Marine Debris Bakelite Project

How would you like to purchase beautiful, functional, collectable objects, designed by some of the world’s best designers and clean up our oceans at the same time?

Supercyclers’ Sarah K and Andrew Simpson have developed a new material created from 100 per cent recycled plastic collected from Australian beaches after it has been dumped out of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Most of us have seen pictures of these swirling masses of plastic waste, delivered via ocean currents into two major concentrations between Japan and California. And that’s just the stuff we can see. There is also ‘microplastic’ so tiny that it is ingested by marine life and is devastating marine ecosystems in a myriad of ways.

Plastic waste from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is washing up in our tides onto our beaches – we have all found plastic debris on the shoreline when beachcombing. Supercyclers have chosen to see this waste as a resource, collecting it and using it to create something beautiful, useful and sustainable.

Sarah K and Andrew Simpson first put their heads together over the Marine Debris problem in 2015. Following the premise that simply making recycled products from waste, could be improved by a bit of design thinking, the focus was on creating something equally beautiful as sustainable.

Marine Debris Bakelite (MDB) is characterised by a marbled quality that references early Bakelite in look, weight and density. MDB is made from recycled ocean plastic by using small-scale-industrial and hand-manufacturing processes.

Supercyclers first product, the Marine Debris Bento Box was launched at Tokyo Design Week in 2015. It has been successfully sold and used by customers since, and has effectively provided a proof of concept product for them to launch into this next stage.

The new collection is made up of 11 pieces, designed by an exciting group of designers from Australia and around the world, including: Kirstie Van Noort, Jonathan Zawada, Jasper Morrison, Martì Guixè, Ladies & Gentlemen Studio, Supercyclers, Formafantasma and Greece is For Lovers.

Supercyclers commented: “By pledging your support to the Marine Debris Bakelite Project you are purchasing a product from our first MDB collection. You are becoming an active investor in the MDB Project and in the process, helping to clean up our oceans … Having people who are interested and motivated to be a part of this project, become the investors behind the project, makes a lot of sense to us.

“We want to be aligned with you – with individuals and small business people, even big business who might want to contribute – people who care about our oceans, and who care about good design. We like the idea that a lot of people together can make this project happen – it seems like the perfect way to make it work.”

To read about the project or pledge visit the Marine Debris Bakelite Project’s Pozible page.