What to do with Old Cassette Tapes

Following on from the item about recycling old VHS tapes, here is a very elegant solution to using up all those old cassette taps you will probably have left over from the 1908’s!

Dutch designer Patrick Schuur, has come up with this storage unit clad in 918 cassette tapes. He suggests that this could find a place as an office space divider or a simple storage solution in the bedroom.

Before you throw away those cassettes, and that battered old piece of furniture, you might like to combine for a similar result!

[ Via Ecofriend ]

Recycled News Bench

This expandable bench has been designed by Brussels based architect-designer Charles Kaisin using recycled paper.

He takes sheets of newspaper, glues, layers and compresses them to produce a material as strong as wood. These are then used to fabricate visually stunning furniture. In this case the ‘bench’ can expand from 30 cm to 7m, be used to sit on or as a table surface.

More details : www.charleskaisin.com

[Via EcoFriend ]

Starch Chair

This chair, by London based designer Max Lamb, ticks all the 'green' boxes.

Made from 'squirted' lengths of starch it is biodegradable, recyclable, can be formed into a variety of 'chair' shapes or sculpted once set. It is, apparently, edible as well, although there is no mention about taste or flavour.

Lamb grew up in Cornwall, studied three-dimensional design at University and graduated from the Royal College of Art with a Masters Degree in 2006.

More images of his designs here: www.maxlamb.org

[Via: Ecofriend]

Designer Monitor

OK, so you like the idea of visually monitoring your electricity usage but don’t like the utilitarian design of the current crop of devices. Enter ‘Wattson’ a device which monitors your power but displays the information in a stylish unit which wouldn’t look out of place on your (designer) coffee table.

Not only can Wattson show a digital readout of your power consumption, live as it changes, but also features colour changing LEDs which breath and pulsate: blue for low energy use and red for high usage. It can even store 4 weeks of energy information which you can download to your computer for analysis.

This device was featured in the Guardian Top Ten Green Gadgets (August) and has been designed by DIY KYOTO, a group founded by three MA students from the Royal College of Art, London.

You pay for the sculptural simplicity – and sometimes you just need to support this sort of innovative design and application. Available from Nigel's Eco Store for £149.50

Biodegradable Furniture

US based, British designer Julian Lwin produces objects using Eco or recycled elements. His Bio Tube Bench is constructed using cardboard tubes with embedded seeds. This can be grasses, herbs or wildflowers. You water it, the bench sprouts and, eventually, biodegrades so you can have a place to sit in the garden and allow it to become part of the garden once it has degraded. Visit Lwin Design for more details.

Recycled Light Shade

In December we featured a chandelier made using Bic pens and now, something even more eco friendly in the shape of an elegant light shade/sculpture made from recycled rubbish.

Berlin based, British designer, Stewart Haygarth has produced this “Tide” chandelier as part of a larger body of work using ‘man made’ debris washed up on the Kent coastline. This large lamp measures 150 cm in diameter and is illuminated using a 100w incandescent light bulb. There are ten in the edition and price is on request.

Haygarth has also made light shades using discarded party poppers and disposable plastic wine glasses. His site is well worth a look. www.stuarthaygarth.com