2019 Edition

Spatial designers Overtreders W and architects bureau SLA have been working on the Pretty Plastic project since 2015. Their aim is to turn plastic household waste into shingles to be used as cladding for buildings, because they think there is so much plastic waste, the problem cannot be solved by reusing it in small products such as lampshades or chairs. When you make building material out of recycled plastic, you significantly reduce the amount of plastic waste. They started with building their own tiny plastic recycling factory in which they processed locally sourced plastic waste from Amsterdam. By sorting the waste not only by type, but also by colour, they managed to produced colourful tiles that looked far more enticing than the dull grey appearance we know of products made of recycled plastic. However, production was too slow, the Pretty Plastic Plant needed 5 people working full time to produce 3m2 of tiles in one day. In 2017, the designers got the chance to upscale the shingle production. Together they built the People’s Pavilion (a 250m2 building that lasted for 9 days and was completely made of borrowed materials at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven) with a cladding of Pretty Plastic Shingles made of locally sourced household waste from Eindhoven. They were able to finance a matrix, plastic recycler Govaplast produced the first batch of 9500 shingles. The project got a lot of media attention, and people started sending emails to inform about the shingles. Since then, Overtreders W, bureau SLA and Govaplast have been working on meeting all required fire safety regulations for building materials, which is quite complicated. They hope to complete this process very soon, and are aiming to start producing shingles for the professional building industry by the end of 2019.