This 3D-Printed Table Lamp Is Made From Orange Peels and It’s Compostable

Milan-based startup Krill Design seeks to promote a circular economy through innovative design. Conducting extensive research and development, the company creates sustainable homewares by repurposing organic waste and transforming it into eco-design products. For one of their most recent projects—a 3D-printed table lamp—the creative design team decided to use a pretty unorthodox material: orange peels. The first of its kind, the Ohmie lamp is made entirely of recycled orange peels, directly from Sicilian orange fields—the producer of about 3% of the world’s oranges.

The design firm settled on 3D printing to produce the lamp due to the relatively low environmental impact of the technology, which also allows them to avoid the unnecessary waste of materials. The filament they use in the printer is composed of dried and ground orange peels mixed with an organic biopolymer base that is created through the bacterial fermentation of vegetal starches. And since it is made completely of organic materials, the Ohmie lamp is also fully compostable.

“Ohmie The Orange Lamp is designed to be a long-lasting decor item, but be able to be discarded sustainably with your organic waste,” explains the design company. “We believe there should not be a distinction between ‘Sustainable Design’ and ‘Normal Design,’ but rather that Design should be sustainable by default: this is the first step toward a Design Revolution, to make practices conscious, materials restored and Sustainable Circular Design the norm.”

At 23cm tall (about 9 inches tall), the lamp is as functional as it is sustainable, not to mention its distinctive texture, color, and smell—similar to that of an actual orange. It comes with a USB power cord, a touch dimmer switch, and an LED bulb. To learn more about Ohmie The Orange Lamp, visit Krill Design’s website. And if you want to get your hands on one of these for yourself, then head over to the Kickstarter page to pledge your support to the project. Just €72 (about $86) will get you an Ohmie of your own.