Precious Caps is a research on a Circular economy process within the Ca’ Foscari University’s various buildings, with the aim of transforming part of the waste produced by students and administrative and teaching staff into new objects. At the heart of the project are HDPE bottle tops: good quality plastic with specific chemical properties that make them 100% recyclable.

The first phase of Precious Caps saw the activation of pick-up points located in most of the University’s offices while a second part of the process saw the collected tops divided according to colour and shredded to give a “powder” of plastic particles which were then melted and injected into moulds to create new objects.

Special tools and machines have been designed and produced at the local FabLab. The main contribution of this project is showing how an aware waste management can reduce pollution (especially water pollution) and material exploitation. Moreover, the research has promoted meetings and roundtable about water plastic pollution, contextualizing it in such unique and fragile ecosystem as the Venetian one.

During the research project more than 130 Kg of HDPE have been collect. 24 Kg of that have been used to produce a gift far all the Ca’ Foscari staff. The remaining plastic has been donated do Cesvitem, a local association that promotes charity projects in Africa.