The organiser of Autumn Fair International, Emap Connect, has announced that Dutch home and giftware supplier Handed By will join the 2011 show, which runs from September 4 – 7 at The NEC Birmingham.
Handed By strives to manufacture from recycled materials, with an eye for design. All products carry the unique Handed By trademark stamp in the shape of a handprint. Customers are assured any product bearing this handprint has been produced in an ethical way and is guaranteed not to have been made using child labour.
The privately owned company is based in a large office/warehouse which incorporates a design studio and a showroom in IJsselstein (near Utrecht) in Holland and also has an office in Bangkok, Thailand. From these two locations Handed By supplies a large number of retail outlets in more than 20 countries, from exclusive children’s and gift shops to national homeware chains and garden centres, located from Amsterdam to São Paulo and from Stockholm to Milan.
The Handed By philosophy is that recycling ought to be second nature, stating that: “Hardly anything is thrown away. We seek our inspiration from waste and left-over materials such as used aluminium foil, old newspapers and recycled plastic. Using a mixture of newspaper and rice flour paste it is possible to make fabulous papier-maché models. We also re-use as much recycled packaging waste as we can to produce the plastic strips that we use to weave our baskets. The idea of using these plastic strips came from the packing straps that are used to close boxes. Packing straps are not only water-resistant and flexible, but they can be produced from waste plastic in a wide variety of shades and tints”.
For example, the plastic that is used to make the Fatstrap range (the thickest grade of packing strap) is 70 per cent recycled. At the moment, 70 per cent forms the highest percentage of recycled plastic that can be used whilst still maintaining the required levels of quality. Handed By also takes a variety of steps to ensure that its environmental footprint is as small as possible. One example of this is that the supplier does not use any fillers or unnecessary plastic wrapping or packing and transporting our products in special cardboard that is fully recyclable.
Basketry forms a mainstay of the Handed by product collection. As well as manufacturing a great many products apart from bags and baskets, basketry using recycled plastic remains Handed By’s principal passion, and it is the largest specialist in basketry products in the whole of Europe. Handed By continues to maintain its leadership position as a producer of unlikely combinations (such as plastic and banana leaf) and innovations such as a type of plastic that is 100% resistant to the effects of the sun. Around 50 different designs are available in over 30 colours and a variety of sizes. An original Handed By storage basket can be recognised by the metal button with the handprint logo. Increasing numbers of stores are presenting our baskets in the form of a ‘shop within a shop’ containing a representative selection from our range. Colourful displays of that type only serve to underline the versatility of our products when used as a storage solution.
