From Binning to Winning

Suffering from chronic anxiety about his own life’s meaning coupled with the conveyor belt of negative news about the state of the planet, Will felt the need to do something, well, to settle at least the first point. So early last year he reduced down to 4 day week, tightened his belt, and created Will’s Wednesday Work: Will - Not just a job title, he's a multidisciplinary. Motivated foremost by purpose and driven by creativity. Wednesday - Neither a day of rest nor a day dictated by others. Instead, a day dedicated to purposeful pursuit, nurturing creativity within and beyond myself. Work - Speculative and creative in nature, embodying themes of waste reduction, sustainable living, and frugality, to name a few... Continuing to work as an architectural/ interior designer at renowned London based design practice MoreySmith for 4 days a week, Will is continually reminded about the amount of material and energy resource needed to create the ever transforming built environment, and feels passionately about the need for design evolution rather than revolution; coming up with creative ways to reimagine the things we already have over using virgin materials. Furniture usually makes up a large portion of an interior space and with approximately 22 million pieces discarded each year in the UK, with the majority going directly to landfill, it's an area Will sort to deploy his creative problem solving. His wish is to encourage people to change their perception of what waste is and allow themselves to see more value in things too easily discarded, and also celebrate the narrative built around ‘what was, now is’. A key aspect is individual accountability for the waste we create and discard. While recycling is beneficial, reuse should be prioritised. Single-use items often have untapped utility that should be maximised before recycling, which consumes significant energy and resources in processing and transportation. Will realised the most accessible place in a home to find inherently recyclable materials is the recycling bin, so this has become the staple resource for his furniture creations, along with ‘urban foraged’ materials found discarded in his local area. All the furniture products are designed with circularity in mind; being born from the recycle bin and through simple disassembly can re-enter that recycle bin once their service has been complete. The next step for Will is creating and releasing downloadable manuals to enable people to start their own ‘from binning to winning’ stories by building products of beauty and utility born from their very own recycling bins.