This institute in Georgia helps students transform discarded plastic waste into phone chargers in under five minutes

What if the plastic bottle you throw into a recycling bin could become a phone charger before the day is over? A new recycling lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology is testing exactly that idea. The university’s new Trash Lab uses a compact machine that can process discarded plastic and turn it into new objects in less than five minutes.

From Plastic Bottles To Phone Chargers

Opened in September 2026, the Trash Lab is designed to help students and researchers experiment with recycling, upcycling and the circular economy. At its centre is the miniTrashpresso, a recycling and manufacturing system developed by sustainability technology company Miniwiz. The process starts with used plastic such as water bottles and milk containers. The material is shredded into small pieces, cleaned and then processed using heat, pressure and moulds. During a demonstration reported by CBS News Atlanta, discarded plastic was turned into a phone charger carrying the Georgia Tech logo. Georgia Tech says the machine can transform recovered plastic into a new product in less than five minutes. The university says the facility is the first location in North America to operate Miniwiz's miniTrashpresso.

Why Georgia Tech Wants To Recycle Waste Locally

The project is based on a simple idea: instead of treating plastic as rubbish, treat it as a raw material. Michael Best, executive director of Georgia Tech's Institute for People and Technology, told CBS that traditional recycling can sometimes become “recycling theater”, because material placed in recycling bins may still end up in landfills after sorting, contamination or transport problems. The Trash Lab aims to keep some of that process closer to where the waste is produced. Instead of sending plastic away for processing, the university can experiment with turning it into new products on campus.

More Than Just Phone Chargers

The machine is not limited to small household objects. Georgia Tech says students and researchers are exploring thousands of possible designs, including recycled-plastic bowls, sunglasses and wireless chargers. Researchers are also studying whether recovered plastic could be used for architectural components. Jennifer Chirico, Georgia Tech's associate vice president of sustainability, said there are “thousands of different potential designs” that could be created from the recovered material.

Turning Waste Into A Resource

The Trash Lab is ultimately an experiment in making plastic part of a continuous cycle of use and reuse. Rather than seeing a discarded bottle as the end of a product's life, Georgia Tech is testing whether it can become the starting material for something completely different. If such systems can be used effectively at campuses and other communities, waste could increasingly be processed closer to where it is generated — giving discarded plastic another useful life instead of sending it straight to landfill.