First Low Point!

I think during this past week I hit my first low point of this project. I’ve been researching different ways of using plastic as a material, trying to see if there is somewhere I can buy recycled plastic or whether I need to make my own materials.

Ideally, I was thinking of possibly shredding my own plastic, compressing it and heating everything into usable sheets of plastic. However, I realised that all the machinery I would need for that isn’t available and would take a lot of time to build and costs a lot. So I decided that effort would not be worth it. After crossing that off my list, I search the internet trying to find stores that would sell recycled plastic. I did come across a couple of internet stores, however, the plastic sheets being sold were way too expensive, especially if I’d only be doing tests on them for now. I did find a website where I could get affordable acrylic made out of fully recycled material (https://www.cutplasticsheeting.co.uk/clear-acrylic-sheeting/recycled-clear-cast-acrylic/), but despite finding that, I was really discouraged by all of my ideas not working due to lack of resources and money.

It is quite clear to me that recycling plastic is not something very common within the industry. With this lack of resources, it is very evident to me why people would shy away from using recycled plastic when the alternative of new sheets of plastic or other more commercial materials is so much easier.

Since I didn’t know what else to do I talked to Chris and Ewan to try and get some advice. What they said was quite useful and helped me to realise that I have been trying to narrow down my ideas too quickly and haven’t left any room for experimentation. They advised me to explore the material a little further: cut it up, see what happens when it melts, and generally play with it some more.

Before I start melting plastic, I wanted to make sure that I was aware of all of the necessary safety precautions to not harm my health in any way. Especially the fumes that are released when the plastic is heated up could be potentially dangerous. Therefore, I’ve concluded that if I keep the temperature relatively low and make sure the extractor is on and the windows are open, it will be safe.

The plan for next week is to start experimenting. I still want to do a little more research and properly plan all the things I want to explore before I actually get started, but I’m hoping that I can soon explore the material a little more and hopefully then figure out what I want to do with it!