What’s in those glass balls?
Four large glass containers the shape of oversized light bulbs can be seen across Utrecht Science Park from January. Inside them? Waste items that shouldn’t be there. The installation is part of a campaign from Utrecht University to raise awareness about how improperly sorted waste on campus affects our university’s recycling efforts. The displayed items confront passersby with a simple question: Where do I belong?
The transparent containers, formerly glass reactors used at the Androclusgebouw to condition water for lab experiments and heating, have been repurposed to reveal what we often don’t see behind opaque bins: the types of waste that our university community most frequently throws wrongly. All the waste that is sorted incorrectly is often incinerated or dumped unnecessarily as a result.
Placed in four campus locations, the café Madame Jeanette at Veterinary Medicine, the restaurant in the Educatorium, and the Minnaert and Vening Meinesz buildings, each container showcases real examples of common sorting or recycling mistakes. These include blue latex gloves mixed with recyclable plastics; a greasy pizza box among clean paper; aluminum-coated packaging beside transparent plastic; and drink cans among plastic exempt from deposit.
Not like the rest
Packaging with aluminium layer on the inside goes with general waste, not plastics.
Eating out
Dirty pizza box goes in general waste, not in the clean and dry paper bin.
Like a glove
Used gloves in laboratories must be discarded with chemical waste.
Know what I'm worth
Cans can be returned in the 'statiegeld machines' at the campus.
The samples illustrate how seemingly small mistakes, when repeated over time and across campus, add up. Every item in the wrong bin is a missed opportunity to recover valuable materials and reduce environmental harm.
By making the invisible visible, the installation not only reveals what goes wrong at the recycling bins; it also invites reflection on how we can do better.
The installation is part of a wider effort to improve waste sorting and recycling at Utrecht Science Park, encouraging students, staff and visitors alike to learn from their mistakes and take responsibility for our waste.