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Ironing Plastic Experiment

For this experiment, Maya and I decided to experiment with two layers of type 4 plastic. We ran four different tests before achieving a solid result, each test with two cut rectangles from the plastic bag sandwiched between baking paper.

Test 1: 20 seconds (two sessions of 10 seconds), 80°C

We initially just did 10 seconds of ironing, but only the center of the two layers were sticking this way. We ended up ironing them for 10 more seconds to see if it would stick better, but nothing really changed.

Test 2: 10 seconds, 150°C

Instead of increasing the time, we decided to increase the temperature. However, this resulted in a lot of little holes in the plastic.

Test 3: 5 seconds, 150°C

To try and get rid of the holes, we shortened the time to 5 seconds for the third test. While there were certainly less holes, there were nevertheless still holes.

Test 4: 5 seconds, 120°C

We figured the temperature was probably more of the problem rather than the time, so we lowered the temperature. The result of this test was pretty good: the layers stuck together nicely and there were no holes!

 

Midterm Project Idea

When I was younger, I would always see these tote bags made out of old Capri-Sun juice boxes at Barnes & Noble. I really wanted one but my mom would always say no because she thought they were too ugly. Now, I think she’s right.

My idea for the midterm project is to create an upcycled tote bag that someone would actually want to wear. The ironing technique we learned in class produced a nice almost leather-like material, which seems like it would work well as a bag material. Hence, I wouldlike to turn plastic bags into a bag that ismore permanent, transforming plastic bags as objects that are mostly single-use into a (hopefully aesthetically-pleasing) wearable that can be used over and over again.

A quick search on the web yielded people who have already used this technique to create bags that look nice:

I’m pretty new to making wearables, so I found that this portfolio page had a helpful sketch and explanation of how one student sewed everything together to produce an upcycled bag.

As for the actual style of the bag, I am mainly inspired by Issey Miyake. I really like the geometric style of his Bao Bao bags:

I want to incorporate this sort of geometric style into the design of my bag purely for aesthetic purposes. Since I am trying to create a bag that people would want to wear, I figured Issey Miyake’s Bao Bao bags are also a good source of inspiration because of their popularity, kind of like a confirmation that this sort of style is visually appealing to a lot of people.

With all of this in mind, I sketched out this design:

Experiment reflection:

In the workshop, I choose the heat-press machine to try. The reason why I choose the heat-press machine is that I think it is easy to control and manage the time and temperature. I think it will be a great help for my midterm project. I pick a yellow plastic bag to press. I cut the bottom and the head as we were taught in class.

At first, I try to use 100-degree Celsius to press the plastic bag for ten seconds. 

But the truth is that this heat and time were not enough. So I decided to turn up the temperature and lengthen the time, which is 130-degree celsius and 25 seconds.

and it worked this time. The two-layers plastic bag was pressed into one piece. But the thing is that the temperature may be too high or the heating time may be too long, causing that the texture of the plastic piece turned out to be shrink as the picture shows.

Besides the basic heat-press process, I also choose a different type of plastic to melt them together.

I took the symbol in the middle and cut them down. Then I used the same setting that I deployed just now to press the recycling symbol into the yellow piece and it worked.

Conclusion:

I will pay attention to the temperature and time next time because it may destroy my materials if I take improper heating temperature and time. What I should do is to check the proper heating setting by testing with a small change once a time.

Midterm project:

For my midterm project, I wish that I can design a formal skirt. I get inspiration from the artwork in the fabrication lab on the 8th floor and one art piece that I saw when I went for an art show.

At first, I really want to make a jacket or pants. But to be honest, I have no idea how to do a jacket or pants. It is too challenging for me to finish my project if I don’t even know where should I start. So I decided to pick an easier one–formal skirt. But it doesn’t mean that making a skirt is easy. It is still a difficult job for me because I also have no experience in it. 

For the art piece I saw, it provides me the inspiration that the design of shape and wave for a skirt is beautiful and it is possible for me to accomplish this design with trash, especially plastic and paper. That will be amazing if I can make a similar one.

For the potential materials, I think the high-density black plastic bag and the transparent plastic bag which is a little bit hard are the perfect materials for my project because, with these features, I can create much design of shape and wave. Besides, it is also much more possible to maintain the whole shape of the skirt.

For my midterm wearable, I want to create a piece that is something I would wear as it would echo my personal style. I grew up in the Philippines so I’m constantly exposed to very hot, humid tropical weather. This often meant I wear basic linen tops and tees such as the ones below. I particular love wearing this style of tank tops: minimalistic, adaptable and sometimes with a pop of colour. 

Hence, I wanted to replicate this except with trash. For inspiration, I browsed Pinterest for ideas on what type of trash would be suitable to create this piece. However, I also had to consider if I currently already have this type of trash as I don’t want to have to purchase anything and create waste just to have materials to work with. 

After some research and looking at the trash I often throw away, I plan to use a plastic bag as a ‘base’ for my top. Plastic bags are a large contribution to my overall trash creation, thus I thought it was essential I include it in my project. To create an interesting texture for my top, I’m planning to use bubble wrap, from my Taobao shopping packaging, to cover the plastic base of my top. Whether I shop in a grocery or the fruit market, all of the fruit I buy seem to always come together with styrofoams I never know how to recycle them. Hence, I thought this would be a great opportunity to finally use them to also add some pops of colour to my top. 

These materials are what I currently have on hand. However, if I happen to have other types of trash, I’ll try to include them in my piece. For example, if I were to have enough bottle caps, I would want to include those into my piece as well to look like buttons.

Putting all of these 3 elements together would mostly be tape and glue. However, this might change during the process or when I attend more workshops. Also, if I find that I have extra time, I was also thinking of creating a matching bottom for the top. 

Interviewee: A graduate student in environmental science and engineering at a university in Shanghai

Interview Background: Due to the thought-provoking problem of discarded disposable products, the team members completed the creation of a water-based hand-made product from wastes, aiming to remind the students who throw harmful garbage to reduce the frequency of using disposable products and enhance environmental protection awareness. Consciousness, this is helpful to protect our rivers and land, and ultimately defend the planet on which we live. under the limited time and limited theme, although there are certain limitations, we have done a meaningful and educational creation.

Interview content: (Interviewer Zhang talked about his views on this design and some thoughts on Shanghai garbage classification from both civil and professional aspects)

Zhang: I think the meaning of this design is very good. For me, the warning effect of this design is also very good. Examine your behavior before throwing garbage: If someone is throwing a plastic bottle, after seeing this work, he or she may bring a water cup before the next outside work, instead of buying bottled water; if someone is going to throw disposable take-out tableware into the trash, he or she might think about the harm of garbage to water, next time that person will choose to change habits, use homemade lunch, prefer dining instead of take-out; if someone throws a lot of waste paper, under the warning of this work, he or she may realize this kind of behavior not only wastes forest resources but also cause serious damages to the water and soil environment, after that, the utilization rate of paper is likely to increase substantially.

And as far as my profession is concerned, this design is a very scientific one. First of all, due to a large amount of garbage and its high toxicity, wave and soils have been seriously polluted, including atmospheres. For people’s consumption habits, the amount of garbage produced per capita is increasing. Usually, the final disposal method of a large amount of solid waste is landfill, in addition to large land occupation, this method has the danger of leakage and the groundwater and soil are highly likely to be contaminated. What’s more, plastics and electronic products are increasingly littered, leading to the augment in the toxicity of solid waste. The chemical-biological treatment and heat treatment during the treatment process may produce many poisonous gases, which seriously pollute the environment and affect human health. Therefore, we urgently need to enhance the environmental awareness of the masses and truly reduce the amount of waste, as your design has contributed to this requirement.

Besides, talking about the impact of garbage sorting in Shanghai on waste disposal, as far as I am learning in the professional course, I learned that waste sorting is equivalent to eliminating the sorting process in the waste treatment plant. This link often needs to be based on the type of waste, and each type takes different sorting schemes and steps, including wind selection, magnetic separation, bounce sorting, wet sorting, flotation, etc. Of course, garbage sorting is important, but I personally hope that there is a rule that limits the amount of garbage produced by a person and so that they can be better aware of the severity of the damage to the environment.

Interview experience: Thanks to Zhang for their professional reviews and suggestions.

 

The Video of our Group is in Maya‘s BLOG！

 

Workshop Documentation

For the workshop in class, we were taught how to use the plastic melting machine. I and Mehr tried to distinguish the type of plastic inside the huge trash bag but only a few of them has the type printed on the plastic bag. Therefore, we chose Plastic 2, which is high-density polyethylene and could be melted at a temperature of 75 degrees.

 

The plastic bags we chose to use

 

Since there is a cute smiling face on one of the bags, we decided to cut off the smiling face, melt if on the yidiandian plastic bag and made a book cover. After finishing the design, we started to melt them.

 

Our design of the book cover

 

             

 

The processing of melting

 

After melting them at nearly 120 degrees for more than 30 seconds in total, we found that the smiling face was stuck on it but the “happy every day” failed. Only 1/3 of it was melted and stuck. 

 

We failed 🙁

 

In the end, we just melted the smiling face and half of the yidiandian bag together to make the book cover. Below is the video of it. 

 

 

Midterm Proposal

My first 18 years were spent in a sea-side city. From around 2008, the sea and beach near my home got super dirty, with plastic bottles, glasses, nylon nets, green and ugly enteromorpha covering the ocean every summer. I was too young to define what was going on at that time. And when I was 12 years old I went to Australia, where I found the sea different from the one in my hometown. The ocean in Australia is transparent — I was able to see a turtle and a batfish swimming in the light blue water, coming near to me.

I was excited, sad and angry. I went to the activity of cleaning the beach almost every summer, but that was too little for me to rescue the sea, like a drop in the ocean. As I get older and the ocean pollution gets even more serious, I started to read the news and there were pictures of the polluted sea, suffered animals on social media very often. So from the very beginning, I wanted to do something about the ocean. I love earrings and bracelets, so I decided to do a set of earrings, a necklace and a bracelet about pollution in the ocean. I safaried pictures about the trash jewelry.

 

Necklace of plastic, decorated with large flowers and leaves (2)

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/211458144988843963/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/211458144988843963/

 

Below is the sketch of my project. 

 

The earrings and the necklace (it seems to be less clear when I upload it 🙁 )

 

The bracelet (first version)

 

Details about the bracelet

 

The bracelet (second version)

Main inspiration and idea:

For my midterm project, I plan on creating several pieces of jewelry. The jewelry will, of course, contain plastics, and I plan on using thread to bind the pieces of plastic together to turn it into a wearable. I will also use thin wire as the means of attaching the earring to the wearer’s ear. 

I chose to create jewelry, since I believe that this is a beautiful way of repurposing plastics creating something new, useful, and fun to wear.

I hope to combine weaving and twisting methods to create jewelry similar to the following:

Here are some images that I will use as inspiration for my wearable:

Environmental facts that address the importance of repurposing plastic waste and justify the creation of my project:

My midterm project will include pieces of plastic and cloth waste with a central theme around the Earth’s oceans. Each of the materials for the creation of my earrings represent a main pollutant of our oceans-plastic lids, plastic packaging, cloth fragments, metal wires. In addition, the lacy cloth on top of the earrings is meant to allude to the discarded fishing nets that marine life often get entangled in and unfortunately result in fatalities. Lastly, the shape and symmetrical design of the earrings represent a ship’s wheel and the colors are chosen to compliment an overall nautical theme.

Collecting the necessary materials and producing my wearable:

I will be using materials i find in the IMA labs such as fabrics, plastic pieces and wire, as well as plastic bottles that I have previously purchased.

Midterm project progress:

I have already made significant progress in my midterm project. I collected pieces of cloth, blue thread, 2 plastic chips can lids, metal wire and cookies plastic packaging in an attempt to create a jewelry set. I also used discarded multicolor wires from the IMA lab on the 8th floor, which I twisted into one piece, as decoration for my earrings. I have already completed the earrings from my jewelry set. The sketch below illustrated the materials I used for the earrings and the way in which I combined the materials to create the final product.

Preparation:

I used the chips can lids as the base of the earrings. Then I cut the bottom part of the cookies container and pasted it with tape to the lid. Then I placed the colorful, twisted wires on the border of the lid and attached them with tape to the plastic cookie packaging. Afterwards, I wrapped the blue woolen yarn around the earrings in a star pattern, which I once again attached with tape. Then I cut circles from the plastic bags I collected, with random patterns which I pasted on the center of the earrings to tie the whole piece together. 

To create the earrings hole for attaching to the ears, I twisted a metal wire I found in room 823 and pushed it through a whole I made in the yellow chips lit. Finally, I found a rather interesting piece of cloth in the IMA lab, which was a white lace-like material with holes. It worked nicely as the final touch to the piece, which gave the jewelry a dainty feel. Lastly, I recreated the same process to create a second earring, using the same materials and process of creation.

 

Continuation:

By the end of the midterm project deadline, I plan on creating a matching necklace for these earrings using plastic trash in similar colors and similar material combinations, provided that I am able to find them in the IMA lab.

Testing the plastic heating press:

During last class, I partnered up with a classmate to test out the heating press, which would aid us in the creation of our midterm project. We chose to use the heat press, rather than the irons to practice molding/fusing together multiple bits of plastic, in an attempt to learn the right amount of heat and time needed for type 2 plastics.

We chose two regular plastic bags and placed them between two baking sheets in the heat press. Initially we did 120 degrees celsius for 9 seconds to see if the plastic fused together, however, we discovered that the time was not enough and the two plastic bags were unattaching from one another as soon as we removed the plastic bags from the press. 

We made several attempts of fusing the two bags together to create a plastic “purse”. We tried different time settings, as well as different heat settings but ultimately, we discovered that at a temperature of about 120 degrees for around 15 seconds, the plastic bags seemed to steal pretty securely. It would be interesting to try a higher temperature of heat, however my partner and I were worried that the plastic would start burning, since we noticed that the machine began to emit a rather chemical smell once we attempted to change the degrees of the machine to a higher amount.

 

 

Conclusion:

All in all,  the method was rather effective at fusing the bags together, however I am not quite sure I will be using the knowledge I gained from this experiment in my midterm project.

Experiment Results

Results (in order from left to right, top to down)

We used type 4 plastic for all of the ironing experiments.

1. Temperature: 80 degrees Celsius, Time: 10 seconds, Results: Sticky but not fully mended with each other
   1. Temperature: 80 degrees Celsius, Time: Another 10 seconds, Results: Only attached in one spot
2. Temperature: 150 degrees Celsius, Time: 10 seconds, Results: Too hot, the plastic crumpled and holes formed
3. Temperature: 150 degrees Celsius, Time: 5 seconds, Results: Still too hot, the plastic crumpled but less holes formed
4. Temperature: 120 degrees Celsius, Time: 5 seconds, Results: Just right, the plastic only crumpled a slight but the pieces were fully stuck to each other and there were no holes.

Midterm Proposal

After the various guest lectures on plastic, my personal research, the vinyl cutter workshop, and plastic ironing experiments, I have come up with a midterm project idea. I want to use plastic bottles and plastic bags to create a series of accessories. I personally love accessories of all kinds: earrings, bracelets, necklaces, sunglasses, etc. The unique texture of melted plastic would be great for some one-of-a kind accessories, and thin plastic bags are pliable yet durable.

I want to create a set of 5 earrings, 3 bracelets, and 3 necklaces to make a full jewelry line. The materials I plan on using are scrap wire, plastic bags of any thickness and color, plastic bottles that can be heat pressed, and straws. The designs of my proposed jewelry line are pictured in my sketches below:

I based the designs off of jewelry that is trending currently, and my personal favorite kinds of earrings. I will be making dangly statement earrings, friendship bracelets that are hand woven, and small thin necklaces that are like chokers.

I have researched some plastic bag upcycling methods for creating jewelry, and I will be consulting those websites and tutorials for more technical help. These are some plastic bracelets that already exist:

For the earrings, I plan on using scrap wire from the IMA studio to make the hooks and jump rings to connect the plastic pieces together. The decorative parts will be made out of plastic strips, heat pressed plastic bottles (to emulate acrylic, which is very popular in earrings), and straws.

The bracelets will use scrap wire for the clasps and I will use some friendship bracelet weaving techniques to make plastic bracelets. I will also use plastic straws as beads for decoration in the bracelets.

I am going to make the necklaces the same way I make the bracelets. I will add small plastic straw “beads” or heat pressed plastic baubles to change the styles, and use wire for the clasps.

This week, I will sort through all of the trash that I have collected and begin creating each of the jewelry pieces.

Video Campaign for NYU trash sorting

For the video campaign, my group got together and decided to interview one of the manager from the Lujiazui property sanitation department. Before that, we were really just walking around campus filming some trashcans and what we have observed. What was interesting was the 7th floor of the AB but we decided not to include it in the video due to the flow of it. The 7th floor, also known as the science floor has many labs for biology, physics, chemistry and more. In those labs, they consist many chemicals and bio-hazardous things that needs to be disposed correctly. Therefore, in the lab, there is a bio-hazard waste bin that you don’t see anywhere else on campus. But the question is, what if students on other floors wants to throw out batteries or lightbulbs and the labs are locked? Where would students throw them? Some suggestions would be actually going down to the B2 and just sort it there because they have all the bins available and it would save the ayis some time to sort if you just threw it in the normal trash.  

After walking around the campus for a bit, we decided to interview someone with real knowledge about trash waste on this campus. I actually knew exactly who to ask because of my previous project in another class so I suggested we go talk to the property management. We wrote down some questions like how much residual, recyclable, and wet waste does NYU Shanghai produce? Also, what are the ayis work time and schedule. We just wanted to create some hard facts that we can inform the community so we could cut down our waste as well as the ayis time of sorting our incorrectly sorted trash. 

Below is our visual representations of the campaign:

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gYw1JdQzpE

What we did in class/ ironing notes

In class on Wednesday 10/9, we learned how to use an iron to melt plastic bags. I teamed up with Ben and melted two plastics bags into one and created a little pouch.

We also took some notes for future reference when we use the iron for our project. 

-4 layers of melting: 4 pass through with 160 degree celsius 

-Lower the temperature next time (the temperature was a bit high and melted too much of the plastic)

-Always keep the iron moving then ironing instead of just placing it on the plastic (because it will melt too much)

-Even though the temperature setting was the same for the iron, the longer the iron was on, the hotter it was getting. 

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: