Sustainability at Mathmos 

Posted on January 14th, 2025 by Mathmos

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At Mathmos, we realise that making more products contributes to the negative impact on the world. But there are many things we can do to minimise our impact on the planet’s future. Of course, there is much more that we can do, and we are constantly looking at how we can improve, but these principles are a good start.

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We Make Classic Product

We aim to make products that stay in style and don’t refresh our range every season. Most of our sales are for classic lava lamps designed in the 1960s or 1990s. When we develop a new product, we expect that it will remain in our range and customers’ homes for decades.

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We Offer Comprehensive Spares

We provide spare bottles and bulbs for our classic lava lamps, made from 1963 to the present. We have even made out-of-circulation bayonetted bulbs for lamps made in the 1960s. You will find instructions and repair videos on our website, so Mathmos lava lamps can keep on flowing far into the future. 

If a Mathmos lava lamp is no longer wanted, collectors on eBay or secondary marketplaces are always keen to snap up Mathmos products. 

Mathmos supports Right to Repair and the Restart project

We Support the Right to Repair Movement

We follow the principles of the Right to Repair movement and have designed our classic lava lamps so you can repair them easily.

We recently donated to the excellent UK Restart Project, which teaches people how to fix their electronics and reduce waste.

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High Quality

We work hard to make the best quality lava lamps available anywhere, leading to fewer returns and less waste. Mathmos lava lamps are designed for the long term, not for landfill.

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Made In Britain

Mathmos is a proud founder member of the “Made In Britain” initiative. Our bases and caps are all spun in the UK, and our bottles are made for us in Yorkshire. Every bottle is hand-filled in the Mathmos factory on the south coast. Making in Britain minimises travel and emissions for our components and sub-assemblies.

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Sell Direct Online

Most Mathmos products are sent fresh from our factory directly to our customers: just one journey, one set of packaging, and no retailer or distributor in the middle. After Brexit, we must use an EU warehouse to reach our customers on the continent. In the UK, we primarily use DPD, a carbon-neutral courier.

As we now focus on eCommerce, we no longer travel to visit retailers or attend tradeshows.

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We Constantly Improve Packaging

We now use recycled board for all our packaging; most is made within 5 miles of our factory. We have moved to recycled plastic bags for our lava lamp bottles. We design all our lamps to fit into a modular packaging system so that there is rarely any need for filler in Mathmos outer boxes.

We constantly re-evaluate our packaging to see if we can reduce the amount of packaging whilst ensuring that our products arrive safely. We also hope our packaging designs appeal enough for you to use them for other purposes at home.

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We Are in The Factory or at Home

We are all working in the lava lamp factory now or at home making our classic lava lamps and supporting our International sales. We have just one location to heat and light where everything happens. Come and visit us!

We Support WEEE

Mathmos pays subscriptions for The Waste Electrical or Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive in our key markets, which provides free recycling of electrical items through your local recycling centre. However, we hope this will rarely be used as our lamps can always be repaired.

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