Plastic bakery: A new taste for plastic waste

This master thesis describes the process of finding a new purpose for plastic waste materials. Due to the great set of possibilities (strength, stiffness, density, heat resistance, electrical conductivity), the material is often used (Lower, 2009). Many plastics are designed to be used only once, being thrown away after the use. However, thrown away is not away. Plastic is the type of waste that will last forever. Currently only five to ten percent is recycled of all the produced plastics (source: http://www.5gyres.org/the-plastic-problem/). As mentioned by Eriksen et al. (2014) there are around five trillion pieces of plastic floating in world’s oceans, out of which eighty percent, originates from the land (Jambeck et al., 2015). The plastic breaks down into smaller pieces by the sunlight (Moore, C., 2014) and releases toxins. All sorts of organisms living in or off the sea mistakenly take in plastic debris and microplastic for food. This results in the often toxic waste to enter our food chain (Plastic Soup Foundation, 2016). The goal of this project is to find an application for plastic waste materials that changes the perception of waste into valuable and looks at motivations for people to do something with waste. The thesis shows the design of a material application and a service around recycling Polyethylene bottle caps. The project assignment is self-formulated, in collaboration with Elvin Karana. The Material Driven Design method (Karana et al., 2015) was applied for the design of the material application in which the unique material qualities come forward. The material focus of Polyethylene was determined through talks with experts about the safety of melting the material. Insights in the material qualities of Polyethylene were generated by several tinkering experiments and user studies. These experiments showed the unique qualities of the arise of wonderful patterns that surprise people, when different colors of caps are mixed, and showed the semi-transparency of the material. The combination of both qualities give the material a magical appearance when light shines through and shows the stratification of the material. Material Benchmarking proved that the combination of the discovered material qualities was not applied by others. The associated meanings of the material, natural, unique, personal and beautiful, were evoked during the user studies. Different ways of motivating people to do something with waste were explored, by mapping existing solutions and their motivational strategies. The fun aspect of collecting, the size and availability in many different colors, encouraged to focus on Polyethylene bottle caps. The vision aimed at surprising people with the material, combined with light. Experiments with the material were done to investigate how the element of suprise can be enhanced. The Design phase is divided into the design of the service and the material application. The service implies the collecting and processing aspects of the material. For the service, several ways of collecting bottle caps were tried out. The experiences were translated into stories. The enthusiasm and dedication during the making process was tested with a workshop. People liked to create something out of plastic bottle caps. They associated the experience with baking. The processability of the material by hand was tested with a set of experiments. It was discovered that processing by hand (with an oven and some basic kitchen tools) is possible as long as the dimensions of the material are kept small. In this way mixing the material and creating patterns is possible, considering the short cooling time and thus processing time of the material. The requirement of small dimensions, encouraged to decide on a modular application, that consists out of multiple plastic plates. A creative session and brainstorm with a group of students was executed to find applications for the material with light. The ideas were translated into three concept and tested by prototypes with using artifical and natural light. Different connection methods for the material were explored. A product and a service was developed: The Plastic Bakery. The product, Tipi Table lamp, is a lamp shade that consists out of four plastic plates, four sticks, a piece of cord and an elastic band that can easily be assembled. A ledlamp is used as a lightsource. It does not become warm and has a long lifetime. The product can either be bought or made yourself during a workshop. By processing yourself, the transition can be visible from bottle cap to new material. People can select a theme, based on nature, with the aid of a menu and collect the specific caps. They can melt the material inside a mold and mix it with spatulas. People can add sprinkles and create a message with a stamp. The material can be made flat by using one’s body weight. Both concepts were evaluated. The product was evaluated during the exhibition of Future Materials and the service during a workshop. The material application surprised people and was seen as beautiful. It is managed to create something valuable out of plastic waste. People liked the activity of making during the workshop and could express themselves. The short cooling time of the material worked against the joy of making. A set of recommendations is presented that suggests further research into the cooling time and thus processing time of the material, together with the safety of melting plastic for DIY purposes.Industrial Design EngineeringIndustrial DesignDesign AestheticsDesign for Interactio