IKEA launches kitchen made from recycled plastic bottles

Alice Morby | 24 January 2017 11 comments

Twenty-five plastic bottles are used in each of these IKEA kitchen units, designed by Swedish studio Form Us With Love to make "sustainability available for everyone".

The Kungsbacka units are IKEA's first kitchen cabinets to be made entirely from recycled plastic bottles and reclaimed industrial wood.

"A plastic bottle is not waste; it is a resource," said Jonas Pettersson, Form Us With Love CEO. "Most importantly, this kitchen proves that these materials can be used for household goods in large-scale production."

"We have to challenge the excuses for not using waste as a resource by showing how to best put these materials back into production, making affordable democratic products that will last."

The kitchen's main structure is formed from reclaimed wood, while the coating is made from plastic bottles. The studio opted for a simple silhouette in a matt grey to create a "timeless" design.

Shiny black Hackås handles contrast with the cupboards' matt surface, and as with most IKEA kitchens, the cabinets are modular, so they can be arranged to fit any space.

"We wanted it to feel like a black T-shirt, tuned to fit right, practical and still precious," said John Löfgren, creative director at Form Us With Love.

With sustainable products often expensive to produce because of the extensive research and development required, the two companies had to work together to come up with production methods that would make the kitchen a "viable alternative" to those currently on the market.

The company expects it to last for 25 years.

"Today, applying waste materials in production is unfortunately still costly and the Kungsbacka kitchen fronts could have easily ended up too expensive," said Anna Granath, product developer at IKEA.

"Overcoming the price was a milestone in the development. Sustainability should be for everyone, not only for those who can afford it," she continued.