think it’s a waste.” 

So Josefina brought her cloth masks back to the drawing board for experimenting fun. It wasn’t long before her creativity bloomed yet again.

“I just had an idea, like, what if we make little bags with them?” she wondered, “This is a little bag. Super simple. The inside, the fun thing is they have like secret little pockets inside, because we have this thing that you can put a filter or something like that then it has two little pockets inside.”

The pockets were originally used to put air filters in reusable masks.

Now she says they can be used for anything from coins, to your keys or lipstick. 

Josefina has a passion for repurposing.

“Then I made a tiny little one with it the same elastic from this,” she said.

It is filling this seamstress’ soul with more than just a needle and thread.

“But the idea is that its sustainability. That’s a very difficult word” Josefina said with a laugh.

She is inspiring more seamstresses’ to reduce waste.

“I came up with this idea and I start telling people and people start giving me ideas, you know, it’s an exchange of ideas,” she said.

Josefina is having fun every stitch along the way

“They’re fun fabrics, so why are we going to waste them,” she said.