NEWS: Recycling bicycle makes money from plastic

9 July 2013 Last updated at 23:08 GMT Help
More and more of us are recycling our waste at home in a bid to save resources - but could manufacturers do more themselves, by using recycled products as their raw materials in the first place?

The BBC's Up Next team have taken a look at three very different products that in their own ways, do just that.

First up, a recycling bicycle, or 'The Ingenio', as its creator, Victor Monserrate calls it. The Puerto Rican design student at London's Royal College of Art has created a customised bicycle that turns discarded plastic containers into a plastic thread. This is more valuable to the people who scour scrap yards in developing countries, because it can be sold on to craftsmen to make objects like chairs and baskets. He hopes NGOs will help him to roll out the device.

When he found out that carpet producers waste about 7% of the wool they use, New Zealander Dan Mclaughlin was inspired to create something new with it: he calls it 'BioWool'. It is a polymer created by combining waste wool with a bioresin. With funding from the James Dyson Foundation, he has begun work on putting this into production, with a range of applications possible.

Finally, Rob McDougall of Italian lighting manufacturers Artemide showed off his company's collaboration with Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake and his Reality Lab. Together they have created a range of lights called 'IN-EI'. The fabric of the lights looks like paper, and the lights themselves appear constructed like origami - but they are in fact made from recycled plastic bottles.

Video Journalist: Dougal Shaw