JOE BEDSIDE TABLE
matilde tacchini
Matilde Tacchini is an art director, illustrator and children’s author. After graduating in Art Direction at NABA in Milan, she devoted herself to advertising campaigns and, fifteen years later, she opened a creative studio in Piacenza, where she, in addition to graphic design, is dedicated to literature and illustration for the little ones, her true passion. She is convinced that, after all, creativity is one thing.
ONE THOUSAND AND ONE LIVES OF JOE
BEDSIDE TABLE
matilde tacchini
Dear Readers, I’m Joe, bedside table Joe. And I’m here to tell you my incredible story.
What story can a bedside table have you ask yourself?
Well, if you asked yourself this question, you made a big mistake!
You must know that I have not always been a bedside table. Before living this life, I lived many others, one more adventurous than the other. I’ve changed shape, colour and home. I’ve done so many things, and been used in so many different ways.
When I was no longer needed, my owners didn’t destroy me: they took me to a place, to a factory, where they transformed me into something that was useful again.
Are you ready to discover my story?
CHAPTER 1
A brave drawer
In my first life as a piece of furniture I was a drawer. It all started when they cut down a tree in a forest and a carpenter turned the log into a drawer. A very elegant drawer, to be precise. And I went to live in an equally elegant house, with an equally elegant lady.
She used my drawers, finely carved and decorated, to keep her precious things. Among my drawers, there was a very small one, with a lock, where she kept her precious jewels safe.
I enjoyed living in that house, she dusted and cleaned me and I really liked it, as all other wood objects did.
But one night, while the landlady was out, I heard some creepy noises. I woke up with a jump and saw a gang of thieves turning the whole room upside down. The thieves were just like the ones you see in the movies: dressed in black and their faces covered by balaclavas.
After searching the room, unfortunately they attacked me: back and forth, trying every way to open my locked drawer. I was very scared but I would not allow it! I held on as hard as I could, that little drawer needed to be kept shut. And I actually gave them a hard time: Do you know how much wood splinters hurt in your fingers?
Luckily for me, just when the thieves had the upper hand on me, and I had almost no energy left to resist, someone came and turned on all the lights in the house, and the thieves ran away.
I was lucky, the thieves hadn’t stolen anything I guarded. But unfortunately they had damaged me so much I could not be repaired.
CHAPTER 2
Joe, the pastry chef’s assistant
After the bad adventure with thieves, I thought I’d become wood for the fire. The idea terrified me, but I feared I had no other choice. They couldn’t fix me, I had become a useless drawer.
But I was lucky. Instead of ending up in a fire, they took me to a place where battered wood like me is disassembled, cleaned, chopped and … regenerated! Yes, regenerated: from a completely broken drawer, they took me to a factory where they gave me a new life. I became a chipboard panel, a panel of recycled wood from which new furnishings can be created. And in fact, that panel was bought by a craftsman, the craftsman made me into a beautiful cupboard, and I ended up in a pastry chef’s shop.
I was very fond of this pastry chef, but every now and then he was a bit confused. Maybe he had too many things on his mind, or maybe he didn’t see very well and didn’t want to put on his glasses but every other day the chef used salt instead of sugar.
So cakes on SUGAR days were delicious, best thing ever tasted, and on SALT days they were terrible.
I tried to help him, and when I saw that he was about to take the salt by mistake, I slammed my doors hard. Slam! I was hoping that he would notice the mistake. Instead it was just a big scare, and then he continued with the salt, as if nothing had happened.
Mistake after mistake, there were fewer and fewer customers in the pastry shop (it was to be expected, because he sold sweet … savory!) and I Slam! Slam!, I slammed my doors more and more, to call attention of my friend!
I thought I was doing well. But as he continued hearing doors slamming, the pastry chef convinced himself that there were ghosts in his shop, and closed the shop.
CHAPTER 3
Joe gets educated
Unfortunately for me, no one wanted to keep a cupboard that came from a haunted place. Everyone looked at me with a fear, and at the end I was abandoned in landfill. I was useless again, or so it seemed.
But I’m a lucky bedside table! From landfill they took me back to that magical place where they regenerate the wood.
And again they washed me, chopped me up, they mixed me with glue and turned me into a wonderful bookcase.
Not a standard bookcase, I was a writer’s bookcase!
Although I must say that he was not exactly a successful writer. He had sent thousands of manuscripts to many publishers, but few of his books had been published.
Among his most important titles we can find:
• THE STAIRWAY-BEECH
(the story of a beetle who decides to climb Mount Everest).
• FUR BALLS
(the adventures of a cat during the First World War).
• DO, DO, AND AGAIN DO
(the story of a very poor pianist, whose piano has only o ne working button. The Do, like maybe you already understand).
Needless to say, his books didn’t sell well, and the writer made a living writing fortune messages to put in cookies.
I was full of ideas and suggestions for my writer friend. But I didn’t want things to go wrong, like they did at the pastry shop. So I decided to mind my own business, and act like a normal bookcase.
In the writer’s studio, I made a little friend, a mouse. He was a real bookworm, he had glasses, and he taught me to read. Those were very happy times, I read all the books that were on my shelves and the time passed fast and serene.
I would have lived like this forever, but one day the writer suddenly received a call that changed his life (and mine too).
It was his publisher: “THE STAIRWAY-BEECH“ had unexpected success and had become a best seller in Nepal. Now everyone wanted to meet my writer friend, he was invited to many events. And he left immediately.
CHAPTER 4
A life on vacation
When the writer left, I left too, in a way. Apparently I was no longer needed as a library, but they didn’t destroy me: I was cleaned up again, chopped up, scrambled and regenerated. Every time I left the factory I felt like new, it was a wonderful feeling. So, I became the wall of a bungalow on a campsite.
In the campsite I spent beautiful summers in the company of people who came from all over the world: they spoke English, German, Dutch and French. I became a polyglot little house and learned to play Briscola, Monopoly and Scrabble.
In the summer I had a lot of fun, the only problem were the mosquitoes: the tourists beat them with the slippers on the walls, that is, on me!
In the winter I felt very lonely. There was no one at the camp site apart from the caretaker, a loner who didn’t keep me much company. Every now and then I exchanged a word with the house next door, but she complained all the time. Before being a small house she had been a kitchen in a large villa, and she was not at all happy with her new home.
So when I found out that I was going to become something else again, because the campsite owner had decided to build a swimming pool in place of my bungalow, I wasn’t worried.
CHAPTER 5
The big journey
Unfortunately for me, I should have worried! I was regenerated again, but this time a great and dangerous journey awaited me. From a camping house I became a packing box. They filled me with microwave ovens, and shipped me.
In reality, the journey was supposed to be short: they embarked me in Genoa on a ship bound for the port of Civitavecchia, where they were supposed to load me onto a truck bound for Rome.
Something went wrong, in Civitavecchia they didn’t unload me and I ended up in another city, still called Rome, but not in Italy, in Australia! The journey was long, and I was seasick. After all, I was made of the wood of a mountain tree …
But in Australia they didn’t need a packing box full of microwave ovens. From Rome (the Australian one) I was sent to Sydney, the most famous city in Australia, with precise instructions to send me immediately to Italy. But, apparently, there are quite a few cities with the same name in the world.
During the trip I discovered talking to my neighbor, a packing crate named Rosy, that we were going to a city called Sydney, which was not in Australia, but in Canada!
Rosy was a great talker, and she told me that this was certainly her last trip, because once used, packing boxes are disposed off. They are never reused,
they are sent to the burning plant and their life cycle ends forever. I was terrified. Luckily someone noticed the mistake, and they sent us back to Italy, where they regenerated us once again.
CHAPTER 6
Here I am!
After our long oversea trip, Rosy and I were again transformed. Rosy is now a nice table, on which our new owners place wonderful vases of flowers, and she is right next to me.
Every day I say “hello” to her from the window, she smiles at me and gives me an update on the new flowers that have blossomed. On the other hand, I am a bedside table, but you already know that. A beautiful bedside table that lives in Leo’s bedroom, a ten year old boy.
I must say that Leo is quite messy, so I’m usually completely covered in comics, games and dirty socks. But to be back at home, after a long time on the road, makes me so happy. And Leo, apart from the dirty socks he throws at me, is a lovely child.
I can say it loud:
I AM A VERY LUCKY BEDSIDE TABLE.
CHAPTER 7
Saib and the secret of wood regeneration
Frankly speaking, I’m not only lucky. There is a magical place where I, and many other pieces of furniture like me, now considered useless and to be thrown away, can instead find new paths and start new lives. A place called SAIB.
Thanks to this company I have been able to live so many adventures. You should know that 150 trucks loaded with recycled wood arrive at SAIB every day. They come from all over Italy and Europe: chests of drawers, cupboards, desks, windows, packing crates, but also shelves, wardrobes, fruit crates, kitchens, bedside tables, chairs, construction site planks, pallets ... All that man has made with wood and is no longer needed, is taken to SAIB. And everything is regenerated.
The process is organized in every detail: the wood is shredded and cleaned of all other materials (for example screws, nails, handles, glass or pieces of plastic). Then it is carefully dried, worked with special glues and pressed until it becomes a chipboard panel. You’ve seen it in my story: with these panels you can re-create desks, shelves, wardrobes, cupboards, kitchens, bedside tables … in short, everything. What seemed old, useless, to be discarded, comes back to life.
REUSE, REDUCE, RECYCLE!
CHAPTER 8
The good of the planet
This is my story. It is the story of a piece of wood which, instead of being burned after served only once, has been used several times, in many different forms. It’s the story of a piece of wood, but it’s important to all of us. Recovering the raw materials already used is really important. Using raw materials at the end of their life, such as wood from an old piece of furniture, extends the life of those raw materials, and avoids using new ones.
Instead of cutting new trees, SAIB has chosen to regenerate waste wood to produce its panels. In this way you can build new furniture with recycled wood, avoiding cutting trees that are precious to our planet.
Look at me!
I was first a wardrobe, then a cupboard, a bookcase, a piece of bungalow, a packing box … and finally your Joe bedside table!
Before saying goodbye to you, I have one last thing to tell you. I hope you remember my story in your everyday life. When we stop using an object, let’s always try to make sure that it can be recycled and reused, and not simply destroyed.
It is very important to reuse waste, to give new life to what seems no longer needed ... I’m not just talking about wood, but also plastic, glass, paper ...
Do you know that with used plastic bottles you can make anoraks?
While from the old newspaper, or with paper that wraps a package, sheets of paper can be obtained to print a book on.
And with aluminum hinges from windows and furniture may cans be created? Exactly, some cans, those that contain your favorite drinks.
Don’t you believe it? And yet it is precisely the paper that we used to publish this book, in which I told you my story.
One day even this booklet could become a notebook or the paper of a newspaper … but please, don’t throw it away. Keep it on your bedside table. I’m sure he’ll be happy to be near you. And I’m sure your bedside table has a beautiful story to tell you!
Behind the scenes
Half a million tons of waste wood reused in a year, thanks to which it was possible to save an average of 600 trees per day from being cutted: without the recovery and regeneration activity carried out by SAIB in its plant at Caorso, in the province of Piacenza, this enormous quantity of wood would be directed to fill landfills or to be burned, depriving our planet of a resource which instead still has huge possibilities of use.
In the SAIB plants, the recycled wood is first checked, cleaned of impurities and reduced to chips. The shavings are then dried, screened and cleaned, then mixed with resins and hot pressed to create raw panels. The raw panels are then sanded and finally
SAIB was born in Italy more than 60 years from a dream of a woman who decided to produce particle boards using the roots of the poplars, so common in that area. Now it belongs to the big Egger family.
SAIB’s experience shows how sustainability is a challenge that generates opportunities, as well as value for the environment and people.
Founded in 1962, for over twenty-five years SAIB has transformed its business model from linear to circular, developing the ability to replace virgin wood with post-consumer wood waste.
SAIB has always been close to the the local community. Over the years it has established important links with local no profit groups, supporting multiple projects and trying to keep unchanged and constant its commitment to social and other initiatives on sustainability issues, starting with the youngest and schools.
The book “One thousand and one lives of Joe Bedside Table” was born from an idea of Matilde Tacchini and Clara Conti / SAIB
SAIB was happy to support the editorial initiative to contribute to the diffusion of the sustainability culture among children.
The story, drawings and graphic design are by Matilde Tacchini
The typeface used is Easy Reading, designed to help decipher words written in a fluid and immediate way even for dyslexic guys.
Thank you
to all the people who, when they have an object that is no longer needed, bring it in recycling centers so that it is recycled and brought back to life,
to Rilegno the Italian consortium that coordinates on the national territory the picking up of wooden packaging giving a fundamental contribution to the environment, saving thousands of trees from cutting each year,
to the people who contributed to this book: Leo Goretti for text editing and ADP Comunicazione_Francesca De Ponti and Monica Racic for editorial coordination support. ®
Subject to technical modifications and printing errors. EN_05/2023 © 2023 SAIB
What if your bedside table hasn’t always been a bedside table?
What if, before arriving in your bedroom, it has been a chest of drawers or a cupboard? Who knows how many adventures it would have to tell us!
Joe is ready to accompany us on an amazing journey, where we will find out that the story of a bedside table can be colorful … … AND BENEFIT OUR PLANET.
© 2023 SAIB