Green Lighting by Heath Nash

I'm torn. These lamps from South African designer Heath Nash are beautiful when lit and his profile in Ping Magazine describes his effort to distinguish South African design and employ local artisans. Heath is using recycled plastic bottles and "other people's rubbish" to create lampshades. But are they really green?

Cradle to Cradle might refer to this as downcycling, but maybe not... are these decorative objects finding permanent places in people's homes? I recommend exploring Heath's site. In addition to lampshades, he and his team have created decorative panels, screens, furniture and tabletop items. It may not be a solution, but is a step in the right direction.

aaron

(Re-Edited from 2007-7-30 - CB)

(Re-Edited from 2006-10-02 - MGR)

Comments (13)

They're real pretty but I wonder about the local artisans' cut? Whenever I read anything involving a designer and local artisans, I wonder... Like those rug factory kids...

just adding onto what Monika has noted..... it's actually a fairly African/South African thing to use things like aluminum cans or other materials from products to create new things, ie. toy airplanes (of which i have one) and would go so far as to say it's part of the cultural recent heritage and does make it somewhat particular to those local artists.

i also thing it's absolutely fantastic and beautiful as well. i think what increases the green-ness is less post processing. most of these items are simply just cut up and bent to form the shapes the artists want. whereas even green/healthful items have to come from somewhere and get processed by using up energy to cut them, laquers and paints to finish them, etc etc. besides, recyleable products i'm sure have a certain shelflife before they're not appropriate for recycling anymore.

Wow - anyone know if/where his work is available in NYC?

OK, I'm not up on green enough to understand why the green-ness is questionable here. It's recycled stuff that might otherwise go into landfill. How does it get better than that?
What distinctions am I missing, please!

Follow the links to the downcycling and Cradle to Cradle links to understand why.

Most products lose any inherent green-ness when put on a plane and shipped across the country...or the world. Think of all the fuel that wouldn't be necessary if we were more considerate of that practice.

South Africa has an great indigenous tradition of re-using cans, bottles, plastic and other debris. I bought some amazing things in Cape Town made from bottle caps, old yogurt containers and other former-trash.

AT should find a South African blogger. The design there is so different from the North American/European model. More people should see it.

You can't use recycled plastic for food (old food, chemicals, etc will leach into it). So isn't plastic already only downcyclable to begin with? The problem here is that we're not starting at the cradle. The CtoC solution (I imagine) is to eliminate plastic containers to begin with. Being as it is that we have plastic that is only recyclable in a limited way, I say, by all means craft something cool with it. Thatgirl has a point in that it takes extra fuel to ship around the world, though.

I'm trying to see how it's not green to recycle something disposable into something totally usable that is also appealing to the eye. Is there something I'm missing?

Even though I don't particualrly like the colored one when it's not lit up, I do like them both when lit and the white one is quite a lovely conversation starter.

They just posted the "Flowerball" by Heath Nash in this month's MetHome. I was shocked (well maybe not shocked, just surprised) that the 16" ball costs $950, the 20" costs $1,950 and the 24" costs a whopping $4,950. (AmaridianUSA.com)

Jeez.

I love these fixtures and they're made by local artisans paid a fair wage in South Africa. I've seen them for sale mostly on foreign websites, but there is one us site that has a couple of the fixtures and a couple of other Heath Nash pieces. not nearly as expensive as quoted above. www.foundation4.com.