Proud Plastics is a project of MAX strategy by design in the Netherlands. The project is aiming at enriching the aesthetic quality of plastics in order to contribute to product life span extension. The project was an initiative the Eternally Yours Foundation. For 10 years, Eternally Yours gathered and disseminated knowledge about ways to extend cultural life time extension of products. As of January 2005 the foundation no longer exist. Proud Plastics is continued by Liesbeth Bonekamp, former chairman of Eternally Yours and partner in MAX.

Proud Plastics
Unlike traditional materials like wood, steel and stone, plastics are not perceived as a clear category with predictable properties, but rather as the fuzzy products of New Alchemy, where anything can happen. Consumer experience is characterized by an ambiguous attitude towards plastics. On the one hand the New Alchemy represents amazing and promising new achievements that shape our future. On the other hand Alchemy metaphorically expresses the dark and frightening side of new developments. Designers such as Hella Jongerius and Marcel Wanders have demonstrated that plastics can be treated in an artisan way, like copper or wood. They provided us with new esthetical dimensions of plastics. Applied in unconventional ways they have the potential to contribute to product longevity by showing less vulnerability.

Rotation moulding experiments
Proud Plastics initiated an experiment with rotation moulded material. Several types of particles were applied to the basic material in the mould. Not all tests were successful. The best results are shown in this database. The recipe of these results will not be revealed. Aim of Proud Plastics is to stimulate designers to go into the kitchen of plastic production for not only designing the product but also the material it is made of. Proud Plastics / MAX is setting up new experiments fitting within the inherited principles of the Eternally Yours Foundation.