Margherita Lamps Created From Jilted Tomato Sauce Cans

In terms of statistics, around a whopping 15,000 tomato sauce cans are thrown away each day by restaurants in the city of Turin, Italy. The design collective Izmade, based in the very same city, has taken a note of this odd wastage phenomenon. And as an ingenious solution, they have come up with the notion of the stylish yet sustainable Margherita – a lamp design fueled by the righteous scope of recycling.

As we can gather from the images, the swanky lampshade of the Margherita is created from the discarded tomato sauce can. These cans were first salvaged, then cleaned and cut (with the graphical papers removed), and finally painted – to account for a sturdy yet aesthetically pleasing cover. But of course, a lampshade is just one part of a lighting fixture. The other crucial component entails a supporting stand; and this was once again engineered with the ‘virtues’ of a low-impact scope.

To that end, the vertical support member is crafted from plywood sourced from local Italian beech trees native to the Piedmont region. The wood structure was cut in a precise manner by using a CNC milling machine (in this case, the process encompasses an open-source endeavor). And quite interestingly, the plywood layers were fused together and secured with the use of a special soybean adhesive that is renewable in nature. In spite of this low-impact technique, the Margherita Lamp as a collective whole is stable without the aid of any glue. Instead, it gets its unified support from the physical friction between the aforementioned stand and the connecting parts.

The consequent end result pertains to the ambit of sustainability, albeit achieved with familiar, everyday materials. This simple yet effective design dictum is mirrored by studio’s press release statement-

The Izmade design philosophy aims to bridge the gap between environmentally friendly materials and passionate design. They aim to showcase and enhance the original features of the recycled materials while creating something aesthetically pleasing and functional for the home. This unique design process allows even the most commonplace materials to become something remarkable.

So, if you are sufficiently enticed by the refined essence of recycling, do take a gander the ongoing Indiegogo campaign, with early bird prices of the Margherita Lamp starting from just €47 (around $56).