What are Adirondack chairs?

Adirondack chairs are comfortable, reclined chairs favored for use in rural and outdoor settings (backyards, patios, parks, beaches, etc…). As in the picture above, Adirondack chairs usually have large, wide armrests on both sides.
Adirondack chairs are frequently used in cafes, restaurants, shopping centers, and hotels as it provides customers with a comfortable, relaxed place to rest.

**Read my Polywood Outdoor Furniture Classic Adirondack Chair Review**

Who invented the first Adirondack chair?

Thomas Lee made the first Adirondack chair out of 11 pieces of wood back in 1903. At that time, he was on vacation in Westport, New York, in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains.
After arriving at a final design for the Adirondack chair, Thomas shared the design with a carpenter friend, Harry Bunnel, who without Lee’s permission filed a patent for the chair in 1905.

What are Adirondack chairs made of?

The original Adirondack chair was made of wood. However, you will also find Adirondack chairs made with metal, plastic, and recycled plastic (for the environmentally friendly people).
Recycled plastic Adirondack chairs are made from recycled high-density polyethylene (type 4 – HDPE). Usually speaking, the HDPE is recycled from items such as milk bottles, detergent bottles, plastic buckets, and other consumer HDPE plastic products.

Are Adirondack chairs made of recycled plastic sturdy?

Yes, HDPE is ideal for making recycled plastic outdoor furniture. HDPE is a semi-flexible type of plastic that is impact resistant. It is extremely durability, weather resistant, will not rot, and has amazing abilities to hold its color (UV resistant). In many circumstances, chairs and benches made of plastic are better than those made from wood or metals.

With this being the case, recycled HDPE is commonly manufactured into artificial lumber and is used as outdoor fences and gates. You can also find recycled HDPE being used in your public parks (the slides and other outdoor equipment).

Where can I purchase a recycled plastic Adirondack chair?

You can find recycled plastic Adirondack chairs in large-scale furniture outlets and or department stores near you. Due to its large size and inconvenience of delivery, a good reliable source can be Amazon where the item can be shipped directly to your home. I also find amazon to usually have the lowest prices for outdoor furniture. Here are a couple 100% recycled plastic Adirondack chairs for you can consider:

Pilot, a well know company in pen production, offers the first recycled pen made from 89% recycled water bottles. The pen is creatively named “Bottle 2 Pen” or “B2P” and is part of the “BeGreen” line of products. Designed to resemble a water bottle, the B2P is retractable and refillable using Pilot’s G2 gel refills.

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Ingenious! Simple yet effective – This is Haldane Martin’s Wallflower Vertical Garden. This design is a perfect fit for homes built on narrow plots of land as in Martin’s hometown, South Africa.

Hexagonal brackets hold three containers made of recycled plastic. Each set of three containers is then place on top of each other and hung along the side of your home. Not only does the design provide insulation for your home, its ladder system provides a drip irrigation system.

Don’t have a large plot of land for growing your own fruits and vegetables? This maybe your perfect solution.
Martin’s design will be presented at the Design Indaba Design Inspiration Expo in Cape Town, South Africa, February 25 to 27, 2011.

If you like what you see, he is funding this project through Kickstarter – a website for helping inventors and dreamers find funding.

article source: Inventor’s Spot

In mid 2010, Electrolux began a campaign called “Vacs from the Sea” where plastic scrap is collected in the ocean and turned into vacuum cleaners. Its goal is to bring awareness to the fact that:

1. There are islands of plastic floating in our oceans (some several times the size of Texas).

2. There isn’t enough recycled plastic on land to bring about sustainable product production.

Plastic scrap was collected from 5 oceans (Pacific, North Sea, Mediterranean, Indian, and Baltic) and turned into five Vac from the Sea prototypes. Each geographic location yielded different types and colors of plastic scrap giving each prototype its own feel and design.

For instance, the Pacific Edition vacuum cleaner is mainly blue, green, and white in color. Red or dark colored plastic pieces are usually mistaken for food and eaten by fishes and other animals in the sea. The Pacific Edition is the left vacuum cleaner in the above picture.

See the rest of the prototypes: Electrolux