A Pottery Barn for your kitchen

(Credit: Leonardo Bonanni / MIT Media Lab)

The MIT Media Lab is ground zero for all things awesome, and Leonardo Bonanni's DishMaker is no exception.

Bonanni's dishwasher-sized machine uses recyclable discs of acrylic to create plates, bowls, and cups right in your home. Once you're done with the plates, you put them back into the DishMaker, where they're recycled and remolded into the dishware of your choice.

The DishMaker does not clean your dishes just yet, but Bonanni's working on it for a next-gen prototype.

According to his Web site, the DishMaker is the same size and consumes the same amount of energy as a normal dishwasher. DishMaker owners also would free up a ton of cabinet space, as you won't need to store dishes. The fact that the eco-friendly DishMaker recycles the acrylic discs up to 100 times makes for less waste.

You'll still need to buy some sporks, though.

[rapier1]

Except for one problem

If you can only recycle the dishes 100 times then thats a problem. For example,
my dishes are around 6 years old at this point. I have service for 8. Assuming
that my wife and I used a total of 4 plates a day I use each plate 182 times a
year. Over six years that would be close to 10 sets of these special acrylic plates.
Seems to me that this would use more resources for the minimal benefit of
saving 6 to 8 cubic feet of cabinet space. Until these plates can be recycled
1000 times I don't see the benefit.

[bigkeen]

Are they washable?

If the plates, etc., are able to be washed as well, then it seems much more reasonable. Are you going to change the plates every time you use them, or will you stick with the same design for a while? If you use the plates for 1 month and they go through the recycle-and-build process 12 times per year (but more washes, obviously), then the current version would last for those 6 years you mentioned.