Sinks and Drains: Imagine having a sink or tub drain that was designed to prevent clogs before they became a possibility. This is possible with a redesign of sinks and drains so they are angled away from the faucet with the drains at the far end (opposed to under the faucet). The drain would be an elongated rectangular crevice (possibly with rounded ends) with a wire-mesh inset. The inset would ‘snap’ in and out to permit easy cleaning. A sink that is designed to permit easy cleaning and reduce pipe clogs is one way to keep innovation free flowing
Convex Garden Roofs: Imagine a house that has an arced roof (instead of an angular roof) made of recycled plastic. Imagine there were funnels in the roof that connected to piping inside the home. Imagine that piping was connected to misting shower heads under-which was a garden. Why do we still build classic roofs that provide little practical benefit beyond wasting water? A roof that waters a garden while regulating the year-round temperature seems like an idea that could be seeded.
Doors Without Knobs: Imagine having your hands full and your front door automatically opening when you stand within 1 meter. Why hasn’t smart card asymmetric encryption technologies been embedded in door-locks which are connected to actuator arms for residential exterior doors in a cost-effective way? Using low-power rfid digital certificate based authentication to unlock the door then activate an actuator arm that opens the door all residential door knobs could be replaced, thus viral and bacterial spread, lock picking criminals, and damaged physical lock components, and other issues could be resolved. Just don’t try to ‘connect’ this lock to any network. It should be independent of any network connection abilities as it should not be remotely managed.
Sub-Roofing Drainage: Imagine having house gutters that can’t get clogged, can reduce ice shards in winter, and can even melt snow. If roofing material was porous water could drain through it to a sub-roofing drainage system that leads to the external downspout. The sub-roofing could have temperature control mechanisms that can heat the ambient temperature in winter to 80 degrees to melt snow and ice. This system would completely eliminate exterior gutters, would be clog resistant, and could melt roofing to melt snow and ice build-up.
Faux Lumberyard: Take used cardboard and old plastic, soggy the cardboard and melt the plastic, dump soggy cardboard in melted plastic, mix thoroughly, evaporate 99.95% of water, form mixture into ‘beams’ and ‘planks’ (boards). Cut to size and sell for construction, hobbies, and furniture needs. Get more recyclable plastic and cardboard and repeat.
Plastic Building Material Manufacturing: Imagine removing all plastic waste from the planet by recycling it to create building materials for developing countries. Plastic can be used to create roofing materials, internal walling materials (replacing sheet rock), exterior siding, insulation, flooring tiles, and even window frames. Developing countries could offset the price of manufacturing the building materials with the profits from charging developed countries for accepting the plastic refuse. Furthermore, the plastic manufacturing plants can be solar powered to further reduce costs so local communities can build housing with minimal or no cost. No cost being due to the plants giving away the building materials to locals as the manufacturing plants’ revenue is from plastic imports and possibly delivery of plastic goods to home builders/owners. Just one concept to clean up all the plastic laying around. A possible second revenue stream would be from manufacturing plants exporting manufactured goods to other nation states.
Plastic-Rubber Pavement: We have an excess of plastic waste and an excess of rubber waste from used tires, why don’t we combine the materials to pave roads so we never use virgin materials ever again?
Recycled Plastic Buildings: why haven’t we started using recycled plastics as building materials such as insulation, wall material (opposed to drywall), roofing material, to fix asphalt roads and parking lots, interior doors, and other uses? Seems like there is a plethora of uses for recycled plastic so why is there a problem?