Project Nibbler

The Problem

The waste crisis is one of the world’s most pressing environmental issues. If we do not promote drastic change, our oceans will house more plastics than fish by 2050. Even worse, the current recycling system — perhaps the most trusted and accepted solution — is broken. According to the Science Advances journal, up to 2018, only 9% of all plastic waste ever produced was in fact recycled. Humanity needs to opt out of the current ineffective production and disposal cycle, while striving for a more sustainable relationship with waste materials.

The Approach

Nibbler combines reduce, reuse, and recycle into one household machine. Incremental improvements on the existing system of making, wasting, and “recycling” are not enough to create a waste-free world. Rather, we must revolutionize our relationship with trash — we can take back control of this process by transforming waste into valuable new materials. Instead of buying more and throwing it away, we can make tomorrow’s objects out of today’s trash. Nibbler enables households to lower their environmental footprint by breathing new life into mixed waste and providing an alternative for the consumption of other industrial materials.

Progress

Team Alpha Concept Work and Patent

From January 2020 through June 2021, the Alpha team took Nibbler from an idea to a U.S. Patent Pending invention. From the idea’s conception, the team carried out substantial research in the environmental economics of recycling and waste management. They determined that Nibbler could be a feasible solution to this problem, and began prototyping the grinding mechanism and hacking 3D printers to make objects out of a trash-matrix blend. They wrote both a provisional and then a full U.S. patent application, submitted in June 2021.

Student Leads

Avenues Tiger Works Colleagues

William Lidwell, Jared Thorn, Jason Holden, Brendan Cavalier, Emily Hollenbeck, Ana Paula Giorgi, Rui Zanchetta, Mike Maccarone

Team Delta Prototyping and Build

Team Delta is currently refining and optimizing the prototype of Nibbler to produce a fully-functioning machine that can receive any type of solid waste and 3D print clean, user-specified objects with a low-VOC resin that is safe for household use. This team will also carry out a Life Cycle Analysis to quantify the environmental and economic impacts of Nibbler and ensure that it is a beneficial alternative to the current recycling system. By spring 2022, we plan to spread the word about Nibbler via publications, public talks, and applying for environmental awards, spearheading a drive towards optimizing product design and beginning a marketing phase in the following year.

Student Leads

Avenues Tiger Works Colleagues

Jared Thorn, Jason Holden, Emily Hollenbeck, William Lidwell, Ana Paula Giorgi, Rui Zanchetta, Katy Garnier

Team Epsilon Proving the Concept

Team Epsilon is currently proving the critical technologies and design that make up the core of Nibbler. During the 5th term of the 2021-2022 school year, the team was able to convene at the São Paulo campus to build a concept prototype of what the final product could look like. During the Fall 2022 semester, the team was able to prove the concepts for the final two critical steps of the Nibbler process, setting us up to begin engineering during J-Term at the New York Campus and during the Spring 2023 semester.

Student Leads

Avenues Tiger Works Colleagues

Jared Thorn, Jason Holden, Emily Hollenbeck, Ana Paula Giorgi, Rui Zanchetta, William Lidwell, Brendan Cavalier, Gretel Schwartzott

Team J-Term Winter 2021
Engineering the Nibit Maker

Our first J-Term team’s task was to engineer an automated Nibit maker. A Nibit is a small puck made from trash and UV resin. These pucks are a critical building block for the next step in the 3D printing process. They will form the homogeneous bits that will be assembled into a final object. A process we will begin engineering during the Spring 2023 semester.

Student Leads

Avenues Tiger Works Colleagues

Jared Thorn, Jason Holden, Emily Hollenbeck, Ana Paula Giorgi, Rui Zanchetta, William Lidwell, Brendan Cavalier, Gretel Schwartzott

ClimateLaunchpad Competition

In 2021, the Nibbler team joined the ClimateLaunchpad Competition, the world’s largest green business ideas contest (an entrepreneurship offering of EIT Climate-KIC). The ClimateLaunchpad creates a stage for cleantech ideas with the potential to address climate change issues.

68 Brazilian startups participated this year, and the Nibbler team ranked among the top ten. These finalists joined a three-day bootcamp in July to improve the entrepreneurial aspects of the projects and to prepare their pitches for the National Final competition in August. Nibbler took second place in Brazil and competed in the Regional Finals with startups from Suriname, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and other countries in the Americas in September 2021. Nibbler is now preparing for the Global Finals to be held in October 2021.

Scenes from the Project Nibbler presentation at the ClimateLaunchpad Regional Finals on September 24, 2021.