2021 Edition

Ghostbuster Universal Stool is a social innovation in which design is merely a tool to catalyze the process of cleaning the sea from ghost nets. The design of a 100% recycled plastic flat pack table aims to reach the widest possible audience. Entirely made of recycled PE, coming from collected ghost nets the stool has been designed with longevity in mind.  Each year up to 12 million tonnes of plastics end up in the seas and oceans of the world. There is one type of plastic pollution that is especially deadly, because it is designed to capture and kill marine wildlife. Abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gears, or so-called “ghost nets”, are the silent killers under the surface – uncontrollably catching fish, marine mammals and birds, while simultaneously polluting the water with plastic particles. FAO report from 2009 estimates that 640,000 tonnes of fishing gear are lost or abandoned in the seas and oceans each year. This constitutes about 10% of all plastic  waste in the oceans and is estimated to account for about 46% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  In 2020, the MARE Foundation, a Polish NGO focused on marine conservation, in partnership with the Kołobrzeg Fish Producers Group had retrieved over 3 tonnes of ghost nets from the Baltic Sea. This was only the beginning of the journey. Once retrieved from the water, there is no established course of action what to do with the nets. They are usually considered hazardous waste and are stored in ports or disposed of in an unsustainable manner. And while there are some companies in the world that specialize in recycling the ghost nets – the recycling process is not always clear, the final products usually contain only an admixture of nets and the designs do not follow the principles of circular economy.  Facing this difficulty, Studio Rygalik together with MARE foundation and Boomplastic took on actions to find a sustainable way to recycle ghost nets and to create a product that makes the society aware of and responsive to the ecological issue facing the Baltic Sea and all other marine ecosystems worldwide. Design empowering conscious consumption that fuels cleaning up the waters.  This is how the Ghostbuster Universal Stool has been born.