Feature
The New Plat du Jour: Leftovers
RECYCLING, THE PROCESS OF PUTTING waste materials to new uses, has been a common practice for most of human history; Plato advocated it way back in 400 BC. But it became a central and urgent concern in the modern world in the late 1960s and ’70s because of the massive amounts of waste that industrial economies were producing. Soon, just recycling wasn’t sufficient. In the 1990s William McDonough and Michael Braungart began preaching the doctrine of cradle to cradle. It wasn’t enough to reuse; they proposed a closed loop, creating products that may be continually reused and recycled. Today, that concept has morphed into the now-popular circular economy, a business philosophy that aims to move industry from a take-make-dispose model to one where materials are continuously repurposed. New technology has been essential. But designers from around the world have seized the moment and are taking the concept into new territories.
Wasting Away
Ellinor Eliasson, a designer in Sweden’s Kasthall Design Studio, spear-headed the search for a way to utilize wasted yarn from Kasthall’s custom manufacturing plant. The company often creates extra spools in case repairs are necessary during production, but these couldn’t be reused for other projects because of the risk of minor color variations. It was these very variations that suggested the solution. The studio sorted the discarded spools into six different color groups, then began weaving; when one spool runs out, a new one in another color is added until the rug is finished. The result: an iridescent field of hues that seem to change constantly.
kasthall.com
Harvest rugs by Ellinor Eliasson and Kasthall’s Design Studio, 2017, woven from residual yarn from the company’s manufacturing plant. Courtesy Kasthall
