Not many people realize this, but the amount of carpet waste is excessive. Many groups focus on plastic waste, but we tend to forget about carpets. Unfortunately, as regular fixtures in homes, rugs also tend to be susceptible to damage.
Carpets get thinner and the bad odor can’t be easily removed. It may be best to throw them, but one must know how to dispose of the items properly. More often than not, used carpets are just left in dumpsites. Before the landfill gets complete with toxic waste, we must start planning on how to properly reduce, reuse, and recycle the carpets.
Designer: Riccardo Cenedella
Italian designer Riccardo Cenedella has introduced a new stool, table, and lamp handcrafted using Carpet Matter. The latter is a new material that takes advantage of carpet waste. The goal is to make valuable products from old carpets to help achieve a more sustainable future.
The Carpet Matter has been transformed into a lamp and a stool. They are one-of-a-kind but still serve their purpose as a seat and as illumination to the surrounding areas. This project is beneficial as carpets’ disassembly isn’t exactly easy.
Cenedella knows the challenge of waste management and there’s not much proper planning for rugs and carpets. However, he managed to work with synthetic materials, including carpets, and developed a technique that will let him reshape them. The waste material can then be repurposed to create different items like furniture pieces.
For this project, the designer collected carpet waste from local shops. The first product is the Carpet Matter Lamp made from waste material and an LED Neonflex. The light strips look like neon lights that offer illumination. There are different lamp versions, so you can expect almost unique creations.
The Carpet Matter Stool is simply a block of stool that can serve as seating. The same material is also used to create the Carpet Matter Table series. It is a collection of tables of different shapes and sizes with carpet waste material. With his work, the designer’s goal is to raise environmental awareness. He knows that wasted material can be used and transformed into valuable products.
The Carpet Matter project has already produced lamps, stools, and tables. However, we believe more items can still be made. We imagine bigger chairs, other table forms, and maybe shelves. The waste carpet can also be used to create smaller objects like pots, jars, desk trays, and more.
