Imagine something like Google Maps, but instead of streets, buildings, rivers and mountains are things – objects made and used by humans. This is the essence of Things.info – to create a web platform, where you can learn about the origin, usage and recycling of man-made objects.
It's also meant to be personal – you can create a catalog of your things, make some of them public, that you want to give away, lend out or sell. If you want to get rid of something, for example an old fridge, books etc, you can find the nearest places in your neighbourhood where these items can be recycled. Or a company interested in collecting old fridges will contact you and take it away for no cost.
We all buy things – from everyday food to mobiles, cars and furniture. More often than not we are interested in some aspect of the history of this unique thing we are considering buying. It could be the composition, for instance whether a food product contains allergens, or it could be the place of origin or quality or impact on nature and the people who produced it. It could be also the ownership history, especially in the case of more expensive devices like electronics and cars.
Every thing ever produced has potentially a unique ID in the Things.info database. This enables anyone to drill down to the details of its production history, follow its ownership trail and finally to help achieve a circular economy, where all the waste goes back into production, thus achieving a zero waste world economy.
Things.info is inviting volunteers (email team@things.info) and crowdfunding (you can "adopt a thing").
Full disclosure: Wayne Visser is on the Things.info Advisory Board.
No comments:
Post a Comment