Meet the Garbage WatchBuilt from the electronic waste of the world

24/05/2021

Fashion & Lifestyle, Input&Ideas, Tech&Toys

Meet the Garbage Watch
Built from the electronic waste of the world

The Vollebak Garbage Watch – built from the electronic waste of the world

Built with discarded motherboards and scrap computer parts, the Garbage Watch is a mechanical timepiece that demonstrates the potential of e-waste. It’s a collaboration of Vollebak and the Wallpaper* Re-Made project.

Vollebak co-founder Nick Tidball: “We’ve taken an ‘inside-out’ design approach with the Garbage Watch, making the functional inner workings highly visible in a similar way to how the Centre Pompidou is constructed.” While the watch is on its journey from prototype to market, you can set yourself on the waiting list to be one of the first to own it.

Today, most of the 50 million tonnes of electronic waste that’s generated every year is treated like garbage even though it isn’t. Instead it contains many of the world’s precious metals, like silver, platinum, copper, nickel, cobalt, aluminium and zinc.

In fact, research on e-waste from the World Economic Forum found that 7% of the world’s gold is in e-waste. In other words, millions of tonnes of precious metals that companies pay to extract from the ground are heading straight back into it.

Vollebak 100 year vest — 100 Year Vest – Granite Edition from Vollebak

Vollebak is a British clothing brand specialising in sports and adventure wear and was founded in 2016 by the twin brothers Nick and Steve Tidball.

In their first years they’ve made the world’s first Graphene Jacket, released clothing pieces made to last longer than 100 years and designed the first jacket for deep space travel. Impressive, isn’t it?!

Get on the Garbage Watch Waiting List