Crafting Plastics is a studio based between Berlin and Bratislava. Their work focuses on interdisciplinary progress towards sustainability. By being in control of a product’s lifespan, from its origin through to the final decay, their hope is to be completely transparent.

It is evident that petroleum-based plastics are dangerous to the environment. But yet they are still used to make products due to their low costs, efficiency and quick production. Therefore Crafting Plastics have aimed to create rival materials that don’t create leftovers, waste, trash and unemployed mass. By combining craft and technology they have discovered bioplastics derived from plants, and have used a variety of technological production methods to produce their products.

Their bioplastic material Nuatan is made of 100% renewable raw resources, and is biodegradable, leaving no waste footprint in nature. It is made of 100% plant-based biopolymers Polylactic acid (PLA) and Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) produced out of plant-based resources such as corn starch and potato starch. Standard plastic industry technologies like injection moulding, 3D printing, extruding, CNC milling, laser cutting, heat pressing, etc. can be used to process the material. The material has an estimated lifespan of 1-50 years depending on its blend composition. But when put in an industrial composter, it degrades into water, CO2 and biomass, with the second generation of Nuatan being biodegradable in home compost, soil and ocean water. The material has been granted a food-safety certificate. It degrades inside the human body or animals, meaning that if it ends up in a habitat it will not cause any harm. Earlier this year at Milan Design Week 2019, their Nuatan material was used to create cards for COS.

Crafting Plastics is most well known for its frames. They are made from a mono-material made from 100% renewable resources. Due to the slight flexible nature of one of the plastics used there is no need for metallic parts to hold the glasses together. Therefore, by making them from a single material it ensures they are totally biodegradable. The lifespan of the product depends on the consumer. Once they no longer serve their purpose people can put them into their compost.

The new project, BREATHE in BREATHE out, explores bio scents for innovative future materials, which is a completely new path within the biomaterials sector. Smell is a material property which is often overlooked, but it directly triggers emotions and memories. This project looks at how we can distinguish between natural and synthetic materials. Also exploring how future materials would smell.