POST PAPER STUDIO was developed as a response to the increasing paper and cardboard waste due to companies switching from plastic to paper packaging. Even though paper can be recycled well, it often happens in large-scale centralised facilities abroad.

Post Paper Studio therefore aims to be a low-tech alternative to upcycle paper waste at a local level, promoting its value as material for both design and construction. It consists of a series of recipes, tools, processes, and guidelines to enable designers, makers, and small businesses to transform paper waste from their own communities and use it in place of conventional materials. The goal is to create an urban self-sufficient ecosystem of community workshops dedicated to paper recycling at a neighbourhood scale. Overall, the open source and low-tech nature of the project wants to turn the recycling practice from centralised and exclusive, to distributed and accessible, sparking a conversation around the efficiency of the current recycling system.

“We hope that one day if you wish to have your own paper waste transformed into an object you need, you have the possibility to go to a local paper recycling store, bring your waste, and see it molded according to your particular demand. And those stores of this type, working like micro ateliers, could pop up around the world in every city – just like bakeries.” – Davide Onestini, co-founder

BY THE END OF MAY is a research and design practice exploring the futures of local making. In a time when we can share online not only code but also material recipes and product designs, how can we reshape the way we make things? What if we designed for care and humbleness, rather than vulnerability and addiction? And how can we decentre humans from the systems we create and include everything else around us—the community at large, the non-human species, the environment?