A community of over 40,000 people from across the world is sharing its solutions for recycling and recovering plastic waste locally. The adventure began in Eindhoven in Holland, where pioneers are continuing to search for innovative solutions.
Dave Hakkens, the young Dutch genius
Born in 1988, Dutchman Dave Hakkens is an industrial designer. He has earned renown through his two final year projects: Phonebloks, a modular telephone concept and Precious Plastic. Hakkens is considered by many to embody a new generation of designers, who have set themselves the goal of enhancing society by sharing knowledge. For his final year design project, Dave created a series of open-source machines available to all that are easy to use and replicate with the aim of recycling plastic waste on a local level. As a result, using tutorials, it is possible to construct one’s own machines to shred plastic, melt it and produce various objects from this recycled plastic. A community of recyclers has been created as a result, further enriching the project.
Precious Plastic, the community recovering plastic
Launched in 2013, Precious Plastic relies on the notion that plastic is a noble and precious material, which must be recycled and reused and that the recycling process must be decentralised. Every community, all over the world, must be able to put in place a viable recycling network so that plastic waste, whose value people are finally being able to grasp, will stop ending up in our oceans. Today, Precious Plastic is gathering together a growing community of over 40,000 people all over the world, which is helping to develop the technology, publicise it and use plastic waste to create useful and durable products.
