Indonesian non-profit Sungai Watch has unveiled the debut furniture launch from its design studio Sungai Design, aimed at creating useful products from the mountains of plastic waste that it fishes from Bali’s rivers every day.
The Ombak lounge chair, created in collaboration with American designer Mike Russek, is made using a sheet material produced entirely from discarded plastic bags, with around 2,000 needed for every chair.
The bags are collected by Sungai Watch, which is on a mission to eliminate ocean plastic pollution using its own system of floating barriers to capture the waste as it flows along Indonesia’s rivers.
Sungai design has launched its first-ever product
Since its inception three years ago, the organisation has installed 270 barriers and collected more than 1.8 million kilograms of plastic, resulting in a huge stockpile of material.
Plastic bags are the most frequently collected item and also the least sought after in terms of future value, which led the team to focus on creating a product collection using this readily available resource.
“Collecting and amassing plastic waste solves one part of the problem of plastic pollution, the second challenge is what to actually do with all of this plastic,” said Kelly Bencheghib, who co-founded Sungai Watch with her brothers Sam and Gary.
The Ombak lounge chair is made from discarded plastic bags
“As we collected hundreds of thousands of kilograms of plastics, we started to look at plastic as an excellent source material for everyday products we all need and use, from furniture to small goods to even art,” she added.
Sungai Design has created two variations of the Ombak lounge chair – with and without armrests – manufactured in Bali using processes that aim to minimise waste during production.
The plastic bags are thoroughly washed to remove any impurities before being shredded and heat-pressed to form hard, durable sheets.
The bags are heat-pressed to form sheets
Precision CNC cutting machinery is used to carve out the different components, which are carefully shaped to minimise material use and leave no offcuts.
The panels are connected by a concealed metal structure, resulting in a pure and visually lightweight form with a simple slatted construction.
Although the design is available in three distinct colourways – Granite Black, Ocean Blue and Concrete White – the upcycling process produces slight variations in the tone and texture of the material, meaning each chair has a unique quality.
Ombak means wave in Indonesian and the name references Sungai Design’s commitment to cleaning up rivers and oceans.
In line with this aim, Sundai Design has pledged to minimise its carbon footprint and put in place processes to audit and track the sources of the plastic used in its products.
The company is planning to release other products using the same material and, as a social enterprises, will donate part of its revenue to Sungai Watch to further the project as it seeks to clean up rivers in Indonesia and beyond.
The chair was designed to minimise material use and leave no offcuts
“There is so much potential with this material,” added Sam Bencheghib. “When you choose a chair from our collection, you’re not just selecting a piece of furniture; you’re embracing the transformation from waste to a beautiful, functional piece of art that has found its place in your home.”
Every year, Indonesia accounts for 1.3 million of the eight million tonnes of plastic that end up in our oceans, making it one of the world’s worst marine polluters.
Other attempts at collecting this waste and finding new uses for it have come from design studio Space Available, which set up a circular design museum with a recycling station and facade made of 200,000 plastic bottles in Bali in 2022.
The chair is available in three colours
The studio also teamed up with DJ Peggy Gou turn rubbish collected from streets and waterways in Indonesia into a chair with an integrated vinyl shelf.
“The trash is just everywhere, in the streets and rivers,” Space Available founder Daniel Mitchell told Dezeen.
“It’s not the fault of the people, there’s just very little structural support, waste collection or education,” he added. “Households are left to dispose of their own waste and most ends up in rivers or being burned.”
Swiss furniture brand Vitra will prioritise reducing the environmental impact of its existing lines through material innovation, CEO Nora Fehlbaum tells Dezeen in this interview.
One of the industry’s best known and most influential manufacturers, Vitra‘s collections include iconic pieces such as Eames plastic shell chairs and Panton chairs.
Like its peers, the brand is under increasing pressure to reduce the ecological footprint of its operations in the face of worsening climate change.
Nora Fehlbaum spoke to Dezeen at the Vitra Campus in Weil Am Rhein
Speaking to Dezeen at the Vitra Campus in Weil Am Rhein, Germany, Fehlbaum suggested that the company’s heritage as a high-end, design-focused furniture brand is inherently aligned with sustainability.
“Vitra’s greatest contribution to sustainability is its products with an above-average service life, which omit everything superfluous,” she told Dezeen.
“Our roots in modern design would allow nothing else.”
However, she claimed Vitra is “doing everything we can with all the means we have” to become more sustainable.
The Álvaro Siza-designed Factory at the Vitra Campus has been partially converted to accommodate a new Vitra Circle store (also top)
“Everybody at Vitra has understood our environmental mission,” she said. “We don’t have a sustainability officer – everybody has taken it as their own.”
Vitra’s stated goal is to be “a net-positive company based on all the indicators of its ecological footprint by 2030”.
It has a long way to go, with the company’s most recent sustainability report published in 2022 stating that its total emissions for the year were equivalent to nearly 141,000 tonnes of CO2.
Eames shell chairs now made from recycled plastic
The brand’s sustainability strategy is chiefly focused on its popular existing products, Fehlbaum said.
“We have the biggest impact if we change the products that we sell the most of already, rather than inventing one single sustainable product,” she argued.
“At Vitra, a product is never final, but continues to evolve.”
The Vitra Circle store refurbishes and sells second hand Vitra products
As of January this year, the shells of the Eames plastic chairs manufactured by Vitra are now made exclusively from recycled post-consumer plastic.
“[The Eames shell chair] is probably the most iconic, most copied chair out there – and it won’t be available in virgin material,” said Fehlbaum.
The switch means the shells have a speckled finish that differs from the originals, but Fehlbaum is satisfied with this “recycled aesthetic”.
“It’s a different aesthetic, and of course we hope the consumer gets used to – and maybe even comes to love – this new aesthetic,” she said.
“That’s a risk that we’re taking and that we’re willing to take.”
The RE plastic shells are noticeably more speckled (on the right) than the original plastic shell (on the left)
It follows earlier switches of products and parts from virgin to recycled plastic, starting with Barber Osgerby’s Tip Ton chair in 2020.
A number of accessories like Arik Levy’s Toolbox and Konstantin Grcic’s Locker Box have since followed. The entire HAL chair family, designed by Jasper Morrison, now also have their shells manufactured using recycled plastic.
The recycled plastic is taken from household recycling obtained through the German garbage collection programme Gelber Sack (Yellow Bag).
“Utilising this raw material instead of petroleum-based primary plastics generates fewer climate-damaging emissions and less primary energy consumption,” Fehlbaum claimed.
The role of recycling in solving the world’s plastic pollution crisis is contested among designers.
Some, including designer Richard Hutten and Belgian curator Jan Boelen, argue that big brands are using recycling to create an illusion of change while continuing to use virgin plastics.
Others, among them the CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Andrew Morlet, argue that durable, recyclable plastics can form part of a circular economy.
Many recycled plastic products involve the use of some virgin plastic or additive substances that then complicate or inhibit their own recyclability.
Vitra said its RE product, used for the Eames shells, does not contain any virgin plastic and can be fully recycled at the end of the product’s life thanks to the use of technical fillers, like glass fibres, rather than any additives that prevent onwards recycling.
Vitra products are available to purchase at discounted rates at the new Circle Store
Another sustainability initiative is Vitra’s Circle Stores, which sell used furniture and accessories by Vitra and Artek, such as sample products and exhibition pieces, with prices depending on the condition of the products.
All products are tested for functionality and repaired if necessary so that a renewed product warranty can be granted.
The first Circle Store opened in Amsterdam in 2017 in response to questions from customers about second-hand Vitra products, with a second in Brussels.
A third recently “moved” from Frankfurt and opened in an adapted space at the Álvaro Siza-designed Vitra Campus factory building, with a service and repair area where customers can bring their products to receive a new lease of life.
“With the Circle Store, we can offer our environmentally conscious clients an even more environmentally conscious choice: namely that of a second-hand product,” said Fehlbaum.
Absence in Milan “really wasn’t such a huge deal”
The brand has also taken steps to rewild parts of the Vitra Campus. The Piet Oudolf garden was completed in 2020 and Vitra is working with Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets on a masterplan plan for fewer roads and more native trees on the site.
Fehlbaum acknowledges that some may be sceptical about the sustainability work it is doing within the context of widespread greenwashing.
“It’s impossible to get through this jungle of messaging,” she said.
“How do we talk about it to make sure that it is clear how thoroughly and authentically we’re really tackling this?”
Some other furniture brands have also reduced their presence at design fairs amid concerns about the significant emissions associated with shipping products around the world for temporary showstands.
Vitra has historically had a significant presence in Milan during the Italian city’s annual design week in April, but was noticeably absent in 2023.
However, Fehlbaum said that although she was asked about this a lot “it really wasn’t such a huge deal”.
“For us, it makes a lot of sense to use what we already have,” she said.
“We have the Vitra Campus and it’s not so far from Milan. We prefer to use and invest in something that can be around for five or 10 years rather than spending a lot of energy and resources on something that after five days we’re going to have to break down.”
It is yet to be seen if the brand will return to Milan design week this year.
“The way we think about it [showing at design fairs like Milan] is never black or white,” Fehlbaum explained.
“There might be a moment where we say Milan is exactly the right place at the right moment to talk about something, and then maybe we’ll be there.”
The Eames Plastic Chair RE was photographed at the Eames house, Pacific Palisades, California. Photo by the Eames Foundation
Vitra was founded in 1950 by Nora Fehlbaum’s grandparents Willi and Erika Fehlbaum and has since grown to become one of the industry’s leading names.
Nora Fehlbaum succeeded her uncle, Rolf Fehlbaum, as CEO in 2016 and identifies improving the brand’s sustainability as her key mission.
“There is still a long way to go before reaching our environmental goals,” she acknowledged. “Things need to be tested, mistakes must be made, and in the process the company might sometimes overlook an important aspect or underestimate the impact of an activity.”
This is now a central part of the brand’s function as an industry leader, Fehlbaum suggests.
“The designer landscape has changed. In the past, it was a lot about iconic design and breaking the mould, building your own brand and your studio – new things – and now, the students that are graduating come with their own environmental mission,” she said.
“I see our role, together with these people and with the right suppliers and innovative companies, to find solutions that are, for lack of a better term, sustainable in the longer term.”
Other interviews recently published on Dezeen include the Kvadrat CEO saying sustainability is “not making our lives easier” and Iittala creative director Janni Vepsäläinen sharing her goal to help the brand “remain culturally relevant for another 100 years”.
The photography is courtesy of Vitra unless otherwise stated.
Dezeen In Depth If you enjoy reading Dezeen’s interviews, opinions and features, subscribe to Dezeen In Depth. Sent on the last Friday of each month, this newsletter provides a single place to read about the design and architecture stories behind the headlines.
Packaging designs aimed at boosting recycling rates and reducing the prevalence of single-use plastics are destined to fail unless they help to change people’s behaviour, writes Matt Millington.
No one is particularly happy when they find out there’s plastic waste on Mount Everest, or in the deep oceans, or in human blood. It’s not controversial to say that we need to stop churning the stuff out and throwing it away.
One way for businesses to tackle single-use plastics is to design their packaging to be reusable, but so far efforts have not succeeded at scale.
We weren’t exactly succumbing to dehydration on the streets before coffee shops designed takeaway cups
It’s not that we don’t care: research suggests consumer motivation towards environmentally positive behaviour is high. It’s that as a society we have developed an expectation of convenience: to have what we want, when we want it, without any consequences.
This is entirely unreasonable – we weren’t exactly succumbing to dehydration on the streets before coffee shops designed takeaway cups – but while it persists, consumers are very unlikely to switch to reusable alternatives if it puts them out. And without a high return-and-reuse rate, reusable packaging is usually worse for the environment, owing to the much higher quantities of plastic involved.
This is why we need to design for human behaviour if we’re ever to get rid of single-use plastics. You cannot control what people will do with packaging once it leaves your premises, but you can influence them by factoring behavioural psychology into the design of the packaging itself.
The first step is understanding how consumers interact with the pack, throughout its lifecycle. Where are they and what are they doing when they open it? What’s their headspace? How about when they’re finished with it? There’s a big difference between how someone interacts with a reusable plate after a meal in a cafeteria, and how they interact with the reusable salad bowl they’re gobbling from on the lunchtime rush back to the office.
Then it’s about understanding the levers you can pull to nudge people towards more planet-positive decisions. Behavioural psychology shows there are three factors that work together to drive behavioural change: increasing consumer motivation to recycle or reuse, raising their ability to do so, and providing a trigger to remind them.
It’s possible to go too far in signalling that a pack isn’t disposable
Online grocer Ocado uses recyclable bags instead, but it has had success in achieving returns because it pulls all three behavioural psychology levers. Consumers are happy to receive bonus reward points for each bag they give back (motivation).
The bags are straightforward to return and customers know not to throw them away because of their clear messaging and distinct off-grey colour, which follows from not using harmful bleaching agents (ability). And because the driver usually asks for old bags after delivery, they’re unlikely to forget (trigger).
Ability is the key consideration. If you wanted to return the packaging from a takeaway burger meal, it would mean washing and then carrying around a bulky burger box, fries box and cup, and either making a special trip to the restaurant or waiting until you happen upon another branch.
New Zealand start-up FOLDPROJECT has done some interesting work here, trying to make boxes more portable. It’s a simple idea: a machine-washable lunch kit that packs down to a flat sheet. The challenge is that because it is so minimal, its form and material make it look disposable.
One way to ensure a reusable design communicates its intended purpose is through material choice. For example, using explicitly post-consumer recycled plastic could be a visual shorthand to communicate a planet-positive intent, as could using longer-lasting materials like glass or stoneware.
Interestingly, it’s possible to go too far in signalling that a pack isn’t disposable. When McDonald’s introduced reusable packaging in its restaurants in France, it found the packaging kept disappearing, only to reappear on eBay. It looked reusable and on-brand, but was too novel for some, defeating the object.
So long as we have bins on every street that lead directly to landfill, we are going to struggle
Businesses cannot just switch to reusable packaging – even when intelligently designed – and expect results. So long as we have bins on every street that lead directly to landfill we are going to struggle.
We therefore need to think beyond just designing the packaging to be sustainable, and think about how we design systems to be sustainable. In a circular economy that means service and experience design, packaging, industrial design, marketing, data, artificial intelligence and logistics all working hand-in-hand to keep the pack “in the loop”. It will therefore need to be an ecosystem effort.
We’re already seeing innovations that can help make reuse and return viable in the age of convenience. For example, when is a bin not a bin? When it’s a Bjarke Ingels Group-designed TURN system – a remote, digitally connected, RFID-enabled, packaging-asset reclaim and sorting network, which rejects unwanted trash.
Similarly, we’re seeing nudge messaging along the pack journey, and even packs that communicate their status themselves. Scottish start-up Insignia has designed colour-changing labels that reveal how long a pack has been exposed to the environment. Imagine taking this further, with reusable packaging telling you what to do with it, and offering prompts or rewards to encourage you.
Reusability hasn’t hit scale yet, but we should be optimistic that it can, not least because we’ve been there before. Milk deliveries were once the norm, with bottles returned, not discarded.
There’s no reason that we can’t get back to this more sustainable approach across the board, without having to endure too much inconvenience. All that’s required is a little ingenuity, and a lot of collaboration.
Matt Millington is a sustainable-design strategist at PA Consulting.
Dezeen In Depth If you enjoy reading Dezeen’s interviews, opinions and features, subscribe to Dezeen In Depth. Sent on the last Friday of each month, this newsletter provides a single place to read about the design and architecture stories behind the headlines.
Innovative Building Blocks are made of 100 percent Plastic Waste by ByFusion to make building more sustainable. The company created ByBlock, the first construction-grade brick made entirely out of recycled plastic materials.
What is ByFusion?
“We have been working hard over the past several years to develop an innovative system to help the recycling industry address the plastic waste crisis by being able to recycle plastics that were previously considered unrecyclable,” CEO Heidi Kujawa told Manufacturing.
The first thing you’ll probably notice about the large building blocks is how cool they look. Each one has a mix of vibrant colors because the plastic waste it’s formed from — like water bottles, packaging and other single-use items — is still visible.
Each brick is made by heating, compressing and fusing the recycled materials together. It’s for this reason that ByBlock boasts itself as the ultimate landfill diversion solution. ByFusion works with material recycling facilities, waste management operations, municipalities and corporate partners to upcycle their rubbish. The zero-waste process uses a whopping 30 tons of trash per month.
But construction workers won’t be giving up quality when they use ByBlocks. Unlike concrete, these don’t crack or crumble. You can peep a worker in the video attempting to smash one with a hammer — it doesn’t give. The concrete block on the other hand shatters after a few hits. Moreover, ByBlocks don’t require glues or adhesives, making them easier and quicker to install.
According to ByFusion, ByBlocks are ideal for sheds, accent walls, furniture, non-load bearing walls, privacy fences and most building projects.
The U.S. represents only 4 percent of the world’s population but produces 12 percent of its waste. That’s largely because America only recycles 35 percent of its waste, making it the only developed nation whose waste outpaces its recycling.
Plastic Building – Recycled Plastics in the Construction Industry
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The construction industry is one sector that continually adapts to fit societal interests and needs. Building materials change over the decades as useful innovations come out, and companies revamp their structural techniques to develop safer buildings.
As trends transform, more businesses are turning toward sustainable building materials to comply with consumer desires and LEED standards. Plus, their efforts contribute to a healthier environment.
Recycled plastic is one material catching on within the sustainable construction movement. With so much plastic already in existence, it makes sense to convert it to other uses rather than letting it sit in landfills or pollute waterways.
Several methods exist for integrating this material within commercial construction, and they provide benefits traditional materials don’t. More builders will begin using recycled plastic and other sustainable materials in the face of rising climate change.
How Does Recycled Plastic Work?
Recycled plastic is an innovative solution to construction, requiring less energy to create and releasing fewer fossil fuels into the environment. When it reaches the end of its life, builders can recycle it again, reducing the need to manufacture new plastic.
Builders should always consider the type of plastic needed for construction. All types function differently in various environments. Most of them react to changes in temperature, becoming brittle or soft, and construction workers must know which to use for the appropriate structure.
For example, one might avoid using plastic lumber on decks, as they reach high temperatures in the summer. Likewise, freezing climates can cause synthetic structures to become fragile.
The plastic resin classification system informs consumers and manufacturers of which plastics to recycle and how. PVC often comes in the form of shower curtains and tubing, and companies can recycle it into window frames or vinyl flooring. High-density polyethylene — or HDPE — is durable, cost-effective, and well-known as one of the safer forms of plastic. It also resists temperature changes better than other types, making it ideal for outdoor structures such as fencing and roofing.
Negative Impacts of Plastic Manufacturing
Reusing existing plastic would reduce the production of virgin plastic, which people often use once and discard. Scientists have researched the time it takes for plastics to degrade, finding that it lasts hundreds of years before disintegrating. Others theorize it never does. That’s a lengthy lifespan for a material that companies only began mass-producing in the 1950s.
Plastics break down into micro plastics instead of degrading. Many of these particles are so small they can’t be seen with the naked eye. Their tiny size allows them to infiltrate the world’s drinking water on a massive scale. A study conducted by Orb Media found 83 percent of their tap water samples contained micro plastics, while 93 percent of their bottled water samples also possessed these particles. It’s safe to say that few public water sources are exempt from contamination.
Virtually all plastic comes from fossil fuels, as 90 percent of ethylene — a chemical used in creating plastic — is sourced from natural gas. Fossil fuels don’t only cause harmful emissions, however. It’s possible that harvesting these oils heats the Earth from within, creating higher temperatures in places of extraction. Average temperature in the Arctic, a location of frequent fuel extraction, has risen by 0.6 degrees Celsius every decade since the late 1970s.
Sustainable Alternatives for Plastics
Companies created 548 million tons of construction and demolition waste in 2015, which was over twice the amount of municipal waste. Using recycled plastic in building initiatives helps these businesses decrease the amount of refuse taking up landfills.
Recycled plastic can be used for roofing, flooring, and insulation. Insulation containing plastic is more energy-efficient than the traditional kind, and it’s easy to install. Plastic roofing and flooring are also simple to implement within current building techniques.
The alternatives keep growing in number. In 2017, MIT students researched the possibility of reinforcing concrete with recycled plastics. They found that irradiated plastic creates concrete that’s denser and stronger than its traditional counterpart. While this possibility is still under development, the ability to substitute even 1.5 percent of concrete with irradiated plastic can have sweeping environmental effects on a global scale.
Uses for recycled plastic in construction and their advantages:
Bricks – easy to assemble, inexpensive, fire resistant
Windows – good insulation, long lifespan, recyclable
Fences – durable, weather resistant, no need to paint
Humanitarian Efforts in the Construction Industry
Blue and Yellow PVC tubes
Recycled plastic has made building sustainable, affordable structures a possibility across the world. Conceptos Plásticos, a Colombian construction company, has built classrooms out of plastic brick in the Ivory Coast. It gathers its plastic from the streets of Bogotá and is currently extending collection efforts into the Ivory Coast.
Plastic litter is not only unsustainable, it also contributes to dirty water and breeds illnesses. By converting this material to a better purpose, construction companies keep locals safe and healthy while improving their quality of life.
The plastic classrooms are noticeably bigger and cooler than traditional ones, and builders can create them in a matter of weeks. The bricks are light, allowing for animal or human transportation instead of trucks, and there’s no threat of off-gassing from PVC materials.
These school buildings provide an eco-friendly way to reuse the tons of plastic waste that Abidjan and other Ivorian cities produce — only 5 percent of this waste currently undergoes recycling.
Building an Eco-Friendly Future with Recyclables
Recycled plastic is an excellent alternative to current construction methods, and environmental strain can lessen as its usage increases. Companies will save money while developing energy-efficient and safe buildings. In a world where environmental concerns are on the rise, every solution counts.
Holly Welles is a real estate writer who covers the latest market trends in everything from residential to commercial spaces. She is the editor behind her own blog, The Estate Update, and curates more advice on Twitter.
To make the recycled plastic roads, crews grind up the top 3 inches of old pavement and mix it with a liquid plastic polymer binder made largely from used plastic bottles. This mixture is then placed on top of the road.
Paving one mile of road with the new plastic-asphalt mix recycles about 150,000 plastic bottles and is estimated to last two to three times as long as traditional asphalt. The plastic-asphalt mixture eliminates the need for double layers and saves dozens of truck trips, reducing smog and greenhouse gas emissions.
“We’re excited about introducing a new sustainable technology and helping pave the way for recycled plastics throughout the state,” said Caltrans District 3 Director Amarjeet S. Benipal. “This process is better for the environment because it keeps plastic bottles out of landfills and helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on fossil fuels.”
Millions of pounds of plastic have ended up landfills across California and in the Pacific Ocean where it breaks apart and harms marine life.
Some environmentalists are concerned that the new roadway would create little bits of microplastics which could enter the state’s waterways.
Caltrans officials plan to monitor and conduct detailed studies on the plastic-asphalt section.
