As part of my thesis I wanted to address electronic waste by finding a way of making building materials out of it. Upon dismantling an old Apple G3 computer, I found itself with a large amount of plastics, particulalrly from the computer's casing. The wonderful thing about Apple products is that a lot of consideration goes into the design and color for the casing. With a fair amount of flat plastic pieces with very interesting and unique design elements, I decided to make tiles that could be used on walls in bathrooms, kitchens or any other location where a unique look and feel would be desired.

Even after the tiles were sized and cut, many of the original design elements are clearly visible and identifiable.

A mockup of how the e-tiles could be used as a backsplash in a kitchen.

E-tiles were also constructed out of other computer waste. The printed circuits from a keyboard were placed behind a clear acrylic and painted (left) and the circuit board pieces were placed in 1-inch resin molds that gave the surface of the tiles a dimpled effect.

Once I found a computer to dismantle the first order of business was to dismantle it and get an inventory of the different types of materials available. The materials were broken down into three types: plastics, metals and electronics (circuit boards, motors, etc.).

Note to self: be more mindful of curing time for resin before trying to fill multiple molds. The lower mold was meant to be a brick that incorporated much of the left-over shredded material, shown on the right.