Plastic Whale: Office furniture made out of plastic waste

Plastic Whale, a movement of people who love doing, creating, and making progress; developed design office furniture made out of the plastic they collect during their daily plastic fishing events. They worked together in a project group to develop the business plan, designs and first prototypes.

Plastic Whale wanted to create more from the waste they were collecting daily on their fishing trips. When re-designing their own office space in Amsterdam they fell in love with the idea to use PET-foam for a new table, since PET-bottles were already being used for thick sheets of PET-foam to create new fishing boats. They asked Eric and Yvonne from LAMA Concept to create an inspiring office furniture design. Naturally the whale was the source of their inspiration!

Going from design to a real piece of furniture they needed a furniture maker and met up with the experienced team of VEPA. They are producing office furniture for years and aim for the highest durable production processes. Luckily, they liked the challenge and were able to produce high quality prototypes within just a few months.

The full product line consists of a board room table, chairs, an acoustic panel and lighting. The main material is PET-foam and PET-felt made out of recycled PET-bottle-waste. In addition, durable materials as recycled steel and FSC wood is used. For all product details.

Moreover, businesses can opt for wooden desks or chairs when furnishing their offices in lieu of plastic furnishings. Despite the fact that many would argue wooden plywood furniture would not match the aesthetics of an office setting, looking at websites like officemonster.co.uk and similar sites of office supply vendors that offer modern wood furniture might lead them to reconsider. It can be an alternative and a possible way to reduce plastic waste by taking this approach.

Hopefully plastic waste in the Amsterdam canals will soon be a rarity known from the past! But to keep creating furniture, Plastic Whale also turns to other places around the world were plastic waste can be turned into a business opportunity and donates 10% from its earnings to local waste initiatives.