Makes for a better environment for our children, our grandchildren and theirs. Recycling basically means transforming waste into materials that can be reused.
Recycling helps to protect the environment, by reducing the need for using the earth’s resources, i.e., mining, logging and quarrying, which then are refined, with processing raw materials, which creates substantial air and water pollution. Recycling saves energy and also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, which helps to tackle climate change.
By recycling, these materials are reprocessed into new products and as a result the amount of rubbish/garbage sent to landfill sites reduces. Below are details of an innovative company, that’s entirely based on recycling materials and reprocessing them into new and beautiful products.
MINIWIZ is a Taiwanese company that specializes in ‘upcyclying’ also known as ‘creative reuse’. This means transforming by-products, for example waste materials, useless or unwanted into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, with an artistic or environmental value.
The company was founded in March 2005, by Arthur Huang and Jarvis Liu. Headquartered in Taiwan, they have offices in Milan, Singapore, Beijing and Shanghai.
In 2010 they built EcoArk, a nine-story high pavilion used as the main exhibition hall for the Taipei 2010 International Flora Exposition. It was built with RECYCLED PLASTIC BOTTLES as the building materials, saving 300 tons of plastic from the landfill.
Again in 2010, its Polli-Brick construction material was a finalist in The Earth Awards.
The Earth Awards is a platform for aspirational consumer-driven ideas that challenge designers and innovators to build a new economy. Since 2007 it has been an annual competition. Its aim is to “transform visionary ideas into market-ready solutions, and offers finalists the unique opportunity to pitch their projects to world business leaders” The Awards are open to students, graduates and industry professionals. The public are invited to submitted their innovations to be judged.
In 2014, it collaborated with Nike Inc. to recycle athletic shoes and shoe manufacturing by-product into construction material, named Nike Grind. In May 2015, it announced the Ecofighter project, which would modify a Rutan VariEze by replacing its elements with recycled material, with a flight planned for 2016.
The Rutan VariEze is a composite, canard aircraft designed by Burt Ryan, a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur. It is a high-performance homebuilt aircraft, of which hundreds have been constructed. The design later evolved into the Long-EZ and other, larger cabin canard aircraft. The VariEze is notable for popularizing the canard configuration and mold less composite construction for homebuilt aircraft.
In April 2016, Miniwiz collaborated with tobacco company Philip Morris International to apply recycled filters of iQos heatsticks to architect Cesare Leonard’s 1960s furniture designs at the Milan Design Week.
In 2017, Miniwiz collaborated with Bonotto to exhibit textiles created from recycled material at Fuorisalone in Milan and NYCxDesign in New York City.
In 2019, its Trashpresso mobile recycling plant won an IDEAT award. That same year, it also launched a smaller version of the recycling plant named the mini Trashpresso.
Plastic bottle pavilions and urban-minded glasses, ‘Polli-Brick’ and ‘Eco-Morph’ and the waste that it slashes, upcycled film theaters and recycled plane wings, these are a few of my favorite things …. made from trash.
Arthur Huang
Miniwiz
YOU CAN FIND PHOTOS OF THE MINIWIZ INCREDIABLY INNOVATIVE WORK BY GOING TO THEIR WEBSITE
Submitted by
Sandy McInnes
MPL Newsletter Editor
