16/07/2026
Can colour be sustainable?
Colour is often the overlooked part of material innovation. While developing bio-based materials, we realised that sustainability needs to go beyond the material itself - it also includes the way we colour and finish its surface.
This question became the starting point for a collaboration between Crafting Plastics and the PhD research of Mgr. art. Soňa Otiepková, with expert consultation from Ing. Lukáš Gál, PhD. from the Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava.
This resulted in an alternative approach: a bio-based coating system using a transparent plant-derived resin made from epoxidised soybean oil combined with carefully selected mineral pigments.
The goal was to create a surface treatment that respects the character of biomaterials while adding colour and protection - without relying on conventional synthetic coating systems that can limit their circular potential.
