Inspiration Green Research

Inspiration Green is a fantastic website that highlights an array of alternative elements in relation to the 'green' lifestyle, it presents both artistry and design that experiments with the ideology of renewability. The website illustrates the potential of re-useability as it demonstrates remarkable examples of innovative products that have been adapted and recycled into a secondary function. One of my favourite pages within the Inspiration Green website (http://www.inspirationgreen.com/index.php?q=plastic-waste-lights.html) is 'Plastic Bottles (and more) as never before...', this is due to the fact that it presents incredible imagination regarding design ingenuity, as they portray examples of different materials and products recycled to produce unique lights. Some of which are shown below, accompanied by the matching descriptions which can be found on the website...

(The ColourBall Light as a whole) 

(A Close-up of the ColourBall Light) 

"The Colourball 
By the amazing Heath Nash of South Africa. 
Multicolour flower and butterfly shapes attached to a handmade wire structure. 
Small: 400mm diam - 240 flowers, Medium: 500mm diam, Large: 600mm diam, Extra Large: 800mm diam. 

The Process: 

• Lots of bottles are found sorted and collected. 
• They are washed very thoroughly (with bio-degradable detergent) and dried. 
• The handles and bases are carefully removed, and each bottle is splayed open into a semi-flat 'sheet'.
• As many flowers as possible are cut from each bottle. 
• Now each flower has to be formed from a 'flattish' shape into a more 3-dimensional form - each petal is folded in half, and individual lines are creased into each (by hand). This forms the flower and makes it more translucent where the lines are...adding to the detail and finish of the finished piece. (So if a flower has 6 petals, and there are 9 lines on each one, someone has creased 54 lines! For ONE flower). 
• Finally, One flower is done! 
• The excess plastic cut offs are returned to the recyclers". 

(Tide Chandelier) 

"Stuart Haygarth's 1.5 meter wide Tide Chandelier made from plastic debris. Made from a collection of 'man made' debris washed up on the Kent coastline. 
www.stuarthaygarth.com". 

(The Straw Chandelier) 

"Gulp Lamp. 
www.mintshop.co.uk". 

(The Plastic Cup Chandelier) 

"By Aeolus. 
www.instructables.com". 

(The Keyboard Parts Lamp) 

"By Nolan Herbut of Alberta, Canada. 
www.coroflot.com". 

(The Eyeglass Chandelier) 

(A Close-up of the Eyeglass Chandelier) 

"Stuart Haygarth -- Optical
Created from over 4500 prescription spectacle lenses. The lenses are hung on monofilament line which hang from a platform. 
www.stuarthaygarth.com". 

(The Tape Lamp)

(A Close-up of the Tape Lamp) 

"The lamp is completely hand assembled in San Francisco from laser cut plexiglass and one hundred micro-cassetes. Transparent House produces only 2-3 lamps a month. $1200. 
www.tapelamp.com". 

(The Milk Jug Lamps) 

"Milkit by Alexandru Adam and Steven Koch at Play Design is a kit designed to assist you in turning a milk bottle in to a stylish table lamp. 
www.atelier29.blogspot.com". 

(The Gramma Lamp) 

"Never thought to crochet the extra speaker wire before?
www.meetsebastian.com". 

This website helps to convey both our inventiveness and resourcefulness in an area of design that is still somewhat under-explored, it indicates the 'stepping stones' we are beginning to take in creating products out of the old...exploring the potential of secondary utilisation.