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Kramer and Newman fill up the truck after using an Urban Hub
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@kneecole255
An Urban Hub in the open
This particular Urban Hub is in NYC
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Urban Hubs
Modular design
This demonstrates how the Urban Hubs clip together
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Urban Hubs
Modular 3D printed bins
One of the greatest episodes of Seinfeld, the Greatest Television Show of All Time, involves Kramer and Newman in a scam to take NYC recycling to Michigan where recycled bottles are worth double the 5¢ on offer at Big Apple Bottle Deposits.
The dastardly/disastrous duo go a hunting bottles and cans to drive to the Great Lake state in the back of Newman’s mail truck acquired for the overspill of greetings cards sent on Mother’s Day. They steal cans from a homeless chap, empty finished restaurant trays into sacks and even go rooting through a dumpster just to find the metallic or plastic gold.
If only they’d have waited almost 18 years to the day that episode was aired for Earth Day 2014, they need not have dirtied their clothes and souls to obtain recyclables, they simply had to set up a 3D printed Urban Hub.
On a serious note, the work of Canning – scraping a meagre living together by redeeming discarded cans and bottles – is some of the most physically demanding and emotionally demeaning work possible. More often than not in NYC it is the task of the homeless to attempt to make ends meet by canning.
Urban Hubs is a project that aims to join together the community spirited crowd that is the makers of this world, and have them print off modular recycle units for the locals to place their discarded cans, making it easier for the canners of this world to find and collect, without the degrading, disgusting process of sifting through garbage.
The site allows makers to download a simple STL file to print as many or as few of the modular bins as they like, find a place in public to put them by either creating their own hub or adding to others easily searchable of Urban Hubs’ website.
The project is in partnership with 3D Systems and the files can also be found on Cubify, but they can be printed on any 3D printer and their relatively simple design requires little support.
So, on the day after Earth Day help to do your bit saving the planet and helping those less well off than you by setting up a Urban Hub. (+10 points if you print using recycled plastic!)
