Infinite Cycle of Soap

Love soap but hate waste, designers now bring us with this Infinite Cycle of Soap that allow you to put every single little bar into their grooved indent and use them again.

Love soap but hate waste, designers now bring us with this Infinite Cycle of Soap that allow you to put every single little bar into their grooved indent and use them again.

Do you love Tofu, a traditional Chinese food made from soybeans? Many people will nod their heads to that question, I bet. But when talking about the Tofu Bras, some guys may hesitate to say “yes”. Well, never become nervous about new creative things, as they’re usually much better than you’ve ever imagines. From Faerie’s Dance, these bras look quite the same as ordinary bras, but they’re made from discarded soybean casings and thus will facilitate to both your bodies and the environment.

New good things in and old good things out, undoubtedly we’re now living in a throw-away culture nowadays. But instead of throwing those unneeded items away, there’s actually a better way for us to deal with them: to recycle them via the Swap-O-Matic Vending Machine. The machine comes with thirteen compartments where the items to be traded can be placed in and one touchscreen interface on which users can keep track of their account. When using the vending machine, you can either directly exchange your unused item for one placed in the compartment or place it in one compartment for sale. Quite interestingly, when you buy or sell one thing, you won’t need to pay or get paid with real money but virtual credits instead. As a result, as long as you have something in hand, you can exchange it for a needed item conveniently.

Undoubtedly everyone loves coffee – while most of us are used to enjoying a cup of coffee every day, the American company Virus is intended to produce comfortable base layer fabric that traps heat close to the skin, using recycled coffee grounds. The new fabric is announced capable of increasing skin surface temperature by 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and it features anti-UV and anti-odor properties as well.

Using discarded car and bicycle parts he collected everywhere, Bangkok-based artist Roongrojna Sangwongprisarn has created a perfectly-detailed Predator-inspired motorcycles that are drivable too. Have a close look at its stunning details and florid exterior coating – who would ever believe the vehicle is made with old bike parts? Though there’s no information about its speed, we’re still quite interested in the motorcycle: when riding such a cool vehicle, who would need speed, right? Let’s just ride it slowly, and attracting everybody in the street.

The tide rises, the tide falls. The flower blossoms, the flower falls away. Every day on the surface of the Hudson River, you can see a series of giant Tide Flowers built around abandoned posts of long-gone piers- they blossom wilt at low tide and open fully at high tide, creating a beautiful scene that demonstrates the movements of water as well.

The science and technology is forwarding ahead so fast that they’ve left us many and many gadgets we no longer use, such as old-modeled radios, cellphones, music players, tablets and so on. Especially guys who are always buying new phones and updating their devices, they really don’t know what to do with those discarded one… It’s time to trade with the ecoATM. Recently emerging in California, the ecoATM is an automated gadget recycler with a touchscreen and a metal tray where you can put your devices to be recycled. The ecoATM has been inputted with over 4,000 kinds of gadgets, thus it can recognize your device, checking out if it still works and after that displays a quote for it on the screen. If you accept its offer, the ecoATM then dispenses cash in return. Or, you can cancel the trade to get your gadgets back if you’re not satisfactory with the price the ecoATM offers.

What else can the belts do for you, except for tightening your trousers? London-based designer Inghua Ting offers us an interesting but really amazing answer: the old belts could decorate your table tops, walls and floors, in forms of 12- and 18-inch square belt tiles. You got this? It’s truly practical idea to recycle your used tiles.

2D or 3D, currently almost all designs are seemingly to face that question. But actually it’s not that difficult to make a decision, because one could become both 2D and 3D at the same time. The Keyboard Wall is rightly a good example. It’s constructed with thousands of keys collected from old computer keyboards, creating a 2D image when you view them from the front while offering 3D pleasure as well since you can feel their unique shapes.

Use your head and hands, and then you’ll create something simple but magical, just as this privacy monitor. Designed and made with an old LCD monitor, the device looks all white to everybody except you, as you’re wearing “magic” glasses. But why and how? Check out the link below for more details and you may even try to make your own privacy monitor too.

There’s no waste in the designers’ mind, because anything old and unused can find their new life after redesigned by them with full imagination. These three-dimensional sculptures made out of recycled skateboard decks are rightly good examples. Created by Haroshi, each piece features a delicately distinctive pattern and shining bright colors. Who would believe they’re crafted out of layers of stacked wooden decks, if the designer didn’t tell us the truth?

Almost in every part of the world we can find creativity, which now exists in Finland too. There in that country, Miina Akkijyrkka shapes some huge cows using old vehicles. By arranging different parts of cars to become sections of the cows, the artists cleverly created unique metal cows featuring a lovely appearance.

Traditional clothes, especially those made from synthetic fiber, burns so easily in flame that they usually result in heavy burns to people who get stuck in fire. To solve that problem, researchers from Texas A&M University have developed a nontoxic fabric that is fire-resistant. The new fabric is composed of renewable ingredients like clay and chitosan, and forms a protective layer of foam on the clothes’ surface to prevent the fabric from igniting when fire is applied to it. It is said that the flame-resistant fabric could find applications in clothes, car seats and many other fields, thus featuring a wide prospect in the market.

You know that many receipts from ATM or the stores are found to contain harmful substance Bisephenol-A (BPA)? To solve that problem, the printer manufacture Epson now boasts the world’s first BPA-free free thermal receipt paper made with recycled paper. It is already launched to the market, with a price of just $57.91 per case.

Time again new value is found with old things. With his creative design and good work, Edouard Martinet sculptures several metal animals using waste materials such as automotive engines, typewriter keys, car lights and so on. Quite surprisingly all the sculptures are created by fitting each component into place instead of using solder, while the results still turn out to be firm and solid.

Wish you would have a bag that can last for many years or even all your life? Possibly the Footbag should be added onto your list. It is made of a pair of boots, featuring a simple look but really good durability.

Totally beyond imagination… With subtle design and delicate carving, Wim Delvoye has transformed unused tires into amazing sculptures. In his series “Pneu” (French for tire), each piece comes with a unique pattern and they all look so great.

Have you ever experienced a night in concrete pipes? Well, if not, we strongly suggest you have a try and you’ll see it’s not that boring as you may have imagined. But before that you need to get a touch with T3arc’s TuboHotel. It is a mini hotel located in Tepoztlan, Mexico and it was built from recycled concrete pipes. Each room may seem bit of small on the pictures but actually they offer a really cozy living as well as some beautiful panoramic views of the Sierra del Tepozteco. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Jon Salerno’s Habitat Micro Home provides a clever and practical way to expand the area of your living space. It uses a small car docked underneath a 100 square feet house to act as an extra room so that the total reconfigurable space inside the Habitat Micro Home would reach 132 square feet. [Read the rest of this entry...]

A really great artist can create wonderful things almost anywhere – on walls, grounds, lips, eyelids, or on book pages. Look at these paintings from Mike Stilkey, I bet everyone would think of one same word “wow”. But wait, and imagine what will happen when these books fall apart onto the ground… [Read the rest of this entry...]

Several years after discarded on street, one old bicycle recently finds its new functions: to work as a special city decoration. Painted with bright pink color and built with a basket for flowers, this bike now seems rightly one of fabulous sculptures commonly seen in cities. Clever!

Cheerful about the coming summer and planning to show off your cute feet? Then you must get some special shoes before that, such as Lauren Milroy’s Color Pencil Sandals. They’re all made with old color pencils, but feature a beautiful pattern and more importantly an “eco” theme. Maybe, you can still draw something with them as you walk on the road. Haha, just for kidding! [Read the rest of this entry...]

Disposable wooden chopsticks, although deemed to have destroyed a vast amount of trees, are still in great need nowadays. But fortunately we may have the hope to see our forests saved with Chung Ran Hee’s Re-Paper Chopsticks. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Long-Bin Chen’s Reading Sculptures prove that incredible art can be made with almost everything, even with discarded items. With his rich imagination and outstanding skills, the artist has transformed old telephone directories, old books and other printed material into sculptures shaped like human heads and figures. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Australia-based designer Trent Jansen have made many cycle signs out of old road signs collected from several sources in Australia. There’re two versions available: a spoke clamp and a strap. They may seem bit of small in size, but they perform quite well in reflecting light and therefore can attract other drivers’ attention. [Read the rest of this entry...]

42 pieces of floppy disks were recently brought together and found their new function, that is, to work as an innovative handbag! It is really a clever way to recycle old things. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Some materials usually seem so common that we seldom though to make them into something more creative. But this PVC House designed by Hoogte Twee has proved that we should have thought of that, because we may produce really amazing things though with ordinary materials. Yups, the B (h) uis looks very magic! [Read the rest of this entry...]

Use our intelligence. We should do this because we can create innovative or even magical things with our talent, just as Sandy Sanderson makes these mini cars with old cans, metal wires and his imagination. So incredible! [Read the rest of this entry...]

Old wine bottles now have their new brighter future, and soon you’ll find them back with the same function as wine cups. After cutting, polishing and other processes, old wine bottles then turn into lovely cups with beautiful decorative patterns, making them still popular at home and in the bars. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Craig Smith, who lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has made a unique snow removal using his two old bikes. The new vehicle looks bit of impractical on pictures, if you couldn’t control two bikes at the same time. But according to Mr. Smith, his DIY snow removal three-wheeler performs very well in cleaning the snow. So will you make one too? [Read the rest of this entry...]

Bike inner tubes usually have excellent flexibility and toughness, however we seldom get a chance to reuse them… Until we have these IT Clips. [Read the rest of this entry...]

On a design show held by Triumph Motorcycles and Birmigham Institute of Art and Design, many students brought us with various smart gadgets made out of recycled motorcycle parts. [Read the rest of this entry...]

What would your ideal sled be like, decorated with white and red ribbons just as the one of Mr. Santa‘s, or built with a large wheel just as the one shown here? [Read the rest of this entry...]

What should we do to help people living in poverty-stricken areas? You can offer them with money, apparatus, or even such simple flip-flops made of old athletic balls. Even though these Sport Flops are not delicate at all, they can at least protect millions of people’s feet from harms and diseases. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Italian artist Franco Recchia is a man with great curiosity. When taking apart old computers, he suddenly realized that it may be interesting to make some sculptures with their component parts and thus these mixed-media sculptures were brought to us. Each featuring rich details and clean lines, these sculptures here present a new look of Central Park, Manhattan, Boston and Pittsburgh and they’re all full of imagination and creativity. Really nice work, Recchia! [Read the rest of this entry...]

The play of imagination gives a new life to an old cooking stove, which now turns into a fantastic household acoustic apparatus with four 6.5-inch loudspeakers, one 7-inch touch screen and something else. Doesn’t that look good on the pictures? I even couldn’t wait to make my own one. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Considering that the consumers may need more new hangers too after getting more new clothes, DEDE DextrousDesign has made a new series of shopping bags with a name of “Get the Hang of It”. The hangers are detachable, serving as handles when integrated with shopping bags but function in another way when go into your wardrobes. So to end up, the Chic Wardrobe Bags save both your money and the resources. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Although typewriters have given way to computers, they never really go out of our life but turn into something more useful. Such as a waffle iron. It not only makes keyboard shaped waffles, but offers us a clever way to recycle useless items. [Read the rest of this entry...]

A luxurious but cheap couch does not always exist in IKEA, sometimes it may rightly stand in your apartment. When looking for something creative for a close friend’s wedding, Adrian Johnson came up with an idea to build a couch with a discarded refrigerator and a vintage BMW two-door coupe. And the finished item looks fine in both appearance and functions, just as shown in the pictures. [Read the rest of this entry...]

If you could have only one piece of jewelry, you’ll never need one made of recycled bottle caps, but if you do have more than one cap in your drawers, you’d better make them into jewelry like these created by Yoav Kotik. Look, they’re really fantastic on your necks and wrists. [Read the rest of this entry...]