Meet the lights made from beach plastic
A range of pendant luminaires made from beach waste such as fishing nets and washed-up plastic bottles has been unveiled by US firm LightArt.
The Coil Seagrass and Sea Foam pendants represent an expansion of the company’s sustainable design manufactured from waste.
LightArt is something of a pioneer in sustainability. It launched its first flagship product with recycled content 17 years ago. Last year, it introduced a product with 75 per cent recycled content from its factory scraps, ‘seeking to close the loop’ on linear manufacturing.
‘These are steps in our pursuit of zero waste manufacturing, which is one of several steps we’re taking towards creating net-positive products,’ says the firm.
Other steps include reducing its products’ embodied carbon and water usage, as well as an investment in its longstanding take back program, preventing materials from ending up in landfill.
‘We take ingredient health and transparency seriously, using declare labels, applying greener chemistry in our supply chain and aggressively removing Red List chemicals from our products.
LightArt has been recognised as a pioneer in bringing transparency to the marketplace: it was a pilot manufacturer in Google’s Healthy Materials initiative.
Additional goals are accomplished by sourcing materials around the globe to incorporate socially responsible and hand-crafted artisan materials. The company manufactures its flagship goods both in North American facilities and abroad with an emphasis on biophilic design.
However, LightArt is not the first lighting company to use discarded ocean plastic. Last year Signify introduced its ‘Coastal Breeze’ collection of sustainable pendant luminaires 3D printed from discarded fishing nets.
Original nylon fish nets are sourced from fishermen on the UK’s Cornish coast and transformed by partner Fishy Filaments into granulate, the base material for 3D printing filament. The raw material is then processed into filament in Maarheeze, the Netherlands, and 3D printed in Turnhout, Belgium.
• Remanufacturing Lighting is the subject of a special one-day conference organised by Recolight and taking place on Thursday 27 April 2023 at the Coin Street Conference Centre in London. This CPD-approved event will give you the tools, insights and contacts make a success of luminaire reconditioning and reuse. You’ll learn how to sell the concept of reconditioned lights, develop best practice policies, comply with the standards, set up a testing regime for reused luminaires and remanufacture fittings at scale. The gathering will also give you inspiration from real world projects which prove that remanufacturing can be a success everyone. You’ll also meet key players in the remanufacturing industry network with specifiers with the power to get your products into projects. See more HERE.
