TED Talk on the Plasma Process

Plasma waste processing systems may be the next step in the right direction to reduce the tonnes of waste (plastics included) that get dumped and over time cause major effects on the environment. Plasma Processing reduces large amounts of toxic gases, waste, solid matter, plastics, and so forth and aids the recycling process of bringing the materials back to its original form to then in turn be made into something new.

This chemical reduction is already revolutionising the way major corporations are disposing of and where possible reusing matter in society, with the US Air Force Base operating a Plasma waste energy system. The next generation of air craft carriers called the Garold R. Ford-Class will have Plasma Waste Processing Stems on board. Plasma can also being used and developed to rid the world of some of the most toxic materials known to man,  chemical warfare agents. Plasma is also able to destroy refrigerant, an Ozone depleting substance (or super green house gas (which is 7,100 times stronger than carbon dioxide!)) For more information follow this link.

The only issue with Plasma and why governments are not already using it in everyday life, is that the share size and expense of an incinerator, or plasma plant, being at least $100 per tonne for the proper disposal of our waste, over twice the amount to have it taken to the landfill and buried.

To find out more about this fascinating topic please follow this link to find the talk by Tom Whitton on how Plasma can be used to help the environment through waste reduction.

To find out about Plasma waste possessors check out the article on ‘how stuff works‘ and the ‘pyrogenesis‘ website.

References:

Information retrieved from,

Whitton, Tom, – Chemical Engineer and former City Councillor, and TEDx Talk. “How Plasma Can Fix Our Waste Problem | Tom Whitton | TEDxMontreal.” YouTube. January 19, 2016. Accessed June 21, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VquomoGn4zk&feature=youtu.be.

Plastic Eating Insects; Can this be True?

The accidental discovery of a waste eating bacteria has lead to some fascinating research by Chinese environmental researcher, Jun Yang, an environmental engineer at Beihang University.

Polyethylene is one of the most problematic and popular types of plastic,  with the annual global production around 80 million tonnes, filled with numerous toxic chemicals, yet being in our lives every day, in products such as bottles, bags, packaging, and so on.

Yang was inspecting bags of millet in his kitchen and found them riddled with tiny holes. “I observed moths flying out of the bags and their larvae crawling around inside,” he says. He began to think that the larvae of Plodia interpunctella, a tiny grain-eating moth found in kitchens worldwide, might be digesting the plastic film with the help of bacteria in their guts. Waxworms, the larvae of Indian meal moths, have guts filled with microbes that can digest plastic

Yang, found that plastic bags of millet in his pantry had small holes in them. Intrigued, he also found moths and moth larvae in the bags. Deducing that the hungry larvae must have digested the plastic somehow, he and his team analyzed their gut bacteria and found a few that could use plastic as their only carbon source.

Previous studies had reported bacteria that can reduce the weight of polyethylene by more than 20% in just six weeks. However, these promising reports failed to provide comprehensive molecular evidence of bio-degradation such as signs of oxidation of the polymer chains. Unfortunately, other research teams could not replicate these studies because the original authors neglected to register the microorganisms with an international depository.

The polymer, he says, resists degradation by microbes because it is highly hydrophobic, has a high molecular weight that prevents it from entering bacterial cells, and has a stable structure consisting solely of C–C and C–H bonds.

 

References:

Image Retrieved from, Buss, Lyle. “Plastic Gourmand.” http://www.fondriest.com. Accessed June 20, 2016. http://www.fondriest.com/news/discovery-plastic-eating-bacteria-may-speed-waste-reduction.htm.

Information and quotes retrieved from, Pelley, Janet. “Pantry Pests Harbor Plastic-Chomping Bacteria | Chemical & Engineering News.” Chemical & Engineering News | Serving the Chemical, Life Sciences and Laboratory Worlds. Last modified December 3, 2014. http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/12/Pantry-Pests-Harbor-Plastic-Chomping.html.

Information retrieved from, Balster, Lori. “Discovery of Plastic-eating Bacteria May Speed Waste Reduction.” Environmental Monitor. Last modified July 27, 2015. http://www.fondriest.com/news/discovery-plastic-eating-bacteria-may-speed-waste-reduction.htm.

Wikipedia. “Polyethylene.” In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., n.d. Accessed June 21, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene.

http://www.fondriest.com/news/discovery-plastic-eating-bacteria-may-speed-waste-reduction.htm

http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/web/2014/12/Pantry-Pests-Harbor-Plastic-Chomping.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene

Eco Friendly?

With the overwhelming amount of plastic waste being disposed into the oceans on a daily basis and the growing knowledge of this polluting the environment, some of the leading manufacturers have tried to combat this issue in the last decade by producing products with eco plastic. By developing lightweight plastic products that are supposed to break down rapidly, thus attempting to reduce the hazards to marine animals. However these so-called ‘biodegradable plastics’ aren’t the answer, according to the United Nations’ top environmental scientist, because they don’t behave as promised. Instead, the ‘greener’ plastics contribute to the problem of ocean plastic just as much as other varieties.

Jacqueline McGlade, chief scientist at the UN Environment Program, warns that biodegradable plastics are not the answer to the problem of ocean plastic. “It’s well-intentioned but wrong. A lot of plastics labelled biodegradable, like shopping bags, will only break down in temperatures of 50C (122F) and that is not the ocean. They are also not buoyant, so they’re going to sink, so they’re not going to be exposed to UV and break down,” she told the Guardian.

I find it ironic that the very items that are supposedly designed to protect the environment are destroying it, such as captured within this image. While the rest of the plastic has broken into smaller pieces ( which is far from ideal and extremely deadly for marine life), the one bottle that hasn’t the slightest indication of beginning to biodegrade is the one purposefully created to! As you will find in the research below, these biodegradable plastics are not up to the standards they are perceived to have.

Previous studies have shown that biodegradable plastic products do not break down more rapidly in landfills, now a United Nations Report issued in May 2016 outlines how these supposedly biodegradable plastics are not actually any different from normal plastics when placed in to the sea, in fact they may have worse environmental effects.
Ironically, some of the additives used to make plastic more likely to biodegrade also make it more difficult to recycle. This means the ‘green’ product can actually pose more of a threat to the environment than other types of plastic.
“When you start adding all of that [additives], when it becomes waste, they [the additives] become the enemy of the environment. As consumers we need to think of the use of plastic,” McGlade said.

Furthermore, in a recent UNEP report it was concluded that the adoption of products labelled as ‘biodegradable’or ‘oxo-degradable’ would not bring about a significant decrease either in the quantity of plastic entering the ocean or the risk of physical and chemical impacts on the marine environment, on the balance of current scientific evidence (UNEP 2015(a)). (information retrieved from UNEP (2016) Marine plastic debris and microplastics–Global lessons and research to inspire action and guide policy change. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi.)

To read the whole report follow this link http://www.unep.org/about/sgb/Portals/50153/UNEA/Marine%20Plastic%20Debris%20and%20Microplastic%20Technical%20Report%20Advance%20Copy.pdf

References:

Quotes and some text retrieved from, DiStasio, Cat, The Guardian, and habitat.com. “Biodegradable Plastics Are the ‘enemy of the Environment,’ Says Top UN Environmental Scientist | Inhabitat – Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building.” Inhabitat | Design For a Better World!. Last modified May 25, 2016. http://inhabitat.com/biodegradable-plastics-are-the-enemy-of-the-environment-says-un-scientist/.

Image One (comic) retrieved from, Granlund, Dave, davegranlund.com, and www.cagle.com. “Plastic Bag Bans.” http://www.cagle.com/. Accessed June 19, 2016. http://www.cagle.com/.

Image two retrieved from, DiStasio, Cat, and Inhabitat. “Unknown.” inhabitat.com. 2015. Online. Accessed May 2, 2016. http://inhabitat.com/tag/plastic-waste/.

Information retrieved 19 June 2016 from, UNEP (2016) Marine plastic debris and microplastics–Global lessons and research to inspire action and guide policy change. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi. http://www.unep.org/about/sgb/Portals/50153/UNEA/Marine%20Plastic%20Debris%20and%20Microplastic%20Technical%20Report%20Advance%20Copy.pdf

Attaching The Bottles To The Structure

After finally figuring out how we would support the wave, and then forming and welding  the armature together, we had to decide how to get the plastics on this and be able to withstand strong weather.
From the start when coming up with the idea of using welding mesh for the structure the plan was to wire the first layer of bottles onto the frame and also to one another. Pictured is an experiment we did using thick wire (5 mm) and threading this through the bottles that were drilled through the bottom and the lid.
We were not impressed with how this worked, they were extremely loose and uncontrollable. This could cause problems when attaching them to the structure, especially as the string of bottles would have to be even longer to create the correct height.

We also considered taping them together in rows and stacking them as bricks either onto the structure or just on their own.(however we were unsure about the sturdiness of just having plastic stuck with tape on their own in a bricklaying formation attached to on the welding mesh as a base).

In the above images we are contemplating the aesthetics and practicality of this method, while lining up the bottles prior to taping them together. The bottom image shows one of us bending up the corners of the reinforcing mesh, creating a tray like effect, as this stabilises the structure and gives it a sturdier form, less likely to bend and cave when moved around.

Images are our own.

So Much Plastic

This project has been a real eye opener to the mass amounts of plastic consumed daily around the world, but also here in Nelson, the quantity of plastic bottles that are processed at the local recycling plant is staggering!
We made four trips to the recycle center, due to not having room in the vehicle to transport large amounts of plastic at a time. Of these four trips we only collected a small percentage of the plastic waste that accumulates daily.

Through this large scaled installation for Light Nelson, we want to portray to the public the unbelievable amounts of plastic consumed, but also how this material is terrible for the environment and often ends up polluting the beautiful oceans due to lack of space for all the waste accumulated by plastic produce.

The plastic has been sourced from the local recycling centre in Tahunanui and also the Richmond Resource Recovery Centre. The Richmond centre is the destination where all the recycling for the area is sent to be sorted, crushed and then processed before being shipped offshore to be created into other items. Both of these places have been extremely helpful by helping us sort through the plastics, and at the Richmond Resource Recovery Centre, letting us retrieve the bottles before crushing them for shipments.

Pictured above shows us washing bottles, peeling labels, the strength of the glues left on afterwards, and also the temporary small stacks piled up in anticipation for installment.

After managing to source an unbelievable number of plastic bottles, we than have had to select the more suitable forms (and separate the squashed ones as this prevents the bottles fitting together), wash them all and then take the labels off the brands of bottles that the labels were possible to get off.
Taking the labels off the bottles made us aware of how bad the glues are for the environment, as they are extremely potent and toxic, being produced at the expense of our habitat. Each label is either entirely plastic or coated in a thin plastic film, which would also be created using machinery that pollutes the surroundings. The pile of plastic labels we pulled from the bottles was staggering too. Surely there is a better way to brand products?

One may think that washing them was unnecessary, but we were surprised (unfortunately!) by the state that people leave their plastic in when putting it in to be recycled. Most were obviously not even rinsed out, still contained the drink in it, some were covered in food, and most had the bottle lids still on (which makes the air inside smell horrible and also stagnant!). It was quite an unpleasant job!

We haven’t tried to count the individual plastics we have collected, but will do a rough estimate of the bottles included in the wave. At the end of installation we plan to return these bottles to the recycle center.

Images are our own.

It’s Begining!!!

After many brainstorms to try to resolve the issues we are having with choosing the right structure to hold our Light Nelson installation, we ordered a sheet of welding mesh, planning to create a form 2.5 square and 2 high  and building up plastics to the final width to be 3 by 3 and 2.5 high as a sculptural wave!

We first constructed a Marquette using paper. To do this we measured the paper to scale to represent the welding mesh:

The images above would need two sheets of welding mesh, though this looked like it could work well it would not be within our budget to buy two sheets.

We found that using this method of construction and only one sheet would require a large amount of cutting and welding the mesh, which in turn could weaken the overall structure.

There was still much we had to figure out regarding the structure of the wave and method of construction. We thought it would be good to problem solve these when the mesh arrived.

Below is a mock up of another way we could bend the mesh to form our wave, we felt that this method would work well, and save time. As long as we had sufficient weight to counter balance the weight of the bottles going on.

The images below show what the steps we took today once the mesh arrived, in the small beginnings of our wave.

Image one shows the welding mesh as is, then the lay out of the bottles placed onto this mesh. The following images show the steel cutters and then the excess welding mesh being cut off. The image 3 shows us turning the edges of the mesh slightly up to make it more potent and more stable for being moved etc.

Also pictured are the amount of remaining bottles after only using what seemed like a few, we are already needing more after only covering one layer of the three meter base.

I also tried an experiment using glue gun to join the bottles, I tested the strength after the glue had dried, and it held very well, with the heavier object still staying attached when suspended or held in mid air.

Images are our own.

Trip to the Recycling Center

As we needed to source a huge amount of bottles to make up the sculpture, we headed to the recycle center to see if we could gather plastics from there. Even though we have been researching and know that society consumes plastics in enormous quantities, it had quite an impact seeing this for ourselves.

The share amount of plastic that we consume for just a small city is overwhelming, and this is only the plastics that are recycled, not counting what gets put in the rubbish.
The photo above only features a small amount of the plastics, these stacks of bound and squashed plastics goes for nearly a whole block concealed behind industrial buildings! After our second trip out to the recycling center to collect bottles for our wave, it dawned on us just how many we will have to collect. We brought back a large black rubbish bag full but after washing them all we counted just 71 and they only took up the space two small tables when on the ground side by side!

Images are our own.

 

 

Experimenting with Lighting

Experiments with our various materials and lighting are shown below.

These images show the different effect each of the plastics give off, these included milk bottles, clear juice bottles, cracker cases, and bubble wrap. The amount of light reflected from and through the plastic is important, as we will make a decision on the types of bottles to use dependent on.

We first tested the green, blue and white Christmas lights, shining them through juice and milk bottles. Then the seed lights and again white lights through cracker cases and bubble and foam wrap, these may be used to create the crest of the wave. We had to take into account how much we wanted the light to be able to be seen.
Through the milk bottles the light was diffused, with the clear bottles the lights were brighter but you could see them clearly through the plastic. The way the light reflected off the clear plastic was really interesting and quite beautiful.

Though the green lights looked impressive, we would like to use blue lights for the curve of the wave and white lights for the foam on the wave.

 

 

Images are our own.

EL wire arrives

EL wire stands for Electroluminescent wire, this lighting consists of a thin copper wire coated in a phosphor which glows when an electrical current is run through it.

This is some lighting we would like to use to light our wave. It doesn’t appear that bright in daylight, but when you get it in the dark – it looks pretty cool! We ordered this light blue EL wire online. It should hopefully create a good glow for our wave. We want it to glow from within, rather than have a light source outside of it illuminate it.

 

 

(Images are our own.)

References:

Electroluminescent wire – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved  2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroluminescent_wire

 

‘Big Yellow Bunny’

I came across this massive 13-meter-high work by Dutch installation artist Florentijn Hofman while researching for other artists using heavy materials to create large scaled installations, and the type of armatures they use to keen them stable and balanced. Hofman created this temporary sculpture near St. Nicolai church in the city center, was constructed out of  locally-manufactured shingles, a wooden armature, concrete and metal, with the volunteered  help of 25 craftmens from Örebro, Sweden. He apparently used a wooden armature.

Hofman sees the world as his ‘giant playground‘ and many of his installations are large scale replicas of toys and animals set within very public spaces as a way to challenge the concept of public space. By enlarging the scale of the installation, Hofman changes the viewers’ perspectives of both the installation and the space it sits in. In the case of the Big Yellow Rabbit, Hofman placed the sculpture as though it were dropped from the sky, resting naturally against the Engelbrekt monument. Using these deliberate positioning techniques, Hofman seeks to ask, “What is the use and purpose of public space?”

These images give a good perspective of the huge scale of this massive bunny! I feel we are  used to seeing installations near this size resembling animals, and are often  quite overwhelming and almost threatening. This might have something to do with our minds making a connection with the physics of how heavy the materials look, coupled with the size, we feel as if the installation couldfall onto us. In this work however the angle aids this tension, as it looks unstable, like a child has dropped it and it will soon topple over, however, because we also have a remebrance to this item, or design we feel an instant connection through the recognition through the object.

We want our wave to have to give the audience a feeling of awe, an understanding of the concept, and also the sense of tension in terms of the overwhelming issue of plastics in the oceans, but at the same time not make the viewer uncomfortable.

References:

Some text and information retrieved from,

Meinhold, Bridgette, DesignBoom, and Florentijn Hofman. “Big Yellow Bunny Made From Local Swedish Materials is Easily the Size of a Building! | Inhabitat – Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building.” Inhabitat | Design For a Better World!. Last modified August 23, 2011. Accessed June 6, 2016. http://inhabitat.com/big-yellow-bunny-made-from-local-swedish-materials-is-easily-the-size-of-a-building/.

Images retrieved from,

Hofman, Florentijn, and Lasse Person. “Stor Gul Kanin (Big Yellow Bunny).” inhabitat.com. 2011. 2011 openART Biennale in Örebro, Sweden. Accessed June 4, 2016. http://inhabitat.com/big-yellow-bunny-made-from-local-swedish-materials-is-easily-the-size-of-a-building/.