Trash Transformation: Unveiling Potato Head and Max Lamb's Journey into a Distinctive Design Empire from Junk
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In a groundbreaking collaboration, renowned designer Max Lamb and the zero-waste and carbon-neutral company Potato Head have launched a new brand, Wasted, which transforms waste into unique homeware pieces. The Wasted by Potato Head Collection 001, unveiled this month, showcases the beauty of circular design and local craftsmanship.
The collection, which comprises functional objects made from eight locally sourced waste streams, embodies a closed-loop design system that redefines material value and provenance. These waste streams include recycled HDPE plastics, used cooking oils, broken glass, retired hotel linens, compost-derived natural dyes, Styrofoam-oyster shell composites, and bamboo.
Max Lamb's designs for Potato Head are produced using a closed-loop system, involving local artisans and makers. The designer, who emphasizes that Wasted is not about elaborate design but about using resources that would otherwise be thrown away, spent two weeks visiting various craftspeople in Bali, including natural dye companies, ceramic producers, and stone workers.
One of the standout products created by Lamb and Potato Head is a chair made from recycled plastic bottles, featuring a colorful marbled effect. From the offcuts of his HDPE plastic chair, Max Lamb has also created trays and coasters. A small collection of ceramic plates and bowls are made using Balinese clay and a glaze from the hotel's waste stream.
Textile products in the Wasted collection are made from hotel linens with short lifespans, and include large bags, compact pouches, pencil cases, and sunglasses cases, dyed using marigolds recovered from offerings at shrines. Styroshell, a patented material by Potato Head, is used for soap dispensers, trays, and bins, and is made from melted styrofoam, HDPE plastic, oyster shells, and limestone.
The future of Wasted by Potato Head is about collaboration, aiming to become an open-source blueprint for harvesting waste. Max Lamb has been collaborating with Potato Head for several years, creating circular designs made locally in Indonesia. The collaboration supports Bali's ambitious 99.5% landfill diversion target and embodies Potato Head’s ethos of “Good Times, Do Good,” seeking scalable, community-led circular creativity that justifies the existence of every product in terms of environmental and social impact.
The design philosophy integrates Max Lamb’s experimental, process-driven methods with Indonesia’s rich artisanal heritage. Each product is handmade by skilled Balinese artisans, highlighting human craftsmanship and sustainable production as core values. The result is a collection of poetic, functional objects that celebrate waste as a resource and showcase local ecological and cultural contexts.
- The Wasted by Potato Head Collection, which showcases the beauty of circular design and local craftsmanship, extends beyond home-and-garden items to include pieces that illustrate a sustainable lifestyle, thereby promoting technology that aids in data-and-cloud-computing like the patented Styroshell material, made from melted styrofoam, HDPE plastic, oyster shells, and limestone.
- Max Lamb's designs for Potato Head, embodying a lifestyle of sustainable living by redefining material value and provenance through the use of eight locally sourced waste streams, are a testament to the convergence of traditional home-and-garden craftsmanship with innovative technology, positioning the collaboration as a pioneer in data-and-cloud-computing's evolution towards eco-friendly and circular design solutions.
