You're probably onto me by now. I just wanted an excuse to use the #cans hashtag. But seriously, this is one clever charity involving supermodel Helena Christensen, America's Next Top Model judge Nigel Barker, Yoko Ono, and some serious designers. All that's missing is a Dalek. [Metropolis Mag]

So if you go to Sweden, remember to take the trash down the stairs. Trust me here, there are other—and much better and enjoyable—things to die for in this country.

There goes another $190 for Uncle George. [Star Wars Shop via The Awesomer]

The Minus Frozen Garbage Container is a concept device designed to keep the sink down by holding your garbage at below-freezing temperatures. Sure, you could just empty the trash more frequently, but wouldn't you rather spend a lot more money and use up a lot more energy? Of course you would. [Yanko Design via Ubergizmo]

The project both helps divert materials from landfills and gives the homeless a place to sleep (though I wonder how they breathe under all that plastic). Max won $10,000, a Dell laptop and a trip to Boston. [Design Blog]

The All-In-One recycling center has an 8-gallon bin for cans and bottles and a 5-gallon bin for newspaper and junkmail. There's a foot-activated can crusher that automatically drops the compressed rubbish into the bin, and a carbon filter in the lid to contain odors. In addition, the front of the unit has an LCD screen which reminds you what day the recycling comes.

But the price? An overblown $250 dollars. My inefficient and inadequate recycling habits will have to do for now. [Brookstone and Williams-Sonoma via Red Ferret via BB Gadgets]

The construction worker, who refused to give his real name, says that he destroyed nine full pallets of equipment, including MacBooks, Mac Pros, and even innocent Mighty Mice (Mighty Mouses?). He also claims that he tested some of the machines, and that many powered up, proving at the least that their batteries could be salvaged, if not screens and other parts.

Problem is, there's no evidence that any of this stuff was in working order, and the article quotes a secondhand account from another construction worker on Apple's motivations for crushing the computers. That's not exactly the most reliable source. And while, let's be honest, Apple's green campaign is an infuriating example of "greenwashing" and as smug as anything they've ever done, I'm not prepared to accuse Apple of destroying equipment in working order without any hard evidence, on the word of somebody who won't give his real name. Just my two cents. [APC Mag]

The top can, which also contains a bag dispenser, is for disposable goods. The middle can is for packaging and the bottom is for recyclables like bottles. Foot pedals open up different parts of the can. Stepping on the left pedal opens the top can, the middle paddle revolves the central can outward, and the right pedal turns the bottom can towards the user.

Unfortunately, it's just a concept for now. But I can't imagine why some entrepreneurial trash can manufacturer wouldn't pick it up in the near future. [Constance Guisset via The Design Blog]

Reusable components are salvaged from abandoned furniture and fittings, and then combined with a touch of FSC plywood to create unique hybrids.

The tube chair is made from stainless steel tubes sourced from reclaimation yards within 5 miles of [Batyka-Williams'] studio in London Bridge

A little more analog than the amazing HD trash projectors we've seen, but that's exactly the point; Tichy described his trash cams as being the only way to add enough poetic imperfections to photography, describing his philosophy with the fantastic maxim: "If you want to be famous, you have to do whatever you're doing worse than anyone else in the whole world."
His subject matter was mostly regular folks in his small Czech town doing what they do, and naturally he gravitated toward the ladies, who look great in Tichy's proto-Lomography style.
There's currently an exhibition of Tichy's work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris that looks fantastic. Check it out if you're in the vicinity. [The Online Photographer, Tichyocean.ch, Centre Pompidou via Kottke]

About 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10).

Yes, we knew that there was a lot of crap out there, but not to this extent. According to the ESA, this is really bad news and urgent measures are needed. Explosions in space are not disastrous on their own, but because of the aftermath. One example: a geostationary satellite travels at 6,213 miles per hour. If it explodes, all the debris stays near the orbit, forming a cloud around the Earth within a few days, as this simulation shows:

The ESA is urging to introduce measures to mitigate this problem, like the complete depletion of fuel in rocket stages (like some Delta launchers already do following NASA's Procedural Requirements for Limiting Orbital Debris) or returning objects to Earth once their mission is complete (perhaps to destroy them on re-entry,) just like SES Americom is going to do with their brand-new AMC-14. This satellite failed to reach its projected altitude and now has to be splashed into the sea because of a dispute with Boeing, which won't let SES Americom use their patented recovery method to put the satellite into the right geostationary orbit.

The impact of these measures could be huge, as reflected by this simulation of how things could look by the year 2112, with and without taking action:

While the idea of bringing back used stages and satellites back to Earth may seem too expensive, in the long run it's clear that leaving all this trash up there is going to have huge consequences to the development of space exploration and colonization. Those concepts may still seem science fiction for many, but as these simulations show, the current and future problem is very real, and could be extremely dangerous.

This is how it looks when orbital debris hits a spaceship, simulated in a laboratory.

[ESA Gallery, Space debris: assessing the risk, NASA, Wikipedia — via Space Travel and Slashdot]

Many recyclables feature a number value that denotes whether it can or can not be recycled. When scanned, these bins read that number and the corresponding can opens for your convenience. Unfortunately, the only real benefit I see in this concept is that I would spend less time thinking about which bin to throw my beer bottles into. The real tough recycling questions generally don't have a barcode slapped on the side. So, it appears that I will have to continue utilizing the woods and trash dump runs under the cover of darkness to deal with those issues. [Yanko Design]

Product Page [NYD]