LastObject’s Isabel Aagaard wants us to stop buying single-use everything

Isabel Aargaard is the founder of LastObject – a company reinventing storebought goods like cotton swabs and pads into reusable forms. She holds a master’s in Collaborative Design from Copenhagen’s Royal Academy of Design and used to work in the medical field.

The 30-year-old entrepreneur from Denmark talks to Reframe’s founder Bridget Cogley about her goal of getting people to reduce waste and how she got started.

Tell us about yourself, and what you do?

I live in Copenhagen, and after graduating in 2016, I worked in the hospital segment for a few years, designing everything from chemotherapy bags for patients to take their treatments home, to a maternity ward.

I have always been very interested in waste reduction and sustainable design solutions. Everything that I have done throughout the years has in some way tapped into these interests.  

How did LastObject get started? How does it help sustainability? 

LastObject started from my desire to create reusable products to replace everyday single-use items. My two co-founders, Nicolas Aagaard (my brother) and Kaare Frandsen, and I started researching single-use items that were the biggest source of household waste. It became our mission to fight for a less trashy world by providing consumers with quality alternatives to these single-use items. 

In April 2019, we launched LastSwab: the first sanitary, reusable alternative to cotton swabs. Then we made LastTissue, which aims to bring the handkerchief back and stop the waste caused by single-use tissues and LastRound – six reusable, washable make-up pads.

What are you currently working on?

We’ve just launched our newest product on Kickstarter, LastPad. It’s a reusable sanitary pad that lasts 240 uses and has a triple-layer design: a breathable top layer made out of polyester, woven in a pattern to funnel the fluid through fast; a super absorbent bamboo middle layer soaks up even the heaviest of flows; a water resistant outer layer prevents any untimely leaks. And a silicone strip and wings make sure the pad never goes where you don’t want it to. It also has an elastic strap that makes it easy to fold and it comes in a leakproof pouch to store it in.

With this, I wanted to create a hygienic alternative to the single-use pad that felt luxurious, was innovative, and would actually make a huge difference for the environment. We put a lot of work into the design and have tested thousands of prototypes. We had to put it on the shelf a couple of times, because we needed this product to be perfect.

How can we get more people on board with thinking about reuse and waste?

Aim to replace one thing a month so you get 30 days to get used to this new habit. It can sometimes be overwhelming if you want to go “zero-waste”, so my advice is don’t try to do it all - take a look at your life and see what are your most wasteful habits, then try tackling them one at a time.

Have you read or discovered anything recently about sustainability?

The New York Times’ Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate Change has had a huge impact on me. It explains how we came very close to solving the environmental problems over a decade ago (in the 80s) and how we were derailed and failed massively because it was not in the interests of some industries and they formed political agendas

What do you think about when you hear the word "sustainable"?

Looking at what is sustainable, it's important to look at the entire life cycle of a product — durability is key. Sustainability for me is low energy, land and water consumption, while also not contaminating the environment.

It is also important to look at fossil fuels, chemicals and waste before and after purchase. So the conclusion is that sustainability has a lot of parameters to consider but for me durability is the most important in many categories. 

What are some technologies or developments we should adopt, to further efforts in sustainable design?

There are some amazing things happening in creating sustainable materials. I’m especially fascinated by materials that are either reusing waste materials or made with a very low environmental cost. Ocean Bound Plastic has caught our interest as well as bamboo and hemp textiles. Looking at what sustainable technologies are, it's important to look at the entire life cycle. I look forward to seeing what can be created with low energy and water consumption that can clean up our messes while being durable.