Envision Racing, a Formula E racing team made a drivable car from old electronic stuff like phones, circuit boards, and vapes. They named it the Formula E Gen3 Recover-E car.
They teamed up with artist/designer Liam Hopkins, who used donated e-waste from Music Magpie to create the car.
They wanted to use creativity to highlight the e-waste problem and how it can help create a circular economy. This was shared by Liam Hopkins with DesignBoom.
The car has recycled LED lights in the back, and colorful vapes and iPhones on the front. Most of the car is covered in flat circuit boards, making it look green. They first showed it in London at ExCeL.
E-waste, which includes old phones, batteries, computers, vapes, and other tech stuff, is a big problem. It might reach 80 million tons by the end of the decade, as per DesignBoom.
Envision Racing started the Race Against Climate Change campaign to make people aware of this issue and to promote clean energy. They also want their fans to build cars from e-waste through the Recover E-Waste to Race program.
E-waste is harmful because it can pollute the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the soil where our food grows. Dangerous substances like lead, mercury, cadmium, and arsenic can come out of e-waste, leading to cancer, reproductive issues, and brain damage, as said by the Geneva Environment Network.
“If the millions upon millions of Lithium batteries that are found in vapes and other products are recycled, it will dramatically reduce both the need for rare earth mineral mining and the large energy needed to create the batteries from scratch,” Sylvain Filippi, the managing director and CTO of Envision Racing, said.
“We want to increase awareness of e-waste and help build a ‘circular economy’ where electrical products are reused or recycled, not thrown away,” Filippi added.