3D Printed Street Furniture Made from Plastic Waste

3D printed benches are now bring created from plastic waste, as part of Amsterdam’s ‘Print Your City’ initiative. This program aims to transform plastic waste into trendy street furniture, reducing annual waste.

Plastic: A growing problem

Currently, the average person in Amsterdam produces 23kg of plastic waste per year. This is an alarming figure, and so Rotterdam-based design studio, ‘The New Raw’, decided to take action. With this goal in mind, The New Raw decided to use this awste to create benches for Amsterdam. Co-founder Panos Sakka said “Plastic packaging is everywhere and has an important design flaw: it was designed to last forever when it is only used for a few seconds and then thrown away very easily. It follows a linear production process, from use to disposal. We want to turn this linear process into a loop that we could close in order to create new products from waste.”

The 3D Printed benches rock up and down

The Benches

The New Raw is part of a circular economy project where 3D printing is used to produce environmentally friendly objects. Other companies are involved in similar ventures, such as OWA 3D who have produced a recycled and recyclable filament. This project however involves creating benches. Each bench weight 50kg, is 150cm long and 80cm wide, and can fit up to 4 people. Its rounded shape means it rocks, an attempt to get people to interact with each other to co-ordinate to find a balance.