Designer Trash

Furniture Makers Use Recycled Rubber,
Twigs, Yarn, Even Flip-Flops on the Outside

By SARA LIN
May 30, 2008; Page W8

In every industry there's a push to be ecologically aware. Many deploy under-the-cover green techniques, such as using recycled raw materials. But some home furnishings designers are displaying their eco-awareness on the surface.

Catalogs and specialized retailers are selling goods ranging from a chair covered with recycled yarn to planters made from old tires. Many of these products have a modernist flair, compared to the frumpy green-oriented products of a decade ago such as beanbag chairs made of hemp.

Bonnie Dahan tried to start a mail-order catalog of stylish but ecologically correct home products in 2000, but "it was almost impossible to find anything eco and beautiful," she says. Today, Ms. Dahan says, she easily fills the pages of the catalog she co-founded, VivaTerra.

Most mainstream home-products makers, meantime, are promoting more subtle ecological attributes. Pottery Barn, for instance, says that some of its sofas are filled with 20% to 30% soy-based materials, and certain cushions are stuffed with a mixture that includes recycled plastic bottles.

But niche makers are coming out with products that let consumers display their green credentials in more obvious ways. When designer Thaddée de Slizewicz turned recycled tires into rubber tubs for the home he didn't make any effort to disguise their origins: "Of course you are thinking about the tire when you're looking at it," says the French designer. "That's why people love it." One version of his rubber planters and tubs has sold out at the Design Within Reach chain since it was introduced in April.

It took Stephanie Forsythe a year to figure out the right mix of new and recycled materials for her cylindrical Molo stools. She tried making the collapsible pieces exclusively with recycled cardboard but after vigorous testing the chairs began disintegrating. ("We threw a big party and let Charlie the dog run all over them -- he's 80 pounds," she explains.) Ms. Forsythe settled on a 50/50 mix of recycled cardboard and new Kraft paper -- the latter contains long fibers that act as a reinforcement.

VivaTerra's Ms. Dahan offered globe-shaped pendant lamps made of intertwined vines but canceled them after they didn't do well. "They weren't unusual enough," she says. Ms. Dahan adds that she turns away dozens of eco products she is pitched by designers, including serving bowls made of melted plastic records. "Things like that look very funky but not sophisticated."

Some design-industry experts are skeptical that showy, limited-production green products can do much to help the environment. The invisible side of goods -- the manufacturing -- needs to be green, too, and these products must go mass-market to have much impact on the environment, says Deb Johnson, academic director of sustainability at New York's Pratt Institute design school. Products such as ottomans and bathmats made from recycled flip-flops are "whimsical and interesting, but it's not doing things at the deepest level. I don't think they're going to sell millions of these things," Ms. Johnson says.

But like hybrid-car drivers who let their vehicles demonstrate their environmental awareness, buyers of these blatantly green products seem to like having them become conversation pieces. When Jack Shamama bought a Miss Rio ottoman, made from shredded overstock flip-flops, he wasn't prepared for the questions he would field from guests about the furniture, which resembles a giant Koosh ball. "The response is almost always, 'Were they [the flip-flops] used?'" he says. Answer: They weren't.

Molo chair
Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen were living and working in a one-room studio in Vancouver, Canada, when they came up with the collapsible Molo chair. It's available in several sizes and materials, including white polyethylene, and starts at $170. The brown version (shown), made of 50% recycled cardboard, develops a crushed-down patina as it ages -- which may not be to everyone's taste. "We genuinely feel it gains character and beauty with use over time," Ms. Forsythe says.

Naturescast bench
Cleaning crews were trimming overgrown fields outside the Philippines furniture factory of Pete and Catherine Delantar in 2002 when the couple decided the dead grass, twigs and tree bark ought to be reused. They spent two years perfecting a water-based glue to bind the shredded jungle waste into a mixture they dubbed Naturescast. The catch: It isn't strong enough to hold a shape -- it must be reinforced. The $570 Barque Bench has a formaldehyde-free plywood frame made of compressed sugar-cane fibers.

Recycled-tire tubs
Thaddée de Slizewicz first began experimenting with recycled tires 10 years ago. The Paris-based designer, who specializes in bath accessories, says his products are inspired by his travels: In Vietnam he watched a barber mix shaving foam on a rubber tire scrap, leading him to look into rubber shaving accessories. "The rubber tire is a modern object that's universally available -- including in a rubbish dump," he says. A set of three of his rubber tubs (one is shown) is available from Design Within Reach for $350.

Giramundo Chair
Thomas Bina, founder of Environment Furniture, discovered the chair at a shop in Salvador, Brazil. He made a few tweaks to Brazilian designer Marcus Ferreira's model and introduced it to the U.S. last year for $2,150. The multicolored cover is hand-sewn in a Brazilian village from yarn remnants tossed out by textile factories. "I knew it was a little out there," says Mr. Bina, but "I knew it would sell well in New York."

Timber Block stool
Made from monkey pod tree branches that typically are left for waste during lumber-cutting in Thailand, these hand-hewn stools can double as tables. Held together by a chemical-free glue, each weighs about 48 pounds and costs $369. But watch out for spills -- the top surface isn't lacquered since "that wouldn't be eco," says Bonnie Dahan, who commissioned the stools for her VivaTerra catalog.

Write to Sara Lin at sara.lin@wsj.com

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121210765306731281.html