Reclamation
: the act or process of reclaiming: as
a : reformation, rehabilitation
b : restoration to use : recovery
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
This word is rst used by Wolf Hilbertz to describe one of the 3 components of Cybertecture in his essay, "Toward Cybertecture." The material distribution and reclamation subsystem is the metabolic, or constantly changing, mechanism. It manipulates the sensing structure, or the physical environment that Hilbertz writes about. It adjusts to the physical environment to immediate, desired, or projected needs of the user. It can transform the material into di erent states to make it suitable for any desired purpose. The sensing structure is constituted of materials, the properties of which allow it to be transported, distributed, shaped, and reclaimed by means of gases, fluids, gravity, electromagnetic or electrostatic energy, mechanics, or any combination thereof. Hilbertz writes that the most widely used material distribution by nature takes advantage of the fact that chemical changes meet the most favorable conditions once they take place in liquids (example: 3/4 of the tissue in a human adult consists of water). Also, that material which is no longer needed goes through the phases of reclamation, regeneration, and redistribution to perform another function.
"Some groups of modern materials seem to promise to meet the requirements of exibility and versatility. Among these are alloys, ceramic compounds, and organic as well as inorganic plastics" (Hilbertz, 100).1
The second system of cybertecture, the material and reclamation system, is present in the gyre. Plastic in the gyre provides material which is reclaimed by marine organisms to meet their desired needs, where sea organisms are the "users." Hilbertz even speci es in this past quote that plastics meet the requirements in being a exible material for a multitude of uses.
"It has long been evident that substrates to which marine organisms can attach themselves and/or find shelter within, attract fish populations." (Hilbertz, 6)2
Once we determine that a material has become waste and it makes its way to a garbage patch, the material becomes versatile and embodies new uses for new users - aquatic life. Some of these uses include the use of human waste for food, shelter, and rafting, or unintentional transportation.