I'm going to write a blog about eco-friendly worktops one of these days - quite a few have been introduced recently - but in the meantime I wanted to tell you about GLASSeco. They're one of the most environmentally friendly worktops you could wish for. They're made predominantly from re-cycled wine and beer bottle pieces, set into solvent free resins.

The top above is A&E - created for the Adam & Eve restaurant. I love the big pieces of glass - but very big pieces are not really suitable for kitchen worktops, apparently. The glass colours are, of course, predominantly clear, green or brown and there are some very attractive tops using these colours (WBrS/W shown below):

Varying the colour of the resin can give you more adventurous colours ... and materials other than crushed bottles can be added - such as ... crushed tv screens - giving some interesting (and trendy) combinatons of grey ... or crushed shells (thrown out from sea food restaurants) ... or mirrors (old, re-cycled ones, of course). Can you see the little sparkly bits in the WM4/UW top below (your intrepid reporter spent ages taking the picture at different angles to get a bit of sparkle!):

You don't have to stick with the off-the-shelf colours available - you can design your own top using four basic resin colours, added colour pigments, and different sizes of glass pieces in eight different colours:

Green glass is, of course, eminently suitable for such green worktops. There's also blue glass, which looks as if it might be stunning but - because it's much rarer than green or brown or clear glass - it costs extra.

GLASSeco aren't standing still either, with their re-cycled glass - they're starting to use re-cycled granite off-cuts and they've introduced a new worktop made from recycled car windscreens - which shatter into quite large pieces. Looks stunning:

They're even thinking of using crushed Playstations!

I haven't personally seen any large worktops in GLASSeco materials (only samples) - but one of my clients has had a quote recently (GLASSeco are quite happy to deal with customers direct). It's not cheap - but it's not astronomically expensive either. They have building work to do before the kitchen is fitted - but I'd love to see it, eventually.

Here's one that GLASSeco did earlier (A Mr & Mrs P created this using clear glass, mixed with size 4 olive glass and sea-shells):

For more information or to get a quote (you'll need to send a plan) - take a look at GLASSeco's website.

STOP PRESS!
Nov 2010: Very sorry to hear that Glasseco went into administration in October. I thought they were doing well - with orders for the accommodation at the 2012 Olympics. The company is still trading, at the moment ... so maybe it can be rescued. It'll be a real shame if it can't. Administrators phone number is 0207 636 9094.