Further Research

In week 2, I broke down the problem of plastic waste to really understand my area of focus.

The insight that I got out of the brainstorm was that we keep on producing plastic but do not have a proper method of disposing of it. Plastic cannot be burned, recycling is costly, so most of it gets thrown away and ends up in the water.

From there, and with my knowledge about plastic in our oceans, I tried to explore projects that are trying to clear our water. I looked at The Ocean Cleanup a little further. They have now launched their project to clear the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Their project focusses on the masses of plastic floating around at the top of the surface. However, my research indicated that the microplastic pieces is the most dangerous plastic found in the ocean. These microplastic pieces are at most 5mm long and can barely be seen by the naked eye. They form through the plastic continuously being heated by the sun and then cooled down by the water, making it brittle. After a while the plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, until it is considered a microplastic pieces. The issue with these pieces is that they can easily be ingested by animals and affect even the smallest of organisms.

I briefly considered designing a piece of equipment that would extract microplastic pieces out of the water. However, I quickly realised I would need a lot of chemical and scientific knowledge and resources that I did not have. Thus, I continued exploring possible alternative paths.

Going back to The Ocean Cleanup, I further explored their reuse of old plastic. They use plastic to make the string, while the beads are made of shards of glass. It got me thinking of how recycled plastic is being incorporated into commercial products. Throughout my research I found Brodie Neill’s Ocean Terazzo collection. His use of plastic was very intriguing!

Source: http://idsnmow.blogspot.com/2018/01/ocean-terrazzo.html

However, I realised that the reuse of plastic is an area within design that is not yet developed as very well as it should be. So, I could possibly think about designing something that recycles plastic and utilises it as a material?

For next week, I will further look into the topic of plastic pollution and plastic as a material. We also have a mini presentation coming up and I am looking forward to hearing all the feedback for my project ideas.