The Things we Throw Away

Our development into a take-make-waste society has generated significant amounts of waste that accumulates yearly in our landfills, laneways, riverbanks and oceans. We send our waste away, but we are not privy to where ‘away’ precisely is. Australia’s ban on recycled waste exports have brought attention to the dire need to reconsider what we do with the Things we Throw Away within our insufficient domestic market - exporting the problem can no longer be the solution.

The shift to more circular economic principles as a means of addressing the waste problem has been a hot topic across government, industry, business and the design fraternity. What these principles don’t address is the current stockpile problem of low-quality recyclable materials.

This studio will seek to question and unpack what are the challenges of applying these principles to our existing material objects through architectural speculation and intervention. Through testing and model-making with our everyday detritus, we hope to conceive a method for re-introducing existing material objects within small-scale proposals that will reformulate a connection between waste-making and place.

Will you be the custodians of The Things we Throw Away?