SECOND LIFE: How Two NUS Alumni are Redesigning Waste

Article written by Ganya Sethi

When we think of innovation at NUS, we usually picture labs, patents or start up pitches for investors but one of the ideas to come out of the university recently isn’t a piece of technology , it’s a studio that gives discarded waste materials a new life in design. Brambe which was co-founded by NUS Alumni , Mr. Bernie Ang and Ms. Amanda Tay in 2021 is a Singapore based eco-lifestyle and design brand that crafts custom interior and design pieces from upcycled waste materials and eco-friendly resins like Jesmonite.

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Founders of Brambe, Mr. Bernie Ang and Ms. Amanda Tay. (Image: NUS Alumni Association)

The Impact

The mission isn’t just talk. In 2025 alone, they upcycled and recovered about 771 kg of waste material from local streams which included glass, plastic, metal and even used coffee grounds. This didn’t happen overnight, their earliest large scale trial was the NUS Zero Waste Testbed initiative, which used jesmonite-waste composites to build study furniture in University town, laying the groundwork for what the studio does today.

The Insight

The interesting part about Brambe isn’t that they use recycled glass but that they ran into a physical limit and moved past it. Jesmonite is basically like glue holding the waste particles together so there’s a limit on how much waste can be crammed into a batch before the piece gets brittle and structurally unsound. This is why most brands keep their waste content low, around 30-40% which also stands true for their Terazzo and Marbling material. What’s radical is their Glass Terazzo, the material that pushes the waste content upto 60-70%, way past what standard jesmonite can handle. They realized the bottleneck was the binder itself, not their technique. So they launched their sister company (Bilo designs) to solve that one problem and engineered their own proprietary binder that could hold nearly double the waste load.

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Image: Brambe

This is the story worth telling, they not only found a creative use for waste products but also identified an actual chemical constraint blocking everyone in the space from going further, and built something to fix the problem and increase efficiency.

Brambe is a genuinely useful model since it solves a real incentive problem. Recycling infrastructure in Singapore is efficient for high value, easily sorted wastes like metal and construction metal but low value mixed waste can often get left behind. By turning this waste into a design product with it’s own market value, Brambe creates a financial reason to divert these materials which would otherwise be incinerated or end up in Singapore’s only landfill, Semakau which has a finite capacity.

Where It Could Go Further

Brambe’s biggest limitation, according to me, is scale, hand casting is slow and labour-intensive, which naturally affects the output. To keep their environmental footprint without losing their identity, I would suggest the following: firstly, they could partner with NUS facilities management to supply campus-generated waste as steady feedback and secondly, they could explore licensing their waste formula to other small studios or impact projects as well to multiply impact instead of centralizing it.

Lastly, Brambe is proof that ‘waste’ is kind of a made-up category, it’s only waste until someone figures out what to do with it. Give someone enough imagination and the right binder and today’s landfill trip becomes tomorrow’s countertop.

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References

Brambe. (2021, November 1). Zero Waste Testbed Initiative. https://brambe.com/blogs/projects

Brambe. (n.d.). Home. https://brambe.com/

Molten Steel. (2025). Circular economy in Singapore: The scrap metal role.

https://www.moltensteel.com.sg/circular-economy-singapore-scrap-metal/

NUS Environmental Studies. (2026, July 13). Alumni spotlight: Turning waste into wonder. https://envstudies.nus.edu.sg/2026/07/13/alumni-spotlight-turning-waste-into-wonder/

University Campus Infrastructure, NUS (UCI NUS). (n.d.). Bring Your Own (BYO) reusable drink container campaign: Dematerialise. https://uci.nus.edu.sg/campus-sustainability/dematerialise/

ZeroWasteSG. (2015, July 11). Semakau landfill expanded to meet Singapore's waste disposal needs. https://www.zerowastesg.com/post/semakau-landfill-expanded-to-meet-singapore-s-waste-disposal-needs