Product

Today there is no excuse to not take action when comes to the planet’s health. This project is a perfect fit to our CONCIOUS DESIGN Series and belongs to cradle-to-cradle design featuring one of the most irreplaceable and hated products ever invented. How many of these controversial products have you seen in a trash bin after a rainy day? Are these enough clues for you to guess?

Anti — a British circular design brand, has the mission to breathe new life into discarded products and create new, beautiful ones, for clients to love and cherish. Founded by British designer Mark Howells. His first product line was inspired after time spent living in London and Tokyo exposed him to the mass linear negative impact of an everyday product – the umbrella.

He spent 3 years researching the issues surrounding umbrella waste in detail. He found that one billion umbrellas are produced every year but are not designed to last longer than 6 months and often end up in landfills or incineration after use.
On a personal mission to eradicate the umbrella waste mountain, Mark put his energy into creating his first product line – an inspired range of upcycled desk and table lamps made from umbrellas
The collected umbrellas are disassembled into their separate materials groups and are made into desk and table lamps. Also, both designs use efficient G4 LED bulbs to reduce energy consumption and are operated by a switch on the cable.

The umbrella is deemed problematic to recycle due to its complex construction and combination of different material types. A key challenge was making the design repeatable. The design approach has been developed to be capable of replicating the core lamp designs whilst allowing for the many variations in umbrella designs. Mark was keen to retain some of the technical functions of the umbrella. After reading this article, we hope you’ll hate a little bit fewer umbrellas.