Fantastic Plastic Objects Made from Trash by Buenos Aires’ Cartoneros

Check more of these fantastic plastic creations at the MASEKOS stand at Feria Puro Diseno, Buenos Aires.

Well, NGO <a title="Fantastic Recycled Plastic Objects Made From Trash By Buenos Aires´ Cartoneros " href="http://wasteforlife.org/?page_id=2" target="_blank">Waste For Life</a>, together with the <a title="Fantastic Recycled Plastic Objects Made From Trash By Buenos Aires´ Cartoneros " href="http://www.uba.ar/homepage.php" target="_blank">University of Buenos Aires</a>, the <a title="Fantastic Recycled Plastic Objects Made From Trash By Buenos Aires´ Cartoneros " href="http://www.inti.gob.ar/" target="_blank">National Institute for Industrial Technology</a> (INTI) and <a title="Fantastic Recycled Plastic Objects Made From Trash By Buenos Aires´ Cartoneros " href="http://www.masekos.com/" target="_blank">MASEKOS</a> design studio are working on it. They are helping produce eco-friendly products from recycled plastic waste, created deep inside Buenos Aires cooperatives.

It all started after the 2001 Argentine´s economic crisis, where lots of people lost their jobs and learnt to survive from collecting and selling urban rubbish materials. How can design help reducing waste while alleviating poverty through the creation and commercialization of fantastic eco-design?

These independent urban recyclers, dubbed cartoneros, got more organized through the years and started getting together joining in forms of cooperatives, claiming for better working conditions and access to education.

As well as separating the different waste materials, sourcing through plastic bags and textile scraps, helping with the design of the products, and actually making them, people at Cooperativa Nuevamente are also going to sell their colorful creations.

Ana Rapela and Angeles Estrada Vigil (pictured here), Creative Director of MASEKOS are working closely with Erica Lee Engineer from Waste for Life to design and create the products.

Some plastic design patterns offer great design opportunities.

Thanks to an initiative of Waste For Life, who has been cultivating the idea since 2007 and recently donated a heat press machine, people at the Cooperativa have learned how the design added value, could produce fantastic eco-friendly products that will sell for a higher price that they would get for its weight.

Waste For Life is a not-for-profit social benefit organization which aim is to find out if researchers´ science could work as a waste and poverty-reducing scheme while working closely with an open network of collaborators, ranging from scientists, engineers and educators, to architects, artists and cooperatives.

In Buenos Aires, Cooperativa Nuevamente recently started their recycling through design programme, by making wallets, tote bags and domestic products out of heat pressed plastic bags waste.

Belts are also produced by people at the cooperative, which is also planning to incorporate new colorful designs.