Trash Talk: Furniture that's blue bin friendly
July 9, 2010
Ellen Moorhouse
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Take three green entrepreneurs who know each other from high school days at Stanstead College in Quebec.
Add two students from Mexico, in Canada earning their masters’ in a business incubation program at McMaster University’s Xerox Centre for Engineering, Entrepreneurship and Innovation. They were commericalizing an idea developed by a friend’s engineer father in the packaging industry in the city of Guanajuato.
Bring them together at an interior design trade show — in this case Toronto’s IIDEX/NeoCon exhibit last September — where the students were showcasing their wares as part of the McMaster program.
The result: a business with trash-reducing possibilities.
The product: a line of cardboard furniture. It can be made from recycled fibre, and once a piece reaches the end of its life, it can go back into the recycling stream, at least in part. (Upholstered surfaces would be problematic.) And let’s face it. Furniture is a bulky garbage problem, especially since home furnishings are increasingly disposable, subject to fashion’s whims and cheaply made. Why not use a recyclable material?
The Stanstead alumni saw potential for their company, Yup Inc. ( www.yupinc.ca). (The name derives from the slang for yes, meant to be an eco-friendly affirmation.)
“We were originally in the business — we still are — of incubating green developments, you know, green homes,” says India-born and Kuwait-raised V.J. Bala, who speaks for Yup. “We thought maybe we could use the furniture in the homes, but then that kind of moved to why not represent the line.”
(He and his partners — Ian Jackson, a former vice president of North American sales and marketing for Sony, and designer Danny Béasse — have sold a housing site in Gravenhurst to a developer willing to seek LEED certification, incorporate Yup’s environmental planning and offer green “Yupgrades.” The project is expected to launch later this summer.)
Yup negotiated global rights for the Mexican-made furniture. They displayed the cardboard creations at Toronto’s Green Living Show this past spring and are opening a Mississauga showroom on July 24 (6920 Invader Cres., near Derry Rd. and Hwy 410). Trade shows and on-line sales are also in their marketing plans.
Cardboard furniture is not new. An Internet search reveals many do-it-yourself suggestions. Some famous designers — like Frank Gehry — used cardboard to create whimsical chairs. But Yup is offering a full line, including couches, desks, chairs and tables, which are upholstered with a combination of pleather and fabric made of paper and jute. Storage units, including small closets and bureaux, are also on offer. Prices range from $99 for a two-drawer, two-shelf unit, to a $779 three-seater couch to a $1,199 table with six chairs.
It’s hard to tell that the seating and tables are made of cardboard, but the bare surfaces of the storage units, sealed with a water-based product, give the secret away. They’re begging to be painted, and they can be.
“Parents who have seen the product really love it,” says Bala. “They feel it’s affordable enough and you can just give your kids a bunch of crayons and they can draw all over it and personalize it, which is something kids love to do.”
Yup’s first showroom will be a lifestyle store, with other green goods available, including jute accessories and organic cotton linens.
“We have a lot of people knocking on our door asking if we’re interested in selling their product,” says Bala.
Yup, which is family financed, faces stiff competition. After all, the company faces giants like Ikea, but they’re hoping eco-friendly furniture at an affordable price will find its niche:
“We want to make green mainstream. One of the things you have to do to make that happen is create a business that makes green affordable for the client and profitable for the company.”
Send comments to e_moorhouse@sympatico.ca.
Read the editor's blog on Yup.
Read previous Trash Talks
- Organics
key in York region success
- These
kids really know how to talk trash
- The
scoop on poop
- Going
green in the garden
- Earning
EcoSchool status
- Garbage
issues are on their minds
- All
of that gum gives city workers something to chew on
- Recycling
your closet hang-ups
- Not
your average food processor
- A
green dream: three bin bathrooms
- Winter
composting
- Reusable
bag a lesson in stewardship
- Signs
of the times and what they mean
- Campaign
targets takeout trash
- Consider
coming clean in 2010
- Eco-paint
container isn't that green
- Stewardship
program to drive tire recycling
- Loft
reno represents extreme recycling
- Hitting
the dead mattress problem
- Modest
proposals for Waste Reduction Week
- Battery
recycling doesn't always make sense
- This
PET's a big problem
- Sorting
through the blue box conundrum
-
Got
the blue bin blues? Don't overstuff
- The
not-so-green side of gardening waste
- Overcoming the blips
of electronic waste
- Pet
food, aluminum
foil and another twist on caps
- Don't chuck it, use
it
- Don't
flip your lid over cap conundrum
- From
milk cartons to
toilet tissue
- Bin there? Hidden
radio frequency tags know all
-
Answers for all
those 'irritating garbage questions'