Ikea Goes Green, Creates Cardboard Digital Camera

Ikea will soon be giving away a cardboard digital camera in selected stores. The camera, which is 100 percent recyclable, can hold 40 pictures, and is meant to help customers share photos of the Swedish chain’s furniture in their homes.

Called Knappa, the camera debuted in the press packed at a recent press event in Milan, Italy. It is considered by many tech websites as the most recent development in Ikea’s move towards selling electronics. The company recently announced that it will soon begin selling a home theatre entertainment line.

Knappa’s maker, Jesper Kouthoofd, is a Swedish designer with the company, and a company spokesperson told BBC that the camera is not “a move into selling any digital equipment.”

At the conference, Salon de Mobile, Ikea announced that the camera will accompany a new, more retrospective furniture line, and that they hope people will use the cameras to document the new furniture line in their homes.

The new line will focus on reinventing vintage pieces from IKEA’s line, including a 1950’s teak table, which designer Jon Karlsson has re-made with bamboo, a sturdier, lighter, and faster-growing wood. Each piece focuses on being “sustainable” and more environmentally friendly, a trend that many companies are beginning to follow.

Henrik Preutz is another designer, who created a series of end tables, which also feature bamboo structures. A bowl designed by Marcus Arvonen focuses on sustainability with its materials. The bowl will come in either PET recycled plastic or WPC, which is a special combination of wood, plastic, and fiber.

The move towards going green and sustainability is the second the company has publicly released, with the last being the introduction of solar panels to a California store. Other companies who have “gone green” are Asus, who created a computer of bamboo and recyclable plastic parts, and Samsung, who developed the Samsung Blue Earth, a smartphone made of plastic bottles, and features a solar panel on the back for charging.

Check out the video below, where designer IKEA Jesper Kouthoofd talks about Knappa:

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