Lightning Labels Blog

Posted by Peter Renton on August 1st, 2008

Last year I wrote about the bridge in France, designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, which was made from label waste material. Well I was reading my copy of Label & Narrow Web magazine (a leading label industry publication) last night and I discovered he has now gone one better.

In partnership with leading label material supplier UPM and Artek, a Finnish design house, Ban has created what is known as the Artek Pavilion.  This 132’ x 16’ (over 2,000 sq feet) structure is manufactured completely from self-adhesive label waste. The waste came from UPM label manufacturing plants and was converted into a wood-plastic composite product called UPM ProFi.

Ban, UPM and Artek decided to auction off the structure (which can be taken down and reassembled easily) at Sotheby’s and donate the proceeds to charity.  It was sold for $500,000 to an unnamed New York gallery owner who planned on using it as a mobile exhibition space.

It is great to see creative recycling initiatives like this one being undertaken by a major industry player like UPM. The label industry has only recently begun to embrace sustainability, and Europe is certainly far ahead of the United States on this issue. I hope and expect to see more initiatives like this one as label printers start demanding more action on sustainability from their suppliers.

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This entry was posted August 1st, 2008 by Peter Renton and is filed under Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.