E-waste watch by Vollebak
A watch made from digital landfill offers a timely response to the electronic scrapheap
E-waste is a big problem. More than 50 million tonnes of it is produced every year, much of it headed for huge, noxious landfills in China and Africa. It only represents two per cent of solid waste in landfills, but 70 per cent of it is hazardous material. It’s nasty stuff, but it might also be a big opportunity.
E-waste is rich in rare minerals and precious metals, and the sophisticated and systematic ‘mining’ of it could be a profitable win-win, a vital contribution to circular manufacturing in the tech industry and an alternative to the environmental scarring of extraction. The key ‘unlock’ would be finding viable value chains for e-waste materials; new processes that might tip the balance of recovery cost versus potential profit in the right direction, and designs that not only make good use of e-waste but create demand. This was a problem that twins Nick and Steve Tidball, founders of future clothing brand Vollebak, took on last year. We asked them to design a watch for Wallpaper* Re-made and left it at that, though we did mention circularity as an area they might explore. Nick did some research and decided e-waste was a problem worth investigating.
Inspired by the Centre Pompidou, he designed a watch with visible parts, an open metal box exposing gears, springs and spindles attached to a strap of red and orange plastic cables. He created a physical model of the design for our August 2020 issue and when the brothers later posted an image of the design on the Vollebak website, it generated 20,000 enquiries. Clearly there was no problem with demand. Now they just had to make the ‘Garbage Watch’. Luckily, many of the brand’s customers are as interested in innovative materials and technological challenges as the Tidballs, and the brothers reached out to see who might be able to help. ‘We got a huge response,’ says Nick, ‘including a very senior designer at one of the tech giants and a guy who owns an e-waste site in Australia.’
Nick spent nearly five months working with a senior materials specialist from the unnamed tech titan, time volunteered for free (professional discretion requires anonymity). ‘He knew about materials, electronics and supplies and putting bits of machinery and stuff together,’ says Nick. ‘And he had a brilliant brain in terms of creativity-meets-problem solving, as good as anyone I’ve ever met.’ The pair broke down the problem, the mechanics of the watchmaking, and set parameters of success. ‘We said that even if we only got to use 80 per cent e-waste in this first iteration, that would still be success. Because we would keep iterating.’
Nick’s secret collaborator then connected him with Acorn, a product development specialist whose clients include Apple, Google and Microsoft, and they started to discuss materials and where to get them. ‘The fascinating thing about e-waste is that you can get hold of pretty much anything you like,’ says Nick. ‘I’m particularly interested in brass and tungsten right now.
I’m also thinking of doing a special edition in e-waste gold, as well as ways to use old iphone torches.’
Nick and Acorn have looked into sourcing waste from Shenzhen in China. ‘We’re trying to use as many components as is, rather than having to recast materials and make new parts,’ says Nick, who also wants to ensure that the ‘Garbage Watch’ is relatively easy to maintain and repair.
A key decision was whether to use quartz power or devise a new mechanical movement (no small undertaking). It looks like the collaborators may take a revolutionary new course. Over the last few months, Nick has been working with Acorn on three options for the ‘Garbage Watch’, all with varying levels of risk. ‘With the low-risk option I just said, park that – no one will buy it because it’s boring,’ he says. ‘The medium risk version is that everything is made from e-waste, but it is powered by a quartz mechanism that has been discarded for some reason and we’ll rebuild it. And we’ll create a watch that looks like the one I designed with gears and hands and dials created from e-waste.’
Then there’s the high-risk option. Jacob Webb, a robotics engineer at Acorn, has come up with a concept for an entirely new kind of watch movement, driven by parts of a motor usually used in drone quadcopters. The design would not only give ‘Garbage Watch’ an even more compelling story – entirely new watch movements are rare marvels of micro-engineering
– it could offer a multi-functionality impossible with a mechanical watch. And more pleasing buttons to press. But it would also cost more to develop. And there’s no guarantee that Webb’s idea would work.
Just before going to press, we sat in on a virtual meeting where Acorn gave Nick a final run-through of the options, including costs, development time and risks involved. At the end of the meeting, votes were cast, including ours. High-risk won, and by a landslide. Vollebak is now looking to produce a run of 2,000 or so watches to be available by Christmas 2022. Other versions of the ‘Garbage Watch’ will follow.
The ‘Garbage Watch’ project has also inspired a range of Garbage clothing, including a recently launched jumper. ‘We found this amazing fabric from France, made out of recycled meta-aramid and para-aramid fibres from old bulletproof vests and firefighters’ jackets,’ says Nick. ‘It’s quite a complicated fabric to work with, but the jumper is fantastic.’
The conviction that ingenuity and reimagination can incite passion and unlock demand continues to drive the ‘Garbage Watch’ project. ‘We make really great clothes so I’m pretty sure I can make an e-waste watch and sell that, too,’ says Nick. ‘It’s going to cost proper money, but when I think about what we should be pushing out into the world, this is what we should be doing. So we’re going for it, all guns blazing.’ *
Opposite, built from the tech the world threw in the trash, Vollebak’s ‘Garbage Watch’ uses as many used components as possible, and should be on sale at the end of next year. Visit the Vollebak website to put your name on the waiting list