Like a good piece of furniture, a kitchen can last for years, but good design is essential to its longevity. But Colin Kippax says when people buy an existing house, the kitchen is usually the first thing they want to change, and a lot of people want to rip out a reasonably good kitchen. “Sometimes it’s about functionality, but most of the time it’s just personal taste,” he says.
Kippax is head designer at A La Carte Design, Australian distributor of the German kitchen brand PoggenPohl. In Germany, where many people lease their home, sustainable kitchens are the norm. And while Australian kitchens typically use a lattice plinth base, the cupboards in German kitchens are typically on legs and the kickboards are removable, which makes recycling easy.
PoggenPohl devised a modular approach, so a kitchen could be easily reconfigured, cupboards added and finishes changed. A standard dimensioning system simplifies planning and allows the easy ‘rebadging’ of a kitchen.
“PoggenPohl in Germany keeps a record for each kitchen — what the drillings for the hinges [are], the drawer runners and [what] the handles were, so it’s easy for us to go through and replace all the doors and drawer fronts in the kitchen because they’re standard sizes,” Kippax says. “When you’ve got a non-modular kitchen, it’s not easy to take the old doors off and put new doors on. It’s usually cheaper and easier to just put a new kitchen in.”
Kippax says that a little more thought and energy at the beginning can make a big difference to kitchen sustainability, but common practices in Australia, such as gluing benchtops onto cabinets, can impede recycling. “There’s so much damage to the cupboards if you pull a kitchen apart that it’s next to useless, so we’re looking at everything being screwed together. If there’s a need to seal something, you can use a silicon that can be removed and the joints opened up later.”
There are currently no environmental standards specifically for kitchens in Australia, but ISO 14001 is a globally recognised standard for sustainable products. CaesarStone benchtops comply with this standard. Its global collection program uses reclaimed offcuts and recycled stone constitutes up to 42 per cent of the finished material, which is made of quartz, pigments and polymers. CaesarStone’s new Mosaici designs offer 32 colours and patterns, which can compliment other colours and materials, including stainless steel, glass and timber.
Sustainably managed forest certification programs such as Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Australian Forestry Standard (AFS) are a way for the large board producers to convey an eco-friendly message. The Laminex Group’s new range of 12 FSC-certified timber veneer panels can be used for a variety of detailed interior joinery. As part of its Greenfirst initiative, the new panels contribute to sustainable timber credits in the Green Star rating tool from the Green Building Council of Australia. The Greenfirst range of products has also been independently certified by Good Environmental Choice Australia (GECA).
Greenfirst product manager, Jared Dinneen, says Laminex’s timber composite panels are made from woodchip and sawdust, which are by-products of other manufacturing processes. “The Laminex Group has also established a wood waste recycling programme in Western Australia, where timber waste is collected from the metropolitan Perth area and is then used as raw materials in the manufacture of particleboard. This diverts waste from landfill and turns it into a resource,” Dinneen says.
Robin Curtis, general manager of Xanita, says most Australian kitchens are constructed from particle board or medium density fibre board (MDF), which has attracted controversy due to its use of formaldehyde resins. Xanita offers X-Board Plus (XB+) as an alternative to MDF and particle board in kitchen cabinets and benchtops. “XB+ uses post-consumer paper waste. It reduces weight by 45 per cent when compared to 18 mm particle board and can be manufactured formaldehyde-free and VOC-free on request,” Curtis says.
Toxicity and outgassing have also been a concern with some materials. “PVC-based products seem to be the major product range that is being impacted by the growing trend of sustainability criteria becoming a mainstream focus. Also, any products with high levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are obviously losing appeal,” Dinneen says.
Ease of maintenance and repair is another aspect of sustainability. Akril is a GECA-certified product and is said to be a repairable surface, offering the ability to polish out scratches. An engineered polymer that offers an alternative to glass and tiles for cupboards and splashbacks, Akril is only recommended for vertical surfaces.
Kippax says a good quality laminate is probably the most practical kitchen material there is. “For cupboards, we do a lot of laminates. We’ve got some grained laminates that are almost impossible to tell from a veneer. And they’re going to last longer than a veneer,” he says.
“Laminates are made up of layers of paper stuck together with a resin. If it’s sustainably derived resin, then it’s not a problem. Veneers are made of timber cut up in slices, so the source products are the same: the difference is that because the layers of paper in laminates are bonded to the resin, it’s got a much tougher finish on it.”
Kippax says laminates have an edge over veneers in terms of durability and maintaining their appearance. “High quality, high pressure laminates are not going to change colour. There’s a bit more chemical waste that goes into making a laminate, but if the companies have good waste management policies in place, that’s not an issue.”
For materials, Kippax predicts we will use more paper-based products and recycled plastics. For example, A La Carte uses a type of board that is 25 mm thick, but weighs less than a typical 19 mm board, because it has a recycled paper ‘honeycomb’ core with 6 mm of plantation timber on either side. “Because of the paper honeycomb, we get the strength of a conventional board, but less timber goes into making it and the cavity makes it easy to run electrical wiring through it,” he says.
A La Carte uses acrylic bench tops like Corian because it is an easy material to modify, recycle and repair. It is also doing more work with glass benchtops as glass is recyclable. “People want low maintenance materials, so satin or matte finishes are popular, with silky textures so that the glass doesn’t show fingerprints or marks,” he says. For cupboards, A La Carte uses solid acrylic doors that can be crushed up and made into new doors, as well as glass finished doors with toughened 8 mm glass on a metal frame.
Kippax believes sustainable kitchens will become mainstream, and most kitchens will eventually be modular in design, because for big and small companies alike, it makes design and manufacturing easier if there are standard dimensioning and manufacturing practices. “The big change will be kitchens will be designed and installed to be eventually be de-installed. There’s no point in someone designing and building a recyclable kitchen if the guy on-site gets half a box of liquid nails and sticks it all together,” he says.
“Being eco-friendly and sustainable doesn’t mean poor quality. In fact, it generally means the reverse: that a lot more thought and effort has gone into designing the product in the first place.”
