Creating children’s future Home & Earth with cardboard artisan DAMBO

DAMBO LLC has expanded our options for sustainable, safe, and recyclable toys for children. DAMBO offers a series of kid’s houses made from cardboard, where children can build and express their endless creativity through their favorite decorations!

Their product range includes My Base, a children’s house that can be placed in or outdoors. And while the design is cute by itself, it allows the children to imagine uses for it in the world they conjure up. Parents will also appreciate how the house can be disassembled and stored compactly!

DAMBO doesn’t only make toys. Their “5mins” furniture piques our interest, too. For example, their 5mins Bed can be assembled in 5 minutes. While the bed is recyclable and can be disassembled for storage, usage during disasters was the concept that inspired the design. The bed is sturdy and acts as a good insulator, and can be assembled in a short time. It reflects what DAMBO prioritizes and envisions as a responsibility as a producer.

DAMBO’s products come with an aspiring mission: protecting the Earth with the feelings of protecting someone. The company wants to build a system that connects as many people’s emotions as possible to create the future, and gifting things made of recyclable materials that make their loved ones smile is one such path.

You can find the collection of products on DAMBO’s website here. Mitsukoshi Isetan will also open for sales on their online shopping store from 12 October onwards.

Meaningful activities with DAMBO at Isetan Shinjuku

And here’s a chance to look at DAMBO’s products up close! DAMBO will hold a pop-up store named “HOME” at Isetan Shinjuku from 12 to 18 October. The workshops are highly recommended, as they will be fun and educational experiences for the children. Note that there will be two series of workshops.

The Standard Workshop, “HOME Photo Booth Decoration,” will be first-come-first-serve for the first 200 participants. Children will color cardboard plates, which will be used to decorate the photo booth where there is an image of Earth. The children will go home together with a polaroid taken to commemorate the experience.

There are seven sessions for the Weekend Workshop on 15th and 16th October. They will require a reservation and have a capacity of up to 6 participants per session. This workshop will feature DAMBO’s new Snow Leopard Stool, which can only be purchased at the store. Children will assemble and color the stool, which is a motif of the endangered snow leopard (currently only 3,300 living in the world.) Decorations will be provided to let children decorate the tail of the stool, but participants are welcome to bring their own decorations, like buttons from clothes no longer used.

Here are the details of the event for reference:

Period: 12 to 18 October 2022
Venue: Isetan Shinjuku, 6th Storey, Center Park

Standard Workshop: 12 to 18 October
Time: 10am to 7pm
Capacity: First come, first serve. Up to 200 participants
Participation fee: 501 yen

Weekend Workshop: 15 and 16 October, reservations only
Time: Each session is about 40 minutes long.
15 October – 11am / 1pm / 3pm / 4:30pm
16 October – 11am / 1pm / 3pm
Capacity: 6 participants per session
Participation fee: 7001 yen (includes the stool and decoration material)
Note: Wood glue will be used, so personal decorations will not be removable.
Reservation: Call 03-3352-1111, or reserve through Mitsukoshi Isetan Remote Shopping App (https://c.remote.mistore.jp/openroom/02-49fADhdIeccAaLVhfSTOJ) (both require Japanese)

Environmental benefits of cardboard

The environmental benefits of cardboard are numerous. One includes the enormous reduction of water usage. While recycling cardboard still requires water to make into pulp, the amount is still significantly less than creating virgin material, including growing and harvesting the trees. The absence of these processes also results in the reduction of carbon emissions, especially during transportation.

So, when cardboard material is circulated downstream, we can eliminate the processes involving growing, harvesting, and transporting the materials. These cut resource dependency, freshwater usage, carbon emissions, and pollution risks. Thus, recycling cardboard is often encouraged. In fact, DAMBO reminds us that cardboard has a high recycling rate of 95.5% in Japan.

The only slight inconvenience you may face in Japan is how to recycle cardboard materials properly. If your local municipality does not collect them from your doorstep, you may try using GOMI-MAP to locate the nearest collection point for used cardboard.

Cardboard has its uses in other areas too

Cardboard has also made its mark in Japan as a sustainable material in many other aspects. You may be interested in finding out how the cardboards were used to make the beds in preparations for the 2020 Olympic Games. Pet owners will be glad also to know that there are cardboard cat towers for all your cats’ scratching desires!