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A Treasure Trove of Discarded Industrial Material for Designers

Can you think of applications for these?

By Rain Noe - March 1

in Materials | Sustainability

As we saw previously, French industrial designer Robin Bourgeois created his SAI 39 bench out of industrial waste. Said waste consisted of bent plywood stamping tools routinely discarded by a cardboard box manufacturer. In other words, the bent plywood was and is free raw material, waiting for a designer to see the potential and repurpose it.

The link between Bourgeois and the cardboard box company was provided by DTER, a French company that identifies industrial waste materials for designers eager to use them. Here is a list of what they've got access to. Do you have any ideas for applications?

Leather uppers

Shoe leather

Polyethylene foam sheets and scraps

Stainless steel industrial bearings

Porcelain knobs and handles

Marble and granite offcuts

Recycled felt

Fir boards

Cardboard cores

Stamping templates (wood, foam, steel)

Cylindrical stamping templates (wood, foam, steel), which are what Bourgeois used for his bench

Synthetic resin films

PVC, aluminum and stainless steel signage holders

Rubber pads

Purged plastic (PET, PVC, LDPE, HDPE, PP, PS)

Sawdust and wood pellets

Cylindrical wooden offcuts (Oak, Ash, Birch, Poplar, Okoume)

Wooden pallets (Okoume)

Log offcuts (Oak, Ash, Birch, Poplar, Okoume)

Wood veneers (Oak, Ash, Birch, Poplar, Okoume)

Veneer strips (Oak, Poplar, Alpi)

Varnished plywood and Poplar offcuts

Bituminous wood fiber sheets

Plastic sprues

Un-vulcanized rubber

Extruded rubber strips

Even if you're not in France, consider that there may be similar manufacturers near you. For instance the stamping templates come from a cardboard box company, the recycled felt from a furniture manufacturer, the leathers from a shoemaker, et cetera. Somewhere near you, there's undoubtedly a manufacturer of something that's got excess material they'd love to get rid of. It's an opportunity for imaginative designers.

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Simon White

8 months ago

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I bet the skateboard building community would love a source of free veneer.

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Denis Garmash

8 months ago

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Post soviet eastern europe was famous for garden fences made out of steel sheets with holes from parts cutting. It was fascinating to see it everywhere in Eurasia continent.
Also it is strange that wood pellets are unused. They are generally good as a fuel for heating.

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Juan Cano

8 months ago

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We have a small place like this nearby. We finally went, more on the arts and crafts side. They had rolls of this beautiful nylon blue rope, like 3/4" thick. So wanted to buy it but couldn't figure out what to do with it at the moment. Great post!

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