“If we do ever set up colonies on Mars, we’re going to have to operate with circularity”
The chair, which is available in a range of colours, is repurposed from plastics. The bolt is created from six bottle caps
overnight. But someone has to start it and launch it in a way that’s dynamic. We’re hoping others will follow. What are your favourite pieces from your collection? I have a table and a fractured desk at home – it’s in pieces that you slot together. It’s made from a set from Dancing on Ice, which I like. We worked with suppliers, doing stage design for our pop-up shop in London last year and we used sets from London Fashion Week catwalks too.
Can you give some examples of recyclable products that do more damage than we realise? Most things are a hybrid of elements that are hard to separate, so it means they can’t be re-recycled. MDF is a good example. It’s cheap and it does a job, so from a functional level you could argue it’s OK but from an environmental and structural level, it’s quite toxic – a mash of glue and 48
Waste products are prepared before being transformed into household objects
resin and sometimes formaldehyde. It also contains lacquer and paint – that’s seven or eight different polymers stuck together that can’t be broken down. You can’t really restore or reuse it. Can your regenerative practice help us on a larger scale? If we do ever set up colonies on Mars, say, we’re going to have to operate with circularity, using and reusing. You have to think conceptually about material use: about regeneration and
having enough waste to come back as products for everyone’s needs. Companies like ours are essential to spearhead and accelerate demand to make that supply chain possible. Is there a conflict with shipping globally and also wanting to limit your carbon footprint? Yes, we’re aware of this and we try to limit our footprint as much as possible. We ship our products with no unnecessary packaging and we hope for better solutions in the future. It’s difficult because although we are relatively small, we’re still a business, so people say things like, ‘you shouldn’t use central heating’. That is a challenge but one that we’re trying to work around. We’re all trying our best. pentatonic.com INNOVATOR
PENTATONIC
You’ve invented an environmentally friendly polymer called Plyfix – could you tell us more about it? It’s a material made from a PET polymer, which is similar to water bottles and is an invention from one of our investors called Miniwiz. We use it on a wide scale, it has a mix of melting-point plastics and molecules so you can bend it and form its shape while it retains a soft exterior. We use it to make chairs, for example. Rather than having six things stuck together, you have a single piece that can be recycled as easily as a plastic bottle.