Tokyo Design Week: Qwerty River is a collection of objects made from reclaimed keyboard keys. The key rings, hair ties and mobile phone straps by Finnish design collective SECCO were shown at Design Tide in Tokyo earlier this month.

Secco is a professional network of designers, producers, material collectors and recyclers, with the common aim of reusing the discarded products of technology to make sustainable and lasting objects. Top, above and below: Qwerty hairband and keyrings by Taru Norber

The project is part of Secco's Treasures of Wasteland series, which finds new uses for discarded items such as car tyre inner tubes, washing machine drums, LP records and electronic components. The new ideas are inspired by the qualities of the used materials.The project is part of Secco's Treasures of Wasteland series, which finds new uses for discarded items such as car tyre inner tubes, washing machine drums, LP records and electronic components. The new ideas are inspired by the qualities of the used materials.

Here's some text from the designers:

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Secco was born in the Electronic Waste Age in Wasteland, in a small village in a valley between the Rubber Hills. On the horizon you can just make out the giant Computer Mountains where the river of Qwerty springs. At the edge of the forest that surrounds the village you can find the LP-Towers reaching towards the white clouds. From the top of the towers you have a breathtaking view across Wasteland.

On an adventurous journey Secco meets the Collector, Producer and Inventor tribes. Secco's mission is to bring those tribes together and, with their help, transform used materials into funky design products and discover treasures that no one has ever seen before.

Our raw materials are aquired from various waste collection and recycling companies. Many of these are social enterprises, who strive to employ the long-term unemployed, people with disabilities or immigrants. They also participate in our product development and further processing of the material. Every stage of the production is carried out in the most sustainable way possible from an ecological and quality point of view. Our products are mostly handmade.

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Above: Qwerty notebook by Sasha Huber.

Posted by Rose Etherington