THE MATERIAL
Acrylic, cast from recycled monomer.
A Siluet piece is one sheet of cast acrylic, cut and finished in the studio. Our acrylic is supplied from cast sheet produced with recycled MMA, the monomer that acrylic is made from.
Acrylic is unusual among plastics in this respect. PMMA can be recycled back to its original raw material, and the producers we buy from state that the end product does not lose its optical, mechanical or thermal properties in the process.
We buy from two producers, GreenCast by Madreperla and Perspex Re. Both publish their own account of the material, and both accounts are linked below. Neither producer publishes certifications or CO2 figures for these ranges, and we have not independently tested either claim.
SUPPLIER
GreenCast by Madreperla
Madreperla publishes GreenCast as a cast acrylic “produced 100% with recycled raw materials (R-MMA)”, made from regenerated monomer recovered by de-polymerising end-of-life PMMA and industrial waste.
Madreperla does not publish certifications or CO2 figures for the range. Read their own description rather than ours.
madreperlaspa.comSUPPLIER
Perspex Re
Perspex publishes Re as cast sheet made with “100% recycled MMA”, alongside an extruded sheet with “up to 90% recycled content”, carrying a ten year exterior warranty.
Perspex does not publish certifications or CO2 figures for the range. Their page is linked, unedited.
perspex.co.ukWASTE
The best offcut is the one never cut.
Most of the material a studio like ours wastes is lost at the drawing stage, not the cutting stage. So the work happens before the laser starts. Every skyline is engineered and set out on the sheet to yield as much finished piece and as little edge as the design allows, and every cut is placed precisely rather than generously.
We also hold low stock on purpose. Cutting close to what has actually been ordered, rather than building shelves of inventory we guessed at, means less material passes through the studio in the first place.
WHERE THE EDGES GO
Somebody collects our offcuts.
The acrylic offcuts from our cutting are collected and recycled by Planet Green Recycling in Dubai, under an arrangement we hold with them for that stream.
Planet Green handle plastics among other waste streams. They state that they are ISO 9001:2015 certified, and approved by the Dubai Economic Department and Dubai Municipality. Those are their credentials, published by them. They are not ours, and we do not claim them.
SOURCING
Close by, wherever close by will do.
Where a supplier near the studio can do the work, we use the supplier near the studio. It shortens the distance a material travels before it reaches us, and it keeps the work inside the business community we sit in.
Not everything can be sourced that way. The acrylic cannot.
STILL WORKING ON IT
What this page does not say yet.
There is more we would like to put here. We would rather leave a gap than fill it with a number we cannot show you the working for.
We do not publish a recycled percentage for a finished piece, because we would have to measure it properly before we could. We hold no certification of our own, and we are not going to borrow anybody else's.
This is a small studio, and it moves at the pace of one. The page will get longer as there is more we can actually evidence.