A recyclable umbrella entirely made of PP

According to recent estimates, every year about one billion old umbrellas is thrown away. These objects are difficult to dispose of as they are composed of different materials that should be separated from each other. For example, considering that a single umbrella contains an average of 240 g of iron it would be possible to recycle each year 240 thousand tons of metal, i.e. more or less the weight of the Eiffel Tower.
In order to solve this problem, three young Italian entrepreneurs - Federico Venturi, a designer, Gianluca Savalli, a mechanical engineer, and Marco Righi, a business administration engineer – have developed the Ginko umbrella made up of only 25 parts (as against about 120 of a traditional umbrella) entirely of polypropylene and therefore wholly reusable and recyclable. The design of this umbrella is sober and straightforward, but it can be customised according to the consumers' tastes, with cloth, stretchers, ribs and handle than can be coloured freely. The umbrella is light and flexible but tough, and is not conceived as a "throw away" product, but as an object able to eliminate sources of pollution by reusing the material.
Initially, Ginko was promoted through the social networks, where it had a good feedback. For this reason a start-up has been created with the support of Fondazione Politecnico di Milano on Indiegogo – an international platform that supports creative, entrepreneurial and social projects – in order to collect the funds to make the big market leap.