If you have a screwdriver, you can mend the modular kettle, promises its designer
A design graduate hopes to give the morning cuppa a sustainable revamp after inventing a repairable kettle that can be fixed with a screwdriver.
Gabriel Kay has reaped awards for his ‘Osiris’ modular kettle, which is named after the Egyptian god of rebirth. Its interchangeable components mean defective parts can be replaced by anyone with a smattering of DIY know-how.
Kay now hopes his creation can play a role in tackling the growing challenge of e-waste, which reports say is outstripping recycling efforts by a factor of five to one.
Said Kay: “There’s a lot of perfectly good electronics being sent to landfill. My goal with this design was to build confidence in carrying out a simple repair process. I think there’s potential in the future to add more complexity, and just get people used to the idea of carrying out maintenance on their products.”
The UN puts the planet’s annual e-waste toll at 62m tonnes. Small household goods including toasters, microwaves and kettles make up a third of the total, with only 12% being recycled.
I wanted a repair process that felt more like a maintenance. Often, the biggest barrier to doing repairs is seeing a load of scary electronics
Kay, who studied product design at Leicester’s De Montfort University, says designers are complicit in the problem. “It’s easy to design something to be put together, and you’d think that when it comes to taking it apart it would be just reversing the process, but in many instances that just doesn’t work,” Kay said.
His first thought for his final year project was to address the throwaway culture entrenched in the mobile phone market, but he decided instead to apply the modular electronics concept pioneered by the likes of Fairphone to the humble kettle.
In his design, the electronics are hidden in a module removable via a couple of screws. “I wanted a repair process that felt more like a maintenance – like swapping a dust bag in a vacuum cleaner,” said Kay. “Often, the biggest barrier to doing repairs is seeing a load of scary electronics.”
The Restart Project is among the organisations drawing attention to the possibilities offered by reuse and repair at a time of year when many people seek to declutter.
Kay’s kettle has won awards from his alma mater, and from the graduate showcase, New Designers. He has gone on to participate in the Green Grads programme, a platform championing new UK graduates who have ‘ideas to heal the planet’.
Green Grads founder and curator Barbara Chandler said: “The world is drowning in waste and recycling is not the answer. “Gabriel’s kettle is one example of how small appliances could be repaired, but it’s also a powerful statement on the need to make things that last. The ability to repair them is a huge part of that.”
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