Leaving January behind, 2019 is taking shape with a fresh focus and a little snow here and there. In the past month we’ve made great steps with the bio-plastic development, checked out our container in the Maldives for our pilot with Parley (remember Version 3), had newcomers to the kitchen and workspace, and a continued our search for developers.

Check out January’s monthly news below for some updates from the team on how our year started.

February brings more arrivals to our workspace in the Netherlands. We’ll be continuing a number of projects that currently running, and returning to some topics that were on pause; like that pesky styrofoam.
Let’s break it down…

@brunowindt, @pauldufour & Carmen (plastic cleaning team) have been working this month on setting up an efficient plastic cleaning system. This upcoming month they will be testing their prototype, and finding any issues or improvements to be made.

@friedrich (shredder developments) will be assembling together a prototype for the v4 shredder. With help from @lagrenouille this month, they hope to get the prototype running and into testing stages.

@markbertbach & @jasonknight (Sheet press duo) will be working on both press and oven designs, integrating solutions and sourcing components for further prototype building.

@v-varella (sheet designer) will be carrying out further tests on the properties and uses of sheets, focussing currently on different bending techniques.

@acoira splits his February, working on both sheet tests and development for Project Kamp. He will be preparing a second visit to Portugal 🌲

and to start piecing together the technicalities of buying land.

@timslab (extruder product design) has been working on beam development, and will continue his research creating products with moulds throughout February.

@tafnstuff is back in the workspace, also focussing on the extruder, and beginning work on a big table, the biggest we’ve ever made 👊

Our latest arrival @caroespinosaj (styrofoam hero) will be looking at how Precious Plastic can integrate styrofoam into our recycling methods, and make the best of it’s properties and processing.

@charlotteallen is just back from the Maldives with @davehakkens and @jerzeek and is now finishing up the documentation of their trip. Then she’ll figure out a direction for the rest of February!

@dasjannis will be finishing up work on a potato peel takeaway container with @marinab who is leaving us in a week or two. After that, Jannis will decide on whether to stick with potato peels or branch out to other materials.

@aliciaminnaard has been working on a fashion waste project, looking at ways that we can keep our clothes for longer and avoid contributing to this waste stream. After finishing her ‘repair’ research last month, she will be moving on to the ‘upgrade’ stage.

@thomasthefirst will be overseeing all of the above, and keeping everything running smoothly  

@davehakkens will be somewhere eating chocolate 🍫

January in the studio:

@mattia-io is heading the digital team. After a busy start he’ll be finding ways to delegate some of his other responsibilities in order to fully focus on the web-side of things.  

@saskiaathlene is returning from a month working remotely in India and will be cracking on with the UX for our new platform.

@be3nj, our in-house dev, will continue develop our new ‘discussions’ page for the website. That’s right, forums are getting an upgrade too.

@chris-m-clarke and @nzchicken continue to work remotely on web development and communicating with the in-house team.

@nparies will spend February developing a playful yet simple and user friendly design system for our new platform.

@mariska is working on creating a whole set of illustration, icons, emoji and whatnot for the new website and platforms that will bring consistency and a bit of fun to our digital space.

@jaklatt along with @siemenb will be focussing on finalising and testing some new tools for the community, to help with the business side of PP projects. You can help out with that here

January for the rest of us:

@jessicawoodrow & @plasticprincess are in the concept generation stages of a new project, to set up a local material collection system, utilising the waste streams of businesses in the area. This is something that they will document and share with the community very soon.

Sera will be sharing her time between the kitchen, and running around with her camera, documenting our day to day work and keeping a visual track of the development of V4.

@juul  will be joining us once a week, as usual, to help us in connecting with local markets and farmers; purchasing in bulk and intercepting food waste for 40(ish) hungry mouths 😄

@breezy is new to our kitchen, and will spend February creating delicious vegan food to keep the team fuelled through these cold times.

That should keep us busy for the next month! We’ll keep you updated on how it all goes. In the meantime, if you feel like joining us we have some open tasks waiting to be claimed by engineers, developers and robotics geeks. Browse it here.

That’s all until next time, folks.

‍