Electronic devices and gadgets have become an integral part of our lives in the past decades or so. But they’re not the most earth-friendly and actually contribute a lot to global waste when they near their life cycle and cannot always be recycled. Eco-friendly designers are always looking for ways to create devices using sustainable materials while not sacrificing quality. A lot of them remain product concepts but hopefully, we get to see them become actual devices soon.

Designer: Aakansh Chaturvedi

Bambass is a concept for an open-back headphone that uses traditional bamboo weaving as a major component of its sustainable material. It is made up mostly of thin coiled bamboo stripes which are not just sustainable but also bring you a more insulated sound. You get a stainless steel strip to help support the headband that is made mostly from stacked stripes of bamboo. The joint for the earcups has a screw mechanism that allows you to adjust the cups to your comfort. Lastly, you get a single layer coating of melamine to preserve the life cycle of the bamboo material.

Aside from being a pair of headphones, Bambass also brings a cultural aspect to it by utilizing the art of bamboo weaving. They also utilized vegan leather for the covering so there can be different color options while still maintaining the sustainability part by lessening the carbon footprint needed to produce such a device. Since this is still a concept with product renders, we don’t know yet the quality of sound for headphones that will be using these materials.

It does look pretty good in terms of design as the use of bamboo and vegan leather with a little bit of stainless steel gives you a unique-looking pair of open-back headphones. Adding bamboo weaving for insulation is both eco-friendly and may actually sound better than the current devices in the market. Hopefully, this will just be the first design as the plan is to create more electronic products using sustainable materials so we as consumers will not contribute any more e-waste.