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Final project process:

For my final project, my initial idea was to create an art installation in the form of a painting out of discarded plastic pieces much like the following art pieces which I was inspired by below. 

 

After extensive research into the Shanghai community and a self-run research trip to a small Jing’an neighborhood in Shanghai, I decided to change my idea to better reflect the knowledge I gained in the course of the semester and give back to the community all while creating an upcycled product. My plan is to create plant holders solely out of plastic bottles. I chose this method as it can be done by hand and the skill be easily transferrable to entire communities in Shanghai and elsewhere. During multiple guest lectures we learned that one of the major sources of plastic pollution is from plastic bottles. These statistics infuriated me, as I notice a large portion of Chinese households in the Jing’an area producing large amounts of plastic trash, particularly in the form of bottles. At the same time, I noticed that the residents of the neighbourhood enjoy owning plants but often do not have enough space to display and care for their plants. I decided to combine these two ideas and decrease the amount of plastic/metal used to produce new plant holders by creating an easy to make product that anyone can create at home. It will not only be a fun activity for the young and elderly, but will also raise awareness about the extent of plastic pollution in local Shanghainese communities, and introduce new ways of reusing this plastic.

I discovered the following interesting ideas that use plastic bottles to create art:

 

     

 

These are two methods that I plan on using to create an attractive design for my plant holders:

   

The above methods involve cutting the bottom of plastic bottles, twisting the ends and “braiding” them to create a design without sharp edges. The third picture uses a hand soap or shampoo bottle to create an attractive plant holder. I plan to hold the piece together and upright using plastic straws.

 

Additionally, I discovered that the plant holders can also be redesigned to create jewelry holders. This can be done by slightly altering the design, as shown in the following example:

I will work on this project in the coming weeks and estimate that it will take me 2-3 days, including any decoration elements that I may decide to ass such as spray paint or colors.

Reading reflection

After reading, the most impressive thing that I learn is that the designing process of the industrial revolution was not fully considered. “It took shape gradually, as industrialists, engineers and designers tried to solve problems and to take immediate advantages of what they considered to be opportunities in an unprecedented period of massive and rapid change”. The formation of the modern industrial system was not designed systematically. Instead, the birth of it was for solving problems in production and getting profits. All the drawbacks were the result of the immature design process. The example of this imperfect designed system was a model of product: “Cradle to Grave”, which means one product is generated for a limited used and goes to “Grave” and will not be recycled. This type of design dominated the modern industrial system.  The name “cradle to grave” is really impressive to me. Products of this model are wasting, polluting and unrecyclable. The alternative is the “Cradle to Cradle” model. By contrast to the designing process of the industrial revolution, we need to consider the end and the future of one product during the desing process.

Future plan:

As I mentioned last week, I want to explore more about bioplastic in textiles sphere, I research more on the bioplastic recipes. I found one interesting and want to try. That is the recipe for bags. Here are my next steps.

1. Collect and buy all the material required
2. Test 1: Make a real textile out according to the recipe, make some adjustments based on the result
3. Test 2: Research more bioplastic, try to find the ingredients or cooking method which can make the final product more flexible, soft-feeling, and durable.
4. Test 3: Make molds for big bioplastic piece.
5. Production: Using the final version bioplastic piece to make a bag.

Experiment needs:

• Gelatin
• Glycerol
• Water
• Balance
• Pan
• Heater
• Spoon
• Mold
• Sewing machines (for bags making)

Reference:

https://materiom.org/recipe/22

http://fabtextiles.org/tag/bioplastic/

 

Hypothesis: How does the amount of vinegar and type of milk affect milk casein produced?

For this second experiment, I did some further research and found a couple of different suggestions and tips from people online:

1. Soaking the milk curd in vinegar will make the curd smoother, less crumbly and easier to mould
2. Using more vinegar will create more milk curd
3. Other types of milk such as buffalo, sheep and yak have more/less casein than regular cow milk

From this new information, I wanted to experiment and try it out to see how much truth there was to these tips. Hence, I modified my original methodology with 3 different experiments:

1. After separating the curd, dump it in again in vinegar for 1 hour before moulding
2. Doubling the amount of vinegar added (12 tablespoons to 500ml of milk)
3. Use yak milk

Results:

For the first round, I used much more vinegar than I did for the first experiment. Expecting larger chunks of curd to form, I instead saw the mixture to be very powdery and less chunky. This was confirmed as I placed the milk through the strainer. Most of the milk past threw and I only attained a small amount of curd. This was surprising as I used double the milk from the first experiment but was only able to attain approximately the same or even less curd.

For the second round, I followed a similar original methodology, but just added the curd into a bowl of vinegar to soak. At the 30 minute mark, I checked on it and saw the curd has become very powdery once more and became smaller. By the time the hour was up, half of the curd has become small powder and I was left with a very small amount of curd that wasn’t even that easy to mould, just very sticky and wet.

In the last round, I managed to find 200 ml yak milk on Hema. I followed the original methodology and attained the same amount of milk curd as when I used 500 ml of cow’s milk which I was extremely impressed with. It also seemed much easier to mould and less crumbly.

Amount of curd left just from 200ml of yak milk

1. Cow milk (500ml)
2. Yak milk (200ml)
3. Cow milk soaked in vinegar for 1 hour 

 

Results: 

cow milk after 2 days

Although the 200ml yak milk produced approximately the same amount of milk casein as 500ml cow milk, I found that even after 2 days of drying, the casein produced was much oilier than the cow milk. This may be due to the higher percentage of fat in the yak milk. Furthermore, as it was oilier, I found there were more cracks and would be easier to break than the cow milk which fully dried. 

yak milk after 2 days

I learned that some of the myths found online may not be exactly true or I did it wrong as I found that soaking the milk casein in vinegar for the extra hour did make the casein a bit smoother, but it also significantly reduces the size of the casein clumps as it dissolved even further in the vinegar. 

Moving forward, I decided to stick with cow milk. However in order for me to make a cup holder, I’d have to use a considerable amount of milk and perhaps make a mold. 

 

For the class on Wednesday, I spent most of my time doing my mold since without the mold I cannot do the following experiment. Special thanks to Marcela and Andy who helped me so much during the making process, without them, I cannot make the mold at all.

So at first Andy and I drew a draft of the frame of the mold. We basically follow the mold making from a Youtube video. We went to the wood lab and decided to make it by hand. We chose some thinker wood pieces, cut them into the length of 30/27 cms and pin them together. One of the most difficult things I have met is the use of the net: it is even more important than the frame. At first, I wanted to use the window screen net from home, but it is too big and thick liquid could pass it. Marcela advised me to use the leftover materials from the trash fashion show and it worked pretty well. With Marcela’s help, I stapled the net on the frame, and the final mold looked pretty well. The potential problem is that since the net is soft and easy to change its shape, the surface of the net is uneven, which may lead to the problem that the paper is not flat. I will do the experiment later and see how it goes. 

 

Update:

I failed but I still got some paper 🙂 

I recorded the main making process of making the paper and the video is below. If the video is too boring/having a better feeling watching the video please listen to music.

 

 

 

A few pictures of the final product/leftovers:

      

 

Challenges:

During the making process, I have met some challenges. The first one is which mode to use of the blender. I know this sounds a little silly but it matters. At first, I used the “Rapid soya-bean milk” mode, and it was HEATING. The heating costs time and the vapor also worsen the making process. Later I figured out that the “juice” or “icy smoothie” mode works better since it neither heat nor requires a long time. The juice mode works especially well. 

Another challenge is to use which side to filter. Actually, it is easy as long as you follow the tutorial but I messed it up a few times. The frame with net should be put above another frame, with the net between them. The mistake made me repeat the filter process, which may also be a reason why my final product is not as good as I have imagined. 

 

Future improvements:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. As the pictures above have shown, the uneven surface does cause a lot of problems. The wet paper is too easy to break or stick together, especially the marginal area. I am going to buy a new net from Taobao and remake the mold, and experiment again to see if it works. Also during this experiment, I spent too much time on drying, therefore I also buy some new sponge (the one designed for absorbing water, since the previous one is more like a cleaning sponge) and towels that can absorb water well. 
2. The critical problem I have met is the amount of water. Most tutorial videos I have watched don’t give a specific amount of water. When pouring the thick liquid out of the blender I thought there was too little water since the liquid is too thick — it looks like black sesame paste… However, when I started to dry, I feel there was too much water in the paper. I am not sure if this has to do with the uneven net surface or not, but it does bother a lot and prevents me from having a healthy piece of paper. 
3. Before the experiment, since I once wanted to build a connection between our campus store and the remaking paper inside the academic building, I went to the campus store and asked them how many notebooks they are selling every week/month. The worker there said they don’t know the actual number (maybe they just don’t want to tell me 🙁 ) but it was a lot. But making one piece of paper in the experiment took me more than 4 hours. I told myself it would be slow but 4 hours is still far longer than my expectation. I think with practice I might shrink the time to around 1 hour but it is still too long. I don’t know if I can really make products through this. 

 

Updaate:

I bought the third kind of material I am using for the deckle… It is still too soft for the deckle mold. I am buying the stainless steel net and see if it works.

This material (polyamide fabric) is still too soft and will fall down naturally.

 

Updaaate:

My friend gives me a lot of paper… The source part of my hypothesis of building a cycle inside the school works now. Hope the bridge works too.

 

 

Hypothesis: How does milk brand/quality affect the casein plastic produced?

For my first experiment, I decided to try out different brands of milk with varying quality. I judged the quality of each milk by their expiration dates and prices. Through some research, I learned that the more processed the milk, the longer the shelf life and in general, the cheaper the price.

The 3 brands I bought were: 德业纯牛奶 (‘worse’; expiration: 1 year)，光明纯牛奶 (‘medium’; expiration: 6 months) and 维纯牛奶 (‘best’’; expiration: 3 months). From the initial research I found out, no one mentioned whether the quality of milk would affect the casein curd formation. Hence, I want to explore this to see if I’ll be able to create better/worse variations of casein with different milk brands. Out of curiosity, I decided to also buy a chocolate milk to see what would happen. I didn’t have much hope in much casein being extracted as chocolate milks are often diluted with sugar and water, but it would have been cool if it were to work.

Ingredients & Equipment:

• Milk (4 brands)
• White vinegar
• Pot
• Hot top stove
• Stirring spoon
• Strainer
• (A lot of) Paper towels 

Methodology:

1. Heat 250ml of milk in a stove top until it is steaming hot.
2. Add four teaspoons (tsp.) of white vinegar.  The milk should form white clumps curds
3. Mix the milk slowly
4. Stack several layers of paper towels on a flat surface
5. Once the milk and vinegar mixture has cooled a bit, pour the milk and curd into the strainer
6. To make sure all curds are attained, pour the milk through the strainer once more
7. Gently use the spoon to scoop out the curds onto the paper towels
8. Fold the edges of the paper towel stack over the curds and press down on them to absorb excess liquid. Use extra paper towels if needed to soak up the remaining moisture.
9. Knead all of the curds together into a ball, as if it were dough.
10. Leave it to dry on paper towels for at least 48 hours. Once it has dried, the casein plastic will be hard.

 

Results:

I found that the ‘worse’ quality milk created the least amount of casein compared to the other brands. The ‘medium’ quality turned out to be whiter than the rest. Whilst the ‘best’ quality milk resulted in the same amount of casein as the ‘medium’ but seemed to be harder and stronger after the 2 days of drying than the ‘medium’, but not by that much.

Both the ‘worse’ and ‘medium’ milk brands were easier to break than the ‘best’. Hence, moving forward I will continue experimenting with the ‘best’ milk brand.

The chocolate milk was one big fail. No casein were ever big enough to stay in the strainer. 

Reflection:

Whilst doing the process, I was surprised by how wet the curds are and how much paper towels I had to use to soak up all the moisture. By the end of this first experiment, I gone through most of the kitchen tissue roll which I found quite wasteful. I’ll try to perhaps use a towel next time to see if that would work in order to save some tissue.

I also found moulding the casein to be very time-consuming. Some of the casein were very crumbly and so it kept falling apart. Moulding and kneading the dough for a long time had to be done in order to reduce the crumbling.

Also since For this first experiment, I did not think of having a pin roller; however for next time I would try to use of some sort to make sure the casein dough is spread out enough. This meant that the middle stayed wet as it was very thick and didn’t harden. This led to the milk plastic to be less strong and vulnerable to cracking.

Even though I attained interesting results that confirmed my hypothesis, I only did this experiment once. However, due to time constraints, I will be proceeding ahead with my next experiment, working with more varieties of milk and quantities of vinegar.

(From left to right: 3,1,2) 

From my proposal, I decided to focus on milk casein plastic. Before starting my experiments, I scoured the Internet for any current information that could help with my exploration of milk casein.

Science Behind It:

Milk is made up of proteins, fat and water. Many of the proteins are made up of casein. When combined with vinegar, the milk forms curds which can be separated and moulded. These curds are actually long chains of the casein protein molecules called polymers – the same building blocks as plastic.

Currently Available Information:

First of all, vegan milk such as soy, oat or almond milk cannot be used when making milk plastic. This is because casein is a protein that can only be found in mammalian milk such as cows and sheep. It is an essential amino acid that provides calcium and phosphorus for skeletal growth. Hence, although I would have loved to experiment with and use plant-based milks in this process, I decided to skip out on it as I knew these milks did not contain the casein protein I needed for the plastic.

I also found that different vinegars can be used to separate the casein protein in the milk, just as long as acetic acid is present. This means that apple cider vinegar, white vinegar and wine vinegars can be used. However, for the purposes of this experiment, I will be using white vinegar as it contains the most acetic acid amongst the list, 4-7%, and it is also the cheapest 🙂

According to Wikihow, whole milk or heavy cream will work the best then 1% or 2% milk. This is probably to do with the amount of casein in the different types of milk. Hence, for this experiment, I decided to use whole milk for the entirety of the process.

Next Steps:

With the information I found, I decided to use 3 different types of whole milk. I have not come across any information on how the quality of milk would affect the casein; however, I would hypothesis that the better quality milk would also result in better quality casein plastic. I picked 3 different milk brands — with all varied in qualities, judged through the different expiry dates. Through my knowledge of food, I would assume that the longer the expiration date, the more processed and lower quality the milk is.

Week 9

In the class last week, we had Adele from Precious Plastics Shanghai to lead us through the process of plastic transformation and recreate the stool. After a brief explanation, Adele showed us how to classify, chop and heat the plastic. Many novel tools and instruments have been used. After that, we will finalize it. This step caused some failures in the finished product due to our negligence and unskillful. What impressed me in this process was the step of heating the melted plastic. This step reminded me of the actual plastic heating scene. According to common sense, I learned that dioxin is produced when plastic is burned, which is a persistent organic pollutant (POP) and can seriously harm the atmosphere as well as cause great harm to human health.

After class, I learned more about the environmental impact of plastics and the main treatments in the engineering practice, and I have thought about it.

Generally speaking, as one of the three major synthetic materials, plastics have brought many benefits to the development of production technology and the improvement of people’s quality of life. But the disposal of plastic waste is a more difficult problem. Due to the large amount of plastics collected and classified, the plastics are often difficult to decompose in the natural environment for a long time, especially the plastic bags and agricultural mulch films that are discarded after use. Plastics scattered in urban areas, scenic tourist areas, water forests, roads and railways, causing serious white pollution to the natural environment and urban landscape, have caused widespread concern and anxiety.

For waste plastics, there are usually four methods from an engineering perspective:

1. Direct regeneration of waste plastics (similar to the crafts in our class)

Direct recycling refers to the method of directly plasticizing waste plastics, plasticizing after crushing, plasticizing after corresponding pretreatment, and then forming and processing the recycled plastic products. Direct recycling also includes the addition of appropriate auxiliaries (such as anti-aging agents, colorants, stabilizers, etc.).

2. Waste plastics production of building materials products using waste plastics to produce building materials is waste plastic flooring and packaging materials are as follows:

2.1 Production of soft assembled floor: using waste plastic as the main raw material, and then pulverizing, cleaning and other processes to produce plastic granules and then adding an appropriate amount of plasticizers, stabilizers, lubricants, pigments, and other admixtures, through cutting and mixing, injection molding and molding process.

2.2 Production of floorboard: using waste agricultural film and calcium carbonate as the main raw materials, after mixing raw materials, mixing, granulating, squeezing, cooling and punching.

2.3 Production of the artificial board: using grass residue, sunflower seed skin, and waste plastic as the main raw materials, plus several auxiliary chemical raw materials, which are mixed and hot pressed.

3. Waste plastic pyrolysis oil

A large number of discarded plastics can be chemically recycled, that is, by heating or adding a certain catalytic plastics to make macromolecules, the polymer chains are broken and petroleum products are produced. The pyrolysis oil production technology is complicated in process, requires high cracking raw materials, cracking catalysts and cracking conditions, and has a large investment, so the method is still being explored and promoted.

4. Waste plastics incineration to recover heat

Waste plastics are used as raw materials to recover energy from combustion. The calorific value of waste plastics is as high as 33492~37565kJ/kg, which is higher than coal and slightly lower than the specific gravity, which has a good effect.

Cradle to Cradle- a question of design

-the industrial infrastructure we have today is linear: it is focused on making a product and getting it to a customer quickly and cheaply without considering much else.

-this form of waste and landfill is called the cradle-to-grave model

-the finished products in our trash only contain about 5% of the raw material involved in the process of making and delivering it

–

Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastics

 

Final Project Proposal

Inspiration from Patagonia

Step-by-step hypothesis:

Eva and I have decided to work together for our final project. We will be making a frisbee out of recycled plastic #2, and #4. 

Hypothesis: If we recycle plastics #2 and #4, then we can make a frisbee out of them.

1.) Gather our materials: PPE from bottles, plastic bags, etc. 

2.) After we have broken down the plastics and taken off the labels, we can shred them.

3.) Once they are shredded, we will experiment with different premade molds and our own molds and then heat it in the oven.

4.) After taking the plastic out of the oven, we will test out the frisbee to see it’s feasibility and functionality. Based on the results, we will either create a new mold or leave the mold we have to experiment with new versions of color and variety.

5.) Once we have established the preparation process and have figured out the logistics of making the frisbee we can now give them to children. We can have a park day and deliver it to them with a book that we will create on how they can make their own. 

 

 

Experiment #2 

Chitosan Recipe
*The recipe was cut in half for experimental purposes & to save material*

• 100ml – Lukewarm Water
• 10ml – White Vinegar 
• 12 grams – Chitosan
• 2.5 grams – Glycerol
• 2 grams – Paint Pigment (Water-based)

Materials

• Acrylic Board
• A weighted object (glass bowl)
• Beakers
• Blender
• Spoon
• Weight/Gram Scale
• Mold/Container 
• Plastic Sheet (for texture)

Steps Taken 

1. Measure the ingredients 
2. Mix the liquid materials and coloring in a blender first
3. Slowly incorporate the chitosan into the liquid mixture 
4. Blend for 3-5min until the mixture thickens into a pancake batter-like consistency 
5. Pour the mixture into a flat sheet/container that is with/without a plastic liner 
6. Wait 20-30min for it to solidify a bit
7. Place an acrylic sheet on top of the mixture to flatten and create an even surface (this step prevents the mixture from curling upwards during the drying process
8. Leave in a well-ventilated area for the next 2-3 days to dry 

Images: 

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Name: Eva Solo

Date: 04/12/19 

Professor: Marcela Godoy 

Reading Response

Andy Couturier’s writing in The Abundance Of Less Breaking The Trance of “The Next Better Thing” reiterates the consumption habits of our ever-so developing society. The example from the conversation with Asha Amemiya about wanting to buy the newest version of a computer, because its even better than the previous one, flashed me back to conversation with my dad long before I had a grasp on how customer marketing worked. When the iPhones started popping out every year he always used to and still says ‘the phone is not much different, the price exceeds what its worth, and yet it is one of the most popular items, its sort of a status symbol to pull out the newest version in a business meeting or gathering of friends, on top of that the phone is extremely fragile and a few drops result in the need for screen replacement services – that too exceed the price of tech repair by a large percent’. His considerations never resonated with me as much as it does now, I moved past the societal need for ‘proving myself’ through my possessions and can make (somewhat) objective decisions when it comes to investing large sums of money. As the text described the impact of growing up in India, I also considered the locational impact of the youth. A child forming their core beliefs in a materialism based society or even household cannot be expected to just understand minimalism and how that can be a much more rewarding way or living. I have to say I too was a child thriving off my possessions, seeing a day at the mall as the most exciting activity of my childhood and now I can account a lot of my change to detaching from this type of life and moving to China. I am not saying change cannot be implemented based on location, but for a long time of my adolescence I felt out of place and did not understand why buying did not bring me the joy it once did. After I moved here and familiarised myself with other types of lifestyles and struggles, my core beliefs started shifting too and I can not find happiness from within and my what I create. This reading further inspired me to consider my immediate circle of my family and how I can bring them the impact I am experiencing through my education: my brother is nine years old and I hear a lot of the same articulations on his future goals as I did his age, he often references that he wants to be ‘known’ and when I ask him for what reasoning he replied ‘for having a lot of money’, I tried not to laugh but it was comical to see that level of certainty in something – I know he will move away from. I sat my parents down and had a conversation that just by taking his iPad away because ‘you should learn to entertain yourself’ is not enough, we – as the older people in the family – need to provide him with tools or options on how he can spend his time. I see how much technology has affected his life, and I am currently trying to damage control – why? Because it is so important for children to receive that level of satisfaction from own doing/ participating / creating, rather than a score at the top of the video game ranking. Children should not be overlooked, they should not be ‘let free’ till they form a comprehensive brain to start explaining these concepts to them – on self-worth, environment, and human relationships. By learning how to communicate these concepts to children we will be growing generations of inspired individuals that prioritise more than just instant-gratification. The issue I see is that the industrial world, or corporate, doesn’t want communities like this, they need brainwashed and dull souls trapped in the consumption cycle to fulfil their human-purpose by possessions. Can we ever break free, if we are programmed to go the opposite way? This makes me consider how grateful I am to be born in a time where I can access education, learn, and make my own informed decisions, while simultaneously trying to battle again the urges that formed in my childhood, such as impulse purchasing.