Turning waste into building blocks of the future city
Review of Article from BBC Building Tomorrow written by Mitchell Joachim, 28 May 2013.
(Resource: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130524-creating-our-cities-from-waste)
SUMMARY
Today the consequences of the post-industrial city have had an incredible impact on the environment. It is widely accepted cities impinge on areas well beyond their borders. Waste streams in cities are the leading factor in pollution of the areas outside their geo-political boundaries.
Now is the time to design waste to regenerate our cities. What are the possibilities for urban environments after our aged infrastructure is recalibrated? How might bigger cities and waste mix? One key idea is that waste is not recycled through infrastructural mechanisms but instead up-cycled in perpetuity.
Super-sized waste
The first credible step is to reduce trash by considering the life cycle of objects we make. Things that are designed for obsolescence should be outlawed. Additionally, products must be manufactured with the intent to reuse, disassemble, take back or upcycle. For instance, instead of tossing out bottles we could adapt them for use as planters, lighting fixtures, building wall elements.
‘Smart trash’
The envisioned city would be derived from trash; not ordinary trash, but ‘smart refuse’. A significant factor of the city composed from smart refuse is ‘post-tuning’ – and we would have to adapt this raw material for use. Integration into the city texture would be a learning process. In time, the responses would eventually become more attuned to the needs of the urban dweller. This new city may be built from trash, but it will also be connected via computers. The buildings blocks will learn.
(extracted from the original article)