Archinect - News

This is New York City's new and improved urban trash can

2019-12-10T12:22:00-05:00

The NYC has announced that Group Project is the winner of the BetterBin Competition, which called for designers to reimagine New York City's classic green, wire mesh waste basket. The two finalist each produced 12 prototypes that were tested in three NYC neighborhoods over a 90 day period. Based on the performance of those prototypes together with public response and feedback from Sanitation workers, a winner was chosen.

The new bin is designed to be lightweight, making it easier for workers to handle, and nests inside a durable stand. Group Project will continue to work with the Department of Sanitation to further develop the design and move towards mass production.

This garbage can drives itself to your curb

2019-10-02T19:00:00-04:00

...the SmartCan is one of those rare home-focused robots that could...actually deliver some genuinely useful functionality...Using a companion app, the SmartCan will follow a pre-programmed schedule and automatically drive itself to a curbside drop off point on garbage pickup days, and then autonomously return to wherever you keep them parked the rest of the week

While the SmartCan may prove a pragmatic solution for some homeowners, there are still questions of price, which have yet to be revealed, and maintenance, such as charging, risked damage, and owners remembering to keep paths clear, reports Gizmodo.

The complicated afterlife of spent data servers

2019-07-30T15:13:00-04:00

Investment in cloud infrastructure has surged since 2015, and the market for data-center equipment is expected to grow at an average annualized rate of roughly 16% this year and next, according to Citigroup Inc. Cloud servers, though, typically have a lifespan of only about three years, according to experts, meaning that some of the earliest equipment already has passed its use-by date.

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the anticipated market for scrap metal and other components used to make cloud computing infrastructure.

As the cloud computing era gets underway globally, efforts to recycle the short-lived data servers that power the cloud have been complicated by privacy and sustainability concerns. Recycling policies vary by manufacturers, while a lack of coordination and technology industry secrecy stifles efforts to solidify a coordinated approach for the estimated 2 metric tons of obsolete equipment generated by cloud computing, according to The Wall Street Journal.

A 2017 report from the United Nations University, the International Telecommunication Union, and the International Solid Waste Association reads: “Although cloud-computing trends can lead to fewer devices because all services can be accessed from one device, more cloud computing also means more data centers and more e-waste."

Tracing New York's waste management

2016-10-27T13:27:00-04:00

Each day, New York’s public garbage trucks collect nearly 7,000 tonnes of residential mixed solid waste. After finishing their routes, most of these trucks will deposit the garbage in one of New York’s waste transfer stations located throughout the city. From there, the garbage will eventually be loaded on to a barge or train and carried as far as 600 miles to its final stop. For most of New York’s mixed solid waste (about 80% of it by tonnage), this last stop will be a landfill.

"The remaining 20% will end up at a waste-to-energy plant, where it will be incinerated and converted into energy."

For more on the infrastructure of waste, follow these links:

Olafur Eliasson: "The vast majority of architects are just filling up our society with trash"

2016-04-11T18:09:00-04:00

He seems hungry for a serious discussion on everything from the refugee crisis – “a really bad combination of European arrogance and North African ignorance” – to the state of contemporary architecture – “the vast majority of architects are just filling up our society with trash” – and has a habit of speaking about his art in overwhelmingly conceptual terms. “Are we consumers of space?” he asks himself at one point. “Or are we in fact producers of space?”

Hyperloop, but for New York City's trash

2016-02-04T13:43:00-05:00

[A former sanitation policy director for New York City, Ben] Miller is working with his partners at the planning firm Closed Loops, with funding from state grants, to bring pneumatic tubes to New York’s High Line. Rather than rotting in landfills, carrot peels and apple cores from nearby restaurants could travel under the feet of unsuspecting tourists through pneumatic tubes hung below the elevated park. A small facility could turn them into compost right there in the neighborhood.

More on garbage disruption and the very pressing problem of waste management worldwide:

Brave New Recycling Economy: Movement Turns Trash to Treasure

2014-08-18T17:14:00-04:00

Every piece of garbage can be turned into raw material that can be used in future products. With his influential Cradle to Cradle movement, Germany's Michael Braungart espouses a form of eco-hedonism that puts smart production before conservation.

Recently on Archinect: Student Works: This house made of trash teaches a lesson in green housekeeping

Consider the dumpster...

2014-02-25T13:38:00-05:00

The long and varied history of waste and its removal in New York from the 18th century onwards is the subject of Elizabeth Royte’s 2005 book Garbage Land and of the Urban Omnibus City of Systems video she narrates. In the video, Royte describes how her research into where exactly her trash was going after she threw it out has led her to become a more ecological citizen, with “a systems view” of our interconnected processes of manufacturing, transportation, disposal and re-use.

Turning waste into building blocks of the future city

2013-07-12T12:32:00-04:00

What if the rubbish was refabricated to become real urban spaces or buildings? If it is plausible to adapt current machinery, how much material is available? At first sight, any sanitary landfill may be viewed as an ample supply of building materials. Heavy industrial technologies crush cars or to automatically sort out garbage are readily available. 3-D printing has exhausting capabilities if adjusted to larger scales.

Urban mining-the future

2011-06-15T20:32:23-04:00

The demand for special metals used in the manufacture of electronics is booming, but a few countries control much of the world's supply. Germany is looking to reduce its reliance on imports by exploiting the metal that is thrown away in trash. Urban mining could become big business.