SUSTAINABILITY | DESIGN


for Morrison. The monolith Panton chair was a landmark combination of bril- liant design and engineering with plastic materials (which has been injection moulded in PP since 1999) and Morrison says he wanted Evo-C to also be a single plastic moulding, but this time with two front legs. Vitra’s focus may be on


durability, but that does not mean it is ignoring recycled materials. Tip Ton Re, an update of the Tip Ton chair designed by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby in 2011, is Vitra’s first recycled plastic chair. It is injection moulded using 3.6 kg of recycled PP sourced from Germany’s Yellow Bag household recycling scheme. “Working on an existing product is a good way


to gain experience with a new material,” says Vitra’s Chief Design Officer, Christian Grosen. “Though recycled polypropylene is still a type of plastic, it’s different to work with.” He says the materials challenge was to make the


chair strong enough, as recycled materials do not have the same performance as virgin. Glass was added to the PP for reinforcement, which then led to work on improving the surface quality. The company followed an iterative process to determine the minimum amount of glass fibre needed for strength while meeting the desired surface standards. Another consideration for designers using


recyclate is what to do about its grey colour. Grosen says: “We wanted to keep the material as clean as possible, so what you see is what you get. There are tiny specks of other colours in the grey, which vary slightly from chair to chair. But for me that adds interest and pushes our perception of plastics. The slight variations in the recycled


material add depth and give it a story, similar to how the structure of a piece of wood tells you about the tree’s growth cycles.” Grosen says product designers are facing a huge challenge in the way they approach materials and manufacturing. “You need a different mindset, but we are adapting to it, because it’s the way we need to think and act now. It’s part of the designer’s and company’s responsibility. In this


dialogue we push each other towards a more


circular way of thinking.” He says: “Testing new materials and processes can give you unknown results; it always leads to some kind of learning and adds to the knowledge base on the circular economy. This is different from finding only a new aesthetic or a new function. We view this as a very relevant challenge. The rules are not yet written, and we are writing ours as we go.” Grosen describes plastic as “a fantastic material and will be with us for a long time, but there are right and wrong ways of using it. The critical thing is to understand when to use recycled plastic, when to use new material, and when to combine them to achieve products that people will keep and utilise for as long as possible.”


CLICK ON THE LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION: � www.basf.com � www.domochemicals.com � www.orangebox.com � www.hermanmiller.com � www.ikea.com � www.muuto.com � www.vitra.com � www.fortum.com


The chair that picks itself up off the floor


Recycled materials suppliers hope to show designers and specifiers what it’s possible to do with recyclate. In order to showcase its Circo recycled plastics, Fortum Recycling in Finland has designed a self-righting chair. The Viren chair prototype has a clever design which allows it to roll and “stand” again after being knocked over. It is made using Circo recycled PP compound reinforced


www.injectionworld.com


with cellulose fibre and has a steel base plate. The carbon footprint of Fortum Circo recycled plastic is about half that of virgin plastics, says the company. The chair was inspired by Finnish


athlete Lasse Viren’s recovery in the 10,000 metres final in the 1972 Olympics in Munich. After stumbling, Viren picked himself up and went on to win the race in record time.


March 2022 | INJECTION WORLD 19


Left: Tip Ton Re is Vitra’s update of the Tip Ton chair designed by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, using recycled PP


IMAGE: FORTUM


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