Maybe it’s the way I sweep or how I hold the broom, but I’ve never been really good at getting all that dust and dirt into the pan after I’ve swept through the entire room. And when I do manage to get the dust on the pan itself, it takes me some time to dispose of the collected stuff into the trash can. I tap the pan, I bang it against the side of the bin, but there’s still those stubborn pieces of dirt that seem to be stuck on to the pan itself. Talk about annoying.

Maybe this was Kawamura Ganjavian’s problem, too. Or maybe he was just thinking of people he knew who couldn’t seem to throw away all that crap out properly when he came up with the Ductpan.

The Ductpan is a dustpan that isn’t just a dustpan; it’s also got a funnel duct so you can just tilt the pan in the other direction to get all that clutter out of the pan and into the trash can or bag via the funnel.

The Ductpan is just a concept for now, although it would definitely be interesting if we were to see this being made available for the masses commercially. I know I’d want one.

[via Design Milk]

Himatic creates these figures not only to recycle, but also to remind us of our “out-of-control desire to buy things”, and the waste we accumulate in the process. In effect, Himatic isn’t the only creator of these grotesque figures. We all helped make these things.

It is quite depressing to realize that we’ve mastered how to mass produce things but have yet to come up with safe and efficient methods of mass disposal. Check out Himatic’s website to see more of his work.

[via DudeCraft]

One morning, Eric thought he accidentally put his precious electronics into the trash (how, we don’t know). Using the iPhone’s GPS, MobileMe and his friend’s iPad, he managed to track his lost gadgets all over town. By setting his iPhone to beep via MobileMe, they eventually found them. Check out the complete story in the video below:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

In the end, it turns out that they weren’t in the trash after all. They fell off his car and got run over, and a crew of roofers picked them up, and stopped along the way for some wings at Hooters (GPS doesn’t lie.) Once recovered, the iPhone was still working, but the screen was cracked. The iPad’s screen wasn’t cracked, but the aluminum unibody was bent out of shape and it wouldn’t power on. Not that it would have gotten found without the iPhone companion – he didn’t have the 3G/GPS enabled iPad anyhow. I guess now Eric might buy one to replace it.

Moral of the story: Hang on to your precious gadgets, and don’t mix them up with the trash.

[via Wired]

The design can actually be printed on a sheet of paper, cut out, folded, and glued together into the shape of the trash can or recycling bin that we all know so well. The design uses a single sheet of paper, but it would be pretty easy to scale it to a larger size, so that you could have an actual trashcan made out of paper.

These papercraft constructions are really neat because anyone can try them out. Once you get tired of them, you can just recycle them in another papercraft trashcan.

You can grab a copy of the PDF trashcan template here.

[via Designboom]

Aside from collecting garbage, the Dustbot can also analyze the quality of the surrounding air. Its sensors can measure the amount of pollutants like sulfur oxide, benzene, ozone, and nitrogen oxide.

The touch screen monitor seems to be a way for users to tell Dustbot the type of garbage that they’re going to give to him – Vetro is Italian for glass, Carta means paper, etc. – so presumably it will have a way of marking or tagging the garbage bags that it collects. Inhabitat also adds that the Dustbot can be “summoned” via text messaging, and that it will be able to “remember” residents using some form of ID.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Right now Dustbot isn’t nimble enough to navigate crowded streets, but that’s not my primary concern. I kinda wish that Dustbot would have a Taser, or at least a bottle of pepper spray, because sooner or later a bunch of bored kids or perhaps even thieves will mess with the poor ‘bot.  You can visit dustbot.org for more videos, pics and details.

Inspired by the famous garbage compactor scene from Episode IV: A New Hope, these limited-edition hand-painted bookends flip that classic movie moment inside-out. You’ll notice that instead of keeping the walls from closing in on them, Han, Luke, Chewbacca and Leia are all working to keep the books upright. Clever. Although the way I remember it, Chewie was just hopelessly banging on the walls, and not really helping in any way. Of course, you can always flip the bookends around for a more accurate recreation of the original scene.

Unfortunately, you’re going to have to wait a while if you want these for your room. They’re not coming out until April 2010. In the mean time, you can pre-order them over at the Star Wars Shop for $189.99 (USD).

While you wait, sit back and enjoy this brief video interlude…

[via The Awesomer]

This DIY Tesla coil was built entirely from items found in the garbage. The project was conceived partially to prove just how many useful items are throw away, but the result will blow your mind… or a fuse.

Just follow his easy steps (and pack a pair of rubber gloves for the trash-digging), and then you’ll be ready to reenact this scene from 2003′s Coffee and Cigarettes.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[Trashy Tesla Coil via HackNMod]

This clever battery recycling box by Luckies of London looks like a giant cousin to those batteries you were just about to throw in the trash. Just load up the cylindrical metal container with your deceased batteries, and once it’s filled up, head on over to your local electronics recycling center. By recycling your old dead batteries, you’ll be doing something good for the earth, as throwing them out in the regular trash can leak hazardous heavy metals into the soil as the exterior shell corrodes.

You can grab the battery recycling box over at UK gift shop Prezzybox for £6.95 (appx. $10 USD). And wheneve you can, try and use rechargeables – you won’t have to throw them out nearly as often

That is not a sample of gold from the sludge. But that is gold, and it looks like crap, so. Anyway. The local government already knew about the high concentration of gold in the Suwa sludge as early as 2007, but because the cost of extraction was higher than the price of the gold extracted, they didn’t mine the gold. But since gold commands a higher price nowadays, the Suwa plant began selling the molten fly ash to a smelting plant. Last October they sold 1.4 tons of ash for 5 million yen ($167,000 USD). Not bad at all! The Suwa plant expects to mine a total of 5 tons of ash by March 2009, which should be worth 5 million yen ($167,000 USD). The money will be used to help pay for maintenance and operating costs.

[via Pink Tentacle]

Spotted at the recent 2008 Tokyo Game Show, Gomibako is best described as “Tetris with Trash”. But it’s not just another rehash of the classic block-stacking puzzle format. Nope. Instead of dropping blocks, you’ve got to carefully arrange piles of (difficult to stack) falling debris in order to clear the board.

In addition to some beautiful graphics, the best part of the game is its amazing physics model. Every object in the game is completely 3-dimensional and has life-like properties. This makes the gameplay so much more dynamic than the classic colored block puzzle games of yore.

Items can crush each other, and you have to think quick to grab heavier objects to smash more fragile objects before the trash bin fills up. Items can be bent, broken, get wet and even catch fire and burn. Cool. To check out some actual gameplay footage, check out the 1up video clip below:

Gomibako is expected to be a downloadable game on the PlayStation Network, so you won’t even have to head to the store to get your hands on it when it comes out. No word yet on a release date (or if it’s even slated for North America). I’ve certainly got my fingers crossed for this one.

[via PS3 Maven and Blu-Ray Forum]