A LUXURY department store and a local upcycling company have teamed up to show how everyday plastic waste can be re-formed to make an imaginative impact in the retail industry.

The Protomax Plastics production company Storm Board in Frome has provided Harvey Nichols’ flagship store in Knightsbridge, London with boards made from waste plastic items, including bottle tops and coat hangers, and these have been turned into window displays to showcase the store’s fashion and beauty products.

Storm Boards are a hardwearing and weather-proof material, which Protomax founder Nick Stillwell says are becoming widely recognised as alternatives to MDF, chipboard or plywood.

Nick said: “We were approached by Harvey Nichols to provide them with samples incorporating eye-catching splashes of colour after they heard about us at our display at the International Eco Mondo Exhibition in Italy last year. They subsequently ordered several boards which their design team have turned into imaginative window displays which are on show for the next week or so.

“Our boards are already used for hoardings in the construction industry and to see them now being applied by such a high-end retailer is a real boost and shows the versatility of Storm Board.”

Storm Board has doubled the size of its workforce at its Frome factory to ten and has already had success in the retail sector with Marks & Spencer, Asda and Sainsbury’s using them for sales desks, tables and bin minders. It is also being used by Downside Nurseries at Westwood, near Bradford on Avon for outdoor planters.

Protomax is also making inroads into the housing market. It has made e-shelters, simple to construct temporary homes for use in disaster-struck areas, and these have been on display in Italy at Milan Design Week and also at Milan’s Science Museum.