TAPEgear is a young, environmentally aware design team with Ryan Frank – one of Europe’s leading eco-designers – at the creative helm. Ryan has been designing products for TAPEgear since its inception four years ago and from its studios in both Barcelona and London, TAPEgear has already successfully launched a range of eco-sleeves for laptops, tablets and smart phones.
“We see ourselves as a new breed of design companies. Our business model is based around holistic sustainability, not just in the materials we use and the way we manufacture our products, but also in how we work with designers, ensuring that royalties and profit share are split in a fair, representative way,” says Ryan Frank.
TAPEgear’s design ethos is based on the following principles: Innovation through the unexpected use of sustainable materials, keeping product function, purpose and necessity intrinsic to design and using sustainable principles throughout the whole design and manufacture process.
TAPEgear is constantly expanding and looking at new technology, materials as well as production processes to stay ahead of the curve and deliver products that live up to its principles.
By ingeniously using resources that have finished their function and mixing it with easily renewable items, TAPEgear has devised a whole range of eco friendly daily use products.
Fibriboard
Non-woven mats are made from 100% flax fibers and recycled polypropylene.
Agriplast
GRPL or Grapple is manufactured from 50% grass clippings and 50% recycled plastic. In line with all the products at TAPEgear, GRPL is all about a zero compromise approach to sourcing natural and recyclable materials, with environmental sustainability at its core.
AgriPlast BW is a fibre-enforced bio-plastic developed by Biowert and used for GRPL hooks. By using fibres the overall volume of the new material produced can be extended significantly.
In the case of Agriplast this means that three times more bio-plastic is produced by mixing in the grass fibres than using conventional recycled plastic. Fibre enhanced bio-plastic such as AgriPlast can be recycled several times before the end of its lifespan.
Grassy
This sustainable product uses meadow grass, which is sourced from farms surrounding the bio-refinery in Germany. By combining the grass fibres with recycled polypropylene, a new, resource-efficient material that is fully recyclable and renewable is created.
15 million bottles are used per day in the UK, that’s about 275,000 tons of plastic that heads for the garbage dumps on a daily basis. Polypropylene could be an ideal substitute as it is one of the plastics that can be recycled fully without losing its properties.
Shred
This range is made from Ecotex, a material made from 100% recycled textile waste derived from old, unwanted clothes and household fabrics. Recycling clothing is a fantastic way to prolong a product’s life cycle thus reducing the need to produce new cotton or synthetic fibres.
Cork
Cork fabric, or cork leather as it is sometimes called, is a high quality fabric produced from thin cork shavings obtained directly from the bark of the cork oak tree, endemic to south-west Europe and north-west Africa.
Much of the production is hand crafted and ensures that no trees are cut down. Once the tree reaches an age of 25-30 years the cork can be removed for the first time, with subsequent extractions happening from then on every 9 years.
The trees continue to live and grow for around 200 years making for a production process that is environmentally friendly and sustainable. Once the harvested material reaches the end of its life cycle it can be readily recycled without creating any secondary waste.
Cork fabric is available in a unique assortment of natural textures, patterns, and designs and is produced with different backing material dependent on final use.
Its unique characteristics make for a material that is beautifully textured, soft, natural and wholly individual. In addition, its elasticity, durability and near-impermeability make it perfect for protecting your most treasured tech gadgets.
TAPEgear’s cork range for tech sleeves comes sourced from a sustainable certified cork farm in Spain.
Contact
email: sales@tapegear.com
web: www.tapegear.com
