‘Trash Transit Bot’ is a speculative trash-bin and public intervention by Interface Cultures MA students Davide Bruno (IT), Behiye Erdemir (TR), Stella Grübler (AT), Doğuš Karlık (TR) and Maria Orciuoli (IT).
Where does your trash go?
The project points to the lack of transparency in global waste export practices. It departs from the collective research and exchange carried out by students of the Interface Cultures department around the topic of waste management.
A black recycling bin invites streets passengers to trash recyclables. In response,’Trash Transit Bot’ prints out a receipt providing a list of possibilities of how the garbage is likely to be treated.
Text printed on receipt (prototype version):
Your piece of garbage…
_will add up to the 14.7 million tones of waste
shipped in 2021 from EU countries to Türkiye
_is part of the global waste traffic contributing
to Türkiye’s 530 tons annual
emissions of Co2
_is likely to be shipped via multiple transit countries
to camouflage its origin
_is likely to be illegally dumped
in a landfill that employs some of
the country’s poorest people
_is likely to be burned, piled into mountains
and left to spill into rivers and the sea
_is a reminder that the EU’s waste export strategy
depends on countries willing to carry
the environmental and
societal costs of pollution
Thank you for contributing
to EU’s Waste Export Program.
The concept was developed during the summer semester 2022’s ‘Creative Robotics’ 3-day workshop under the guidance of artist and PhD researcher Filipe Pais and in parallel to conversations held at the Interface Cultures department of Kunstuniversität Linz with artists Ting-Yu Chen (TW), Lina Pulido Barragán (CO), Jelena Mönch (DE), Doğuš Karllık (TR), Maria Konstantinova (RU) and Aizhan Saganayeva (KAZ).
