 Welcome to Monthly News number 16. I have to say it feels like I already uploaded a lot of videos in the last period which I did because of Storyhopper Season 2 and I actually finished the last one this month which is called Skip the Straw. I think it's the last one because I don't have more time to make but I would like to make more though. Anyway, the story is about trying to skip the plastic straw and just not using it and it's fun seeing people actually doing this, translating it in their own language or putting it on a t-shirt just to spread the word and trying to reduce the straw. And in latest news, the European actually tries to ban plastic straws, steers and cotton buns just because to avoid this plastic pollution. I am always a bit skeptical when it comes to these things that it's like easy set but I mean before it's really implemented it's going to take years if it's implemented at all. I'm always more pro of starting yourself like today. No excuses, don't wait for anyone to do it so just take action. However, it is definitely good that it's on the radar and if it would make its way into a law it would definitely have a huge impact so that's good. Yeah so it's probably on the agenda because we made the video on how to skip the straw. No, it's not because of that but I actually do think that because a lot of people make noise and it might look small but all together it sort of creates a sound that people don't want this disposable plastic anymore so the more and more people act and make noise about that the sooner it's on their agenda and it's being fixed so keep making noise about that. Finally this month I started probably my biggest project ever, Project Come. So this is the plan, it's a very rough sketch but it boils down to I just want to figure out the way how I live and work on a daily basis. So the project is all about trying to find a way to live and work more sustainable and just prototype that, figure out new stuff, try it out if it doesn't work, you learn and share all that knowledge online. But I think it also had a little bit of a personal reason for me to start because I felt like I know I work here in this concrete building, welding metals. I felt like I would also like to play a bit more with the basic things in life like growing your own foods or getting your hands in the soil and just having fresh air around you. So very excited to start on this but I would also say it's like a long-term plan. It's going to take years, I mean finding a piece of land with the right regulations that you actually have it's going to take a while so I'm patient. Now another cool thing is this month we actually won a big prize of €300.000 which is huge. I mean that's by far the most amount of money I ever had. Then I'm going to use it to develop projects but I'm not going to put it in project.com but really in precious plastic because we earned it with precious plastic so it also feels fair to invest it in there and I think also precious plastic could really have way more potential than now. I mean a lot of people start recycling plastic but there's still so much plastic pollution out there so we still have work to do and we're actually going to start working on precious plastic version 4 but we will release the details after summer when we worked out the plan so stay tuned for that. I also got some products from the community so Tef made these, he calls them mouse pads. I don't use it as a mouse pad but I just sort of put it down because it looks beautiful. It's made with injection machine so the plastic really spreads out like this but it almost looks like a galaxy with a lot of details. They look cool there and we have this tray from Schradt and Muld in the Netherlands to put on stuff but it has a very nice finishing so with the brass screws and the hardwood just a nice finished product and from Kunsthof Schmied in Germany they developed this cloth pin, wash pin. They've been working on this for quite a while but they actually made a very nice mold for this one. There's also an article about this whole process and mold making in our community, I'll put the link in the description below. These guys in Germany also uploaded a video on how to prototype molds. Today we're going to show you a little tutorial on how you can make molds just from Plexiglas. And now we're ready to inject our plastic. So they're using Plexiglas to sort of make a small amount of the product just to see if it's good before you make a final mold. And the cool thing is once they share the video others can learn from that. So we actually have people in Colombia already trying out the process and what I really like is that they made a little video about how it's being injected to plastic and I just have never seen that because usually my molds are from metal and clothes. So in this way you can actually see the plastic flows in. It looks impressive, it looks magical. And I also did a presentation this month at What Design Can Do in Amsterdam and we actually got our own billboard. It's the second one this year. And also went to Copenhagen to talk about plastic at the Plastic Industry Inn. It's the Danish Plastic Federation. Now to just come together with the industry to talk about plastic, so we're sort of the weird one because it's all very industrial and large scale and then you have sort of this fresh plastic small community driven project. But it's interesting seeing the contrast and to learn from each other and I heard that just outside the center of Copenhagen two guys set up a precious plastic workspace in this new area with a lot of shops and food stands. So I wanted to drop by. So here's a little clip. And this thing right here is a very famous waste incinerator. You might have seen it on the internet and it burns waste to convert it into energy. That's not why it's famous. It's because you can ski on top of it, so that's funny. But we're actually discussing about these processes at the conference with plastic and now they kind of realize it's actually better to recycle instead of burn the waste. So yeah. Yeah so burning for energy is sort of efficient but still very wasteful because you just burn the material which you could have also recycled for a long time for several times. So it's always better to recycle as long as you can. Alright so now back to the Copenhagen guys. In this new area with a lot of food stands and little shops and the opening is tomorrow. So still some noises going on. Sorry for that. And two guys, Lasse and Andreas build a precious plastic workspace inside two shipping containers. Small shipping containers. And they're called Von Plast. And here's their little workspace. Hey there. Hey. Come on in. Good old shredder. Some products. Ah nice. Yeah. They look familiar. Yeah. You've seen them before. It's from the bazaar. A precious plastic bazaar. Ah from Thailand. And from... Slovakia? Slovenia? Yeah. Still, still can't pronounce your name guys. Sorry. You can, right? Ah umelo botle. Exactly. Oh sorry. Ah it's plastic. And this is from, this is from over a couple of minutes here in Copenhagen. Ah yeah. So this is your little showroom shop. This is our showroom for the products and shredding and chilling. Yeah. The Grand Office. The Grand Office yeah. And in here we have the workshop. Container too. Ah nice. Let me go here for the backlight. Yeah. And here we have the workshop. Yeah. Container too. Ah nice. Let me go here for the backlight. Of course. This is our workspace with our sort of plastic over here. Where we are going to put the plastic stickers from the download kit from the web page. Yeah. And we have the machines you already know behind you. I guess. I've seen them. Compressor out in here. No. And the extruder here. And the injector over here. Alright. Yeah. And this is actually everything in this container except for a few building materials. Everything in this container is actually made from recycles. All the windows. Ah. Like a door. Like a door for every tools. This is an old kitchen table we found. Everything is made out of recycled material. And so why do you have two different containers? Well we need a showroom. Like an office space and a showroom for the products. And we need room to work and make mistakes and develop out here. Yeah. This is the research and development department out here. I actually think that's a very good idea to separate it so you can play around here and keep it clean there. Yeah. Alright. Nice. So you're getting started so the official opening is tomorrow right? There's going to be a big opening party tomorrow where the main is going to hold a speech. Yeah. The details are coming and a lot of rosé wine is going to be sold out here tomorrow. And it's not. I mean the opening is not just for us. It's for the whole area. Yeah. Because this is a new area right? Yeah. It's just developed and it's opening tomorrow. It's more than 150 containers of workshops and tattoo artists and street food and cars and yeah. Tomorrow and around this clock there's going to be thousands of people out here tomorrow. You hope? Hopefully. I'm pretty sure it will. So I actually dropped by next day and indeed it was busy. You're pretty close to the beer place man on a daily basis. That's... I don't drink beer. But it's going to be a great summer and we can't wait for it. But it's going to be a great summer and we can't wait to get started on the production and just having a good time out here. It's going to be a lot of fun. And the work space they had was really nice because the whole area was very much alive with a lot of people coming in and out. And I think that's also a powerful thing of fresh plastic that is not hidden away somewhere in a dark room. People recycling plastic but it's visible so people can actually learn from the fact that they see plastic being shredded and turn into something new. So next time they have plastic they don't see it as a waste but as a resource. So I think it's very interesting to have workspaces in spots like that. Now I'm looking forward to see where they are in a year or so. So here's one personal thing about me. I always feel very guilty for my carbon fruit plant I leave for all the travelling I do. So I always tell myself no Dave it's okay because you need to travel for your work or you're doing research or you educate people about plastic or you're visiting spots to spread the word and build this global community. But end of the day I'm still throwing in a lot of carbon in the air because of all the flights I have to do. So if I can I always try to reduce the amount of airplanes to use. Now it actually takes just one hour to go with an airplane from Amsterdam to Copenhagen. So I figured let's go by public transport. And now I need to go by bus and train which is going to take about 20 hours and 6 transfers. So that's going to be fun. So it's currently midnight it actually went quicker than expected. Just 17 hours but slightly more transfers. Now just a short 10 minute bike trip and we're back home. Thanks for watching and see you next month.