FREE CLOTHES VENDING MACHINE

Design 2 Report Draft

In current years, we witness increasing number of the use of plastic drink bottles. More and more people drink bottled water every day. Due to this development, bottled water also expected to be the number one packaged drink by 2016 (bottledwater.org). We consume annually 53 billion gallons of bottled water globally. However, only 1 in 5 bottles are recycled. The other 4 contribute to the 3 billion pounds of plastic bottles added to landfills each year (oceancrusaders.org)

On the other hand, there is another way to solve this problem. Plastic drink bottles can be recycled to produce clothes. The average fleece jacket may contain the re-use material from 25 plastic drink bottles (driversofchange.com)

Patagonia, a clothing company, claims to be the first outdoor clothing manufacturer to transform trash into fleece. They began to produce recycled polyester from soda bottles in 1993. Nowadays, apparel manufacturer giants such as Nike, also has created several products using recycled materials from plastic bottles. However, up to this day, to recycle plastic bottles into clothes is not that simple. It requires complicated process using heavy machinery in a factory.

The facts have provoked an idea. What if we can create something that will present the complicated process into one compact machine that we can put in a corner of the street. I have designed a device, using speculative design method that will simplify the required process to transform plastic bottles into clothes. It is a near future design called Free Clothes Vending Machine that will deliver free clothes for people who put 25 plastic drink bottles into the machine.

 

Free Clothes Vending Machine will be placed in areas where plastic bottled drink consumption is high. Also in areas where the populations of low-income citizens live. This machine will attract people to recycle and provide a reward for them who recycle.

That way, Free Clothes Vending Machine will help to ease several problems in the same time. Recycling more plastic bottles, in that way will decrease plastic bottles volume on landfills; saving resources that are used to transport plastic bottles to recycle centres, in the same time will reduce CO2 emission produced by the transport activities; it is also important that the vending machine will provide free clothes for people in need, who couldn’t afford to buy one.

Get rid of your trash and get free clothes in return.

Working like a futurist, I provide insights on emerging issues. Designing future project that require asking questions, scanning the world, mapping the possibilities, and asking the next question as stated by Caisco (2009). The work doesn’t necessarily predict the future but delivers ideas of possibilities that could happen, provide by various drivers.

Is the Free Clothes Vending Machine design possible? Or is it impossible? Please do have a liberty to leave comments in a critical manner.