Upcycling: Rolling Trivet

The ‘Rolling’ Trivet is an ecological, sustainable trivet made out of aluminium cans a wood cut offs. I have decided to use aluminium cans because it’s readily available, it’s thrown away nearly on every corner of a street and is easy to work with. It takes ridiculously amount of energy to make raw aluminium. By upcycling we can stop this from happening and make sure the cans that have been thrown away in the wrong bin, that end up in landfill, can be recycled properly. To collect these cans I plan to have all fast food chain stores that sell cans such as KFC to work together with me and in helping to gather the supply of cans.

 

I have upcycled these cans into a simple and neat trivet for small to medium size pots and teapots. The cans have been cut into three parts, top, middle and bottom. The top and bottom and can go into recycling where it supposes to go, and the middle is used. The middle is flatten down and is cut into 3 equal triangles. Then they are individual rolled around a pen or a cylindrical object with the label facing the inside so the shiny silver part is on the outside.

 

These little rolled parts can be hold together by a wire being threaded through them like beads. But to connect them all together, they fit into one another just right, if made to all the same size. This locking system uses no glue and therefore has no ecological impacts. The wire used can be also be from left over from a workshop or factories as the length of the wire is short.

 

To finish it off, the rolled parts are roughly cut straight on the edges. Then to have a complete finish and to hide the edges, a block of woods it used. I’ve used pine because it was all that was available because for this part I’ve used cut offs from the workshop. The cut offs wood will most probably be sent off to be made in MDF which uses glues that are toxic to the environment and also uses energy to be produced. The block has been cut into a jigsaw ‘C’ shape and the rolled parts are slide into the block. Because the block been cut a few millimetres shorter than the side of the rolled parts, the rolled parts fit tightly into the block so not glue or adhesive are being use therefore adding no further ecological impacts.

 

The aluminium against the natural wood gives it a pleasing contrast. Having the aluminium being rolled, it gives the product an interesting zig zag, shiny sleek look with the natural wood softening the metal. And being crafted, it still gives an ‘industrial’ look.

 

The Rolling Trivet has been crafted so it’s a strong tight fit, with no use of glue at all. It’s rolled system makes the product stronger, with the material being triple as layers and because of the small round shape, it makes it tough, making it strong enough to hold pots and tea pots. The heat of the pot or teapot is taken in slightly into the aluminium parts but then is transferred into the wood block pieces which where the heat dispenses. And because the aluminium parts are not directly touching the surface, your table will not be harmed.

Peer Comments

1. Melinda Kingsland
2. Patrick Luwia
3. Lily Nguyen
4. Yiwen Chen
5. Dio Antonio