Smile Plastics is one of the biggest and most respected manufacturing brands in the world of circular design. Its ‘micro-factory’ in Wales is a demonstration of the viability of their no-waste local-manufacturing model, focused on recycling and recyclability of plastics, driven by a high-end design aesthetic.

Today, Smile Plastics 100% recycled and 100% recyclable products are in demand by architects and designers for high-profile projects worldwide, and the company’s achievements in sustainability have recently been recognised with over £980K in equity funding to grow the business further. The majority of this has come from the Green Angel Syndicate’s Climate Change Funds, BBI Fund and its own angel syndicate, as well as the Angel Cofund.

Smile Plastics is now preparing to relocate its manufacturing base to a much larger facility in Swansea, ratchet up production capacity by a factor of three, and double the size of its team – big news for the global circular-design movement, and for the local economy.

Smile Plastics co-founder and directors Rosalie McMillan and Adam Fairweather. Image courtesy of Smile Plastics.
The ‘recycled’ business
Smile Plastics was first established in the early 1990s – a time when recycling plastic was a niche interest and climate crisis a much lower-tier global concern than today. Launched by Colin Williamson and Jane Atfield, the business was a small operation, focused on making 100% recycled plastic panels for the design industry.

For two decades, Smile Plastics led the way in the drive to reclaim and recycle plastic waste while demonstrating the incredible design potential of recycled plastic – perhaps most notably when Jane Atfield’s RCP2 Chair, made entirely of recycled plastic bottles, was added to the V&A’s permanent collection. The business wound down when Colin Williamson retired in 2010, and would have been consigned to history were it not for circular-material specialist Adam Fairweather (who had met Colin while at university and collaborated with him on a coffee-waste bioplastics project), and psychology student-turned-jewellery designer Rosalie McMillan.

Smile Plastics co-founder and directors Rosalie McMillan and Adam Fairweather. Image courtesy of Smile Plastics.
In 2014, a time when the necessity of environmental preservation and the threat of climate change were becoming increasingly urgent, Rosalie and Adam saw that Smile Plastics had the potential to fulfil a growing need for sustainable designable material solutions for the creative sector, and approached Colin with a proposal to revive the dormant business. He gave them his blessing, and they set about reimagining the business for the modern age.

Having developed new processing techniques and low-energy manufacturing technology that allowed them to produce recycled-plastic panels via a continuous batch process, Adam and Rosalie unveiled the resurgent Smile Plastics’s product range at London Design Festival in 2015.

In the seven years since, Smile Plastics has expanded, developing a committed international customer base, alongside ever more advanced production methods and technology, and an always-growing range of products, in all sizes – as well as a popular custom manufacture service. Its sophisticated purpose-built machines have all been named ‘Colin’, in tribute to the original founders.

The company’s distinctive, terrazzo-like surfaces have become regular sights at major global design events, thanks to an ongoing programme of collaborations with designers and creative studios, and in high-profile commercial, retail and hospitality spaces worldwide.