The 4th Bin
Fixed and Free
Project Team: Dominic Balmforth
Project Summary:
FIXED AND FREE is a destination for residents of New York City to deposit obsolete electronics. The bin ensures that electronics can enter a carefully managed system. Items previously considered waste will have new life and extended use. The bin will facilitate the storage, retrieval, and transportation of electronics and their entrance into a greater recycling initiative.
Upon Internet registration, users approach a bin in the city with available space. A card swipe releases a size-coordinated door within the fixed steel frame. Used electronics are inserted, recognized and registered. The user’s account is credited with redeemable points as an incentive to actively and regularly recycle.
Harbored to the robust steel frame, a mobile non-pvc plastic unit accepts appliances and components of various sizes and shapes. The unit is released when full and stacks for easy transport to processing facilities.
This new bin in New York City manages used electronic resources, not waste, closing the loop from raw material to manufacturer to consumer. Electronic appliances, when designed as an assembly of components, become valuable technical nutrients for re-use.
The bin and recycling system will prolong and redirect the lifecycle of electronics. The bin is not the final destination for obsolete electronics. Instead, it is the point of entry into a loop of manufacture, use and recycle. Appliances have new lives.
Incentives:
FIXED AND FREE is a catalyst in the electronics industry. Production, consumption and waste management no longer follow parallel and independent paths. Instead, a closed loop cycle connects consumers, recycling industries, and electronic manufacturers. The bin physically links these parties; it receives and releases a new object for new trade. As electronics become both appliance and resource, new symbiotic relations are forged between user and industry.
Upon deposit, obsolete electronics are safely stored, managed and retrieved. Users are rewarded with public transportation coupons, donation vouchers for charity or credit to purchase refurbished electronics. Recycling becomes a promoted and rewarded activity.
New York City residents supply the valuable raw-material or technical nutrients to create next-generation appliances. The recycling industry dismantles and refurbishes obsolete electronics. Salvaged components, exchanged within the industry, stimulate new collaborations and offer new supply to meet new demand.
FIXED AND FREE accents New York’s cityscape. On the street, the bin is canvas for public art or ad-space to generate revenue. In the park or at the schoolyard, the bin is over-grown with green and flowers.
Fixed and Free
Project Team: Dominic Balmforth
Project Summary:
FIXED AND FREE is a destination for residents of New York City to deposit obsolete electronics. The bin ensures that electronics can enter a carefully managed system. Items previously considered waste will have new life and extended use. The bin will facilitate the storage, retrieval, and transportation of electronics and their entrance into a greater recycling initiative.
Upon Internet registration, users approach a bin in the city with available space. A card swipe releases a size-coordinated door within the fixed steel frame. Used electronics are inserted, recognized and registered. The user’s account is credited with redeemable points as an incentive to actively and regularly recycle.
Harbored to the robust steel frame, a mobile non-pvc plastic unit accepts appliances and components of various sizes and shapes. The unit is released when full and stacks for easy transport to processing facilities.
This new bin in New York City manages used electronic resources, not waste, closing the loop from raw material to manufacturer to consumer. Electronic appliances, when designed as an assembly of components, become valuable technical nutrients for re-use.
The bin and recycling system will prolong and redirect the lifecycle of electronics. The bin is not the final destination for obsolete electronics. Instead, it is the point of entry into a loop of manufacture, use and recycle. Appliances have new lives.
Incentives:
FIXED AND FREE is a catalyst in the electronics industry. Production, consumption and waste management no longer follow parallel and independent paths. Instead, a closed loop cycle connects consumers, recycling industries, and electronic manufacturers. The bin physically links these parties; it receives and releases a new object for new trade. As electronics become both appliance and resource, new symbiotic relations are forged between user and industry.
Upon deposit, obsolete electronics are safely stored, managed and retrieved. Users are rewarded with public transportation coupons, donation vouchers for charity or credit to purchase refurbished electronics. Recycling becomes a promoted and rewarded activity.
New York City residents supply the valuable raw-material or technical nutrients to create next-generation appliances. The recycling industry dismantles and refurbishes obsolete electronics. Salvaged components, exchanged within the industry, stimulate new collaborations and offer new supply to meet new demand.
FIXED AND FREE accents New York’s cityscape. On the street, the bin is canvas for public art or ad-space to generate revenue. In the park or at the schoolyard, the bin is over-grown with green and flowers.