19 May Green Fingers

Upholstery is a DIRTY BUSINESS, brothers and sisters.  It’s basically like The Sopranos, but without the guns. Or salami. Foams, adhesives, landfill, dyes, processing and, well, don’t even get me started on leathers. We aim to re-use and recycle wherever we can (I still recall my bathtub at home filled with rescued horsehair stuffing and my son’s No More Tears shampoo- yes- I HAVE SHAMPOOED OLD HORSEHAIR RATHER THAN BUYING NEW). Not always appropriate, or even legal (some old foams are both insanitary and basically incendiary). So it was a pleasure to fulfil a brief for all-round-top-saving-the-planet-people Greenpeace UK, with an eye focussed on sustainability.

Their spiffing London HQ has been tricked out in bang-on-trend ply-furniture by designers Opendesk. I didn’t know I needed shelving with pot plant holders on top til I saw them at Greenpeace, but now I know I DO.

See? See what I mean? PLANTS GROWING OUT OF LOCKERS! But I digress. Ply is all well and good, but it’s not so comfy on the old bottom, so we made up some seat pads for Reception in a rainbow of Camira Blazer wools, plus some green seat pads for the (doubtless impeccably sourced, fair-trade, rocket-fuel) coffee areas. The wools have an EU Eco label, with a traceable chain of production back to happy sheep in (admittedly the other side of the world), ahem, erm, New Zealand. We used our tears as adhesive and wove the piping cord from workshop fluff. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration, but you know what I mean. We used reconstituted foam, thus saving unused foam offcuts from landfill. See, just like The Sopranos.

Staple Sisters, saving stuff from landfill since 2014.