If you guessed "an old book" you're a lot more design savvy than I am. Books are one of the hardest items to recycle, due to the glue used to bind them, so it makes sense for designers to find new ways to re-appropriate them. The very inventive Laura Cahill has turned her old unwanted books into little benches and stools that actually look like recycled books, but she also came up with this clever design, which she makes by cutting up old books with a saw, then arranging the spines around test tubes to make a modern, environmentally-friendly design.

Maybe not something for beginners to try to replicate, but pretty nonetheless.

Via Boing Boing.