Filed under: Your Home, Design, etc, News & Trends, Furniture
Zero waste turns trash into treasure, beautiful treasure.We all know that trends in interior design and home furnishings often follow what happens on the runway, so it doesn't surprise me that the latest fashion design aspiration, zero waste, is also being adopted in the home. According to an article in the New York Times, zero waste in fashion is loosely defined as striving "to create clothing patterns that leave not so much as a scrap of fabric on the cutting room floor."
But this is not just another Project Runway challenge. In fact, it's a battle against the industry. This same article points out some grim environmental statistics such as "about 15 to 20 percent of the fabric used to produce clothing winds up in the nation's landfills because it's cheaper to dump the scraps than to recycle them." Artist Lisa Solomon and her business partner Candice Gold have recently launched MODify/d, a company that creates home goods from those discarded fashion industry scraps -- a harmonious union between the fashion and home design industries.
Floor scraps from jackets and pants made into pillows. Photo: MODify/d
Zero waste isn't a new concept in furniture. Since 2003, designers Bart Bettencourt and Carlos Salgado were collecting scraps from the New York woodworking industry and making furniture under the name Scrapile. Whether the fashion industry or the independent furniture designers started this movement is a chicken and egg question, but the fashion industry seems to be getting all of the attention. Well, that needs to change!
I spoke with a handful of amazing designers who have embraced the idea of zero waste, which they mostly describe as the creation of a product that results in minimal to no landfill trash; these designers make conscious use of old materials and products and turn waste into new products, even packaging. And they're taking furniture-making to a whole new level. In challenging themselves to create something new from something old, they're designing eco-friendly items that don't look anything (and I mean anything) like repurposed trash. While some are inspired by the lagging economy and environmental concerns, others are simply following their creative impulses.
Why re-purpose?
Joanne Kelly and Anthony Buggy are co-owners of Think Contemporary, a UK-based interior design company that recently added a line of upcycled furniture to their offerings. They added the collection because of the obvious shift in consumer thinking when it came to old furniture. In Ireland, as elsewhere, people aren't throwing anything away anymore. Instead, they donate it to second hand stores or give it away online. "We saw a gap in the market to reuse these old pieces and to give them a new lease on life using eco-friendly products," she says.
Joe Norman's reclaimed pallet table. Photo: Blue Boat Home Design
Joe Norman of Blue Boat Home Design makes furniture of recycled boat parts, but he didn't intend to become a niche designer or intentionally follow any trends when he started. Instead, he explains, he found that he created some of his most meaningful work using materials with a storied past, or "emotional residue," as he calls it.
Artist and designer Boris Bally, who makes chairs and tables from old street signs, started working with trash because it presented a challenge; he had to figure out how to make "something people valued from something they discarded." It can be a tough sell, he says. "You are essentially repackaging the material and selling it back to them," he says.
Still, he was drawn to the nostalgic feel of reclaimed materials. A former jeweler who worked with precious and semi-precious metals and gemstones, Bally is often reminded of his Swiss roots, a time when his parents took him to scrap yards for fun on the weekends. The family's motto was "use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without."
The trend is beginning to catch on. "Zero waste design will just become 'design,' at which point it won't be a trend because it will be ubiquitous," says Norman.
Think Contemporary uses water-based paints and locally-sourced vinyl decals for their furniture. Photo: Think Contemporary
Challenges of designing without waste
OK, so you're making furniture from old furniture. But what about the tools, power and methods used by these designers? Part of zero waste, at least to me, means producing little waste during each phase of the manufacturing process. From sourcing materials to packaging, the entire lifecycle of the process should have little to no environmental impact.
But it doesn't happen without challenges. For MODify/d, they say that the very nature of their business makes zero waste production tough -- they have to ship their goods somehow. Still, they do whatever they can to reduce waste. They use cardboard inserts to make tags and business cards, vintage zippers and buttons for accents, kapok or recycled plastic bottle fillers for their pillows. They're still exploring their options, but they are hopeful that they can continue to move in an eco-friendly direction; they really want solar-powered sewing machines.
Bally makes everything by hand using locally-sourced materials. He and his assistant use basic tools to minimize the use of electricity and a gas-saving vehicle to transport materials. If a particular sign seems too small or awkward, they repurpose it into a platter or a tray. Smaller pieces and scraps become coasters, key fobs and brooches. Whatever is left over, he explains, is basically sawdust and small metal scraps that he hauls back to the scrap yard to be recycled. The chairs ship flat-packed and are assembled by the consumer.
Norman explains that sometimes, fabrication can be a challenge. Trying to find ways to have a minimal ecological impact proves difficult when the use of large electrical equipment is involved. He's brainstorming alternatives for powering his tools. But he can control what materials he selects and how he transports it.
Boris Bally's upcycled sign chairs sit on top of old corks. Photo: Boris Bally
You talk the talk, but do you walk the walk?
How "green" can you really be if you make eco-friendly furniture at work but go home in a big SUV? The work that these designers are doing begins first with how they act in their personal lives.
Norman and his wife have been living on two main principles -- the first being that people are more important than things. "The stuff we own, make and cherish is in service to our lives, not the other way around," he says. He also believes that what you can do with your community "is far more powerful than what we do alone." They have been studying multi-family communities around the world that are self-sustainable and documenting their findings in a blog.
Bally takes his upcycled lifestyle very seriously; his staircase railing is made from shovels that his UPS driver gave to him, while the window grates on his home are made of drills the electricians discarded when they ran the power. He also works in a building that was going to be torn down -- he saved it.
Says Norman: "The desire to have a minimal carbon footprint really pushes me to take a close look at the value of what I'm designing and fabricating. Every designer has a huge responsibility to create work which does its raw materials and purpose justice. If it doesn't make the world a better place, then I won't make it."