inWASTEment – aluminium
aluminium objects based on the relation between
waste and its recycled outcome
year 2018
category Products & Furniture
commissioned by
self-initiated
The project inWASTEment shows how much waste of one material is required in order to produce a recycled piece of industrial metal. This first Prototype series uses aluminium. Aluminium garbage is collected and pressed into shapes that have already design-details like slots, connection points and other functional details. The pressed waste is finished by a sprayed-on aluminium layer to give the object uniformity and more stability. These shapes form the bases for various objects. Inserted into the pressed elements are simple aluminium pieces that equal in weight the amount of aluminium one would receive when recycling the base. Both pieces together form functional objects – in the first series a vase and a mirror. By pressing the garbage into usable shapes, the waste can be reused immediately without complex melting processes nor much energy. At the same time there is still the opportunity to recycle (remelt it) this 100% aluminium piece at one point in the future.
Nowadays waste should be valued as a proper resource – nevertheless it often still ends up in many wrong places rather than being collected and properly recycled.
if one would recycle the base, this amount of square tube would be the result
detail of the mirror with the weight of the two elements
Thomas and Bernd at the compactor
compressed aluminium block
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material
Aluminium
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dimensions
mirror: 53x20x65cm
vase: 20x20x35cm
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team
Katharina Mischer, Thomas Traxler, Monja Hirscher, Elisa Polner, Bernd van Riel