Our Story
Smile Materials was built to inspire progress. Guided by joyous, purposeful principles, we transform discarded materials into beautiful, functional architectural panels and surface products. As a circular economy collaborator, we create distinctive, visually striking solutions for commercial interiors, turning pre- and post-consumer waste into design with impact.
Who we are
Our factory on the southwest coast of Wales has a worldwide reach. Smile Materials’ panels are trusted by architects, designers and luxury brands around the globe, specified for schemes as retail displays and counters to furniture, signage and shower panels. Whether it’s a small volume run, or a bulk order of 1,000 or more, we have the technology and production capacity to deliver at scale and speed.
We also work with a network of manufacturing partners. Like-minded, we all share in one value system. These partnerships help widen our reach on transforming more would-be waste material, around the world, while serving you, our customers, wherever you are based.
What we do
We believe recycled materials can, and should be, as beautiful as new. Smile Materials sources matter that would usually be consigned to landfill and, through a proprietary process, thoughtful design and material innovation, reinvents them as aesthetic panels for commercial interior use.
With our signature blend of creativity and technical expertise developed through years of pioneering innovation, led by Adam Fairweather in partnership with Rosalie McMillan, we produce Smile Plastics and Smile Fibres: versatile materials that open up new possibilities across a multitude of design disciplines.
How we do it
We combine creative design with decades of technical expertise to turn diverse waste streams into meaningful, low-carbon surfaces. By refining and reprocessing materials – from single-use food and medical packaging to pre- and post-consumer plastics and white-goods components, we make durable, recyclable panels that rethink discarded matter. Up to now, our primary focus has been recycling plastics due to their huge environmental burden.
All plastics we use are REACH-compliant, and our panels are independently tested for indoor air quality, meeting Indoor Air Comfort GOLD standards (EU) and equivalent US benchmarks with VOCs below measurable thresholds.
Industry Recognised
Don’t just take our word for it. Our products have been industry recognised with a multitude of award-wins. Most recently, our Earth Collection came out on top at the Mix Awards 2025 Product of the Year Surfaces category. Our collection materials were praised for being, ‘Closed-loop, 100% recycled/recyclable, durable, and beautiful to boot.’
Pioneers in buy-back
Pushing for more circular practice, with Smile Plastics, we launched the sector’s first buy-back scheme, ensuring a continual life for our surface products, should they come to a natural pause in use. Since then, we’ve bought back more than 50 tonnes of material (equivalent in weight to 33 hippos). And counting.
The origins of smile materials
From our first 100% recycled panel in the 1990s to today’s Smile Materials – an evolving journey of experiments, collaborations, and circular surfaces. Those early innovations now sit at the heart of Smile Materials, a family of expressive, circular surfaces. The short video and timeline below trace the key moments and projects that followed.
