Sustainable design in plastics

Each year the AUB runs a programme of events under the auspice of AUB Human. AUB Human brings together award winning industry professionals, students and academics for a series of workshops, talks, exhibitions, and the one-day symposium. This year’s theme, New Narratives, will envision a future that questions current practice, and proposes new ways of thinking, doing and making in order to achieve a sustainable, adaptive and regenerative society.  

MoDiP has responded to this initiative through:

• Last week’s blog post, which looked at the idea of sustainable design and asked questions of our design community at the AUB. 
• New narratives in plastics exhibition, which explores the theme by looking at sustainable, adaptive and regenerative design in plastics. 
• Pages on our website, which look at sustainable design in plastics

Exhibition – New Narratives in plastics

The New narratives in plastics exhibition highlights some of the ways in which designers have addressed the issues of sustainability, adaptability and regenerative design.

Sustainable design aims to cause little or no damage to the environment. The concept suggests a predisposition against disposability and encourages responsible and thoughtful consumption. 

Amino beach toys, AIBDC : 008195.1, AIBDC : 008195.2, AIBDC : 008195.3 

and AIBDC : 008196

The Animo range of children’s beach toys is made from eco-friendly Biobu®, a highly-renewable material made from bamboo sawdust, the waste product from a chopstick factory, and a food-safe melamine binder. The set comprises a whale scoop, a manta ray shovel, a turtle sifter and a pelican bucket. They have been carefully designed to appeal to both children and their parents as an investment to be used and reused.

 

RubyMoon rash guard, AIBDC : 008185

The recycled polyamide (PA or nylon) in the RubyMoon Rash Guard is a material called Econyl®. Econyl® is made from used fishing nets and other regenerated material, and RubyMoon is a partner of healthyseas.org who collect drifting or ‘ghost’ nets. The swimwear has been designed in keeping with the principles of slow fashion, focusing on the look, construction and fit of a garment to create long-lasting clothing. 100% of the net profit made by the company is lent out to women across 11 different countries to help in launching their businesses, generating an income for them and their family to find a path out of poverty.

Adaptive design can be defined as the ability to adjust, fit, modify or alter working practices to suit differing conditions. All of the objects in this case have adapted in response to specific challenges.

Garçon Wines bottle, AIBDC : 008071

The multi award-winning slimline bottle designed by Garçon Wines retains the look of glass but is made from recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The strength and durability of this material enables the delivery of wine through the letter box and because the bottle is lightweight and spatially efficient, it generates lower carbon emissions in transportation. This improved version has a polypropylene cap and collar with a cap insert made from polyethylene so it is 100% recyclable.

The Collective pot lid, AIBDC : 008198

The Collective has been the first food and drink company to introduce black plastic packaging that can be detected by recycling machinery. Black plastic is fully recyclable but the machinery used to sort plastics in recycling plants have so far been unable to detect the carbon black pigment. As a result, this type of packaging often ends up in landfill or incineration. By working with leading recycling expert Nextek and additive/masterbatch specialist Colour Tone, the company has developed an alternative black dye that can be ‘seen’ by the near-infrared differentiation used in sorting plastics. 

Jar Tops, AIBDC : 005916

The Jar Tops, designed by Jorre van Ast for Dutch kitchenware manufacturers Royal VKB, enable glass jars to be reused instead of being sent for recycling once the original contents have been consumed. The set of interchangeable, functional screw caps can adapt empty jam jars into new containers, jugs and shakers, adding both practical and emotional value to generic glass packaging. The product has won the Design Plus award, the Erkenning Goed Industrieel Ontwerp award and the Dutch Design Award. The objects below are both part of the regenerative design culture; the first through the adoption of a circular design model and the second through the upcycling of unwanted materials.

Bird headphones, AIBDC : 008193

Gerrard Street founders, Dorus Galama and Tom Leenders, have produced a modular headphone with parts that can be easily replaced and upgraded. Offered through a subscription service, the headphones are designed to be sent through the post for easy assembly at home. As individual parts get worn or broken, customers can return the obsolete components for replacement, free of charge, with 85% of this e-waste being either reused or recycled. Any pairs returned at the end of a contract are also refurbished, including those on display here. By only ever renting out their product, the company can retain full control over the materials it uses. 

Airpaq bag, AIBDC : 008171

The Airpaq is made from upcycled car seatbelts and airbags, all sourced from ten different scrap yards in Germany. The parts are not sourced from any vehicle involved in a crash and are all anti-bacterially washed at high temperature and/or disinfected before being repurposed in Romania. The inspiration for the prototype, designed by Michael Widmann and Adrian Goosses, came from an assignment on the Strategic Entrepreneurship Master programme in Rotterdam in 2015. Through a crowdfunding campaign the bag was further developed and subsequently the company launched their first collection at Innatex, an international trade fair for sustainable textiles, in August 2018. 

Web pages – Sustainable design in plastics

The sustainable design in plastics pages on MoDiP’s website look at the history of green design and how objects can be part of a circular economy. These pages will be added to over time as new sustainable objects enter the MoDiP collection.

Sustainable design has its origins in the green movement of the 1970s fuelled particularly by the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in June 1972. Actions at this conference included the calling upon Governments ‘to exert common efforts for the preservation and improvement of the human environment’.

The term sustainable design has replaced eco design which superseded green design as a concept. This is reflective of sustainability being more than simply environmentally conscious; sustainability focusses on working within the capacities of a system and is synonymous with the idea of circular economy. A circular economy is sustainable because it set out to reduce waste and pollution by keeping products, materials and resources efficiently in use.

Sustainable designed products might:

• Be easily recycled
• Make use of recycled materials, including ocean plastics
• Be upcycled from products that have come to the end of their intended usefulness
• Use renewable feedstocks Use biodegradable materials
• Promote reuse
• Help to reduce waste

Sustainable design in plastics needs to be accompanied by the sustainable use of plastics by consumers. This relates to the understanding of the value of the material and as such reusing when appropriate, recycling where possible, and disposing of things responsibly.

Louise Dennis 
Curator of MoDiP

Reuse, Re-Think, Reduce

Plastics play an important role in human life. They have shaped and had an impact on culture and society, whilst enabling design solutions to problems. In recent years, there has been increasing concern regarding their impact on society, especially when they become waste. 

There are two distinct groups which plastics are divided into: thermosets which present themselves as plastics heated and moulded into a permanent set state, which cannot be recycled (re-melted and re-formed) and thermoplastics which can be recycled by melting and reforming, on more than one occasion. 

As humans we make choices in our daily lives about the plastic objects / products we use to support our way of living and to help us complete tasks. How often do we think about the choices we make at home, work or whilst studying and their impact on society? 

The University is running a programme as part of its AUB Human initiative and here at MoDiP we are taking the opportunity to highlight objects in the collection to inspire students, staff and visitors to think about sustainability, adaptability, creative practice, and a regenerative society - through design in plastics. We are doing this via an exhibition, New Narratives in plastics on display in the tank cases on the first floor of the library and by discussing the topic of sustainability in this post and on our website.

What does sustainability mean to you?  

Do you think about the environment when designing products or developing concepts / ideas?

Today, we see a change in society with industry re-thinking by making ethical and sustainable choices during designing and production.  We now see products made of plastics that can be reused or recycled, demonstrating that plastics are materials that should be valued and not so easily discarded.

Unwanted electrical equipment is the world’s fastest growing type of e-waste. The exhibition displays an example of designers re-thinking when developing a product by looking at a modular headphone by Dorus Galama and Tom Leenders, from Gerrard Street.  With this product, you, as the consumer, do not own the headphones but acquire them through a subscription service. The headphones are delivered to you via the post and you assemble them.  The great thing that sets these headphones apart from others on the market is that parts can be replaced or upgraded if required, for free by sending the parts back to the company. They then reuse or recycle 80% of this e-waste. Gerrard Street are adaptive in their approach to product design, thinking about how the product itself can help reduce its own impact on society.

What adaptive choices do you make in everyday life?

Do you re-use things or throw them away after one single use?

Do you think about what happens to your object / product once it becomes obsolete?

Many products are made of plastics which have a single use such as milk bottles. Once the milk is finished the bottle is obsolete. We have an example in the collection of a milk bottle from the Tesco Healthy Eating range which is blow moulded from high density polyethylene, which can recycled once the milk has been used. 

Green Toys Inc. are an eco-friendly toy company who make 100% recycled toys. As part of their DNA they are committed to sustainability and playfulness in the products that they produce. Their products are made primarily from milk bottles with other recycled products used at times, such as yogurt pots.  The milk bottles they use are 100% post-consumer recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Some of their products have components made from recycled polypropylene (PP) or recycled low-density polyethylene (LDPE). This is a great example of a company reusing an object once its function is obsolete, melting the materials to make new products, helping to reduce the amount which will end up at landfills. we have a set of building blocks, made by Green Toys Inc,  which comprises five different shapes and four colours, red, orange, blue and yellow. They are designed for young children of six months and over and are marketed as 'My first green toys'.

This hand-woven blanket, has a blue and white diamond design. It was made in 2018 by Weaver Green from approximately 300 recycled PET bottles. The company are based in Devon and make rugs and textiles from discarded plastic bottles. They have spent seven years working on turning hard plastic into fibres to ensure they have the look and feel of wool, along with being machine washable, stain resistant and environmentally friendly. They are embracing the notion of reusing, re-thinking and reducing by considering their impact on society with their choice of materials.

Have you been inspired to think about your use of plastics?

How could you reuse, re-think or reduce?

Sarah Jane Stevens
Museum Engagement Officer

The Shape of Jazz to Come by Ornette Coleman

The Shape of Jazz to Come is the highly influential third album by Ornette Coleman and was issued on the Atlantic record label – his first record for the label - in 1959. 

The album has been categorised as either avant-garde jazz or free jazz – a term Coleman coined from the title of one of his albums - and has been named by The Guardian as one of their 50 great moments in jazz. It has also been listed as one of Rolling Stones 500 greatest albums of all time and in 2012 the Library of Congress added the album to the National Recording Registry. 

Vinyl recording of Ornette Coleman

Interestingly, Coleman’s early sound was due in part to his use of a replacement Grafton plastic saxophone – pictured on the cover of the record - bought in 1954 because at that time he couldn’t afford a metal one when his first tenor was broken (Litweiler, 1992). 

Other notable Grafton saxophone players included the legendary Charlie Parker, John Dankworth and even a young David Bowie (bought by his father as long as he paid him back from a part-time job). 

The Grafton saxophone was an injection moulded, cream coloured acrylic plastic alto saxophone with metal keys and was manufactured by between 1950 and 1967. Today these items are highly valued by collectors and you can view one in the MoDiP collection here.

Andrew Pulman, Guest Blogger.

Further reading:

Litweiler, J., 1992. Ornette Coleman: A harmolodic life. William Morrow & Co.

Our Museum Collections Officer's previous blog post about the Grafton alto saxophone:

 A 'Tone Poem in Ivory and Gold'

Horn (part 1)

`Swift is the hare, cunning is the fox,

Why should not the little calf grow up to be an ox,

to get his own living midst the briars and thorns,

and die like his daddy with a GREAT PAIR OF HORNS.`

(Song of the Dorset Ooser).

Rebecca Davies

My name is Rebecca Davies and I am a graduate in Archaeology.

I have a few vague specialities in study, but in many ways I am fascinated by everything.  For my dissertation I had read about Anglo Saxon helmets.  Most were similar to the famous Sutton Hoo Helmet.

But the one that caught my attention was the Benty Grange Helmet.

Benty Grange Helmet

This was constructed rather differently to the predictable spangenhelm; it was an iron framework - the outside had deteriorated, but was found to be originally heat shaped cows horn. Yes, this was a plastic helmet which raises a lot of questions; Why was horn used?  Was it because the owner was not rich and so couldn’t afford iron? Was it stronger than metal? Lighter?  The existence of this artefact makes us see material science in a different way - which is what plastics are about. And, it presented a challenge to my understanding.  

First of all I had to learn about horn, the sourcing, working, using and its archaeology.  It turns out to be a material that doesn’t preserve well at all, and so we are also searching for secondary records such as early writings.  At first I was doubtful as to my choice of study...it was pretty obscure.  But, with perseverance, I located sources and talked to people.

I fondly remember a fun afternoon spent in MoDiP, I got to meet Rufus!  My Dissertation was completed and I got a First for it.

Looking back it seems so amateurish, I have learned so much more about the subject now.  These Blog pages are a way to share my understanding. Nowadays it feels like I am an authority on Horn!  I do not know how this happened.

In this Blog I will talk a little about horn, its archaeology, the literature on the craft, current practitioners, and artefacts in the Worshipful Company of Horners collection, artefacts I own, and maybe ones I would like to own…Maybe I will even learn more about horn lore.

Rebecca Davies, Guest Blogger.

Student Creative: Jak Hansford

MoDiP Midway Progression

It’s now halfway through my student creative journey and the project has really begun to transform through experimentation. The process began from selecting key objects from MoDiP and observing them through drawing and photography. Studying these was helpful in deconstructing the pieces and thinking about where it will go from here. 

My choice of objects had mundane functions but innovative shape and form within their design. I found this a bit tricky as in the past I have focused on the mundane and then redesigned. The fact that these items have existing design quality meant it would be more exciting to push how I think or see them differently. 

Figures 1 & 2 Still Life of selected objects

At the time of writing this, I’ve been working hard on my master’s degree where I’ve explored a wide range of materials and ideas. This explains why I’ve taken a similar approach to the student creative journey and how my thought processes are merging between the two. As I’ve started to get a better grip on my own practice as a fine art student, I’ve been able to understand how I can reinterpret the MoDiP items. Not only that, my own practice has also given me specific concepts and techniques I could be using. Such as images 3 and 4 which show a recent piece focusing on application of materials and the importance of surface texture which also contains many other meanings or research led from practice.

Figures 3 & 4 Images of recent Fine Art practice exploring surface texture and other research discussions

Digital design is something I’ve started to bring to this creative project. In the past I’ve always created repeat designs or digital artwork to be used for something else, not stand-alone digital artwork. So this presents a new challenge to me as the focus will be on that one object itself. Since I started playing around with digital ideas, I think it’s great the way a 3D object can take on a new life when digitised, especially once I’ve added some transformative adaptations. What became more interesting was combining my own studies with the project and learning something new about myself as an artist.

Figures 5 & 6 Digital artwork combining both experiences

I admit this isn’t where I saw this going at the start, as I had a pretty good idea of how my outcome would look and be finalised. However, this is something I enjoy about fine art as producing work becomes a process itself and you can start somewhere and end up completely off track. Since my BA, I’ve realised going off track is not a bad thing as I could be trying things I would never initially think of. The good thing is though, I’m still able to come full circle if what I’ve tried out isn’t how I imagined, and return to my initial ideas. It’s all a valuable learning experience!

At this stage of the project I am fully immersing myself in this experience and have already achieved a vast arrangement of ideas and experiments and those will continue to develop. The fact that I can be so explorative with the MoDiP collection goes to show how adaptable their pieces are. Also, with the right mindset there really are no limitations and you can work in any specialism to convey the beauty of the MoDiP piece, while still not representing or illustrating it literally. All my documentation of drawings, sketches and images will still hold an importance going forward and I will document these along the way.

 I hope this can help inspire other creatives to reinvent their perspective using objects and that artwork based on plastics doesn’t need to be... plastic! I really look forward to sharing how valuable this experience has been and where I ended up in my next instalment.

Jak Hansford – MA Fine Art

Student Creative: Ellie Jones

I have been continuing to make work with/about MoDiP’s collection of photographs. The museum has a wealth of historical documentation in the photographs of factories that is a part of their enormous collection, and I continue to find myself drawn to them and inspired by them.

I want to show the excitement of the factories around the time that the photographs were taken – in the 60s and 70s, when plastic had just exploded with popularity. The English plastic factories produced so many everyday objects and provided employment for a huge number of people – great grandmas and grandads of many living in this country today. I believe that these factories and the photographs of them have immense historical importance, and I want to use my art to draw attention to them.

I have been using the museum’s collection of objects to inspire me to make the patterns that I have been inserting into the old photographs, by printing copies of them and cutting pieces out. 

Abbey Lane, Leicester: Exterior. BXL. (photograph). Cut out sky with watercolour rubber ducks.

I am thinking about whether it is more effective to cut out elements of the factory, or to cut out the people. I feel that cutting out the people has negative connotations, but it could be used as a comment on modern factories and the loss of camaraderie as a result of less employees. For me, honouring the people that worked in the factories is important, so I think my focus will be on the objects that the factory workers were helping to make.

Aycliffe: weighing sheets of material. BXL. (Photograph). Cut out workers. Pattern inspired by Poppit Bead necklace.

Aycliffe: weighing sheets of material. BXL. (Photograph). Pattern inspired by taps designed by Martyn Rowlands.

I am going to continue being inspired by MoDiP’s collection of objects and photographs, and I’m excited about what will come out of it!

Ellie Jones - MA Illustration