Reuse: IPPI meets FOO for IDS 2023

Foo Reuse Design is a brand that was created to provide a design response to environmental problems, with a project that is able to identify and enhance the value of an existing object and transform it into something useful.

Starting from reusing plastic bottles to make lampshades, today the brand has two other production lines: the recovery of fabrics it uses to produce bags and accessories and the brand new “Scraps” line that reuses company scraps. 

The method the brand selected for reusing existing objects is that of super-use, which is an approach that aims to renew the economic and instrumental value of objects, through their superior use, creating things from things. 

Therefore by not attempting to radically transform the material to be reused, the project looks to the quality of the existing objects to find stimuli and suggestions for translating them into new shapes.

Foo Reuse Design intends to implement this project with a sustainable approach that places particular attention on social inclusion and respect for the natural environment.

The twofold need to reduce the consumption of finite resources and, perhaps more difficult, to face the problem of disposing what we no longer use is condensed into the need to make each citizen feel more responsible for their own daily actions.

Even if at the basis of the Foo project there is an optimistic and creative view toward environmental problems, today it appears urgent to act and create occasions for being able to reflect on our behaviors, and to do it together. 

Collaboration with other people, whether they are individuals, associations or companies makes the project alive and shared, and seeks to explain how much can be done every day by choosing to respect the environment and protect resources.

Foo lampshades were finalists of the 2022 Compasso d’Oro in the “Social Design” category. They received the ADI Lazio and Lazio region award as “Design Excellence in Lazio” and were among the five innovative companies to represent innovative Lazio at Downtown Design 2021.

The meeting between IPPI and Foo was a real flash of inspiration, we found that our intentions and project methodology are very similar.

In addition to making material to be reused immediately available, IPPI also hired Foo to use their production waste to create small products to give to their customers as gifts at the IDS 2023 tradeshow in Cologne.

Diletta Cuniberti, the CEO of IPPI, comments as follows on the meeting with Foo:

“Their ability to reinvent objects, turning them into something that is completely different than their primary use and giving them a new life is incredible, just as their lampshades made of recycled bottles and shoppers made from old shirts are incredible. Fortunately also IPPI’s caps and tubes had the same destiny and therefore at IDS 2023 they will not only be a product to be presented and sold, but also a fun gadget to wear. We will not change the fate of the planet, but we will show that throwing something away is not always the only solution”.

We at Foo will do our best to earn lots of support, trying to find new useful uses for these fantastic existing objects, and based on the quality and characteristics of IPPI’s waste it will not be a very difficult task!