As we Americans make our way
through the world's resources at a
rate six times that of the average
human, we leave behind a lot of
debris. Designers occasionally try to
deal with this stuff, but by and large,
trash gets left out of the design equation,
leaving households with no way
to handle the growing variety of recycling
chores demanded by a changing
world. The single trash can under the
kitchen counter doesn't cut it anymore.
Yet the other extreme — the overly
specific, custom-built recycling sorting
system that becomes obsolete when
there is a change in the recycling market,
the trash-removal contractor, or
the household's makeup or habits —
doesn't work so well either. It makes
more