Alexandre Echasseriau

Since 2019, Ndao Hanavao has been collaborating with French designer Alexandre Echasseriau around the collection and transformation of plastic waste from the city of Antananarivo. Inspired by craftsmanship and minimalist forms, the designer gives new life to recycled plastic, transforming it into functional, concrete creations that can be mass-produced and adapted to local needs, resources and economy.

Working with the teams and apprentices at Ndao Hanavao, Alexandre Echasseriau identifies the most common plastics that are absent from local recycling networks and devises several techniques and machines adapted to local constraints in order to mass-produce useful objects and innovative materials.

To date, the designer has implemented 3 processes at the Ndao Hanavao laboratory:

– Injection: the injection machine designed by the designer transforms plastic waste into materials that can be mass-produced in the form of bricks, slabs, etc. ;

– Thermo-compression: Alexandre Echasseriau has created a mobile, compact and robust press that transforms crushed or cut-up plastic waste into everyday objects using aluminium moulds;

– Rotational moulding: this technique involves rotating a mould filled with plastic shavings to produce large objects.