Mobile Recycling Plant Turns Trash Into Building Material
New and innovative ways to recycle materials are popping up all over the world, but not a lot of them are mobile or nearly self-sustaining. The Trashpresso, the world's first mobile recycling plant, recycles trash and turns it into tiles.
Trash can be found in abundance (on beaches for example), but collecting and transporting it to the nearest recycling facility is hardly ever done. Miniwiz, an architecture studio based in Taiwan, has invented the Trashpresso. It’s the mobile solution to the pressing question of what to do with all the pollution we leave behind.
The Trashpresso runs on solar power, and recycles plastic and fabric waste into tiles that can be used in architecture as exterior or interior finish. When running on full capacity, the machine produces up to 10 square meters of tiles every 40 minutes. Thanks to it being mounted on a container platform that a truck can transport, the recycling plant can wash, shred, melt and mold trash pretty much wherever its makers take it.
With an outer appearance that looks like something in-between a mobile coffee bar and a space station, the Trashpresso gives isolated communities the chance to recycle their waste in an environmentally-friendly way and serves as an educational tool at the same time. Miniwiz introduced the recycling plant to the public to celebrate Earth Day — and on that note it will hopefully contribute to making our home a greener place.
