Materials Village and WastEnders: circular material design on show
With Supersalone and Fuorisalone 2021 the Milan Design Week made a choral live comeback, attracting visitors and journalists from over 110 countries.
As a part of the many and very interesting initiatives of the SuperDesignShow, which attracted over 30,000 visitors, Materials Village’s Special Edition 2021 formula had manufacturing companies of different sizes and sectors sharing the conscious use of materials of natural origin and synthesis, virgin or recovered, as protagonists: from hand-worked cement tiles including waste from seminoble metal processing, to wallpapers with reduced environmental impact, consisting of natural fibers combined with adhesive systems based on natural starch, to recyclable zippers with recycled contents or of biobased origin.
Materials Village hosted WastEnders – How new materials can cut waste and turn it into value, an exhibition that approaches the main theme of ecological transition focusing on innovative materials and projects made with a series of waste raw materials from the most diverse supply chains – from pineapple peels to grape marc, from polyurethane to synthetic felts – whose genesis, in addition to the development of new processing technologies, implies the setting up of dedicated supply chains and partnerships. The resulting industrial symbiosis synergies enable the reduction of waste and, at the same time, its transformation into renewed value in a circular economy perspective embodied in materials and objects generated from the creative recovery of agri-food and industrial by-products and waste types deriving from unconventional supply chains or resulting from patented processes, which permit the effective and efficient recycling of materials that are widely used in various sectors, but traditionally impossible to recycle, such as vulcanized rubber, fiberglass and other types of fibre-reinforced composites, in parallel with coffee grounds, cocoa shells, orange peel, parchment, rice husk, cork, edible oils and many others.
With Materially Talks, the talk program on materials, design and sustainability held at the exhibition, Materials Village dematerialized and expanded digitally, offering material presentations featuring the direct participation of experts.
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