Plastic is an integral and useful part of our daily lives. Lightweight and shatterproof, plastic beverage bottles are among the most commonly used plastics. Because of huge amount of plastic bootles usage and plastic consumption in general the problem of plastic recycling becomes bigger day by day. In 2009, the plastic bottle recycling rate reached 28 percent, ranking it among the highest recycled plastics.
In spite of benefits from plastic recycling like energy conservation (Producing new plastic products from recycled materials uses two-thirds less energy than making products from raw (virgin) materials) or greenhouse gas emissions reducing this process isn't so popular as it is expected. Therefore a lot of designers innovate new types of used plastic bootles recycling and reuse.
Recycled bottles provide an environmentally friendly source for making new products and substitutes recycled materials for new plastic. Recycled plastic bottles make hundreds of everyday products, including fleece jackets, carpeting and lumber for outdoor decking.
However because of allergy a lot of people including me can't wear the clothes from plastic or synthetic materials.
Designers don't lose the hope and offer new plastic problem solutions for example making objects for interiers from used plastic bootles.
One of the first designer is Michelle Brand, she is an eco designer maker based in Manchester, England (http://www.michellebrand.co.uk/, http://michellebrand.tumblr.com/). She is specialising in Up Cycling and designing feed back loops. She is internationally known for her inspirational designs with the humble plastic drinks bottle. Her work is in direct response to environmental problems, and her inspiration evolves from the unseen beauty of everyday objects.
‘Once a plastic drinks bottle is empty it is perceived as redundant and is thrown away. I wanted to challenge this wasteful paradigm’ Michelle Brand
Her designs extend the aesthetic life of a mass-produced object by giving it a second use. In addition this body of work highlights society’s throw-away culture and the need to provide additional resources for recycling within our cities. Every bottle base in her designs represents a bottle that has been creatively diverted away from landfill. The beauty of her designs is not only its aesthetic quality but also the importance and development of closed sustainable feedback loops.
Michelle supports the philosophy of slow design, as a counter-balance for today‚ fast consumer society.
Previously, she sustained her practice through her own local plastic collection round. Today she has a close working relationship with Emerge Recycling based in East Manchester. She has become their research designer-in-residence, preferring to work where the majority of her material is based. Working alongside her material supply chain emulates the natural ecosystem. Michelle is all about system thinking and insists sustainable processes are of equal importance as product. Michelle‚ vision for wanting to work alongside Emerge is information exchange and idea generation, focusing on Up-Recycling and Zero Waste. Michelle doesn’t believe in waste management, she wants to design it out completely. But in the meantime she is designing products from the by-products of our consumer lifestyles. One of the things Michelle set out to do is dispel the misconception that design objects made from ‚found or reused parts‚lack a certain je ne sais quoi.
Michelle is not only one designer who works with used plastic bootles. Designers Lisa Foo and Su Sim are inspired by sea inhabitant and flora and faunа of Malasia and make objects from all parts of bottles adding different lamps and lignt lines (garland).
One more worldwide famous designer is Sarah Turner who makes beautiful ReDesign lighting collection imaginatively recycles plastic water bottles into stunning lampshades. With some clever cutting Sarah Turner has mastered the art of turning waste drinks bottles into decorative shapes, which form the basis of her beautiful ceiling, table and floor lamps.
Sarah Turner as an Eco artist made this big sphere to help communicate the message of 'A World Without Bottles' for Sodastream’s campaign which aims to reduce the amount of plastic bottles people buy, and with this tactic reduce the amount that end up thrown away.
"British model Erin O’Connor holds the sphere symbolically on her shoulders, recreating the iconic pose of Greek God Atlas, highlighting the burden of the world's plastic bottle waste."
Sarah has a wide range of ‘bottle creations’ which can all be found on her website (http://www.sarahturner.co.uk/).
Thank you very much for your post. The designers that you represented here create really beautiful things from the used and useless bottles. I absolutely support the idea of materials upgrading and recycling. Here I have a question to discuss which is more of a philosophical character. When I look at such visually appealing objects I often can't even recognize the most familiar plastic bottles there. The hundreds of parts of bottles are so masterfully and harmonically combined into one piece and camouflaged by means of shapes and light that when the moment comes and I understand that here and there are only plastic bottles, I feel no other feelings than aesthetic ones. I mean, this kind of recycling materials and their application in industrial design does not raise my ecological awareness. I am really interested in your opinion as a product designer concerning that issue. Thank you. Alexandra
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