Turning plastic waste into avant garde furniture

HO CHI MINH CITY, 20 Oct 2020:

A small business in Vietnam is taking plastic waste pollution and turning it into furniture – ranging from elegant pieces of design to social housing.

Plastic People was set up by Argentinian Nano Morante and Spaniard Néstor Catalán, based on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City.

“Plastic People is a solution to a waste problem that everyone overlooks. It came from an idea to find a solution that was not only eco-friendly but also social, a way of using garbage to give hope to people,” said Morante.

The pair got the project in motion back in 2019 when both found themselves at a point in their lives where they began to care less about their professional careers and more about trying to improve society.

“I love nature, but it kills me when you go to the mountains and you see how dirty it is,” Catalán said. “I’ve learned to complain less and do more. It’s our responsibility to find solutions to the problems we’re making.”

The solution they came up with – and that grew into a business of its own – was a system to process shredded plastic into boards.

With the help of designers and construction workers, these boards have been used for a wide range of purposes – from changing tables or toboggans for children, to social housing.

“We’re working with furniture manufacturers and construction companies. We can also make flooring, walls and ceilings on a large scale. We’ve already done three houses in a pilot social project in the Mekong Delta region,” Catalán said. “We’re transforming waste into something useful.”

One thing was clear to the entrepreneurial pair from the outset of the project – it could not just depend on being an environmentally-friendly and socially responsible venture, it also had to be financially viable as a business without needing to rely on donations.

“For this to work well, we have to give the waste a value that allows us to sustain ourselves as well as the person who collects the garbage. We want everyone to be a part of this change,” Catalán said.

The primary material is far from scarce in Vietnam. The Southeast Asian country has upped its plastic consumption by 10 times in the last 20 years and is fourth on the list of countries most responsible for throwing plastic waste into the ocean – an estimated 730,000 tonnes a year – partly down to its underdeveloped recycling industry.

A government study said only 27% of the 1.8 million tons of plastic consumed in Vietnam on an annual basis is recycled, mainly waste that is considered higher value – such as plastic bottles – which can be sold to recycling centres.

Catalán and Morante turned their attention to different types of plastic waste, mainly material discarded by the recycling centres – which ends up clogging Vietnam’s landfills or floating around the world’s oceans.

“The collectors pick up things they will be paid for. They don’t collect plastic bags or containers because nobody will pay for those. We focus on that kind of waste that nobody processes and we convert it into something of value,” Catalán said.

Another thing that sets Plastic People apart is its policy of only using local plastic waste, despite it being much more efficient to process waste imported from abroad – which is already sorted and prepared.

“The cost of that waste is very cheap because countries want to get rid of it. For that reason, around 80% of the base material that recycling centres in Vietnam use is from abroad,” Catalán said.

Since China drastically reduced its waste imports in 2018, the amount of garbage coming from the West has been accumulating in recycling plants of Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries.

An Ipsos report in 2019 warned that Vietnam risked becoming “a landfill for the world” at its current rate, despite government efforts to curb the import of waste.

Currently, Plastic People only has the capacity to process around 500kg of plastic a day – but does not need to reach that figure, seeing as it makes its products to order.

It does, nonetheless, have its eyes on expanding its small-scale business model to create a network of processing centres across the country.

“We’re also outlining social models to create centers in rural and remote areas where garbage collection is insufficient. This would also create jobs and a circular economy related to the collection and selection of waste,” Catalán said.

Although they are still finetuning the firm in the middle of a pandemic, Morante and Catalán look to the future with optimism.

“The possibilities of this material are endless. Our only limit is creativity,” Morante said.

– EFE