Emeco's 111 Navy Chair
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Photo by: Armando Bellmas -
Eight to ten trailer truckloads of PET bales—each measuring 80 cubic feet and consisting of 20,000 bottles—arrive for processing every weekday.Photo by: Armando Bellmas -
A worker operates the float-sink tank. Heavier, nonrecyclable materials sink to the bottom, leaving on the water's surface only rPET, which then becomes white rinse flake.Photo by: Armando Bellmas -
Bottles are sorted on a conveyor belt.Photo by: Armando Bellmas -
A view of the heavy machinery inside the New United Resource Recovery Corporation recycling plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina.Photo by: Armando Bellmas -
The rinse flake undergoes NURRC's patented UnPET process, in which the surface of the PET material is removed (depolymerized) and the remaining compound is roasted to remove any volatile organic content.Photo by: Armando Bellmas -
The white rinse flake.Photo by: Armando Bellmas -
Each Navy chair begins life as 13 pounds of rPET plastic pellets, which are melted down and injected into the chair mold, a multiton device that functions like a gigantic waffle iron.Photo by: Armando Bellmas -
After the rPET mixture is heated and transformed via injection molding into a chair, a robotic arm removes it from the specially designed mold.Photo by: Armando Bellmas -
The 111 Navy chairs are exact replicas of the beloved aluminum originals, down to the faux weld points on the backside.Photo by: Armando Bellmas -
A worker smoothes any imperfections before manually installing the H-brace.Photo by: Armando Bellmas -
One of the final steps is to install the H-Brace and feet, both fabricated on another mold.Photo by: Armando Bellmas -
Each chair is stamped on the underside to read, "Help your bottle become something extraordinary again."Photo by: Armando Bellmas
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111 Navy Chair
I've been lucky enough to visit Emeco's Pennsylvania factory where their iconic chairs are made by hand. It was a religious experience for me, a person with a sick chair fetish.
111 Navy Chair
Modeled on the classic Emeco 1006 Navy chair of 1944, but made from 111 recycled plastic bottles, the 111 Navy chair marries iconic form with a highly progressive brand of manufacturing. Made of rPET (Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate, essentially plastic bottles) and a mixture of pigment and glass fibers, the 111 Navy chair is strong, light, and comes in six colors. Recycling has always been in Emeco’s DNA: the original 1006 was to be made with 80% recycled aluminum. It's fitting that over a half-century later they're still turning out great, eco-minded design.
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