Micro Urban Mining shows us how to avoid e-waste with a DIY foundry  Dutch narrative designer Jorien Wiltenburg has e-waste in her sights, and she’s come up with an innovative solution that marries new technology with traditional craft. Micro Urban Mining is a project that shows how individuals can strip down and reuse electronic components, repurposing copper and aluminium into decorative objects and giving new value to scrap parts. “It is an intensive and time-consuming process for the individual,” admits Wilternburg. “But it has the satisfaction of doing it yourself. Learning the skills needed for this process will restore the connection between creating and using an object.” Her project includes a video that shows just how much of these valuable metals can be easily salvaged from components, and how they can be melted down or repurposed with traditional weaving techniques. Technology becoming quickly obsolescent is a sign of how fast we’re progressing, but it comes with an unfortunate side effect – and that is e-waste. Once your laptop or smartphone stops working it seems there’s only one accepted solution, and that is to throw it away and replace it. This means that 50million tons of e-waste is produced annually, and those components that end up in landfill often contain valuable materials that were originally mined at great cost to the environment. At Protein we’ve looks at innovative ways of living a greener life, including Solar Panel’s portable renewables and unusual photosynthesising furniture from Living Things. Still hungry for more? Sign up for our weekly supplement featuring the latest news, profiles, features and innovation