De Vorm was one of the first companies to realise the full potential of PET Felt. Although it has been used for a long time in the car industry, no one used it in the furniture industry. It looks and feels like traditional felt but has the same properties as plastic. De Vorm have created eleven unique colour blends, and all their PET Felt is produced locally.
PET Felt is durable, easy to clean and doesn’t off-gas or contain heavy metals like lead or tin. The production of PET Felt taps into the abundant global plastic waste stream. Unfortunately, only 6% of all plastic is currently being recycled. diverting it from landfills and incineration to turn it into furniture, lighting, and acoustic products.
De Vorms PET Felt products contain a mix of post-consumer PET and virgin content. They strive for the highest percentage of recycled material without compromising quality and safety.
In their design process, De Vorm keeps in mind that their PET Felt products should have the longest possible lifespan and be recyclable. To enable that, they make the furniture easy to disassemble so that every used component can be separated, reused, or recycled. In the time it takes to sip out of a plastic bottle, 20,000 of them are thrown away. Over 1,300,000,000 bottles are sold around the world every day. Only 6% of them are recycled afterwards.
De Vorm collaborates with local recycling centres to bring a second life to plastic bottles. PET Felt technology allows them to utilise plastic waste in interior design, turning it into a versatile and durable material. So let’s take a closer look at the journey it takes for plastic bottles to become unique furniture items.
Bottles arrive at the recycling centres in 250kg densely pressed bales teased apart, cleaned, and sorted. The sorting machine removes all coloured parts, such as caps and labels.
Once the bottles are sorted, they move into the granulator. The granulator removes all remaining debris. What were once plastic bottles were pure PET flakes, ready for the next phase.
Further, the PET flakes travel through an extruder, melting them and forming polyester fibres. As a result, hard plastic gets a soft wool-like texture. The fibres are then cut into thin sheets to prepare them for felting.
The felting machine folds the fibre in layers and compresses it. Then, the actual felting begins – thousands of barbed needles stab the material, turning it into felt. Then, following the same principle, three sheets of felt are merged into a dense mat, ready for pressing.
PET Felt can take any shape. In a single moulding action, the 3D pressing machine turns a sheet of felt into a sturdy form, preserving its soft wool-like texture. Following this method, PET Felt can be used to produce chair seats, wall panels, lampshades, and more.
In all stages of their design and production processes, De Vorm carefully considers the interplay between environmental intelligence and economic improvement to minimise waste, energy consumption and the use of harmful chemicals. This vision is emphasised by the way in which they use PET technology in their collection. PET Felt is a sustainable and versatile alternative to traditional furniture materials, offering the highest product quality and user comfort.
