Recycling – Enes Essays

Recycling: Hot water bottle sealing

We recently had a hot water bottle, which no longer served it’s duty. How can a hot water bottle can no longer work? The seal on the cap wears out. The hot water bottle drips when you fill it with water.

Another small plastic part, which leads to the unusability of the whole object. For us, an object does not end up in the trash because of such small parts. It’s time to get down to business.

Kintsugi and its meaning today

“Kintsugi” means “golden joinery”. It’s the japanese way of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with golden joins. Kintsugi is not only an activity, but also a way of life and a mindset.

Breaking things are an essential part of the lifecycle of objects. My passion is repairing things which break in every day life. Plastic is an essential part of our modern day lives, but throwing plastic into the trash or waters is polluting our world. I see local-recycling and local-manufacturing as the solution to save our planet and live the Kintsugi lifestyle.

Recycling: Sandwichmaker Clip

On a relaxing weekend, I was making sandwiches when something unforeseen happened.

The clip of my sandwich maker broke. Because of such a plastic part, of course, the whole device is not thrown away! In my part-time job as a recycling expert, I made it my business to save items from trash. It’s time to get back to action! In this blogpost I want to talk about the repair process.

Local Recycling: Precious Plastic Shredder Kit

I am convinced that we can solve the global plastic problem only with local measures. For this reason, I have spent the last weeks/months experimenting on various projects and am working prototypically on a DIY recycling plant that I can operate at home to extract new raw materials from plastic waste that accumulates daily from various packages.

I have long tried to build a plastic shredder at home with the least amount of resources. I had the idea of applying heat to plastic, softening it and thus reducing the size of the plastic with less force. Unfortunately, my first prototype failed.

After some thinking, I decided to order a Precious Plastics Shredder Kit with all the necessary parts already included. I have to assemble the shredder and can start with it. In 2-4 weeks the shredder will arrive. I am looking forward to my little recycling business!

Recycling und Repair: Toiletseat connector

Recently this connection piece of our toiletseat broke. It looked as follows.

It seems first, that the only way to solve this is by removing the whole toilet seat, throwing it into the trash and buying a new one. Produce new trash and foster consumption? No! I can do modelling and have a 3D printer. I am just making my own spare parts.