A seat made entirely from recycled plastic—offering a tangible example of circular innovation applied to transport design. This is the project Lazzerini is presenting at “The New State of Materials”, the exhibition-event curated by Materially on the occasion of Milano Design Week 2026, the world’s leading design and furniture event.
The Re-Compact seat is the result of a collaboration with NEXTCHEM and represents a virtuous industrial model capable of transforming post-consumer plastic into a high-performance product, designed to last and to re-enter the production cycle.
Thanks to NEXTCHEM’s proprietary NX Replast™ technology—applied at the Bedizzole plant of its subsidiary MyReplast Industries—post-consumer plastics undergo advanced chemical treatments. The material is purified and regenerated, becoming once again a high-quality raw material through an innovative mechanical upcycling process that overcomes the limits of traditional recycling. The result is a technical compound: a polymer with performance comparable to virgin materials, developed to ensure strength, durability, and aesthetic quality.
With Lazzerini, the compound leaves its elemental form and becomes a seat through a design process that integrates engineering, ergonomics, and safety—key requirements in the public transport sector. The outcome is a product that combines functionality, robustness, and design, made entirely from recycled plastic and conceived to last over time and re-enter the production cycle, within a potentially multi-cycle reuse system.
In addition, Lazzerini seats are treated with PURETI photocatalytic technology. Activated simply by light, the treated surfaces eliminate smog, viruses, bacteria, and pollutants, becoming self-cleaning and contributing to improved air quality.
“The New State of Materials” installation visually narrates this process through a series of plexiglass cubes containing the granules produced using NEXTCHEM’s NX Replast™ technology, placed alongside the Lazzerini seat that represents their concrete application. A dialogue between material and design that makes transformation tangible and shows how sustainability can become an experience.
«Milano Design Week is where design meets people and generates new awareness», says Innocenzo Carbone, CEO of Lazzerini. «Bringing our Re-Compact seat here means showing how circularity can become form, function, and a design culture. This is not just about technological innovation, but about a shift in perspective: rethinking materials to rethink the future of transport and public spaces».
Lazzerini
Founded in 1967, Lazzerini has transformed its passion for design and functionality into a universal language, spoken wherever comfort in motion is required.
With an international vocation and a pioneering spirit, Lazzerini does more than manufacture seats: it creates travel experiences, anticipates needs, and inspires trust. Today, it is a global benchmark for excellence in seating systems for public and private transport. Because wherever something moves, there is room for Lazzerini elegance.
For more information: https://lazzerini.it/en
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