Sustainable Plastic Office Furniture

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In the UK 125,000 tonnes of office furniture goes to landfill/energy recovery per year. This includes large volumes of persistent plastic waste.A key driver of the linear wasteful cycle is that superficial wear and tear for plastic components consigns an item to landfill i.e. one scratch in the back of a plastic chair/desk top currently ensures that it will never have a second life.There are, to our knowledge, no technologies available that are capable of repairing plastic damage to as-new condition because:1. Historically, the furniture industry has been focussed on selling more products made from virgin materials, so no research has been done into repair.2. Virgin resources have historically been inexpensive, with their environmental impacts not costed in. This is now changing due to Brexit, raw material cost increases and carbon cost internalisation. Therefore more expensive and/or time-consuming repairs are now economically viable.3. Manufacturing relies on minimising variation and creating replicable processes. The range of possible damage to plastic components challenges conventional manufacturing systems4. Plastics are challenging materials to resurface. There is a wide range of plastic formulations and additives that make repairs difficult.5. Finishes are difficult to replicate. For example, spark erosion finishes within plastic moulds are difficult to copy during a repairOur revised project scope will design and develop the technologies and processes to industrialise plastic resurfacing for office furniture.The first examples components to resurface will be task chair backs, bases, canteen chair moulded seats and melamine coated desk/table tops. These are the three products where plastic damage results in the greatest amounts of waste in the office furniture sector.