PRECIOUS PLASTIC CAMBODIA
TURNING TRASH INTO JOBS FOR RURAL CAMBODIANS
ABOUT THE PROJECT
In gap semester in Cambodia, I worked on a project called Precious Plastic by the Dutch designer Dave Hakkens. Within the social & environmental NGO NagaEarth the goal was to assemble two modular machines allowing plastic recycling: A shredder and an injection machine. The first one allows the user to obtain plastic flakes which will be used in the second machine to mould new plastic products.
Precious plastic in Cambodia doesn’t only consist in the assembly of the machines. During the 3 months that this project lasted, we also designed a sustainable business model to protect and spread our work among Cambodian people. It consists in 3 steps to sustain the development of plastic recycling within the country. First with the plastics bags, then with the other types of plastic and finally with creating recycling and fabricating workshops with the help of the Precious plastic machines and 3D printers.
To support this project, we worked on a crowdfunding campaign launched on the 09/05 that you can find here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/turning-trash-into-jobs-for-rural-cambodians-environment/x/16562477#/
WORKING THE CAMBODIAN WAY
PROCESS
This project is about machine assembly and part sourcing which may seem easy from a European perspective but is definitely more complicated in a country like Cambodia. For example, the shredder blades ought to be laser cutted. However, such machine barely exist in South-East Asia. We had to obtain a rough shape with a flamecutter and then refine it with the help of a bench grinder.
The whole project included grinding & welding works, parts sourcing, part assembly and resizing work using AutoCAD & Fusion 360.