Designer makes furniture from waste carpets

Riccardo Cenedella, an Italian designer, has released a one-of-a-kind tables, stools and lamps made from carpet waste.

Many thousands of carpets are thrown away each year when they become worn, thin or stained. Many are disposed of at landfill sites. Some councils and carpet retailers are concerned about this issue and will take old carpets away from homes and commercial properties and send them to specialist carpet recycling firms that use material from the carpets for use in other products.

Cenedella, however, collects old carpets and extracts material from them to form what he calls “Carpet Matter”. He uses this material to make unique furniture and lamps. His carpet matter lamp features curved LED light strips that connect two purple Carpet Matter round bases.

The Carpet Matter stool has a flat disc attached to a round base. The stool can also be used as a small table. Larger tables are like a conventional table, featuring four stout legs. Cenedella wants to develop chairs, shelves and other furniture made from recycled carpets in the future. Carpet Matter could also be used to make jars, pots, trays and much more.

In the future, rooms with carpets in Chester, Wrexham and North Wales could have furniture, accessories and fittings made entirely from old carpets. This is an example of the circular economy, where items in a home or office are not thrown away but recycled to make other useful products. This reduces the amount of toxic waste that is dumped into the environment.