Recycling
used to just mean sorting plastics from trash. Today, it’s grown to mean
turning orange peels into drought-fighting soil, and turning vegetables into
furniture. (Yes, you read that right!)
At wastED, a
pop-up restaurant project “ED”-ucating consumers on sustainable eating, the
goal is simple: create as much as possible, waste as little as possible. The
menu showcases dishes made from ingredients that are usually discarded -- think
“ugly” vegetables, animal fats, kale stems.
And even the decor features elements that are generally overlooked,
considered weeds or trash.
Take
artichoke thistles: After one designer for wastED noticed an abundance of the
rampantly growing weeds in his native Greece, he had an idea. He combined the
thistles with bio-resin, a plant based compound that can function like plastic,
and built sturdy, yet elegant chairs.
Another
wastED designer was inspired by his hometown of Copenhagen. Noticing all the
seaweed that washed up on the coasts of Denmark, he thought to mold these into
sophisticated lamps. Their unique translucent material helps them become
luminous.
Even the
carpets inside the restaurant are made from surplus sheep’s wool that might have
otherwise been tossed out, being too coarse to make sweaters.
Author: Alexandra Lim-Chua Wee
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