Final Project: Conclusions

For the art statement, click here.

At the end of this journey, it became very clear how much hardwork and time is behind every attempt to recycle plastic into a new product. Many problems will come along, which in our case have yet to be resolved. Such problems included to make a flatter board for the structure of the bookshelf, the scale of it with the materials available, and the way in which the boards will be glued together. All of these challenges were resolved as we progressed, but it doesn’t stop the feeling that this might never be a full product. 

For me, this opened yet another perspective as to why recycling is never going to be an easy and definite solution to our waste management and over consumption problems. As much as we want to think that we can still consume our bottled water and then we can just upscale it into something more beautiful, useful and valuable such as a bookshelf; the reality is that this process requires a lot of resources, several steps in which anything can go wrong (such as the melting of the boards or building the bookshelf itself).

Nonetheless, I have to recognize that there is some sense of satisfaction in finishing up a project; a feeling that can be exploited to create more products such as this one, which rather than being revolutionary or aesthetically pleasing, will be able to raise awareness.