It's no rubbish! Recycling is the detritus of our lives. All sorts of renewable refuse such as plastic, glass, metal, paper and other materials are making the transition once they are on their way to processing plants, across the country.

Much of this scrap material can be transitioned into the same material before it was picked up at the curb or something else entirely. Discarded cans are reborn when they return to the shelves. Glass jars dispensed with are reinvented during the smelting process. Recycled newspapers make a triumpantly return to your doorstep. Recycling is a source of inspriration for the home decor industry. Furniture companies and smaller studios are creatively repurposing production waste by sourcing discards and leftover materials. Suppliers use these methods to make sustainably produced products that encourage design R&D and cut industrial disposal costs.

Another significant part of the recycling initiative are plastics according to Ikea's product developer Anna Granath who has been collaborating with the Stockholm, Sweden-based studio Form Us With Love. What they devised for Ikea was a unique coating for a kitchen cabinet door sustainably made from processed plastic bottles. The door it is applied to is made of recycled, shredded wood. The Kungsbacka cabinetry has a refreshingly rich matte charcoal-hued finish. Its look is likely to belie a suprisingly modest price tag.

Granath said “sustainability should be for many people, not just for those who can afford it,” adding that “our ambition is to increase the share of recycled materials in our products.” Even the leftover plastic film used to wrap furniture palettes is ground into pellets to manufacture the Skrutt desk pad. Glass scraps and rejected pieces from one of Ikea's suppliers are recycled into marbled vases, which are created by Iina Vuorivirta and part of Ikea's PS 2017 accessories line.

Emeco, a furniture maker in Hanover, Pennsylvania, teamed with designer Philippe Starck on the Broom chair, a sleek, comfortable stacking chair that's made of 75 percent waste polypropylene and 15 percent reclaimed wood fiber. The name is a play on the chair's origins. “Imagine”, says Starck, “a guy who takes a humble broom and starts to clean the workshop, and with this dust he makes new magic.” Emeco isn't new to the recycled material/new furniture game. Their aluminum Navy chair, commissioned during World War II, has been made of recycled aluminum since the 1940s. The material withstood the rigors of warfare and sea air. The company has even collaborated with Coca-Cola to turn soda bottles into plastic versions of the chair.

Ikea is premiering its own plastic and wood-fiber chair early this year. The Odger will come in a range of colors and wood finishes.

Dutch designer Dirk Vander Kooij makes his Melting Pot dining tables out of discarded plastic toys, videotapes and computer parts. The heated components meld into abstract patterns, with no two tables being the same. Vander Kooij also recycles his test pieces and waste plastics, extruding them into new chairs, cabinetry and even music speakers, using an enormous industrial robot arm. He created the arm himself, and won the Dutch Design Award for it in 2011.

Vander Kooij thinks we have a misplaced notion that plastics are only cheap and throwaway. In fact, transforming them can create new and enduring designs: “Recycled material is unique, and has a history that can literally be seen in the product,” he says. “That gives particular beauty and layering.” (website)

Another Netherlands-based designer, Tamara Orjola, found new life for discards from the timber industry. “There's more to the tree than just wood; pine needles account for 20 to 30 percent of its mass,” she says. So she came up with the idea of cooking the needles into a material she calls “forest wool,” which can be made into biodegradable textiles and furniture.

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