How To Recycle* (Almost) Anything
HTRAA is a plan for a series of workshops looking into how we use resources today. We use the term “recycle” very broad, including reuse, repair and other related actions from the Waste hierarchy. Plan is to take a closer look at how we use resources in our homes and the environment around us.
The name “How To Recycle (Almost) Anything” is a play on the MIT course “How To Make (Almost) Anything” (2025 iteration) taught by Prof. Neil Gershenfeld.
Modules
We will focus on some cross topics and then dive deeper into different types of resources to recycle.
Sourcing
Where and how to find stuff to recycle
- In your own home
- Urban mining
- Dumpster Diving
- Kleinanzeigen/Craigslist/eBay/Facebook Marketplace
- Sharing / Community
- Material Initiatives
Repair
How to repair things, or figure out how to repair things.
- MachsGanz Reparaturparcour
- Repair Cafés
- Safety
Building Materials
- Wood
Tools
Energy
- Batteries
Textiles
- Mending
Electronics
Food
Paper
Plastics
- Precious Plastic
Thoughts
Documentation
For HTMAA, every participant seems encouraged to document their journey through the course on a dedicated website. It would be great to do the same thing for HTRAA, but given that people may not be as technically inclined as at MIT, we might need to provide some more guidelines. But it would very well fit into our critical making theme to keep a record.
- Zines
- standard blog setup?
Formats
There are different ways to present this content, and we’ll figure out what fits best for what
- A single workshop
- A series of workshops over a number of weeks, e.g. 1-2 hours per week
- Remotely, similar to FabAcademy
- College course, similar to HTMAA
- Blog articles
- HowTo Guides
- Maps
- Vision Boards
Biases
- Initially, this will be from a very Munich-local, urban view onto resources available.