Check out IKEA's Recyclable Cardboard Camera

Photo: IKEA

Written by John Platt, Mother Nature Network

The next time you buy some furniture at IKEA, the retailer hopes you will go home and snap some photos of your self-assembled coffee table or bedroom set with IKEA’s first digital camera.

The KNÄPPA camera is a simple unit, comprised of a lens, a single circuit board, a cardboard body, two plastic screws and two AA batteries. IKEA will be giving away a limited number of the cameras to its customers in select stores to inspire them to share photos of their new purchases.

The photos taken by the KNÄPPA aren’t very high-tech or high-resolution (just 2.3 megapixels). The camera lacks both zoom or image-stabilization features, but IKEA offers a few tongue-in-cheek ideas on how to get the most out your images:

But despite its limitations, the KNÄPPA is recyclable. The camera is part of the IKEA PS 2012 line, kind of a rerun line of favorite designs from the past but manufactured with a greater level of sustainable and renewable materials than earlier editions.

The KNÄPPA can store up to 40 photos and has a USB connector to transfer images to your computer, and then, IKEA hopes, to a dedicated PS 2012 website where customers can show off their home images.

In related news, an innovative program allows IKEA customers in Australia to charge the retailer rent for the space the company’s catalog takes up in their homes as an incentive to hold on to the catalogs longer. After signing up on the IKEA website, customers can get $25 in Australian money (about $25.80 U.S.) a month for the 8-inch by 9-inch catalogs. To date, 6.1 percent of Australian households have taken IKEA up on the offer and been paid more than $2 million in rent checks.