There’s no sacrificing beauty when it comes to creating an eco-conscious home — just take a look at these 12 inspiring brands making homewares from recycled products.
From terrazzo furniture made from stone off-cuts, to plastic waste that’s been turned into colourful chopping boards, we’ve rounded up our favourite products from these labels leading the way in sustainable product design!
FUTURE reMADE makes tables from 90 per cent post industrial waste. Photo – Courtesy of FUTURE reMADE
Photo – Courtesy of FUTURE reMADE
FUTURE reMADE creative director Pollyanna Cadden. Photo – Courtesy of FUTURE reMADE
FUTURE reMADE is a new addition to Melbourne’s creative scene that turns post-industrial waste into furniture durable enough to be used both inside and outdoors.
Creative director Pollyanna Cadden says the designs were all inspired by timeless, mid-century silhouettes. The pieces are all locally made and arrive as a flat-pack, but the interlocking form makes them easily assembled without any bolts, screws, or glue — clever!
New Zealand brand SUNNUP’s practical mats are an ode to days well spent in the sun. SUNNUP owner Jade Young says the concept began with her struggle to find something she could take to the beach or the park that was waterproof and easy to clean — but not wanting to add more plastic into the our world, she decided to make them from recycled polypropylene plastic found in Southeast Asia.
The cute and colourful mats giving a new life to plastic bags, straws, and bottles, which are melted down, dyed, and turned into straw-like strands that are woven by hand!
‘We can’t be perfect but we can certainly make better choices and I want people to feel good about purchasing a SUNNUP mat,’ Jade says.
Waste Terrazzo Table by Five Mile Radius. Photo – Dan Mulheran
Photo – Courtesy of Five Mile Radius
All of Five Mile Radius’ innovative pieces are handmade in a Brisbane factory by a team of our small team of carpenters and furniture makers. Design director Clare Kennedy started the business as an architecture practice in 2017, before they began making furniture from salvaged materials in 2020.
Think terrazzo tables made from reclaimed wet concrete from local building sites, demolished stone and terracotta, or timber stools made from decommissioned power poles! They’ve even worked with interior designers and architect to create custom pieces fabricated from waste on their site. And the results are both inspiring and amazing to look at.
Country Road have also started working with recycled fabrics. Photo – Courtesy of Country Road
Wilson Recycled Cotton Throw by Country Road. Photo – Courtesy of Country Road
In a promising sign of the times, Australian brand Country Road has been experimenting with the world of recycled materials in their homewares! They now have plush throw blankets made from a blend of wool and 85 per cent recycled cotton, vases featuring from recycled glass and they’ve previously collaborated with small businesses to create homewares made from bread tags and plastic bottle tops.
‘The tricky part can be creating a material that is both sustainable and luxurious, but it’s also the most exciting,’ Country Road senior designer Elle Stephenson says.
Crumble co-founders Ailish Dempsey and Rachel Davy. Photo – Courtesy of Crumble
Star-Flash, Trailblazer and Coco by Crumble. Photo – Courtesy of Crumble
Melbourne friends Ailish Dempsey and Rachel Davy launched their homewares brand Crumble last year with a range of speckled plinths that serve as bedside tables, shelves in your living room or simply as a ‘functional piece of art’.
The best part is their products are made from 100 per cent ‘post-consumer’ recycled plastic. Tiny bits from shampoo and conditioner bottles, drink lids and cleaning product containers are melted down in ‘a giant sandwich’ press that creates these into colourful sheets. This unique process also means each plinth is unique from the rest.
Dune + Lune blanket bundle by Seljak Brand. Photo – Courtesy of Seljak Brand
Gather blanket by Seljak Brand. Photo – Courtesy of Seljak Brand
Pyramid + Passage blanket bundle by Seljak Brand. Photo – Courtesy of Seljak Brand
Photo – Courtesy of Seljak Brand
When Queensland sisters Karina and Sam Seljak started their namesake blanket brand Seljak in 2016, they wanted to ‘take on the issues of textiles waste’. Their business operates on a closed-loop system, working with wool mills in Australia, Italy, Lithuania, and Europe to transform their ‘precious’ waste streams into high-quality blankets with designs that double as original artworks for you to cosy up with on the couch.
‘We use factory floor offcuts, deadstock yarn, and post-consumer textiles waste like old woollen jumpers’, Sam says. ‘By making waste beautiful, over 8 years we’ve helped establish a waste economy and watched circular design approaches move from the fringes to federal level policy!’
Secateur Me Baby makes unique plant stakes from recycled plastics. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files
Mike Sullivan is the coffee buyer turned product designer behind the clever venture. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files
Boa III Plant Stake – Wisteria by Secateur Me Baby. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files
Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files
Secateur Me Baby is the Melbourne start-up making the sculptural and sustainable plant stakes you never knew you needed. Mike Sullivan’s fun take on the product is made from locally and ethically sourced hardwoods, steel, or recycled plastic. But we especially love that he’s developed a closed-loop system, allowing him to repurpose his own plastic off-cuts in the wavy structure of stakes that helps plants flourish.
Mike has product lines made from twice, or three-times recycled plastic, and says some plastics are even going through their ‘fourth cycles of recycling, which is fantastic.’
Artist and designer Joshua Space. Photo – Jana Langhorst
The Melbourne-based creative is experimenting with plastic waste in his most recent designs. Photo – Jana Langhorst
A version of the Void Mirror featuring recycled plastic. Photo – Jana Langhorst
Photo – Jana Langhorst
Melbourne artist Joshua Space is known for his one-of-a-kind mirrors, but his latest recycled series is a more literal reflection of the world around us. He’s used recycled plastics to create a chic incense holder, round tray, and planter, in hopes of highlighting the importance of recycling single-use plastic waste properly.
‘Research from Sustainability Victoria shows that 16 per cent of Victorians bag their recycling, meaning it can’t be sorted at recovery facilities and gets sent to landfill,’ he notes. ‘By putting your recycling in the bin loose, new products like my recycled series, can be made right here in Victoria.’
Peek Neek founder Daisy Clementine launched the brand last year. Photo – Lucy Alcorn
Pink Frosting and Lime Thicky Rug by Peek Neek. Photo – Lucy Alcorn
Photo – Ernesto Sumarkho
If you love a picnic as much as us, you need one of Peek Neek’s deliciously colourful rugs made from recycled plastics. Founder Daisy Clementine says about 150 plastic bottles go into each Thicky Rug, which is a ‘much cuter way for plastic bottles to exist if they’re going to be sticking around forever’ — and we agree!
‘Everything is sourced and manufactured by our supplier in India, a family run business that has a long history of rug making that predominantly work with this material.’
The Pillar Dining Table by Mortadello. Photo – Chip Mooney
Photo – Chip Mooney
Left: The Chubby Table. Right: An array of Chubby Stools in different heights. Photo – David Leyshon
Mortadello has been making all of our terrazzo dreams come true since 2020. Melbourne tradie-turned-designer Micka Lesinskis is behind the business’s playful furniture and custom terrazzo offerings, which feature discarded stone chips reclaimed from stone masons that would otherwise go to waste.
With the motto ‘perfectly imperfect’, these off-cuts are combines with concrete and pigment, before undergoing an arduous four-week process of wet grinding and polishing by hand. And everything has been designed, manufactured, installed, and sealed in Mortadello’s Heidelberg West HQ!
Fat Tuesdays founder Meg Yonson. Photo – Courtesy of Fat Tuesdays
The colourful chopping boards are made from 100 per cent recycled plastic. Photo – Courtesy of Fat Tuesdays
Fat Tuesdays’ brightly coloured chopping boards are instantly recognisable thanks to their marbled pattern. The brand was born after food stylist and recipe developer Meg Yonson couldn’t find any kitchen equipment that was equal parts functional, long-lasting and ‘nice-to-look-at’, so she teamed up with designer, Simon Terry, and Sydney recycled plastic manufacturers, Defy, to create her own.
Each board uses up 2kg of plastic collected from local Australia sources, is food-safe and BPA-free. They sell out quick, so we suggest sign up to their newsletter so you don’t miss the next drop!
Danish brand Mater is using industrial waste to create beautiful furniture. Photo – Courtesy of Cult
Photo – Courtesy of Cult
Now available at Cult in Australia, Danish brand Mater is using industrial waste to create functional, beautiful pieces. Since the brand launched in 2006, Mater’s mission has been all about developing more sustainable production methods and now their patented technology is turning everything from coffee bean shells to sawdust and fishing nets into furniture, with nods to Scandinavian minimalism.
The pieces are made by combining a up-cycled fibrous waste and different kinds of plastic in a unique composite material, with a texture similar to stone or marble. The most genius part about it, is the material is designed to be reprocessed again and again, stopping the pieces from ever ending up in landfill.
