The Ultimate Example Of Upcycling: Repurposing Discarded Movie Screens Into Interior Products

In a groundbreaking collaboration with CGV, South Korea’s leading movie brand, designer Haneul Kim has unveiled a remarkable initiative to address the environmental challenge of waste generated by discarded movie screens. These screens, often several meters long, are typically cast aside due to damage, contamination, or the dismantling of theaters. Haneul Kim’s innovative approach transforms these seemingly obsolete materials into stunning and functional lighting designs, marking a significant step towards sustainability in the design industry.

Designer: Haneul Kim

Kim’s inspiration struck when he noticed the perforations on the discarded screens, recognizing a visual similarity to aluminum perforated plates commonly found in industrial applications. This revelation led to the ingenious idea of repurposing the screens’ sound-transmitting function into a source of light emission. The result is a series of portable lamps that ingeniously utilize the small holes in the screens to emit light, turning waste into a source of illumination.

The Waste Screen Recycle project also pays homage to the legendary designer Mario Botta’s iconic shogun lamp. Known for its clean lines and geometric precision, Botta’s lamp incorporates perforations or cutouts, allowing light to diffuse elegantly. Haneul Kim’s homage work demonstrates the potential of waste screens to replace traditional lampshades, showcasing a fusion of sustainability and design aesthetics. The project not only repurposes discarded materials but also reimagines them in the context of established design classics.

The versatility of waste movie screens is further highlighted as Kim extends the project to include furniture pieces such as tables and chairs. These pieces showcase the original patterns found in waste movie screens, adding a touch of uniqueness and character to each creation. By exploring the potential use of these screens as interior materials for the future, Kim is pushing the boundaries of sustainable design and encouraging a shift towards more environmentally conscious practices.

The repurposing of waste movie screens into lighting designs and furniture pieces not only addresses the issue of waste in the entertainment industry but also demonstrates the potential for meaningful utilization across various domains. Kim’s project underscores the exceptional functional and aesthetic qualities of waste movie screens, positioning them as valuable resources for the creation of sustainable and visually striking designs. As the design world continues to grapple with environmental concerns, Haneul Kim’s innovative approach serves as a beacon, pointing towards a future where discarded materials are transformed into objects of beauty and purpose.

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Designed by an ex-Apple engineer, this futuristic trash can turns leftover food into chicken feed in your kitchen

One of the most challenging things I experience because I live alone and I live in a condo is trying to keep my trash from smelling. It’s pretty exhausting to always go out and throw the trash in our basement whenever I have some leftover food or trash that might smell. What if there was a way to keep things from going “bad” (well, it is still trash) and maybe at the same time do something that will make it a little better? Apparently, there’s now a “futuristic” trash can that can do it for you.

Designer: Mill

Mill is a trash can that not only keeps your leftovers from becoming too spoiled and stinky and turns them into actual chicken feed. And you don’t have to even leave your house for all of this to happen. The concept for this circular food waste device is from a former Apple engineer and the co-founder of Google Nest, Matt Rogers. This way the fish, produce, eggs, rinds, seeds, bones and other food waste that you throw away can become food for chickens. Even things like napkins, filters, and paper towels can get in on the fun.

How it works seems pretty simple. The device looks like a regular trash can and so you just throw in any of the things mentioned above. It will then dry these leftovers and grind them into chicken feed that is nutrient-rich, which looks like coffee grounds or regular pellets. This process can happen overnight and it also shrinks the waste so you won’t have an overflowing trash can. They say it takes a few weeks for it to actually become full. And there’s also a coconut-based charcoal odor filter that will prevent your kitchen from stinking up.

For now, the Mill trash can is on a subscription basis. Once you’ve signed up, you get the bin delivered to your house and you can start throwing in your uneaten or spoiled food. You empty the contents of your bin once it’s full into a prepaid box and schedule a pickup. All of this is done through an app, which tells you also what are specific items you can throw into it. This is actually something pretty interesting that hopefully will become more common (and a little less expensive) later on.

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This distinctive wood-like material is made from worthless scraps of wood

The use of wood in products and design goes back millennia, and the material continues to be a favorite today, especially among those turning their backs on harmful plastics. But while wood is inherently sustainable in the sense of being biodegradable and recyclable, great care must be taken in sourcing this material. Anything that uses wood, from the thinnest paper to the largest furniture, almost always involves cutting down trees, and even the discarded bits and pieces that can be recycled and used elsewhere still trace their origins from large trees. This can eventually be a problem if we don’t plant trees fast enough to replenish our sources of wood. Trees, however, might not be the only source of the materials we can use for making furniture, and this rather novel material tries to use the unlikeliest objects for that purpose.

Designer: Yuma Kano (Studio Yumakano)

Wood has always been special among the different materials we use for making things. It has particular properties and textures, and the grains and striations that raw lumber has are unique and appealing. Wood is also easily available, presuming we have enough trees, of course. As such, it comes with its own set of problems, including the amount of waste material that is left unused and discarded. There are designers and manufacturers that try to utilize these wooden chips and crafts, but a bolder solution might be not to cut down trees in the first place.

ForestBank is an attempt to produce a different kind of wood without resorting to synthetic processes and materials that end up harming the environment anyway. Instead, it sets its eyes on the other materials that can be found in forests, materials that are normally deemed worthless and useless for construction. These include foliage, bark, seeds, and even small trees, things that just decompose on the forest floor anyway. These pieces are gathered and mixed with a reactive mineral base and water-based acrylic resin that uses no organic solvents or volatile organic compounds.

The result is something that is like wood but is clearly not wood. The material can definitely be shaped using ordinary woodworking methods and be used as different parts of furniture, practically anywhere wood can be used. Its unique makeup, however, gives it a terrazzo-like appearance that is both unique and also a bit chaotic. The different bits and pieces of source material have their own earthy tones, adding to this rather unique soup of shapes and colors.

What makes this innovative material even more sustainable is that it doesn’t need to be limited to being sourced from forests. Those same waste materials can be taken from tree pruning on streets and in gardens or scraps from woodworking studios. The different qualities and appearances of each source material add to the unique character of each ForestBank production, turning furniture, walls, and any other wood-based product into true one-of-a-kind masterpieces.

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Samsung sustainability initiative takes a step forward with Unpacked 2022 devices

Smartphones are one of the most ubiquitous pieces of consumer electronics in the world today. An overwhelming number of people have one, some might even have two, and millions of phones are shipped every quarter. In fact, there might be too many smartphones out there in the world, and not all of them are actually in use or even in one piece. As wonderful as smartphones are, their production and disposal contribute to the worsening state of our environment, especially because of how many they are. Smartphone manufacturers have thankfully started to be more aware of their critical role in this broken ecosystem and, even better, are starting to take action. As one of the world’s biggest smartphone makers, Samsung is thankfully taking that responsibility seriously and is boasting the achievements that take it closer to its grand goal in 2025.

Designer: Samsung

From the cradle to the grave, a smartphone’s life is filled with materials and processes that harm the environment or even people. From the plastics used in electronics to the chemicals for treating different parts to the materials used in packaging, these powerful computers in our pockets and hands are almost like death traps for the planet. It’s too late to turn back, of course, so smartphone manufacturers are instead trying to reduce their negative impact little by little on all fronts. Samsung’s “Galaxy for the Planet” initiative tries to cover those different fronts, and the newest batch of devices it just announced demonstrates the progress it has made since the program was announced last year.

Samsung started with the Galaxy S22 earlier this year by using plastics made from recycled fishing nets that would have otherwise ruined our oceans and aquatic life. Since then, Samsung has expanded the use of that material to other Galaxy devices, including the Galaxy Book 2 Pro laptop and the Galaxy Tab S8 tablets. The new Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4 continue that tradition and are even joined by the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. In fact, Samsung boasts that 90% of its new pro earbuds are made using recycled materials. Given its smaller size and fewer components, that is admittedly not that hard to pull off.

The company has also been trying to improve its packaging, and no, it’s not just about removing the charger. The company now uses 100% recycled paper for the packaging of its flagship phones, which does raise questions about the state of its non-flagship phone packaging. Samsung is also trying to reduce how much single-use plastic it puts inside the box, though it’s not yet ready to get rid of them entirely. Both the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4 boxes are less than half the size of their original models, which results in more efficient transport and reduced carbon emissions overall.

Sooner or later, phones do reach their end of life, mostly because they no longer meet the needs of their owners. That doesn’t mean they’re completely useless, though, especially if they’re actually still functional. Rather than simply breaking these down and having them undergo recycling processes that consume a lot of water and energy, Samsung is proposing upcycling phones to serve other needs, like acting as smart home hubs or cameras. In one specific case, old Galaxy devices even become eye diagnostic tools used in underserved communities.

These small steps forward take Samsung closer to its ambitious goal for 2025, but it might still be quite a ways away from that milestone. In three years, Samsung envisions itself as having eliminated all plastics in packaging, achieved zero waste to landfill, and used recycled materials on all mobile products, not just the flagship ones. Those are lofty goals, indeed, and some might say almost impossible to reach by 2025. When it comes to sustainability, however, every step, no matter how small, counts toward healing the planet and making sure there will still be people around to buy those fancy smartphones in the future.

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This puffer jacket is filled with single-use masks and shows the pandemic-related environmental issues!

The pandemic has led to a huge lifestyle shift and in the bid to stay safe, the environment is suffering from the excessive use of plastic to wrap items, chemicals to sanitize, and the millions (or billions) of single-use PPE that eventually contribute to pollution. There are photographs of medical masks floating in the ocean with the animals and washing up on beaches is a heartbreaking sight. To bring this issue to light, designers Tobia Zambotti and Aleksi Saastamoinen created Coat-19, an icy blue puffer jacket made of discarded single-use masks, organic wool, and transparent recycled laminate.

The designers are based in Iceland that still has a mask mandate. Icelandic winds can be very strong so masks that aren’t carefully discarded blow from the streets into the otherwise pristine environment. To prevent this from happening they collected around 1500 light-blue masks from the streets of Reykjavík, thoroughly disinfected them with ozone gas, and shipped them to Helsinki where they became an unusual filling for “Coat-19” – a modern puffer jacket that highlights this absurd pandemic-related environmental issue.​

Most of the disposable masks available in the market are made with a thermoplastic called polypropylene which is also used to produce poly-fill, the most common acrylic stuffing for cheap down jackets – same material, same function, different look. Some of the light-blue masks were partly filled with organic cotton wool in order to create the puffy silhouette of the trendy oversized jacket.

The outer layer is a semi-transparent breathable and waterproof laminate based made from bio-sources that let the disposable masks be visible.​ There are about 1500 masks that make the filling along with organic cotton wool. While the sight is jarring, it is a reminder we all need to practice safety sustainably. We may come out of this pandemic or learn to live with it, but the climate crisis is not something we can solve with a shot. This is a plea to use alternatives if possible so that your safety in the present doesn’t compromise on the future of the planet.

Designer: Tobia Zambotti and Aleksi Saastamoinen

This DIY hydroponic pot repurposes a glass goblet to grow avocado in your living room





A hydroponic system is far better at growing plants without the use of soil by using a mixture of water and nutrients. Even better it can be used to grow herbs, veggies, and plants with the minimum amount of maintenance. Ideal for modern homes and apartments – hydroponic farming brings the goodness of therapeutic wellness to our busy lives. While more extensive hydroponic systems are being offered for homes, industrial designer Lautaro Lucero has germinated the idea of something simpler. He has conceptualized the Palto Hydroponic Pot that reuses old glass goblets to grow avocado.

Lautaro accidentally broke the bottom half of his glass goblet, and his basic instinct was to make something out of it. The big volume and the beautiful color of the goblet intrigued him to awaken the designer inside him, and hence the Palto Hydroponic Pot was born. The beauty of this concept is its practicability – anyone at home can take the design cues from Lautaro’s blueprint and recycle their broken or old goblet into a hydroponic planter. The creation not only germinates avocado right in your living room but looks so aesthetically pleasing. The mesmerizing caustic effect of the light refracting, as you see the plant germinate.

The open mouth of the glass goblet ensures maximum airflow for proper growth while the bottom half supports the glass in place. The hydroponic pot is so well designed you instantly want to buy one right away. Since this project is still not in the production phase, and just a prototype one-off creation for now – the next best thing is to create one of your own as a nice weekend DIY project.

Designer: Lautaro Lucero of Uido Design Studio

This sustainable lamp is designed using discarded banana fibers!

I will never stop being amazed by how designers are pushing the boundaries by creating sustainable products. Nuclée is a lamp created from discarded banana flesh and it is….truly bananas! The French designer duo came up with the concept and produced it during a six-month residency at the National Taiwan Craft Research Institute (N.T.C.R.I.) in Taiwan.

The minimal lamp puts the sustainable material front and center with a bamboo circle around it to highlight it. Banana fibers from the plantations are usually considered as waste after the traditional extraction process and cast aside. However, the designers were intrigued by this. material and found it fascinating when working with a lighting design concept. After empirical research, they succeeded in stabilizing the plant tissue using a particular refining technique and after applying different pressure as well as heat parameters. This new material is highlighted by shapes of bent bamboo, inspired by the internal structure of the banana tree stem and that is how the form of Nuclée mood lights came to be.

“Settled near Hualien, on the east coast of Taiwan, the Kavalan aboriginal tribe is expert in the use of banana fiber: they make it their traditional clothing. I had the chance to meet them, to share their way of life, and to learn from their elders the ancestral techniques to use this plant. This new material is sublimated here in curved bamboo shapes, inspired by the banana tree structure,” said Dorian as he elaborated on the inception of his idea. The stabilizing process also gives it a color range from white to dark brown while enhancing the natural texture of the banana flesh.

After learning about these ingenious age-old methods of working with this plant, the designers used the process of extraction using only the outer part of the stem and other techniques to develop this modern sustainable lamp. Their experiments had them checking the material’s reaction to heat, cold, humidity, pressure, combination with other materials, and more to make sure it was actually usable in a wide variety of conditions. This also helps to break the notion that sustainable designs aren’t strong or long-lasting. Nuclée is also a project winner of the “Best of Year” Grand Prize (New York, 2020) and of the Green Product Award (Berlin, 2021).

Designers: Cordélia Faure & Dorian Etienne of ENSCI Les Ateliers

This sustainable suitcase uses 70% lesser parts & is easier to assemble/disassemble than IKEA furniture!





The sustainable travel and eco-tourism industry is slowly seeing a boost as more people become aware of the consequences of their itineraries. But we need to dive a little deeper and see what are the smaller changes we can make to our travel essentials before we reach a point of “Should we fly economy class or in a private jet?”. Not-so-fun-fact: suitcases are not recyclable and end up in the landfill 9 out of 10 times. To combat this waste that stems from our love for traveling, a team of designers created RHITA – a suitcase that is super easy to assemble and disassemble which makes it easier to repair or recycle.

“Every year hundred thousand of discarded luggage caused by damaged wheels, handles, shells or shells that are deformed or damaged by collision, hard to be repaired or disassemble for recycling, bringing great impact to the environment. Hence, design for assembly and disassembly allows the suitcase easy to repair or recycle, reduced parts by simplifying the structure and minimized material used, downsize shipping volume to decrease carbon footprint boosting sustainability,” says the design team. RHITA’s simplified structure reduces the number of parts used in production by 70% when compared to traditional suitcases. Even the space needed for transportation has been reduced by 33%. It features an innovative hinge system and a unique installation method – no glue or rivet for fixation, no sewing of the inner lining, maximizing the space inside as well as a quick fasten and loosen wheel mechanism.

This revised form lets you purchase parts in the desired color for replacement or repair only what’s necessary instead of completely discarding the bag and buying a new one. When the suitcase’s life cycle comes to an end, recycling is not simple and this suitcase is designed for making the life of the product longer while our experience with it becomes more sustainable. When RHITA reaches the end of its usable life, it is easy to recycle and therefore adds another much-needed dimension to the sustainable travel industry.

“I appreciate this young designer’s determination to squarely face the challenges of today’s industrial design, such as recycling, sustainability, and efficient transportation, and to find the best answers for the future,” said the A’Design Award Competition’s jury. RHITA won the Silver A’Design Award in Sustainable Products, Projects, and Green Design Category, 2019 – 2020.

Designers: Jhen Jia Yang, Yun Cheng, and Chun Yu Pan

Dutch architects upcycle waste into sustainable glamping pods!

The pandemic has given a boost to road trips, local travel, and camping as borders remain shut and air travel increases risks. The easiest way to catch your breath, take a break, and spend time away from home while rejuvenating is to go to a local camping ground! While looking at interesting campsites I found Culture Campsite which was designed by architects to be an urban oasis filled with quirky pods that will give you the escape you’re craving while not ‘wasting’ any resources or time!

A team of Dutch designers and artists transformed a concrete parking lot in Rotterdam’s Delfshaven area into a sustainable urban camping ground making it more accessible for people. There is a range of cool architectural cabins to choose from and they are all built using upcycled and waste stream materials. The idea was to show not tell – this way people could experience living in a sustainable structure themselves and find that it can be incorporated into their lifestyle! The pods are all smaller than a tiny house but way more exciting than a tent because of their unique builds and each of them showcases innovative sustainable elements. Every cabin offers a special experience and my favorite one is the Val Ross cabin because it reminds me of the rocket emoji (yes, I am a space nerd!). Val Ross is Swedish for walrus and is constructed from old animal silos which are tall towers used to store food on a farm. It has one bedroom with a double-bed which is comfortable for 1-2 people. The cabin is insulated for the colder seasons and has a cool circular window like we imagine rockets to have!

“The principle of waste architecture is designing and sketching with the materials and objects that are available. Playing with form, material, and color leads to new insights and forms that cannot be imagined on a white sheet of paper. It requires a different way of designing to change, adapt and merge existing forms,” says Boris Duijenveld, founder of Mud (Mobile Urban Design) Projects and one of the designers from the artistic collaboration that gave us Culture Campsite. Meals will be served at the geodesic done and, yes, there is a communal bathroom area for your other needs. You can also enjoy yoga classes, outdoor activities, and a multi-day course on tiny house design so you can come up with your own sustainable cabin! It is surely different from a traditional camping trip and gives you a little Narnia moment in the city where you can escape to from time to time.

Designer: Mud Projects

Can NIVEA’s 3D printed shower gel refill station prototype really reduce plastic packaging waste?

Brands are consciously moving towards eco-friendly practices and the first hurdle every single one of them has to overcome is plastic packaging waste. NIVEA’s parent company is German giant Beiersdorf and they are on a mission to reduce packaging waste by minimizing and closing their material cycles. And for NIVEA that meant launching a shower gel refill station! Now it is a good first step and has its pros but also has some cons. The biggest con is that shower gels itself are not good for the environment and there is no way to know how many bottles actually get rinsed clean before they are recycled – otherwise, it doesn’t work. Shower gels also need a lot of water to be made, and as climate change makes the world hotter/drier, the water crisis is already a big issue in many countries. A solution to that? Bar soaps! NIVEA makes those too, they use less water and can be packaged in recycled paper – that is the real solution but if this refill station reduces some plastic waste and sparks a movement for the brand to take bigger steps, then we are here to see it.

The prototype is going to be tested in select locations where the brand will gather data on how consumers are interacting, feeling, reacting to the concept of reusable bottles. The prototype machine was made with their in-house 3D printers. NIVEA hopes that with this refill station they will make it convenient for consumers to reuse containers and reduce plastic usage. Once they experience that it is easy to make small sustainable lifestyle changes, they will be quicker to adopt it as a habit. The refill station has been carefully designed, developed, and engineered by a cross-functional team within Beiersdorf’s global packaging and R&D functions. Consumers can refill up to three times before sending their bottles to be recycled and get a new one for hygiene reasons – this limitation slows down the plastic consumption problem but without longevity in the solution, it will not end the cycle.

Caroline Zia, Senior Formula Developer at Beiersdorf wanted to make sure that the concept worked for sustainability and for the consumer’s experience. “The formulations need to withstand the additional burden of refilling and we had to carefully choose our products after extensive internal testing. Also, the machine had to be programmed for additional cleaning protocols so that we could guarantee multiple filling loops and still meet our safety and sustainability criteria,’ she explains. The machine’s design had to also account for the retailer’s interior requirements while providing easy user experience. “We decided to use light as visual support to guide the users. Whenever one of the dedicated refill-bottles has been filled or a bar code has been printed, the integrated LED lights give feedback to the consumer,” says Marta Suslow, Concept Designer at Beiersdorf’s packaging department. Other details include formula choice and refill cycles, sophisticated pumps, color-changing lights, a label printer, and a programmed microcontroller.

While this is a good start, personal care brands, especially global giants like NIVEA can step up their game to find real solutions that make it a sustainable choice. You already have the product and the presence, pivot to reducing plastic waste at a larger scale as well as reduce water consumption with one ‘clean’ move – soap.

Designers: Marta Suslow, Caroline Zia, Koushik Sreedhar, Bernhard Felten, Cecile Ratschow of Beiersdorf