What is Remix Plastic?
I have had people ask what exactly it is I am doing. So, here it is, broken down. Get in touch if you have other questions. There are a lot of components to this project:
1) Educating about sustainability
2) Making products with recycled plastic
3) Circular Economy
What is it exactly?
The short answer is a trailer with recycling machinery that we can take around schools to teach sustainability education. This approach will fit into the current curriculum, be multidisciplinary, hands on and fit into a larger framework within education.
The long answer is: It is a part of a wider community. This project is one facet of a Christchurch wide initiative that aims to put in place infrastructure that will support a local circular economy. Working as part of Fab City, we are sharing skills, knowledge and resources to navigate in a linear system and start communicating changes that are happening elsewhere in the world. Our small recycling project will allow people to build useful products with their waste, and eventually each Fab Lab around the city (and maybe every house!) will have the ability to build with plastic, then anything that doesn’t work, isn’t needed or is excess, can get thrown back into the system and recycled again.
The education side of the project aims to provide tech-based sustainability education to people that are not interested in the traditional composting and planting, to provide the next step for schools that have covered these already and provide an interesting and interactive platform to facilitate discussions around plastic consumption, plastic waste and the role of plastics in our lives and futures.
What will we recycle?
Initially the plan was to recycle plastics that are not currently accepted by the local council curb side recycling. But in light of recent events around China not taking our plastics, and the stockpiling and now landfilling, we have decided to experiment with all plastic types except PVC (as it is quite toxic). This doesn’t mean we are recycling everything – it is still early days and so will be a work in progress. Follow along for updates as we go.
What will we make?
Well that is the beauty of it – if we can extrude filament for creating using 3D printers, the possibilities are endless. This kind of technology will allow us to make one off designs and not be restricted to moulds and runs of single items.
The main goal is to make useful and reusable items with single use plastics. We know that plastic is a useful product, it is the disposable plastics that pose major environmental issues.
Who are we working with?
I am glad you asked… we are working with anyone and everyone that wants to work with us - our business model is based heavily on collaboration! We have a few people and businesses that this wouldn’t be happening without.
Fab Lab Chch – providing the Fab City framework and working on developing our recycled plastic filament and 3D printer.
Objet D’Fox – building our recycling machinery, providing recycling knowledge and skills and being an all round cool supporter.
The Rubbish Whisperer – providing a retail angle on the project, support for our education programs and developing product ideas.
Enviroschools Canterbury - supporting our sustainability education by helping us work our services into the curriculum.
Creative Junk - helping us facilitate workshops and take advantage of plastic recycling opportunities.
For a full list of our collaborations see the Partners page