Bring Out Your Rag And Bone?

A new movement of innovative Rag and Bone designers from Scotland are turning old to new by collecting other people's rubbish. Each year the UK generates around 100 million tonnes of waste, most of which ends up in landfill.

Scottish design firms, BlueGreen & Co and Old Kitchen are actively combating the problem by utilizing discarded waste and turning it into high end furniture.Fife based, BlueGreen&Co, set up in January 2008, by designers Allan MacIntyre and John O’Leary, have set up a deal with Scotland largest furniture charity, Furniture Plus, which allows the team to intercept their waste materials to make new, 'hybrid' furniture.

Of the items donated to Furniture Plus each year, 12-14% is sent to landfill. By taking this waste and turning it into desirable, sustainable furniture, BlueGreen&Co is helping to further save on landfill, contributing to the push towards a Zero Waste Scotland.

Allan MacIntyre comments: "Our work is aimed at people who are sick of throwaway consumer products, and want furniture which is built to last. BlueGreen & Co’s products are designed to be sustainable for people to keep, and not be thrown out with different fashions."

Meanwhile, the Dalkeith-based, product design and manufacture company, Oldkitchen, scavenges the streets of Leith for useful throwaways, producing a range of products from 99% post consumer waste.

Oldkitchen designer, Julian Angus, focuses on chipboard with formica and melamine coverings, providing a surface which does not break down, can be wiped clean, and generally outlasts its first application. Julian's coffee table was recently chosen to take part in Channel 4's Grand Designs House.

Providing a second life for these colourful materials by jointing them together into endless patterns, most of the products are then finished in hardwoods, again from old furniture.

Julian hopes that his designs will encourage people to think twice about what they throw out, "The amount of waste we produce a year is staggering and I wanted to use my skills to bring back to life some of these cast-offs by producing strong, elegant furniture that will stand the test of time."

John O’Leary echoes this sentiment, " One of our cabinet designs, Vagabond, originated from a series of photographs I took over a 12 month period of ‘homeless’ furniture thrown out on the streets of Edinburgh. Amazed at the quality of the 'rubbish', I began to collect wood and various materials from skips and garbage bins in an attempt to give value back to these materials, once disregarded as worthless junk."

Vagabond was voted one of Vanity Fair's top ten products at London Design Week 2007.

BlueGreen&Co and Oldkitchen are participants on the Starter for 6 initiative, an enterprise support project led by NESTA in Scotland. Open to individuals and teams with an innovative business idea in science, technology and the creative industries, the programme stimulates enterprise and will build the skills of up to 300 budding entrepreneurs over three years. Starter for 6 gives participants the opportunity to pitch for grants of up to £10,000. More information can be found at:

Oldkitchen - www.oldkitchen.co.uk

BlueGreen&Co - www.bluegreenandco.com

NESTA www.nesta.org.uk
NESTA is the National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts. Our mission is to transform the UK’s capacity for innovation. they do this in three main ways: by working to build a more pervasive culture of innovation in this country; by providing innovators with access to early stage capital; and by driving forward research into innovation, with a view to influencing policy.