Home Recycling Box (1988)
Ton Rademaker
1988
Supervisory Team
Jan Jacobs
Mickey van Ooy
Kotrac Milieu
Albert Zweers
Back in the 1980s, director of Kotrac Milieu Jos Kouwenhoven had a vision: he wanted to supply the world with recycling systems, at a time when the idea of separating household waste into different categories had not yet been introduced.
So how can you stimulate consumers to recycle more than just bottles? Ton Rademaker set out to make a product that might stimulate a change in behaviour. He designed a modular system to separate bottles, cans and newspapers that made waste separation easy by bringing it indoors.
To take the system’s green credentials one step further, the individual boxes could be attached to a bike rack and cycled over to the communal collection point. While its dimensions were suited to the more modest quantities of domestic waste produced in the eighties, Rademaker’s Home Recycling Box was certainly a forerunner of current systems.
Watch the interview:
(English subtitles available)
About the design process:
Bottle banks celebrated their 10th anniversary in 1988, but the recycling of other household waste was lagging behind. Increasing environmental awareness, plus rising raw materials prices would change that.
Jos Kouwenhoven brought distinctive spherical containers on the market for the collection of paper, cans, textiles, plastic, and oil. Rademaker’s Home Collection Box enabled consumers to pre-sort their waste at home.
Recycling has become normal and home recycling systems are now widely available. Dutch designed BinBang offers a system itself made from waste materials. IKEA SORTERA brings recycling to the masses. People take pride in the positive action of separating their waste.
