The stunning colour palette of Buoy’s eco-friendly recycled ocean plastic leaf trays has an environmental story to tell. Each vivid hue indicates which region of Japan the plastic waste used to make an item was acquired. These little red trays, ideal for tidying away small stationery and trinkets, are made from waste collected in western Fukui, which faces the Sea of Japan. Buoy’s large, squarer leaf tray, however, is made from plastic found further north in Niigata, where blue is the predominant colour of ocean litter.
When we came across Buoy, we admired its dedication to reducing plastic pollution, from organizing its own marine waste collections to inventing a way to meld so many different resins without additives into a new material — a notoriously difficult task. Aside from a protective film coating, Buoy items are made completely from marine waste!
To see other colours from other regions of Japan, visit our Buoy series.
Based in Yokohama, Buoy is a recycled plastic homeware brand with an unusual aspiration. By recycling marine plastic waste, it aims to contribute to the cleanup of the world’s oceans, with the hope that eventually there will be no plastic pollution to source its material from.
Buoy organizes its own litter collections, and shreds and recycles plastic litter into homeware using a patented process that can meld together different resins. No bonding agent or pigments are added, and its products’ vibrant hues are the result of carefully colour-sorted plastics.
Recycled marine waste plastic
Width 7 cm × Length 13 cm × Height 2 cm
Not suitable for dishwasher or microwave
Not suitable for food
Notes: Recycled plastic is naturally a little unsmooth. These are also coated in a thin protective film.
Made in Japan