Circurlar by design.
The simplest path in manufacturing is to use virgin plastic. It's cheaper, faster, more predictable, and easier to source.
We don't take it, because choosing materials means choosing consequences and what something is made from is not separable from what it is.
Materials we work with
We work with materials that have already lived a life. Industrial waste diverted from landfills. Bottles that would otherwise be crushed and forgotten. Fishing nets at the end of their working life. Each material is chosen for performance, longevity, and consequence: what it does for the object, and what it doesn't do to the world.
That selection comes with friction. Reclaimed materials behave differently batch to batch. They demand precision, patience, and a willingness to fail before things work. We accept that, because the alternative is uniform predictability built on virgin extraction and we already have too much of that in the world.
Recycled fishing nets: our core material.
PA6 nylon from end-of-life fishing nets is the material we built Mocamar around. It's the one we use for our flagship pieces and the one we're most committed to. The nets come from Portuguese fisheries. Our partners sort and process the nets into pellets, then refine them into printable filament.
What makes PA6 worth the trouble: it can be recycled again without losing its mechanical properties, it's strong enough to last decades, and it diverts a real waste stream that would otherwise be burned or buried. Compared to virgin nylon, it requires substantially less energy and creates a much smaller CO₂ footprint, while keeping nets out of landfill instead of growing new resource demand.
PA6 isn't perfect. It's dense, harder to print, and lets less light through than other plastics. We work with those limitations rather than around them and where the design needs something PA6 can't give, we combine it with other reclaimed materials.
PETG and PLA from recycled industrial waste
Where PA6 doesn't fit – usually where we need something lighter, more translucent, or more elastic – we work with recycled PLA and PETG. Both come from industrial production waste or post consumer waste: offcuts and rejected parts from manufacturing facilities that would otherwise have been incinerated. The material is reground, remelted, and reformed into usable filament, with no virgin polymer added. These aren't compromise materials. They're a different kind of waste stream, kept in circulation instead of destroyed.
Material composition
Some products call for more than one material. The shade on our fishing-net lamps is made from recycled PLA, because PA6 alone wouldn't let enough light through. Where the design requires it, we also work with recycled glass, reclaimed wood, or recycled fabric. The logic is the same in every case: the material has to have lived before, and it has to be the right choice for what the object needs to do.
Material development.
We're currently working on processing post-consumer PET bottles directly into printable filament, in our own studio. The goal is to remove unnecessary intermediate steps and to better understand what it takes to give everyday waste a second life close to where it's generated. It isn't yet ready for production. When it is, you'll see it in the work.
Looking ahead, we aim to work with U.S. manufacturers to develop traceable recycled filaments, so so real waste materials become accessible to the wider 3D-printing community.
If you’re working with recycled materials or interested in developing traceable filaments with us, we’d love to exchange ideas.
How we make things.
3D printing
Every piece begins as additive manufacturing, printed layer by layer in our Fort Lauderdale studio, made to order. The process gives us freedom to develop forms that can't be cast or moulded, and to iterate without industrial tooling. Each piece is printed under careful control of temperature, speed, and cooling, because reclaimed material is unforgiving and small variables matter.
The result is not uniform perfection. It's subtle variation, traces of process rather than flaws to hide. The piece in your home will be itself, not the copy of an idealized prototype.
Injection molding
Alongside printing, injection molding plays a central role in how we think about material cycles. It lets us work directly with reclaimed fishing nets and other waste materials without converting them into filament first. By melting and forming material directly, injection molding removes an entire intermediate step, which means we can access a wider range of waste streams, reduce complexity, and keep material integrity intact.
Different process, same principle: nothing is treated as disposable, and no material is lost simply because it doesn't fit a single method.
Hand-finishing and assembly
After printing or moulding, every piece is finished and assembled by hand in the studio. Surfaces are smoothed, electrical components fitted, fixings checked. There is no production line. Sebastian works on every piece himself.
Our own waste
When we make mistakes - and we do - the material doesn't leave. Failed prints, support structures, test pieces. We shred them, melt them, and reform them. Through injection molding, our own waste becomes components for the next batch. Nothing is disposable here.
What we can't claim.
We are not carbon neutral. Shipping has a footprint. 3D printing uses energy. Electronics aren’t infinitely recyclable. We don’t offset these realities with claims. We focus on what we can control - material choice, cascade use, and keeping resources in circulation as long as possible. This isn’t a finished solution. It's a process we stay accountable to. We share this process openly: what works, what doesn’t, and what we’re still learning. If you want to follow along, leave your email below.
If you're working on this too.
We value exchange with people and brands who think along similar lines - manufacturers, makers, designers, and independent studios - to learn, test, and move things forward together. That can mean sharing materials, organizing beach cleanups, exchanging waste streams so each of us can turn what we have into something meaningful, or simply contributing knowledge and experience. For us, collaboration is about shared curiosity, mutual respect, and a willingness to change things step by step, together.