Breakthrough: The Norwegian Trash is changing the way we think about plastic

The history of Norwegian Trash

The company Norwegian Trash is the one to mention when it comes to making beautiful items out of trash. Norwegian Trash is an Oslo-based design studio that had its start in 2017 when founder Sindre Fosse Rossnes and his colleagues were out surfing and spotted a lot of plastic being collected from the water by volunteers. They were immediately interested in learning what would happen to that plastic.

They soon learned that the entire plastic container was being brought to the municipality to be loaded onto trucks and shipped to Germany, where it would be burned and converted into energy. That wasn't a strategy in their eyes. Given that there are so many things that can be made out of waste plastic, they thought it would be ridiculous to just give it all away. So soon after they began experimenting with waste plastic, and as a result, a company named Norwegian Trash with enormous values and ambition was born. Currently, plastic waste is being used to make a variety of things, including tables, lampshades, and many more designs.

By showcasing amazing products they create from trash plastic, they are gradually shifting people's perceptions of plastic and persuading them to stop seeing it as a low-value material. Without ever expressing it, another goal is to contribute to beach cleanup efforts and see cleaner seas.

Working with Vulkaza

After designing some beautiful lampshades (like the ones you can see below), Norwegian Trash set out to find the most efficient way to make them. At that point, Sindre made contact with Ap the CEO of Vulkaza, and learned about a distributed production model where products may be printed locally, right where the end customer is.

Sindre admits that he wasn't initially all that interested in 3D printing since he thought the lines left by the printing process would be noticeable on each product and the quality would be poor. That’s where Vulkaza’s CEO Ap added ‘’Many people think the same. Because they have heard of the printing revolution, which has been widely hyped for the past ten years’’. However, after seeing examples of products with textures that made items look shiny and professional, Sindre completely changed his mind. ‘Working with 3D printing and realizing that a 3D printed product can be an actual end-product was just eye-opening'- said Sindre Fosse Rossnes. One week following that conversation, they had already started making 3D-printed lampshades out of trash.

The biggest values when working with Vulkaza

When discussing the benefits of 3D-printed objects made from plastic trash, Sindre highlights preparation time as one of the key advantages. According to him, making the mold for these lamp shades would probably take several months, but thanks to 3D printing, it just takes a week. As a result, it might be in shops very soon. What’s more, he is delighted with the customization options because 3D printing makes it easier to fulfill a variety of client requirements. Lastly, when comparing the cost of printing lampshades to the cost of using a single metal mold, 3D printing is much cheaper.

Bright Future

As of right now, two bars and two stores have expressed interest in purchasing Norwegian Trash’s 3D-printed trash lamp shades. And that's just the beginning; we hope to build more amazing products that will benefit both people and the environment greatly.

"When it comes telling a story, our real value is telling that we manufacture items locally, design by local designers, and make in the same section of the city" states Norwegian Trash founder Sindre.

Send us an email at creators@vulkaza.com if you want your designs to be created within a week :)