What will characterize our own time on Earth? Sadly, it seems like the most enduring thing we’ll leave behind is trillions of plastic particles that will still be present in every corner of the globe 1,000 years from now. London architecture firm Vatraa makes this point in vivid fashion with “The Plastic Monument,” a roughly 21-foot-tall Stonehenge replica standing in a plaza in southern Milan. Winner of National Geographic’s 2019 “Planet or Plastic” design competition, the sculpture is made out of 16,000 recycled plastic bottles.

“Taking the form of a trilithon, one of the oldest forms of structure inherited from our ancestors, the monument draws the attention to the consequences of our actions in the long run, to the fact that what we are doing today might stay on Earth forever,” say the architects. “The installation poses a stark contrast between a single-use, disposable material and the eternity of the trilithon. Made of pressed PET bottle bales — the raw material for the plastic recycling plants – it educates the public into the recycling process by illustrating its first steps, just before the material is shredded, washed, and melted into new bottles.”

Thousands of crushed bottles are held together in three stone slab-like rectangular shapes made of wire mesh, making it clear that the “monument” is made of single-use plastic trash. It sits on two solid steel blocks as a foundation and stands just slightly smaller than the real Stonehenge. That enables it to stand up to strong winds — and be disassembled for display in other cities in the future.

“When we think of what our ancestors left to us, we think of real assets made of brick or stone, like the pyramids, the Colosseum, or Stonehenge,” says Bogdan Rusu, founding partner at Vatraa. “But part of our legacy to the next generation might also be plastic waste…Hundreds of years down the line our great-great-great grandchildren might find disposable plastic items that we just got rid of today because it was so convenient to us.”

If you find that to be a depressing thought, then the monument has done its job. Whether our actual contemporary architectural creations someday become their own “ancient monuments” may not matter. Even if humanity survives the coming climate catastrophe, future generations will likely think of us in terms of the pollution we contributed to the planet rather than our more admirable achievements.

The Plastic Monument will remain on display in Milan until next October, when Vatraa hopes it will embark upon a world tour to spread awareness about the consequences of our collective actions.

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Nomura’s latest exhibition, “Life Through Holes,” showcases her unusual artistic method at Hibiya OKUROJI for the 2022 edition of DESIGNART Tokyo. Consisting of a refrigerator, a dining table with four chairs, and an assortment of associated objects, the works obscure the seemingly rigid and artificial qualities of plastic, calling to mind sea creatures, spiderwebs, and other creations of nature. We often think of plastic as a manmade material that’s somehow separate from every other material on Earth, as if it crash-landed here from outer space. But Nomura’s works aim to remind us that it has the same origins as any other material we consider more desirable.

“I was fascinated by the way plastic products that seemed to be inorganic were given a new sense of life by harboring cells of light,” says Nomura. “Petroleum, the raw material of plastic, was born from ancient plankton carcasses under the heat and pressure of the Earth over many years. The act of making a hole is to reveal the origin of this material and reproduce it as a mental landscape.”

“Although the material called plastic is considered to be a disgusting material in terms of environmental problems, the brilliance of these cells of light illuminates the value hidden in our modern lives. What is the true value of materials and where is the true richness of the relationship between things and people in the present age where things are overflowing? As if to keep asking myself that question, I can’t help but keep drilling holes today.”

To create these objects, Nomura works with a soldering iron and an air filter mask, transforming ordinary objects like appliances and household furniture. Everything from disposable utensils to yogurt cups seem like entirely new objects once she’s done with them.

“Life Through Holes” doesn’t change the fact that plastic breaks down into tiny particles that end up in the furthest reaches of our planet, from our own digestive systems to those of creatures lurking in the deepest, darkest corners of the oceans. But it does prompt us to ponder whether we could change how we use this material, and thus, its impact. Are there potential reuses we just haven’t thought of yet? Could the new plastic-digesting bacteria currently under development help plastic re-enter a more natural life cycle?

Nina Nomura was born in Tokyo in 1993 and graduated from the Space Design Program at the Kuwasawa Design School in 2021. She received the MIKIKO award at SICF22 Spiral Aoyama that same year. You can follow her work on her website and on Instagram @_ninanomura.

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“It’s well known that we have a problem with plastics in the environment,” says Mackintosh. “We face the challenges of figuring out ways to reduce and prevent it as well as clean up the water that’s already out there.”

Held by the University of Surrey, the brand new public competition solicited entries from anyone who had an idea for a bio-inspired robot. Mackintosh’s proposal was a simple drawing showing how the robot fish could swim through the water, its internal cavity opening and then compressing to force water over the gills in order to collect plastic particles. The winning entry was selected and built by a group of senior engineers and scientists with years of experience bringing robotic concepts to life.

“We don’t know where the vast majority of the plastic that enters our waters ends up,” says Dr. Robert Siddall, lecturer at the University of Surrey and initiator of the competition. “We hope that this robo-fish and its future offspring will be the first steps in the right direction to help us find and eventually control this plastic pollution problem.”

The roboticists assisting with the competition turned Mackintosh’s proposal into a remote-controlled robot about the size of a salmon. It swims by flapping its tail while keeping its mouth wide open to collect water (and microplastics) in its internal cavity. Once the cavity is full, the robot closes its mouth and opens its lamellar gill valves, pushing the water out of the valves and lifting the bottom of the cavity. Its features include pectoral fins, a gill and mouth motor, a gill raker, particulate mesh, a separate motor for the fins, a tail fin actuation rod, a tail fin motor, battery and microcontroller, and sensors that detect light levels and turbidity (clarity) of the water.

You can now make your very own Gillbert Robo-Fish, as the plans for the current iteration of the design are available as free, open-source CAD files on GrabCad.com. Future revisions will make the fish autonomous instead of remote-controlled so they can be deployed in groups. The public is encouraged to make their own changes and improvements as they experiment with the design.

Other entries in the 2022 Natural Robotics Contest included a forest-protecting robot bird, a hermit crab rover, a robotic sea urchin, and a plastic-collecting dolphin. You can see them all and apply for next year’s contest at the Natural Robotics Contest website.

“We chose Eleanor’s both because we really liked the idea and the way it used bioinspiration, but also because cleaning up ocean plastic was the most common purpose among all the entries we received, so we thought our winner should reflect that,” Siddall told FOX Weather.

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A collection of researchers from France’s École Polytechnique school of engineering, Germany’s Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) laboratory, and the University of Rostock attempted to simulate the conditions found on the two massive planets made from ice rocks and ice-forming molecules.

The interiors of Uranus and Neptune are composed mainly of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, a combination of elements that are actually found in similar proportions in PET (polyethylene terephthalate), the polymer that makes up everyday objects like plastic water bottles and plastic packaging. Thankfully for their research, PET sheets are cheap to come by.

Even though the icy giants are the coldest planets in our solar system, with temperatures reaching lows of -373 °F, the interiors can still top 10,000°F, with an atmospheric pressure a million times greater than that on Earth. To mimic these conditions, the researchers brought their plastic bottle material to California’s National Accelerator Laboratory to make use of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), an extremely powerful, hard x-ray free electron laser.

After firing ten ultra-concentrated laser pulses per second at the plastic, the PET reached temperatures of 10,832 °F, comparable to the inner temperatures of Neptune and Uranus. The impact of the laser on the plastic bottle also created a shockwave that compressed the material at a pressure equal to those on the icy giants. The result was flashier than expected, producing an explosion of nanodiamonds.

“We discovered that this extreme pressure produced tiny diamonds,” explains Dominik Kraus, HZDR physicist and University of Rostock professor.

Kraus adds that “the nanodiamonds are indeed diamonds in terms of crystal structure. The same crystal structure as on many wedding rings, just a million times smaller. So yes, these are actual diamonds. On the short timescale of our experiments, they have not enough time to grow further. However, inside planets where we could have growth times of millions of years, the diamonds could be gigantic — kilometers or larger.”

The discovery has both terrestrial and celestial implications. Here on Earth, diamonds might now be produced to perfection. “So far, diamonds of this kind have mainly been produced by detonating explosives,” says Kraus. “With the help of laser flashes, they could be manufactured more cleanly in the future. The X-ray laser means we have a lab tool that can precisely control the diamonds’ growth.”

This could also be a new way to manufacture nanodiamonds used as “quibits” for quantum computing and sensors, or to create the tiny diamonds that are used for many industrial strength abrasives and polishing agents. In the space arena, the findings could help expand our knowledge of the most common type of planets floating around in the universe, including the fact that they may have continual sparkling diamond showers.

“Planets like Uranus and Neptune, and slightly smaller, have been found to be the most abundant planets outside our Solar System,” Kraus says. “Understanding those planets will therefore also help to get further inside where life could exist outside our Solar System.”

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MIT professor Michael Strano and his team of researchers were able to defy decades of scientific studies by coaxing polymers, the building blocks of all plastics, out of their traditional chain shape into two-dimensional sheet orientations. By layering these molecular discs, the team was able to forge an ultra-strong, lightweight material they named 2DPA-1.

“Instead of making a spaghetti-like molecule, we can make a sheet-like molecular plane, where we get molecules to hook themselves together in two dimensions,” Strano explains in an MIT press release. “This mechanism happens spontaneously in solution, and after we synthesize the material, we can easily spin-coat thin films that are extraordinarily strong.”

Exactly how strong is this molecular arrangement? The researchers found that its elastic modulus (the amount of force required to deform a material) was four to six times greater than that of bulletproof glass, its yield strength (the amount of force needed to break the material) was twice as strong as steel, and its density was only one-sixth that of steel.

Another novel feature of 2DPA-1 is its gas impermeability. Other plastics are composed of coiled chains of polymers with gaps that allow gases to flow through. Strano likened them to a bowl of spaghetti noodles. He said with a large bowl of noodles, it’ll be hard to see the bottom of the bowl, but sauce added on top can still seep through all the way to the bottom because of the little pockets of space in between noodles.

The 2DPA-1 material is instead configured of monomers that lock together in unbreakable hydrogen bonds like like interlocking LEGO bricks, making it impossible for gases to leak through. The applications of this discovery could be wide reaching. One possibility could include creating ultra-thin coatings for anything covered in paint. For example, a layer of 2DPA-1 could significantly extend the life of a car’s paint job as it would prevent water and gases from getting through, keeping rust and rot at bay. It could also be employed as a coating for cell phones to make them virtually indestructible.

The uber-strong plastic could also radically change the construction market. Being twice as strong as steel, 2DPA-1 could replace traditional framing materials, allowing structures like bridges and skyscrapers to last much longer. That would reduce the carbon footprint of each new building, and save valuable resources from being used up as quickly.

“We don’t usually think of plastics as being something that you could use to support a building, but with this material, you can enable new things,” Strano adds. “It has very unusual properties and we’re very excited about that.”

Having filed two patents for 2DPA-1, the MIT team is now conducting more experiments on their remarkable 2D polymer sheets to discover what other types of innovative materials can be fashioned from its groundbreaking molecular form.

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The Toronto native has designed multiple campaigns to “make the boring problem of plastic pollution more interesting,” including art projects that called attention to straws, cups, and bottles.

“I knew that I needed to level up my projects, but I just needed to find the right partner willing to take a chance on a brand-new big idea first. Lucky for me, the Embassy of Canada in France accepted my proposal to build an art installation to raise awareness for plastics,” said Von Wong on his blog. “This was my chance to create more than a piece of art. It was my chance to create a symbol inviting the world to #TurnOffThePlasticTap.”

To construct his giant garbage spigot, the artist scavenged ventilation ducts from a building about to be demolished. After amassing hundreds of pounds of galvanized steels ducts of various sizes, Von Wong and his team of staff and volunteers cut, painted, and adapted them into a faucet that could fit onto a standard manual forklift. The oversized tap could then be extended into the sky roughly 24 feet in almost any setting where a forklift could drive.

His crew then assembled over 100 used plastic bottles into multiple strands of rope and attached hundreds more discarded plastic containers in configurations that could be easily set up and torn down at each location. The innovative photographer selected five different sites to highlight the seriousness of the plastic crisis: a recycling facility in Montreal where the giant faucet produces more waste than can be processed each day, a container shipping yard, a landfill, a children’s playground, and Canada’s Oka Beach.

“With more than a truckload of plastic flowing into the ocean every 60 seconds, we need to take our heads out of the sand and start looking beyond beach cleanups,” the artist cautions.

In some shots, Von Wong employed models in skin-colored fabrics to pose in the flow of litter, and in others he had his own tiny nephew Kody crawl around in the garbage to illustrate the absurdity of creating so much rubbish and leaving that legacy to the next generation of Earth’s residents.

Each of his photographs with the colossal faucet and its stream of refuse is stunningly and incongruently beautiful. The play of colors against radiant skies and sceneries is so out-of-place with the main action of the picture that it makes the viewer do a double take. Perhaps it’s a metaphor for how we are sometimes blind to the ugly consequences of single-use plastics that are so easy to consume and toss.

The ultimate point of the Turn Off the Plastic Tap project is to get global citizens to realize that we all play a part in the plastic crisis. “Millions of tons of unrecyclable and contaminated plastic waste are exported to poorer countries every year. These countries don’t have the facilities to manage the waste, and it often bleeds straight back into our environment,” Von Wong says, adding that “although it’s hard to do, the best thing we can do is reduce our plastic consumption.”

He is encouraging other artists and creatives to help spread the message by generating a remix of the giant plastic tap and sharing it on his site and social media. All those who participate before November 4th, 2021 will also be entered into a drawing for up to $10,000 worth of prizes.

Images courtesy of Benjamin Von Wong

The post Garbage Spigot in the Sky Calls Attention to Plastic Crisis first appeared on Dornob.

The environmental impact of plastic is well-known. If not recycled, it pollutes our neighborhoods, oceans, and the world around us. With this work, the trio hopes to illustrate how we use and misuse plastic, where it goes, and where it ultimately ends up (most times, in the ocean).

Color coding the trash into categories further emphasizes how humans misuse plastics. The white portion of the sculpture in particular shows that first-use plastics are discarded a whopping 60 percent of the time, whether in landfills, unmanaged in the overall landscape of our planet, or by making its inevitable journey into our oceans.

But that’s not the only data visible on the sculpture. There are also other colors that represent the complicated journey that plastics often take through our global waste stream. For example, green represents recycled plastics, red represents incinerated plastics, and blue shows plastics still in use. The width of each stream is proportionate to its statistical number, but it’s the black stream that’s truly the most alarming here, as it’s meant to reflect all the plastic ever produced since 1950: a whopping 8.3 billion metric tons, all for human use and consumption.

By using plastic collected by 50 volunteers on the Bali beach with the goal of finding the appropriate colors, the creators hoped to shift perspectives. Rather than collecting garbage, they were meant to be collecting and curating the pieces with the goal of taking “creative action.” As artist Liina Klauss (one of the three masterminds behind the project) says, “Science gives us new knowledge about the world. Art gives us new perspectives how to see the world. [And] merging the two has tremendous power.”

Klauss began the vision for the impactful sculpture about ten years ago, in 2011. When she was living in Hong Kong, she gained a deeper understanding of how plastic pollution impacts our planet, and how statement-making art can build awareness. Making Indonesia her second home only served as a catalyst for ultimately producing this colorfully impactful piece on the beach in Bali.

The latest sculpture is just one of the many pieces Klauss has created in the intervening decade, effectively turning “rubbish into rainbows.” On her coastal walks, she has found everything from medical waste to refrigerators washed up on the beach, using all of it in her more than 50 art installations across Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Taiwan. All are colorful and use the beach as a canvas — the perfect way to illustrate how plastic devastates our coasts, our oceans, and our planet.

Klauss says, “All over the world on remote beaches, plastic pollution has become insane normality or normal insanity.” By creating her sculptures, she hopes to raise awareness and change people’s perceptions — and maybe even their habits. Look for Klauss’ “Perpetual Plastic” on the big screen when it debuts later this year as a short film by director Eric Ebner.

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Bourgnon of all people understands how crucial such designs are for the health of the planet’s waterways. With 20 years of experience setting world-records in solo expeditions and transatlantic competitions, the Franco-Swiss ocean adventurer has observed a dramatic rise in ocean waste. In fact, Bourgnon had to quit the Trans Jaques Vabre yacht race in 2015 when his ship was assaulted by floating rubbish.

“During my racing career, I’ve missed out on records and broken my boat 12 times from hitting ocean debris,” he said in an interview with the Robb Report. “I’ve circumnavigated the world twice in my life, once at the age of 12 with my parents, and another 30 years later. The difference in the amount of plastic pollution was alarming. I knew something had to be done.”

“To fold your arms and say ‘No, we’ll do nothing, we’ll leave it, we’ll focus on dry land, we’ll leave the waste in the ocean,’ is totally irresponsible,” he added.

His solution? A185-foot sea-cleaning catamaran that will be partially powered by the garbage it eats.

Called the Manta – once its solar “wings” are extended, it resembles the swimming ray fish – the concept was developed in collaboration with an NGO thinktank of 58 engineers, technicians, and researchers that Bourgnon assembled in 2016.

The sailing vessel is designed to be traverse the seas removing plastics and other garbage with its large nets that can span 151 feet across and three feet deep. It’s estimated that the Manta will be able to collect up to three tons of waste each hour. With a crew of 22 rotating in two 12-hour shifts, each haul will be pulled in (larger debris will get help from two onboard cranes) and immediately sorted: organic matter back in the ocean, glass and metal sent ashore to recycling facilities, and plastic turned into energy for the ship. The boat’s Waste-to-Electricity Conversion Unit (WECU) will melt the plastic, creating gas to power an electricity-generating turbine.

Additionally, the Manta will incorporate two wind turbines at the stern, 500 square meters of solar panels at the bow, and two hydro-generators under the ship, enabling it to be roughly 70 percent self-sustaining while creating enough power for sailing speeds between two and three knots.

With a goal of operating his sea-cleaner 300 days a year, Bourgnon says it could eliminate up to 10,000 tons of ocean trash every year. If 400 such boats were set to the task, he and his team guess they could clear one-third of the world’s floating garbage. And even though it is fully capable of negotiating ocean waters, the Manta’s focus will be on clearing the estuaries of the planet’s major rivers. Two smaller, more nimble cleaning boats, the Mobula 8 and 10, will be stored on the catamaran to navigate more shallow and narrow inlets.

“The 20 largest rivers in southeast Asia account for 60 percent of ocean plastic, so that’s where we’re concentrating our effort,” Bourgnon says. “We’ll be collecting dense areas of macro-plastic pollution before it sinks or disintegrates into micro-plastics. Hurricanes and tsunamis cause massive inflows of pollution into the ocean, and it’s imperative that this pollution is dealt with quickly before it drifts, sinks, and becomes irrecoverable.”

Bourgnon expects the first model to be finished in two years, with the Manta’s initial sea trials occurring in Europe before it begins its work in southeast Asia in 2025.

He also hopes the concept will encourage more innovation and similar fabrications. “I’m not in competition with other boat builders to be the only one with a Manta,” Bourgnon explains. “Our hope is that hundreds of Mantas will be built around the world to help with the great ocean cleanup.”

The post This New Yacht Eats Ocean Trash for Breakfast first appeared on Dornob.

The Afterlife collection consists of a storage crate and a bench, both of which are stackable so you can create your own custom configurations. The benches can double as shelves and the crates can be used as planters, or pretty much anything else you can dream up. The design’s signature “nipple connection” uses a 3D-printed plastic bolt to keep each module secure without the need for any additional fasteners or tools. Both items are also weatherproof, so you can use them both indoors and out.

“Supernovas challenged Odd Matter to develop a collection that empowers dynamic living, with designs that give waste an afterlife and ensure the recyclability of the products at the end of their lifecycles. With the unique process that brings together different types of cutting-edge manufacturing techniques, Afterlife is made from recycled plastic waste streams such as PE and PET – namely those found in bottles, packaging, squeeze bottles, toys, gas and water pipes.”

Supernovas’ London and Madrid design teams pioneered a combination of three manufacturing techniques to produce these recycled, easy-assemblage products. Rotomolding, pressing, and 3D printing come together to turn industrial and household waste into items like multipurpose storage trays and boxes.

Even cooler is the circularity at the center of Supernovas’ business model. While conventional linear design sees a product live out its consumer lifecycle and then get thrown in the trash, Supernovas takes back products at the end of their useful lives and turns them into new objects. Their Streaming member program lets you swap out your purchase with something new of equal value whenever you feel like it, so you can try new things guilt-free. The idea is that the materials used to create these items never become waste, they simply shape-shift over and over again.

The Afterlife collection is currently available for pre-order. Both the bench (€1,674/$1992) and the crate (€400/$476) come in eight colorways, including vivid pink, black, speckled gray, terracotta, speckled black and white, blue, terracotta and white, and a mix of black, white, and terracotta. The pattern of colors is reminiscent of terrazzo, a unique look particular to the recycled materials.

Odd Matter was founded by Dutch designer Els Woldhek and Bulgarian designer Georgi Manassiev, who share a curiosity “for all things strange and wonderful” and a love for experimenting with different materials and processes. “The studio believes that by working with existing processes and notions and researching these from a different, more naive perspective, a different kind of product can be created,” they say. Products that are “unique and specific to the place they originate from.”

“Odd Matter’s design process starts from the materials, which then dictate the design and aesthetic,” says Supernovas founder Massimiliano Rossi. “The studio has an innate talent for colors and materials, making them the ideal partner to develop a product that transforms waste into beauty, and to bring functionality out of line.”

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Nzambi Matee, a 29-year-old entrepreneur and engineer, felt compelled to do something after years of seeing single-use bags littering the streets of Nairobi.

“I was tired of being on the sidelines,” Matee says, adding that “here in Nairobi we generate about 500 metric tons of plastic waste every single day, and only a fraction of that is recycled. Plastic is a material that is misused and misunderstood. The potential is enormous, but it’s afterlife can be disastrous.”

In 2017, Matee quit her job as a data analyst and started experimenting in her mom’s backyard. “I shut down my social life for a year and put all my savings into this,” she notes. “My friends were worried.”

Mixing sand and plastics, she started producing brick-like paver stones. Through trial and error over many months, she was eventually able to determine which types of plastics bound better than others.

Matee studied material science and previously worked in the Kenyan oil industry, after which she won a scholarship to a U.S. social entrepreneurship training program. This opportunity allowed her to further test her component ratios in the University of Colorado Bolder labs.

“Plastic is fibrous in nature, so therefore, the brick ends up having a stronger compression strength,” she explains. And she’s telling the truth, too. Matee’s pavers have a melting point over 662°F, and they’ve been tested to withstand twice the weight of standard concrete bricks.

Her startup company Gjenge Makers Ltd, founded in 2018, uses a mix of plastics for the pavers: high-density polyethelene, commonly found in milk and shampoo bottles; low-density polyethylene, the substance that makes up cereal and sandwich bags; and polypropylene, often used in bottle lids, packaging products, and industrial fabrics. However, they do not use polyethylene terephthalate (PET) from single-use bottles.

Gjenge Makers get most of their material from Kenyan factories. “Companies have to pay to dispose the waste, so we solved their problem. That waste essentially comes for free,” says Matee. They do have to buy some supplemental scraps from recyclers, though.

“So far we have recycled 20 metric tons, and we’re looking to push that value to 50 by the end of next financial year,” she adds. Matee and her team can currently produce roughly 1,500 brick per day, all using machines she designed herself.

The bricks are fully certified by the Kenyan Bureau of Standards and come in a variety of colors, including red, green, blue, brown, and gray. They can be very inexpensively made and priced, with a basic gray brick selling for 850 Kenyan shillings ($7.70) per square meter.

Matee and her company have earned praise from the United National Environmental Program. “We must rethink how we manufacture industrial products and deal with them at the end of their useful life,” says Soraya Smaoun, a UNEP specialist in industrial production techniques. “Nzambi Matee’s innovation in the construction sector highlights the economic and environmental opportunities when we move from a linear economy, where products, once used, are discarded, to a circular one, where products and materials continue in the system for as long as possible.”

As Matee emphasizes, “Plastic waste is not just a Kenya problem, but it’s a worldwide problem.”

The post Kenyan Woman Makes Bricks “Stronger than Concrete” from Recycled Plastic first appeared on Dornob.

Categories for the competition ranged from food and beverage to personal care, and the winners received acknowledgement for breakthroughs in both technology and user experience.

The 2020 Diamond Award, the ceremony’s highest honor, went to Plastic Bank’s Social Plastic Ecosystem, designed in collaboration with Henkel. The partnership relied on Plastic Bank’s work to divert plastic from entering the Earth oceans, a program from which Henkel produced and sold 25,000 recycled cosmetic bottles across Europe. The joint project also provided economic support for people in extreme poverty. Their win emphasizes the goal of the competition in identifying more sustainable packaging options and highlighting solutions for environmental and societal issues.

Diego Donoso, business president for DOW Packaging & Specialty Plastics, summarized this idea by saying: “I am especially inspired by this year’s Packaging Innovation Awards winners because of the industry’s continued focus on innovation and sustainability, despite the difficult global conditions caused by the pandemic. The entry and judging processes were fully virtual this year for the first time, and it still produced strong competition with rigorous judging to recognize the top innovations.”

Although this year’s contest may have looked a little different, judges from a variety of fields including design, engineering, retail, and academia still reviewed more than 175 entries from all corners of the globe.

“I’ve been a judge in the Packaging Innovation Awards for many years, and this one presented a unique challenge in the way it was structured,” said lead judge David Luttenberger, Global Packaging Director for Mintel Group. “Despite the challenging circumstances, the participants delivered the same quality of innovations as in previous years.”

In addition to the top-ranking Diamond Award, the judges identified three Diamond Finalists. The first was Zacros in collaboration with The Procter & Gamble Company of Japan Limited for their Ariel Platinum Sports Refill Pouch. A second award went to Alico for a Metal-Free Recyclable Coffee Packaging design. The final mention in the category was Kirin Holdings Co. in collaboration with Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation for an entry titled “New Thin Film Deposition Technology for PET Bottles.”

In addition, six Gold Award winners included the Mama Silage Bag, an Easy Carry Pouch, the Mexico Yoghurt Cup, Oxi-free High Barrier Green Grain Coffee Packaging, Maybelline FitMe® Matte + Poreless Foundation, and Veja Specialists Redesign. These Gold Award-winning designs come from a variety of corporate collaborations.

Recognition also went to five Silver Award winners with packaging innovation in fragrance, an anti-slip bag, easy peel food packaging, recyclable cheese wrap, and Raflatac Forest Film made from renewable raw materials.

In addition, the Calyx Concentrate Container, Grove Bags Terploc® Film, and Sustainable Load Securing System for Drums on Pallets received honorable mentions.

DOW’s mission is to continue to grow as an industry leader in materials science innovation. DOW operates 109 manufacturing sites in 31 countries and employs approximately 36,500 people.

The post Winners Named in 2020 Packaging Innovation Awards first appeared on Dornob.

For his recent collection Art from Factory (AFF), Kang worked with a Korean business to fashion furniture from some custom metal molds and the company’s own assembly equipment. Hot plastic in vibrant hues oozes out of nozzles, layering back and forth on itself as it fills out into the rough shape of a chair or stool. The effect is a stunning, multi-colored seat that looks like it could have been squeezed out a tube of toothpaste.

The project began when the company, which generates plastic-coated steel piping, including grip stands for all the buses in South Korea’s capital city, emailed a plea for help in managing their waste. Their plastic by-product was accumulating at the same rate as their finished output, according to Kang. The solution was art. “After observing its system closely, I decided to create a design out of the remaining materials to pursue the virtue of my art: seeking wit from everyday life,” he says.

On his Instagram account, Kang explains his thought process with AFF: “Since the development of industrialization, art and design have been divided into black and white, and the boundaries between industrial and artistic products have become clear. However, this clear line only separates everything from what is considered as practical and what is not. To me, factories were the opposite concept of art, operating mass production systems. Through this project, I wanted to find a way to produce something using plastic waste in these hard, uniformed gray spaces in order to achieve a variety of results. I think this is the process of trying to find values that can reflect the present in the boundaries of today’s art and design.”

With the transformation of machine-made dross into pulled-taffy-like fixtures, Kang was able to achieve a synergistic union between industrial functionality and artistic form. He allowed his passion for fashion to run wild with this initial compilation, using red, white, and black as the basis for his “Nike Air Jordan” chair. Kang also crafted one in the traditional colors of Reebok merchandise, a nod to his previous collaboration with the company.

A green stool with one red leg Kang labeled “red-eyed tree frog.” He also experimented with a traffic cone shape called ‘NO PARKING’ that has already been sold to a fellow Korean designer Joonghyung Cho.

Kang has been on the art scene since 2006, when he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Masters in Studio Design. Before that, he studied at the Seoul National University. Other recent creative ventures have included his Collection 1.3, stools made of metal pipes and rope, and the “Oddly Bookshelf,” a metal see-saw that holds books in place with a wooden orb.

His AFF furniture compilation is currently under development for post-COVID 19 exhibitions and collaborations. Items for individual purchase will be available soon.

The post Korean Factory Waste Resurrected as Eye-Popping Furniture first appeared on Dornob.

Like many of us, the Barcelona-based artist found some extra time on her hands due to the pandemic and wanted to create something to help people collectively flourish and grow even in difficult situations. Thus, “The Resilence Project” was born.

“The Resilience Project is an optimistic and artistic approach to the current pandemic situation. Showcasing our capacity to build strength in this difficult situation allows us to bloom and reimagine the world from scratch,” says Marquez. “This new recovery has to be a collective one in which all elements of creation are accessible to everyone. We propose 3D printing as a democratic transmission media of art and fashion. Introducing two downloadable, sharable, and printable pieces that anyone can self-produce anywhere around our globe.”

The files are designed for FDM (fused deposition modeling) 3D printers, which deposit strands of plastic filament in layers to create an object. The filament is fed through a hot extruder to make it delicate enough for fine details. These days, you can find this type of 3D printer online for as little as $200, though you get better-looking results from more sophisticated models.

The Resilience Project features two downloadable and printable pieces: a cropped, flower-bedecked tank top and a face mask. Offered via Creative Commons license, which makes them freely shareable, the files can be downloaded at no cost from Thingiverse. Marquez enlisted the help of CGI digital artists to design the garments, which can be assembled easily as they come out of the printing bed. The files even include instructions for customizing the pieces to your size and printing them with a net-like texture that will be extra-pleasant against the skin.

She adds that “we can innovate applying 3D printing technologies to produce fashion, but if we distribute it the old way, are we really changing the game? That’s why we want you to have the chance to download and create the garments in her desktop 3d printer. We truly believe that the experience of creating your own garment will change your emotional link with the garment and, in the last instance, your way of consuming fashion. This is a really experimental approach to fashion and we have a lot to learn about, starting with your opinion.”

The Resilience Project represents a whole new world of emerging fashion technology that traditional manufacturers are going to have to keep up with. As 3D printers become less of a curiosity and more of a household essential, consumers will have more power to produce their own goods, reducing their dependency on the marketplace. Plastic filament can be melted and reused at home, making it easier to recycle the things we create, too. If it’s adopted on a wide scale, it could be a game changer — not just for fashion, but for consumerism at large.

The post You Can 3D Print These Fashionable Garments from Your Home first appeared on Dornob.

Engineer Ryan Mario Yasin recently came up with a smart solution to this problem: a permanently pleated fabric that expands and contracts over your features for a custom fit. If BETA[MSK] looks a bit futuristic, that’s probably because it’s ahead of its time even when it comes to textile innovation.

Sustainably made from recycled PET plastic bottles using a patent pending technology and waste-reducing patterns, the BETA[MSK] is a form-fitting face covering that’s adjustable enough to fit the vast majority of adult faces. The pleats are engineered to be hard-wearing, so they’ll bounce back to their original tight formation even after they’ve stretched many times.

The mask secures in the back with quick-release velcro, so it’s very easy to put on and take off, and you can wear it like a cuff around your neck when it’s not in use. Just put it on and pull at the pleats until it’s securely covering your nose, mouth, and chin. The mask also features a filter pocket for PM2.5 carbon filters (two of which are included with purchase), along with a form-fitting removable nose wire. Offered through Yasin’s company Petit Pli, the BETA[MSK] already sold out two previous batches, but there’s a waitlist up for the next round.

As you might imagine, this textile has some other convenient uses, too. Yasin first developed it when he realized his young nephew was rapidly growing out of his clothes, and constantly repurchasing bigger sizes just felt like a waste. Before pivoting to masks during the pandemic, Petit Pli was primarily a children’s clothing shop offering adorable pleated waterproof and windproof outerwear that stretches as kids grow, helping them last longer.

The company’s official website reads: “Inspired by aerospace engineering, Petit Pli’s continuous size adjustment is a new way of approaching garment design — one suitable to high growth rates in children. Petit Pli uses technical materials that are ultra-lightweight, reinforced, rainproof, and breathable because children are extreme athletes.”

“The Petit Pli BETA[MSK] is made from recycled fabrics and has a monofiber construction. Through its approach towards sustainability and innovation, Petit Pli hopes to instill slow-fashion values in humans whilst designing for the needs of humanity — little and tall. We aim to inspire humanity to value longevity and innovation in some of the most intimate products in our lives — garments. The Petit Pli Beta[MSK] is made in London, supporting our local supply chain.”

The company adds that: “The BETA[X] range signals a Petit Pli research project made in limited quantities in London. If feedback is positive, the project progresses onto the next stage. This ensures we do not overproduce and waste resources. We want to design the best garments possible for you, with you. Constructive criticism from BETA[X] owners is welcomed to help evolve the garment.”

The post Expandable Mask Made of Recycled Plastic Flexes to Fit Your Face first appeared on Dornob.

Launched on Kickstarter in June, Bottle Farm is a simple, affordable kit that can help you transform any old plastic bottle into an indoor farm producing edible plants like herbs and salad greens. It requires no electricity and is fully self-watering, so it’s highly efficient and a great option for people who aren’t the most attentive gardeners.

This mini farm relies mainly on hydroponic technology, requiring the user to grow plants in water instead of soil. It’s designed to simply sit in your window though, so you don’t have to set up any grow lights or waste electricity to help it thrive. It comes with two bottle stands, two “suction pads” to stick it to a window, four “grow baskets” you insert into the sidewall of a plastic bottle, and eight “grow pods” made of recycled coconut husk.

To get started, you simply cut slots in the bottle using a provided template, insert the grow baskets, and drop in the grow pods, which expand when they come into contact with water. The kit provides basil, chard, chives, coriander, parsley, lettuce, tomato, rocket, and chili seeds, along with packets of “plant fuel” fertilizer, but you can always swap in other seeds better tailored to your preferences.

The kit can either be placed in a windowsill, if there’s enough room, or suction-cupped to the glass. Little suction cup “grow clips” let you support bigger plants like tomatoes as they grow. Most of the components are made of 95-percent recycled plastic, and to offset those materials that aren’t, the company partnered with Carbonfund.org.

They explain that “one year ago, we noticed a problem. The food we were buying was being wrapped in single-use plastic and flown across the world to get to us. That has a large environmental impact. But we live in London, so how were we meant to find space to grow our own food? Then we had an idea. What if you could grow food using an everyday object, which was otherwise going to be thrown away, in space you can’t use for anything else? We created Bottle Farm.”

“We are a small team of physicists and designers with experience developing large-scale home hydroponics systems. We’ve spent this past year designing every part of Bottle Farm with care and attention, down to the minute details. We used a beautifully simple design process. Iteration. We took each part needed to create a Bottle Farm, worked out what it needed to do, then designed Version 1 and made the first prototype. Then we would test it until it broke. From this we learnt what worked and what didn’t. Then we would re-design and repeat. That’s how we’ve packed so many features and so much functionality into this little box.”

Kits are available for pre-order on Kickstarter now for as little as £20 (about $26 USD), but larger pledges will net you extras like expanded seed varieties and additional grow clips.

The post “Bottle Farm” Kit Turns Used Plastic Bottles Into Indoor Gardens first appeared on Dornob.

For many people, plastic necessities include packaging that helps keep food fresh, because food waste is just as big of an environmental problem as pollution. Americans waste an incredible 150,000 tons of food each and every day — about a pound of food wasted for every person in the country. Most of it is thrown away because it’s spoiled.

But if you look beyond the convenient plastic wrap and disposable zip-top bags found at your local grocery store, there are plenty of ways to make food last. Products that use vacuum seals without the need for disposables might even keep food fresher for longer than ever, and all without the environmental impact.

“Equilibric Vacuum Lids” are a new offering that aim to be just as convenient and easy to use as conventional methods, but with much better results. It’s a set of universal vacuum-suction “Freshy” lids that remove all the air from your food containers. The accompanying automatic pump takes just five seconds to “seal your meal” using a small motor.

The process prevents bacteria buildup, prevents oxidation caused by exposure to oxygen, and seals in just the right amount of moisture so food doesn’t dry out. The special silicone sealant on the lids also lets them fit almost all dishes, pots, pans, coffee containers, and drinking glasses. The three sizes fit any diameter from five to 40 centimeters (about two to 15 inches), and they’re dishwasher safe.

“Freshy! is a technologically advanced universal vacuum lid [that uses a] special silicone coating to form a vacuum seal with just about any size container, dish, or pan. Freshy! is so fast and so easy to use. Once the lid is placed on top of the container, you simply attach the hand-held turbo pump to the lid and in seconds, the air is pumped out of the container, allowing you to keep food fresher, tasting better, and [lasting] up to seven times longer than [it would in] a regular plastic container.”

“Equilibric! is here to put an end to food waste and to help stretch your food dollars by fighting off food’s number one enemy of spoilage — air (oxygen). The air left in a container that food is stored in can cause food spoilage in several ways. It can help bacteria grow and it can cause damage to foods by oxidation (the same process that makes metal rust). When it comes right down to it, Equilibric! preserves your food by preventing the growth of mold or bacteria. It’s those things that make food spoil. And by removing oxygen, mold and bacteria can’t grow.”

Fresh fruits and vegetables are the most obvious foods to use with the Equilibric set, but leftovers, coffee, chips, cookies, and other snack foods can benefit, too. As a bonus, the set’s included drink cap even works on bottles of wine.

Check out the Equilibric Kickstarter Campaign for more information on backing the project and preordering in the future.

The post Equilibric! Universal Vacuum Lids Keep Food Fresh Longer first appeared on Dornob.