IKEA’s New Chair Is Literally Trash

Earlier this year, Form Us With Love designed kitchen cabinets made from recycled plastic bottles. Now, the studio is back with another simple-yet-stunning take on sustainable furniture in the form of this chic IKEA chair made from recycled plastic and wood chips.

The sustainable materials used to create the chair – dubbed Odger — were originally intended for pallets, but the designers discovered that the materials were more suitable for its affordable seating option.

“A few years ago, Ikea wanted to work with logistics in a more sustainable way and set up a production line for euro pallets in wood plastic,” explained Åsa Hedeberg, senior product developer at IKEA told Dezeen.

“The choice of material turned out to less successful for the pallets, but instead, the material became the starting point for Odger chair. A mistake turned into something very good.”

Designers created Odger through injection molding, which involves combining 70 percent polypropylene and 30 percent wood chips sourced from reclaimed wood.

In addition to its sustainability, another appealing characteristic of the Odger chair is the fact that you won’t find it on a list of hardest-to-assemble IKEA furniture. The chair is comprised of a curved back and seat attached to a base with four legs. In place of screws, the assembly process involves a twist and click “locking system.” The chair comes with a manual but Hedeberg is pretty confident that event a novice furniture assembler can assemble the chair without breaking a sweat due to its “intuitive” design.

Any doubts about the functionality and comfort levels of the sustainable chair were sufficiently put to rest during the rigorous design process, a three-year period in which hundreds of prototypes were created.

Odger comes in blue, white or brown and is now available for sale internationally (it costs $75 in the US).