Global Sustainability Through Zero Waste

The EcoARK, a nine-story-tall pavilion used as the main exhibition hall for the 2010 Taipei Inter­national Flora Exposition, afforded Miniwiz CEO Arthur Huang an opportunity to take a first decisive step in guiding his company toward his ultimate goal of a “toxin-­free, zero-­waste future.” Then the MAC Ward demonstrated that Miniwiz’s technologies had come to maturity. Huang set his sights on converting the construction indus­try—which uses more raw mater­ials and generates more carbon emissions than any other industry in the world—into one that features low consumption of materials, low carbon emissions, and an aesthetic design sense. Introducing a circular waste cycle into the construction and interior decoration industries, which are the most voracious consumers of materials, amounts to getting the entire nation pulling together to protect the environment and make waste useful. The result is reduction of waste and the establish­ment of a circular economy.

Who will safeguard the future?

The CNN program Call to Earth has described what Miniwiz does as “one man’s mission to make treasure out of trash.” Huang states: “Mankind’s desire for more than what is necessary for survival has created extreme consumption, rapidly turning waste and carbon emissions into an existential threat to the global ecosystem.” For example, the phenomenon of “fast fashion” has resulted in unbelievable quantities of used and unsold clothing getting dumped in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert, polluting over 105,000 square kilometers of land.

Arthur Huang appears prominently in Going Circular, a documentary by Off the Fence, the team that produced the Oscar-winning documentary My Octopus Teacher. ­Going Circular, which premiered at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in 2021, offers a detailed picture of the technologies developed by Miniwiz and some of the projects they have completed in Taiwan and around the world. It explores the economic benefits and possibilities of recycling and reuse, and calls on the entire world to take action on carbon reduction.

We want to “turn consumers into recyclers.” In the documentary, Huang proposes a sustainable solution to world leaders: “We need to do away with the linear economy, and move toward a circular economy.”

The Modular Adaptable Convertible (MAC) Ward, which won a 2021 iF Design Award, is the result of a collaborative development effort between Fu Jen Catholic University Hospital, the Taiwan Design Research Institute, the Industrial Development Bureau, and Miniwiz. The wards are made entirely from upcycled sustainable materials, and the negative-pressure units are equipped with an ultraviolet self-cleaning system that reduces the bacterial count by 99% while inactivating viruses. (courtesy of Taiwan Design Research Institute)

A global perspective

Taiwan is the source of the greater part of the techno­logies used by Miniwiz. “Taiwan has very strong R&D capabilities. We have obtained invention patents for our processes. To turn recycled materials into new materials, you need people with expertise in many different fields.” Huang had originally intended to pursue his dreams in the United States, but in the end he came back to Taiwan, where he built a team to bring his ideas to fruition.

“Miniwiz thinks outside the box regarding the reuse of materials. In an effort to fundamentally resolve the problem of waste, we’ve headed off in new directions that no one has ever taken before.” All the things he’s done to resolve various difficulties over the past 17 years have yielded unexpected breakthroughs. “After you ‘renew’ material, if the material is only suitable for a single function, then you haven’t really achieved a renewal loop. So my team and I started thinking about how to maximize the functionality of different materials.”

When talk turns to the resili­ence and ingenuity of the Taiwanese people, Huang shows a sense of pride: “That is why, with all the successful resource renewal projects that Miniwiz has completed in countries all around the world, the core technologies have always been developed in Taiwan.” And the accol­ades pouring in from around the world affirm that “Taiwan can indeed take the lead in bringing about a circular economy.”

Everything in this photo, including the clothes and accessories worn by Miniwiz CEO Arthur Huang, is made from recycled trash—mostly plastic, which is Public Enemy No. 1 for the world’s oceans. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)

Objects on display at the Miniwiz offices are all made from recycled materials, and each one represents a milestone in the company’s development. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)

Renewed waste with an aesthetic flair

Although he graduated from Harvard University with a Master of Architecture degree, Arthur Huang did not choose to become an architect. “When I was working on my BA in architecture at Cornell University, I felt that there were big problems with the ‘architecture’ we were studying, and also with ‘green’ architecture.” Asked why he left architecture in favor of waste recyc­ling, he responds: “The topic of my bachelor’s thesis was the relationship between nature and manmade structures, including architectural structures.”

The thrust of his thesis is summed up in two words: zero waste. “Focusing as I did on zero waste, I came to feel that the best solution was recycling and reuse of materials.” A few years later, his ideas led to the birth of Miniwiz, which would go on to overturn people’s under­standing of waste recycling.

The recycling industry of the past many years has mainly achieved its objective of environmental protection by taking used materials, pelletizing them, and reconstituting them as usable objects. “But if recycled products don’t make it into consumer markets, all you’re doing is converting one kind of waste into another,” says Huang.

In an effort to achieve zero waste and reintroduce used materials back into the circular economy, Huang’s first idea was to “make recycled materials into totally new mater­ials which would be more useful and durable than the original materials, and could eventually be ­recycled.”

That led to the birth of an open-access database for upcycled materials. Populated by information from a vast body of materials research and experimentation, the data­base facilitates efforts to achieve structural strengthen­ing and work out how to combine materials with different characteristics. In the course of these efforts, Miniwiz has obtained 12 invention patents. The company is able to take recycled materials and develop them into new materials. After that, application of different processes expands the range of a reconstituted mater­ial’s usefulness, and enhances its durability.

The continually expanding database serves as a solid foundation for Miniwiz. Huang explains: “You take a known material A, multiply by a range of compatible mater­ials available in quantity B, further multiply by ­usable processes available in quantity C... the number result­ing from just this little calculation is over five figures, and that’s the number of materials there are to choose from.” The new materials can be used in every­thing from clothing, furniture, and interior decorations to building materials. And “material A” is available in endless variety.

But, having resolved the problem of materials, how does one then go about explaining to customers where those materials can be used?

Miniwiz’s Exchange pop-up store on the Italian island of Sardinia features a miniTrashpresso portable waste processing line. Customers bring used plastic items to the store, where in just minutes the trash is converted into new products.

Trashpresso

“Do you have three minutes?” Arthur Huang often uses this simple question to begin a conversation about what Miniwiz does. “Seeing is believing. The quickest way to explain is to just show people.” Under Huang’s direction, the team at Miniwiz developed Trashpresso, a portable processing line that converts plastic waste into stylish plastic tiles in just minutes. The first device of its kind in human history, Trashpresso currently comes in two sizes; the larger is housed in a pair of 40-foot contain­ers, while the smaller version—mini­Trashpresso—fits inside two 20-foot containers. “I ask people who come to our Trashpresso demonstrations to toss plastic bottles into the machine. In less time than it takes to drink a coffee, out comes the product.” Huang allows Trashpresso itself to do the work of con­vincing customers. MiniTrashpresso, which in 2021 won a Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements Award in the Global Model of Green Technology category, is completely powered by ­solar panels, upcycles trash into ­finished products, and is equipped with sensors to check that the resulting products are free of toxins. The entire process is very nearly carbon neutral.

“The upcycling technology is impressive, to be sure, but what really amazes people is how the finished products and buildings made with them are low-carbon and toxin-free, and beyond that, they are stronger, more functional, and even quite nice looking and sexy.” In addition to his professional training as a structural engineer, Huang is also a designer with a fine eye for aesthetics.

Late last year, Miniwiz was hired by Fubon Financial Holdings to produce a “positive power” wireless charger as a souvenir to mark the company’s 60th anniversary. Each charger is made from nine discarded face masks, all of which were taken from the face mask bins placed by the company at its entranceways.

Toxin-free, low-carbon, and zero-waste upcycling of trash into consumer goods—Miniwiz has put in an incredible amount of work to pull off what looks to some like an easy magic trick. But Miniwiz has set its sights far beyond that. The problem they want to resolve is the sheer quantity of waste. “Construction is the best choice for us, because construction materials and in­ter­ior decora­tions can gobble up more waste in one fell swoop than just about any other economic activity.”

The exterior walls of the EcoARK are made of 300,000 interlocking Polli-Brick™ modules (Miniwiz holds an invention patent), which themselves were made from 1.52 million PET beverage bottles.

A Trashpresso unit traveled to Italy for Milan Design Week 2018, where it demonstrated its capabilities in the square of Castello Sforzesco. Passersby donated disposable coffee cups and other plastic items, and the Trashpresso then upcycled the trash into new products through a toxin-free process, to the amazement of those who witnessed it.

Infinite material lifecycles

The locally sourced sustainable materials produced by Miniwiz are available in countless configurations, and the buildings in which they are used in cities around the world now cover a combined 300,000 square meters of land.

Huang puts his finger on the reason why green industry has for many years failed to gain momentum: “Mankind must throw itself headlong into lines of business that serve to protect the environment. We need both market demand and values-driven commitment.”

“The human race depends on nature. We have already extracted enough raw materials. We process them into finished products, which are used by consumers and then discarded.” Huang feels that the life of a mater­ial should not end with it becoming waste. On the contrary, mankind has an obligation to extend that life. We must employ low-carbon processing methods to upcycle waste into en­viron­ment­ally friendly materials and products. We must get these materials and products back into consumer markets, and achieve sustainable usage and closed-loop consumption. “Taiwan has the technologies to do this, to do it well, and to diversify the range of materials.” After 17 years of honing its skills, the internationally acclaimed Miniwiz is ready to give its all for the sake of global sustainability.

From wall building blocks, modular facing tiles, and home decorations to ordinary consumer items, Miniwiz uses patented technologies to take trash and recycle it into new materials that are even more functional than the original goods, and look stylish too. (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)

photo by Lin Min-hsuan

photo by Lin Min-hsuan

photo by Lin Min-hsuan

In 2019, Miniwiz and the One Ocean Foundation organized a beach cleanup activity on the Italian island of Sardinia. The main participants were students from the YCCS Sailing School, who took beach trash to a Miniwiz Exchange pop-up store and watched as the miniTrashpresso unit there turned the trash into new products in a matter of minutes. (courtesy of One Ocean Foundation)