Off Cut Studio
Hi! I'm Lux. I've been recycling acrylic since 2017.
I discovered a way to recycle acrylic off-cuts when studying at Leeds Arts University in 2017. At the time I couldn't find anyone else recycling acrylic in this way. When researching I came across and went to work with Precious Plastic who focus on other types of plastic waste. After posting the method online, people quickly gravitated and wanted to know more. 6 years on I am consulting people around the world on how to implement this recycling system into their business / creative practice.
Why it matters.
Acrylic falls under the 7+ category of plastic, un-recyclable in commercial waste systems. It’s glass like, laser cutting quality makes it unique but hard to recycle. When I first noticed this material go to waste was at my Uni, seeing all the offcuts get chucked into the skip at the end of the week, it made me think if this is happening here I wander what could be happening on a larger scale, and in other unis / schools / studio spaces around the globe. This is a popular material in the design world as you can laser cut into it, it's also used for a lot of tests and demonstrations when people are learning to use the laser cutter so naturally, a lot gets wasted if designs go wrong.
