About
You might see plastic waste as, well, waste. It’s time for that to change…
You use it. You throw it away. It’s plastic. Whatever – this is common practice, common understanding. Not with WASTED. In a WASTED neighborhood, plastic isn’t wasted. You use it. You reuse it. It’s a valued resource. A community asset.
With WASTED, we use plastic to generate neighborhood benefits, where plastic is economic currency, strengthens communities, educates, cleans up the environment, and builds new objects by locals, for locals. Need a stage at the local market? WASTED builds that. Want a meatball at the local shop? WASTED gets you that. What do we do? What can you do? Read on to learn the ins and outs of turning plastic waste into newfound social, economic and environmental good – or in other words, learn how to get WASTED!
What is WASTED?
Good question. In short, WASTED gives new value to plastic waste. How does it work? We built a Laboratory and plastic reprocessing machines. We collect plastic, together with WASTED Neighbors (community members) and WASTED Friends (businesses and cultural organizations). We give points to Neighbors for every bag of plastic they contribute to the Laboratory. Neighbors points earn them WASTED Coins, which they can use to earn deals and discounts from our Friends. With all the plastic, we create new objects for the community in Workshops at the Laboratory – a traveling lab of small-scale, self-designed machinery for plastic upcycling.
Below, you’ll find more details about each step of our process. Follow links for more, and learn how you can get WASTED, too – doing good with plastic waste.
WASTED takes plastic off the streets and out of landfills, keeping it in the neighborhood – where it fuels our Reward System that turns waste into spend-ready Coins for our WASTED Neighbors, our Education Package that turns anyone into a plastic expert, and our Laboratory, which hosts Workshops that turn plastic waste into WASTED Blocks. With Blocks, we co-create all-new benches, planters, stages and more.
Plastic is the Laboratory’s main input. WASTED Blocks are the output. No ordinary Block, we collaborated with experienced material designers and engineers to design not only a Block that can be made from recycled plastic waste, but also the process and machinery to make it at the Laboratory. This extraordinary Block is designed to be modular, easy to make, easy to use, and easy to assemble and disassemble. This way, it can be (re)used, (re)used and (re)used again and again, never being disposed. Interested in Block, machine and process design? See open source designs here.
We can’t do all this alone. Community is key. Without it, we get nothing. We give nothing. And nobody likes getting WASTED alone. There’s a place for just about everybody to get WASTED. Live in Noord? Become a WASTED Neighbor! Have a business in Noord? Become a WASTED Friend! Interested and in or will be in the area? Sign up for the Education Package or a Workshop. Live nowhere near Amsterdam and want to get WASTED in your neighborhood? Check out how to Build Your Own Lab.
Who’s behind WASTED?
WASTED is a project of CITIES, an Amsterdam based foundation that researches, communicates and initiates local solutions to global urban problems. To learn more about our work, check us out online at www(at)citiesfoundation(dot)org. For our WASTED team, check out the contact page.
While CITIES initiated WASTED, the project would not be possible without contributions from our amazing partners and supporters.
Who are WASTED’s partners?
We owe great thanks to our partners, who are key players facilitating the project’s success. They contribute time, energy, resources and expertise in development and implementation, allowing WASTED to be all that it is. That said, we are honored to be working with the following partners:
Clusius College is a ‘green’ secondary school in Amsterdam Noord that emphasizes practical teaching and engagement with the environment. They graciously welcomed the WASTED Laboratory to be located adjacent to the school. Further, they engage their students in the project’s plastic-based Education Package and workshops, allowing WASTED to better achieve its aims of informing youth about plastic waste while engaging them in community-minded practices.
Overtreders W is a design studio specializing in spatial design, and Bureau SLA is an architectural studio. Together, Overtreders W and Bureau SLA developed the Villa Clusius, which houses the WASTED Laboratory. While WASTED makes Blocks at the Laboratory, Overtreders W and Bureau SLA will simultaneously produce reprocessed plastic tiles for the façade of the Clusius College. Additionally, we owe great thanks to Overtreders W and Bureau SLA for co-creating the plastic re-processing machines.
Noorderpark Trust, part of Trust Noord, focuses on the bottom-up development of Noorderpark. In the WASTED project, they are a ‘neighborhood resident company’ that manages the Villa Clusius and several other buildings close to Noorderpark. In this role, they help generate creative initiatives aligned with WASTED that benefit the neighborhood. Additionally, the Trust’s significant neighborhood network is very useful in connecting with people in the Noorderpark area.
Fred Foundation not only provided financial support, but also contributed human resources in the form of in-house (wo)man power. Based in the Netherlands and founded by Fred Master in 1996, Fred Foundation supports projects with a systemic vision on sustainability, taking into account social, environmental and human elements of development. With a strong belief in the potential and sustainability of social businesses as a means to do good, Fred Foundation enjoys supporting community initiatives with an entrepreneurial spirit, like WASTED.
Who supports WASTED?
We are massively grateful to have a handful of outstanding supporters. In practice, WASTED is made possible by the neighborhood. Behind the scenes, the project is made possible by generous financial contributions from our supporters: