Milan, Italy, April 23, 2019 –  Aquafil chairman and chief executive officer, Giulio Bonazzi was a featured panelist at Rossana Orlandi’s worldwide design competition during the 2019 Salone del Mobile in Milan, Italy last Wednesday, April 10. Four pieces were presented at the Rosanna Orlandi Gallery for the competition that used ECONYL® as a key material in their pieces — three items were in the Home Textiles category and one item was in Design.

Interior design icon and world-renowned curator, Rossana Orlandi is known for discovering up-and-coming design talent all over the globe. On Wednesday, at the first edition of the Ro Plastic Prize, the jury for the competition recognized four designers for their design innovation. The event took place during the Salone del Mobile, one of the world’s most influential furniture fairs, acting as a global benchmark event for members of the furnishing and design industry.

The Ro Plastic Prize is part of Rossana Orlandi’s Guiltless Plastic initiative to challenge designers to develop innovative ways of recycling, reusing, and reinventing plastic. The competition was born from the critical concern over the environmental problems caused by plastic, and open to designers of all ages and backgrounds around the globe.

Submissions were evaluated by a panel of international experts to select four winners among the finalists, one for each category: Design, Packaging Solutions, Conscious Innovation Projects, and Home Textiles, the latter being specifically sponsored by Aquafil. Each entry was judged on its functionality, form, innovation, and environmental impact.

The competition attracted over 300 entries submitted from 50 different countries across the globe. Winners were announced during a ceremony at the Museo Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in Milan.

In the Design category, Alcarol presented a two-tier table made with ECONYL® reclaimed fishing nets from their Ocean Network collection. The tabletops of these prototypes are multicolored since Alcarol melted together nets of various colors, dramatically tangled as they are often found in sea beds, that create a beautiful marbled effect.

The legs of the tables are made of glass slabs and aluminum – two of the best examples of recyclable materials in the world – simply wedged and screwed in the nylon tabletops, so each part can be easily removed in order to make the prototypes 100 percent recyclable in the future.

The table was submitted to the design category and aimed to address the detrimental issue of abandoned fishing nets, making up almost half of the plastic waste found in oceans. Caught sea creatures and entangled marine ecosystems face mass death, as the nets go unattended and can continue to ghost fish for decades, possibly even centuries.

In the Home Textiles category, the three products submitted made with ECONYL® were a bold, striped upholstery fabric designed by Tiziano Guardini; a colorful tasseled pouf by Lorenza Bozzoli; and an area rug by Kiki Van Eijk with abstract shapes in bright colors.

“I hope to find continuous success with the Guiltless Plastic Initiative to inspire the design community to rethink how things are made and challenge designers to create products using recycled plastic,” Orlandi said. “When thoughtfully transformed, plastic can be a resource with immense possibilities.”

“It was an honor to be a part of the panel for the first edition of the Ro Plastic Prize. Rossana is engaging the world to shift the perception of plastic as trash to one that is centered around reinvention and plastic as an abundant resource,” said Bonazzi. “The designers’ final products represent a new generation of design, to continue creating increasingly beautiful and groundbreaking products with regenerated materials,” he concluded.

Aquafil produces ECONYL®, a regenerated nylon that is infinitely recyclable, enabling fashion, apparel and carpets companies to continuously innovate and design fresh products without having to use new resources. Aquafil recycles fishing nets and old carpets to generate Nylon 6, keeping waste out of landfills and our oceans.

For more information about ECONYL® regenerated nylon, please visit: https://www.econyl.com.

To learn more about the Guiltless Plastic competition: https://www.guiltlessplastic.com/

 

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ABOUT AQUAFIL

Since 1965, Aquafil has been one of the leading players, both in Italy and globally, in the production of polyamide 6 (nylon 6). The Aquafil Group has a presence in eight countries on three continents, employing more than 2,700 staff at 16 plants located in Italy, Germany, Scotland, Slovenia, Croatia, the USA, Thailand and China. To learn more about the company, please visit: https://www.aquafil.com.

 

CONTACT: Ellie Eckerle / ee@connectiveagency.com