Humans leave a huge ecological footprint on the environment. A good while ago, we have exceeded the quantity of objects that we need. Moreover most of these objects never decompose or take a long time to decompose. We are members of consuming culture and our society is a wasteful society. Sonia is looking for solutions that would use ‘waste’ as primary material for the production of new, high quality objects. She wants to give a new life to discarded materials. 

During her project, Sonia focused on the side products of the sugar refining process, such as leaves of sugar beets and beet pulp. The leaves of sugar beets are not utilized in any way and go to waste while beet pulp is the major side product of sugar production in Poland. The new biodegradable materials produced from the sugar beet pulp and leaves can replace some of the non-biodegradable ones.

Designer: Sonia Jaśkiewicz
Materials: sugar beet leaves, beet pulp, natural additives
Thesis advisors: Oskar Zięta (industrial design), Ewa Klekot (anthropology)