One person’s trash is another’s skateboard. Industrial product designer Jason Knight has developed the first decks made from 100% recycled plastic, proving it’s reliable enough for skiing down metal railings or flipping on tar. Most plastic ends up in landfills, oceans, or community dumping sites. But Knight ensures it’s brought to his team at MANDIN Collective. “Even if we were to stop this second making new plastic, there’s still more than six billion tonnes in the world,” he says. “We need to capture and turn it into something.”
While studying industrial design and technology, Knight explored what could be made from recycled plastic. “One thing I noticed was that it’s really strong,” he says. Once shredded and melted, it’s moulded into a solid and durable object. Skateboards are placed under extreme pressure as skaters crash and grind them, and Knight knew that they could best demonstrate the longevity of plastic. Together with his team, he introduced traditional popsicle decks made from 1.8 kilograms of recycled plastic, the equivalent of 2 000 synthetic bags. Knight’s skateboards not only look the part, but perform too, taking users along ramps and bumpy surfaces.
To provide free access to his creation, Knight’s project is open source, allowing people to download a digital guide to make their own decks and contribute to upcycling. “If we can set up places where people can bring the plastic that they collect from their house and then turn it into a board that they can use, that could be potentially life-changing,” Knight says. His technique urges innovators to take the material more seriously as a worthy option for their designs. Through his work, he’s highlighting that we already have all the plastic we need in the world.
Footage by MANDIN Collective was used in the creation of this film.
Visit patreon.com/jasonknight to support Jason’s work.
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