Learn from China
Some Chinese crafts that can be useful in our plastic exploration could be the art of folding Chinese fans. From the workshop, plastics could be melted and become different textures and thickness/thinness. This may perhaps be able to be done with plastic as it could be molded when fresh out of the oven.
Find References:
1. Milk Plastic
A protein found in milk called casein. When extracted, it is able to form plastics. This technique of making plastic was used previously but went out of style for more long-lasting, hard wearing petrochemicals. According to “Bio thinking”, this would definitely be a cyclic product as it is naturally from milk protein. However, this form of plastic may not be very efficient as it requires heating milk and getting the small amount of casein protein from it.
2. Seaweed water bubbles
There have been a few companies who are attempting to create edible water bubbles made out of seaweed to replaced plastic bottled water. One of the companies is Ooho, a UK startup who claim to manufacture these using 5x less CO2 and 9x less energy than PET production. According to “Bio thinking”, this product would be both cyclic and efficient as seaweed is part of the natural environment and more efficient than PET manufacturing. However, there may be concerns over the safety of this product as it claims to also be edible but that may cause some health problems down the line.
the ooho! edible water bubble gets set to replace plastic bottles
3. Prawn shell plastic bags
Science fair winner, Angelina Arora demonstrates how chitosan can be extracted from the carbohydrate chitin and chemically converted from prawn and crab shells. This breaks down completely within 33 days. According to “Bio thinking”, this plastic alternative is also cyclic and made from materials that would be thrown away. However, it may not be very efficient as well as prawn shells come in different sizes, weight, etc and could be harder to scale up.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/09/angelina-arora-teenager-created-plastic-shrimp-science-fair/
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