Cartoneros – Cardboard Furniture
Collect and recycle cardboard into low-cost, high-design furniture.
Written by Trenton DuVal
Cartoneros - Cardboard Furniture
Cartoneros - Cardboard Furniture
Cartoneros furniture takes inspiration from these reluctant microentrpreneurs and turns it on its head. Collecting cardboard and producing useful and attractive furniture from it turns an act of desperation into an industry.
Cartoneros would collect used and scrap cardboard from the local community and surrounding environment and build lightweight, recycled, recyclable and beautiful furniture from it. Designers such as Frank Gehry have explored the idea of making functional furniture pieces from this plentiful and oft-wasted material. This would promote recycling, not as a social responsibility, but as a profit-making opportunity.
How do you envision this idea making money?
The furniture produced would be sold to domestic and international markets. The initial investment would be used to provide training, design, construction materials such as glue and cutting tools and a manufacturing space.How does this idea create social impact, particularly around improving health?
This idea creates a social benefit in providing a new source of income, creating a market for the finished products and independent cardboard collection, and cleaning up the local environment.How does this idea add social value at every step of the process?
An incentive for cardboard recycling is created while at the same time providing an opportunity for poorly-educated workers to create a respectable, marketable product. In addition, the furniture could become a hallmark of the community and a source of pride.What are the short term steps we could take to implement this idea tomorrow?
Train a group of workers or provide them with instructions for how to make cardboard furniture pieces and then provide the requisite tools and materials; glue, cutting tools, e.g.Evaluation results
12 evaluations so far
1. How well do you think this concept considers life in low-income communities?
It is highly relevant to low-income communities - 50%
It is somewhat relevant to low-income communities - 33.3%
It does not significantly consider low-income communities - 16.7%
2. How effectively does this concept use social business principles (that is, it has social benefits for the community but does not pay dividends?)
This concept uses social business principles very well - 37.5%
This concept could be easily modified to incorporate social business elements - 25%
This concept does not connect with social business very well - 37.5%
3. How easy would it be to implement this concept?
Easy! This could be started immediately - 42.9%
It would take some time and planning – but I bet I could see progress in the near future - 57.1%
This concept would need extensive planning, partnerships & resources in place to get going - 0%
4. To what extent will this concept improve people’s health?
This concept would significantly improve people’s health and wellbeing - 9.1%
This concept seems like it might improve health, although maybe indirectly - 9.1%
This concept doesn’t really have much to do with health - 81.8%
5. Overall, how do you feel about this concept?
It rocked my world! - 16.7%
I liked it but preferred others - 33.3%
It didn’t get me overly excited - 50%
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