See, Magis? You can make plastic-looking furniture for kids without using ecologically damaging petrochemicals.
At Milan 2009, the Swedish architecture and design firm Claesson Koivisto Rune is debuting a compostable [!?] plastic children's chair called Parupu, which is Japanese for "pulp." Because the chair is made from a combination of paper pulp and PolyLactide, the kind of cornstarch-based plastic that takes the eco-guilty edge off of buying something plastic. Because of course, PLA only decomposes in a high-temperature, industrial scale composting facility. But that's not important now!
claesson koivisto rune at milan design week 09 [designboom.com]
Claesson Koivisto Rune website [ckr.se]
UPDATE Designboom now has a full post on the Parupu chair exhibition, including the story of the R&D for the process. Apparently, it's more proof-of-concept at the moment and is not slated for market-ready production.
