One Company's Quest to Make Recycling 'Sexy'
FORTUNE
Mar 14th, 2019
Trash can—and should—be turned into furniture, clothing, boats, planes, and even pneumatically adjustable airport pavilions, argues MINIWIZ CEO Arthur Huang, whose company specializes in making products and building materials from waste.
But a more sustainable future that depends on more recycling will require recycled products that are, in his words, “sexy”—meaning those that can compete with conventional products, he told attendees at the Fortune Brainstorm Design Conference in Singapore last Wednesday.
Appropriately enough, Huang made his remarks wearing clothes made from 100% recycled materials. His company built an entire airport pavilion from half a million recycled plastic bottles. The pavilion isn’t just environmentally sound; it’s technologically advanced, too. A digital sensor can control the internal pressure of the structure.
“So every time there’s too much wind or too much rain, the structure actually becomes stiffer or lighter,” he said.