Week 4: Paper Project, Plastic- History, Uses, and Environmental Impact

GROUP CRITIQUE Project one: Paper Collage 

Great critique tonight, and great work everyone. Some examples:

Avigail Najjar

Kiersten Savage

Lillian Burke

I wanted to address the idea of compartmentalization and how I think that human bodies in media have become products that get put into figurative boxes to be sold to consumer america.  I collaged parts of the face, mostly from other pictures of faces found in magazines, bordered them with text, and put them in literal boxes made from the boxes of other consumer goods.

Nargees Jumahan

Norah Mermis

Tatiana Benally

Gabe Amrhein

Elaine Bell, Smiling Frownward , clippings from Cosmopolitan magazine, newspaper, glue

This piece was inspired by the superficial expectations for women portrayed by most popular media, and the design was inspired by trash artist, Aurora Robson. The idealization of a physically flawless woman is featured in almost every magazine on the shelves, and pervades the minds of American women daily. This piece was made to be aesthetically beautiful at a glance, with the delicate swirls and overall shape. However with a closer look, one is able to see disturbingly distorted faces of magazine models on the underside of the spirals. It is meant to show the other side of the media world, how everyone (even the people we strive to look like) is consumed and struggles with a standard of beauty that does not actually exist in a real form.

Cleo Van der Veen, Low Hanging Fruit 4' by 11'

Newsprint, cardboard, Paper Bags, Wax Paper
Have you ever had a bad day? Have you ever had a bad day and just wanted to stare at a wall in your room? Except you can't do that, because your walls are painted two different colors of yellow... and then you have to go to a Hall meeting? Well I had a bad stare-at-wall day once, and I had to go to a hall meeting and I didn't want to go, and someone brought up an issue. I didn't care about the issue that much, but I decided to jump in. Why would I do that? Because, well, I had a really bad day and this issue was dangling in front of me like some low, low, low hanging fruit, and I REALLY wanted a win. This piece is about having some fruit after a bad day.

Forrest Humphrey

SLIDE PRESENTATION: Plastic- History, Uses, and Environmental Impact

History

Mesoamerica rubber (balls, bands, figurines)
Early Plastics Bio-derived from egg and blood proteins
Middle Ages Treated cattle horns made into lantern windows
Casein Milk proteins treated with lye or vinegar
1800's Charles Goodyear invented vulcanization (thermosetting materials derived from natural rubber)
1856 Alexander Parkes Patented Parkesine, derived from plant cellulose
1907 Leo Hendrik Baekeland Invented Bakelite, a thermosetting Phenol formaldehyde compound, the first fully synthetic plastic. Used in composited when mixed with wood flour, asbestos, or slate dust.

Uses

Replaced wood, stone, horn, bone, leather, paper, metal, glass, and ceramic in most of their former uses.

Most common types of synthetic plastics

Polyester (PES- 7) fibers, textiles
Polyethylene terephthalateP(PET- 1) soda bottles, jars, film, microwavable packaging
Polyethylene (PE- 7) grocery bags, bottles
High-density polyethylene (HDPE- 2) detergent bottles, milk jugs, molded plastic cases
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC- 3) plumbing pipes, gutters, shower curtains, window frames, floorings
Polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC- 7) Saran wrap
Low-density polyethylene (LDPE- 4) resin furniture, siding, flooring, shower curtains, clamshell packaging
Polypropylene (PP- 5) bottle caps, drinking straws, yogurt containers, appliances, bumpers, pressure pipes
Polystyrene (PS- 6) packing foam/peanuts, food containers, disposable cups, plates, and cutlery, CD boxes
High-impact polystyrene (HIPS- 7) refrigerator liners, food packaging, vending cups
Polyamides (PA- 7) (Nylon) fibers, toothbrush bristles, tubing, fishing line, low strength machine parts, gun frames
Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS- 7) computer monitors, keyboards, printers, drainage pipes
Polycarbonate (PC- 7) CDs, eyeglasses, riot shields, security windows, traffic lights, lenses
Polycarbonate/acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (PC/ABS- 7) car parts, mobile phone bodies
Polyurethanes (PU- 7) cushioning foams, thermal insulation foams, surface coatings, printing rollers, cars

Toxicity

Plastics are insoluble in water and relatively inert, so nontoxic, but additives to alter their properties are toxic, such as adipates, phthalates, and alkylphenols. The monomers used to produce the polymers are also carcinogenic, such as vinyl chloride, the precursor to PVC.

BPA is released from heated plastics, an estrogen disruptor, causing high birth weights, insulin resistance in offspring leading to inflammation and heart disease. That "new car smell" contains volatile organic compounds.

The European Union has placed a permanent ban on phthalates in toys, and U.S. has followed suit with the use of some phthalates.

Environmental Effects

Its chemical bonds are durable, so plastic degrades very slowly. Since the 1950's one billion tons of plastic has been discarded and may persist for thousands of years. Nurdles, or very small fragments of plastic, have been observed in the guts of seabirds.

10% of modern waste is plastic
50-80% of debris in marine areas is plastic

Climate Change

Produced from petrochemicals (oil).
Burning it produces carbon emissions, and cancer-causing dioxins.
Storing it creates carbon sinks (though insignificant compared to the oceans).
Biodegradable plastics emit methane.
Plastic is much lighter than other materials that it replaces, consuming 52% less energy in transportation.
It takes much more energy to produce plastic than iron, glass, steel, or paper.
Pyrolytic disposal plastic can be turned into hydrocarbon fuels. 1 kilo plastic = 1 liter of hydrocarbon.

Recycling

Thermoplastics can be remelted and reused, and thermoset plastics can be ground up and used as filler, but these combined processes degrade generationally.

Styrofoam is too light for effective recycling or disposal. It blows around, and is worth less than the fuel cost to transport it. 

The variety of plastics that you are able to recycle is limited by the variety that the recyclers in your area accepts, which is limited by what is profitable for them to sort and sell.