muj205

Name: Mehr Un Nisa Javed

Date:22nd Oct’2019

Professor: Marcela Godoy 

“What you wear is a part of your identity, and identity is, well, pretty darn political.”

Title for the Project:  “We love Our Pakistani Clothes”

The inspiration for my midterm project arose from the idea that after organizing my closet, half my possessions lie stacked on the floor like a molehill and the only question on my mind is: what do I do with this pile of unwanted clothes?. Therefore, this time around I decided I needed to branch out to other alternatives. From the previous weeks readings I found out the worst truth that is PLASTIC is choking the sea animals and polluting the oceans/seas entirely. This had been pretty disturbing for me from a long time therefore, I had made up from the very beginning to be a change maker. 

Thus, I realized that I am not the only one but typically most of us in Pakistan almost do the same thing and that is stacking up our closets and not moving towards sustainable ways. Thus, I tried to take a initiative of making a Pakistani styled shirt which would set an inspiration for the fellow Pakistani artists and designers because no such thing as making clothes out of TRASH has been developed yet in Pakistan. 

Materials I used: These are based on the trash which is produced most in Pakistan. 

Plastic Sac because we have these sacs a lot in Pakistan because it is an agrarian economy and we used these sacs for potatoes and other vegetables. Thus, I have seen these sacs all my life. 

Plastic tape 

Plastic Bag and its handle 

paper/plastic mix materials for Pakistani styled dupatta

trashed embroidery 

sewing machine 

needles 

Then, I did more research on this and the need to build up this project and I found out that; 

The industry, driven by fast fashion, has steadily become one of the most serious polluters in the world. Clothing manufacture was never exactly tidy, what with toxic dyes, copious amounts of water needed for growing fiber and processing fabrics, and waste from factories. But in 2015, carbon emissions from clothes surpassed those emitted from all international flights and all maritime shipping combined. Cotton, for example, uses more pesticides than any other crop—and organic cotton takes up more land and much more water than conventionally grown cotton. At the same time, clothes are worn for less time than they ever have been previously. Every year, 12.7 million tons of textiles enter American landfills; in 2015 in the UK, 300,000 tons of clothes went in, about ten pounds per person. Giving old clothes to charity isn’t the charitable act you might think it is—many of the clothes made today are of such poor quality that they cannot be sold again.

 

 

Name: Mehr Un Nisa Javed

Date:16th Oct’2019

Professor: Marcela Godoy

Objective: Give the proposal for the midterm project and reflection on the workshop

Midterm proposal

For the midterm I want to make a dress but specially focusing on my cultural dress- Pakistani dress as it would represent my culture and also, would be helpful for me in the future because I want to do recycling in the Pakistani Industry as no one in my country has every worked on it on a large scale and I would want to work as a designer and help to save our environment starting from my very own country. 

Therefore, I would start with designing a wearable but that would be Pakistani Kurta style. The Kurt will be mainly made up of plastic as Pakistan and trash bags because PAKISTAN is a developing country and has a lot of waste management issues. The maximum usage there is of plastic because people are not really aware of the bad effects of the plastic due to low literacy rate and low encouragement by the government to decrease the usage of plastic and move towards sustainability. Recently, in the capital of Pakistan plastic was banned but still the policy was eloped without almost no implementation so this project will HIGHLIGHT the issue and my Kurt will have the logo “Reuse, Recycle” for creating awareness. 

Reflection on the workshop: 

I have already posted my outcome of the workshop in the last post by me but here I would like to just add on it and write that it was a really fun and interesting way to tackle with plastic however, I made a few mistakes which I need to overcome such as being careful with the iron as its hot, always use a cloth to put underneath, being careful with putting the cray paper on top of the plastic when closing the machine and finally, working on the edges. 

Name: Mehr Un Nisa Javed 

Date: 9th October’2019

Professor: Marcela Godoy 

Objective: Post the trash awareness video made on campus and make a poster for informing the students about the trash awareness campaign and finally, share thoughts on the talk by the guest lecturer. 

Poster for trasher awareness campaign 

Video for trasher awareness campaign- research done on NYUSH, Campus  and talk with the property management. 

We talked to the Lujiazui property manager and he guided about how the trash is sorted out in the campus. He also explained when asked about the new initiative of the metal cups on campus. He said, that it definitely reduced the plastic waste on campus.He also told us about the times where the trash is sorted out and how much time it takes the ayis to sort out our trash mess.  

We also went to the top floors where there were management and faculty offices. We wanted to compare the trash sorting practices on the top floors and we also wanted to see if their trash cans are different from the students trash cans or not. Upon, investigation we found out that they had similar trash cans as the students and they also had made mistakes while trash sorting. For instance, they had put metal in the paper area etc. 

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kBoO54Mq2tAhDIGwLf1sOsZb3Qr7jOFF/view

UseDem Guest Lecture:

About the speaker: She is Russian, lived in Shanghai for 8 years and founder of UseDem. 

Take Away from the Talk:

UseDem is a company which works with up-cycling.All their products are produced with cooperation of Chinese retired and disabled community. The founder says, that it was totally accidental to work with these people however, now she really appreciates them working for her as she keeps them busy and happy and at the same time, they get paid. Also, such people have been working with her for more than 1.5 years successfully therefore, she is trying to increase such workforce as they have influenced her way of designing because she keeps her designs simple now for such people to work easily on them. 

UseDem is able to save at least 500 pair of jeans every year which means 55,00,000 liters of water is saved every year. She really loves this work and encourages other people to join her in this work because as she said “for some people its waste and for us its up-cycling”. I would love to get involved in such an initiative and in future I would also, try to, if possible start my own startup which works on up-cycling because we do not just have to think of ourselves but our future generations as well. Moreover, I would love to take their logo further as I really appreciate the concept behind it which is, by creativity we connect people and then protect the environment. 

 

Class Activity: 9/10/19

For this class activity we worked in pairs. Me and my partner worked on ironing. What we did was that first we checked the poster pasted in the Lab for seeing the temperature required for different types of plastic. After finding the plastic bags with the right label we used a bag and cut its smiley sign and logo to and pasted it with the help of hot iron onto another plastic bag. We did this to have an end product which could be used a diary cover. Here are the results; 

Process:

End Result:

Name: Mehr Un Nisa Javed 

Date: 25th Sep’2019

Professor: Marcela Godoy 

Objective: Document the week 4 guest lecture

Guest Lecture+ Interview 

We got to have a guest lecture and interview a person who works with the trash in Shanghai. He shared his experiences and said thathis basic role is to recycle trash and sell it. As far as his working hours are concerned, it takes longer for him to work otherwise; trash collection time is evening. His job finishes around 10:30 pm and goes back home at 11 pm. He starts job around 5 am in the morning. If certain companies call him then it takes longer because he needs to collect more trash.

Then, he talked about the new regulations imposed and said that after the new policy related to trash there is less trash for him to collect now and things and overall, the city is cleaner now. This shows that things are improving with more people following laws and trash related rules. Mostly around 2/10 people do not follow the rules. Thus, shows that 90% of the people do take care of the laws.

 

Then, we asked him some questions which he answered;

 

Where does toxic waste go?

Toxic trash is very low and actually quite rare that people would give him batteries. Although, it’s not in high quantities but when it is there then they would call the right people and they would come to collect it up.

 

Which sort of people do not follow the rules and regulations, (basically what are the demographics)?

It usually the people from Shanghai who are not very concerned and do not follow the rules. People from other cities usually listen and follow the regulations. Thus, we can conclude that its mainly Shanghainese people and mostly the same families who disregard the laws.

 

How do they control the people who disregard the laws?

If someone is not following the regulations, then they take their picture and give that person 3 chances. If even after that the person does not listen, then they are reported to the community Centre.

 

Finally, he also appreciated our Professor Marcela for leading such class because it raises awareness especially amongst the foreigners about Shanghai’s trash management practices.  

 

I really found the talk very interesting and it kind of helped in illuminating because I got to know what actually happens to our waste in shanghai and what are the conditions of the people who work in this business. It definitely helped in understanding the working conditions of such people and what motivates and demotivates them in their job.

 

Name: Mehr Un Nisa Javed
Date:24th Sep’2019
Professor: Marcela Godoy

Objective: Track the trash route on Campus. Create a collective visualization that shows where different types of trash are produced. Where is this going? Is it recycled? Try to find out where your own plastic trash is going.

Trash Map Visualization

One of our group members already had a time lapse from B2 where the waste was being collected. I’d like to put it on here as well.

Next week we will build up on this project and do a deeper research where we will create a short film and get in close contact with the trash management people in our school.

Name: Mehr Un Nisa Javed
Date: 20th September’2019
Professor: Marcela Godoy

Objective: Document the art installation done for week 3 in class

How we did it?

The entire class was divided in a group of 2 and each had 6 members. The group division was done by the professor. We used the waste we had collected in the week 2 for this weeks art installation. We had a lot of waste which included plastic but was not limited to it. We got a circular movable thing from the IMA Lab from someones last year project. It perfectly fitted as a moveable table so we used it for that. Our idea was to make a moveable table which had a lot of trays, bowls, cups, etc which are usually on the tables. We filled them up with a number of things such as the Salad bowls, and other eatables such as sushi. This would exemplify how we humans eat stuff and what kind of waste is produced by those eatables.

We also made two humans sort of figures with the plastic. They were entirely made by the plastic wraps and then there eyes were made with marker to give a more realistic look. We put them hanging from the upper part of a 5 liter bottle which was cut into half. They basically represented our art installation idea ” you are what you eat” and in this case the humans would be fully made out of plastic because they consumer plastic so much.
These are the two human made out of plastic:

Here’s how our installation looked like, at the end: In the final version some interesting facts were also added along with the description so that our installation would be understandable and would be fun for the viewers as it would generate their interest into it and would incline them on reading it further.

Reflection:
I found this whole idea and the process of doing it very interesting and very useful as well as encouraged me to be a more responsible citizen who would be able to make a difference with their doings. I hope we could work on similar things in the future and if we get a chance to develop it further it would be fully developed and more interesting and fun for people to view and learn from it.

Name: Mehr Un Nisa Javed
Date:18th September 2019
Professor: Marcela Godoy

Week 2: Topic: Plastic Waste and Its Impact on Ecosystems

I found both of the readings fairly interesting;

“The Concepts of Sustainability” MIT Press & “Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic”

As for the first reading I found the introduction regarding sustainability very useful but it was not something which was very unusual. Moreover, great angles of sustainability were covered and it was approached through different views in order to basically understand what It really is. It was also interesting to know that how the concept of Sustainability went through so much of evolution since the 1980s. Further, according to Google’s Ngram tool, by 1990 it was 10 times more frequent in English than it had been in 1980; by 2008 it was a 70x multiple. Therefore,it has been said to rest on “three E’s”: environment, economy and equity.This really helped me to understand that the concept of sustainability can only be achieved if all the three elements are worked closely together on. Moreover, it talk about suitability further explanation by making the reader understand that “It is clear that, it at its core, suitability is the concept that focuses on the conditions of the earth biophysical environment, particularly with respect to the use and depletion of natural resources. It is not the same as environmental protection”.This further clarifies the ambiguities that sustainability does not have a direct connection with the protection of the environment. Finally, we can say that we must all strive towards a more sustainable life so that the choices for our future generations are not narrowed by us in any way and they are also able to enjoy all the non-renewable resources. Its not just important to protect the resources for our future but also for our present because as it is said in the article that those cities are progressing very rapidly economically which have started to work in a more sustainable way.

“Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic Plastic economies: Made to be wasted PET and topologies of disposability”

I found this reading very interesting and it basically talks about the increased usage of plastic due to multiple reasons such as it ready to hand nature, its durability and how it completely changed the packaging industry. Nowadays, plastic being so cheap has completely changed even the perspective of the consumers because they believe plastic could be thrown away anytime because of its low value but we consumers do not understand that how plastic has led to the degradation of our environment.Therefore we must change our practices and shift to the more sustainable ways even if they are expensive but they would not harm our Mother Earth as much as plastic.

Guest Lecture- Richard Brubaker

The guest speaker for last week was Richard Brubaker and he is the founder of Collective Responsibility.I found the talk by Richard very illuminating because how he explained that collecting garbage could be so beneficial actually really intrigued me and how he shared his friends and his personal anecdotes also added a lot of weightage to his lecture and my learning through it. To be honest, I had no idea that garbage collectors could be one of the richest people and thus, shedding light on how you could save your enivdrnmet/plant and at the same time earn money was very interesting. He addressed many areas of waste pollution and the one which really got me in was the textile waste because we actually do not ever wear 70% of our closet.

Name: Mehr Un Nisa Javed 

Date: 11th Sep’2019 

Professor: Marcela Godoy 

Reading Response:

I found the article “Planet or Plastic” by NAT Geo quite interesting as it showed the true face of the plastic and the reality behind our daily plastic usage. China has by far been the highest importer of waste around the world which consisted of 45% of the world plastic imports. However, after 2016 China stopped the huge imports because it started to focus more on its environmental concerns. china was able to recycle most of the imported waste and process it into usable goods but still a lot of imports used to go into dumping and created huge wastes. Therefore, although China’s reduced waste imports have created issues for the developed world but still it would be overall, quite beneficial because it would lead to more sustainable practices and maybe in future lower consumption of plastic to produce cheaper goods for selling. Finally, I believe that Chinas plastic waste import ban would force Japan and US to think of other options instead of just throwing away waste for China and this would overall, help our plant to be less polluted and get achieve some sustainability. 

I overall, felt very sad about the increased pollution and waste we are creating which would adversely affect our Mother Earth but at the same time that sense of responsibility encouraged me to alter my practices and do something which would no further harm our planet. 

Video Response:

Bag It documentary, really made me realize that we people are so naive and so irresponsible that we do not even think about how and where our waste goes and will it be even used or not.  We keep on using the products made out of plastic and not thinking about our home, Earth which we are polluting by giving it the non-biodegradable plastic which would stay forever and has vert few chances of even being recycled. Thus, I believe that we are already aware of the root cause and just need to alter our practices and make the waste management actually work!