I have been collaborating with Dave Hakkens since he was a ‘designer-kid’ starting his studies at Design Academy Eindhoven. As a sustainable design journalist, I wrote about his early projects, and later his Precious Plastic set
of machines inspired my MA Graduation Project, which he helped shape and kindly lent me early prototypes to display
at the Vanabbe Museum.
When I started teaching at Design Academy Eindhoven, I asked Dave if my students could squeeze biomaterials through his recycling plastic machines, but they were too difficult to set up. Two years later, he launched Beyond Plastic,
along with designer Jannis Kempkens, which featured a heat press that transformed food waste into products.
This led to plenty of knowledge exchange, both at my course and at their Headquarters, a workshop for my students
and a summer production of samples for our Biomaterials Archive exhibition at Dutch Design Week.