By Anoush Mazloumian
Hyper Disposables
MINOR MAKERSLAB | MATERIAL ARCHIVISM |RESEARCH ZINE | 2020
Let’s make a difference INTRODUCTION
How much wild plastic we can find in the oceans around the world? How big is the plastic soup? How big is the damage on our sea life? How can we prevent plastic pollution from destroying vulnerable marine ecosystems?
This is a pressing problem for our world.
Focusing on materials, ocean cleaning technology, reuse, and changing the value chain, we will come far in developing solutions that can help to combat plastic pollution in the ocean.
Producing bioplastic instead of toxic, synthetic plastic is part of this solution. When fish and other sea animals eat biobased plastic, they won’t get sick or die this time. Add to that, most bioplastic dissolve in water, degrade or will fully perish by time.
Plastic cutlery is one of the top ten plastics found on the shores of the ocean. More than 100,000 marine creatures already died from this. Let’s make a difference.
Contents 4 Context
6 Process
16 Final outcome
21 Trail of Evidence
Into the details
Into the details CONTEXT
A spork can make the difference At several fast food restaurants and supermarkets you can get free plastic forks and knives for your ready made food. Especially now, due the corona virus, take-away food is increasing the waste of diposables.
I think, we can change the world by creating bioplastic sporks made from topioca, vinegar and water (see final outcome). This starch based plastic sporks will not only reduce the waste to one third and stand up to repeated use and prolonged contact with liquids, it will also completely biodegrade achieving 95 percent degradation under normal aerobic composting conditions.
Current alternatives of diposable cutlery or sporks. At my work, we use disposable sporks made of wood. My colleges always complain about these. One, because of the taste. “I feel like i’m eating wood instead of the food”, and two, because of the danger of splinters.
At Action and many other stores, they sell bioplastic cutlery. These cutlery are made of PLA. Current research concluded that this bioplastic isn’t that good for the environment as we think.
-05
(Jin Hyun Jeon)
Inspiration
CONTEXT
Mouthfeel cutlery Before I started working on the spork, my focus point was drinking straws. This because straws, like cutlery, are in the top 10 plastic debris in the oceans.
I found an interesting article on the internet about a project where they were designing a cutlery set based on mouthfeel. Here they have researched how the six senses respond to what we taste. This gave me an interesting insight in my project. Focussing on the user experience always inspires me. UX design is an important field in the study CMD that i’m currently following.
When I had trouble forming the shape of a straw, I switched to the spork. Here too, I can respond to mouthfeel.
Research zine
Let’s make
The Process
the spork
THE PROCESS
Personal motivation After reading the three cases and looking at the current COVID-19 home-working situation, I decided to focus my project on Material Archivism. I really enjoyed experimenting with recipes and ingredients to make materials during the bioplastic week at this minor. Now I had the oppurtunity to make an innovative product with it.
The plastic ocean really affects me these days so I wanted to focus on something to decrease this problem as much as possible.
After some brainstorming, I googled to see what kind of plastic was most found in the oceans. Through this way, I came up to a top 10 list. I thought it would be a nice challenge to focus on bioplastic straws. It seems feasible for two reasons. It’s a fairly simple and small product to produce and people do not immediately see this disposable straws a major problem, while it does have a major impact.
Inspiration
THE PROCESS
Material research The first step of the whole proces was making different materials with different ingredients to see what the benefits are from each product. On the internet, I found a lot of recipes based on agar agar or gelatine. These outcomes where very limp and not a really good material for a spork or other hard-plastic products.
(Anoush Mazloumian, 2020)
-09
THE PROCESS
Tapioca After a lot of research on the internet, I finally found a recipe that can turn out to be the material I’m looking for. Tapioca seemed to be a perfect, low-cost, material that could turn out very hard, strong and firm. The sad part of this victory was that I found out that hard-bioplastic needs days and almost a week to fully dry.
(Anoush Mazloumian, 2020)
Research zine
Inspiration
THE PROCESS
Reframing the outcomes I reframed my outcomes of all the experiments and was pretty sure about my tapioca recipe. Now, I was ready for the next step: making a mould in shape of a spork, remake the tapioca substance, pour it into this mould, let it dry for some days and reframe the outcomes again.
The mould I went to the supermarket, got a free spork and bought a silicone kit at the Action. By kneading the silicone kit with soapy water, putting it in a tupperware and pushing the spork in there, I was able to make my first mould. After a day of drying, it was ready to use.
(Anoush Mazloumian, 2020)
-011
THE PROCESS
The first spork out of the mould I wasn’t satisfied of the outcome of my first tapioca spork. It needed a long time to dry and it turned out not smooth and pretty. Also, I took the spork out of the mall too early what made it deform. The positive thing was, that it didn’t shrink that much and fitted the material I was looking for: strong and firm.
(Anoush Mazloumian, 2020)
Research zine
THE PROCESS
The second spork out of the mould Eventhough I was quite sure that the tapioca based material was the the best bio-spork material because of it’s unique ingredients and benefits, I still wanted to test the mould I made with a agar agar based recipe. The spork turned out very smooth in the beginning. This would be a beautful presentation if 1. The shape stayed like this and 2. The fork was hard enough to prick some food on it.
Within a week this spork shrinked so much that you can’t even see that it’s supposed to be a spork.
(Anoush Mazloumian, 2020)
-013
THE PROCESS
Another reframing moment: Thinking outside the box (literally) At this time of the process, time was running. I still had a few weeks and the sporks where still not presentable in my opinion. Meanwhile I had made a spork that combined the ingredients of agar agar and tapioca (see left image below), but that didn’t work out too. I also made another tapioca spork with an adjustment in the recipe (50/50 vinegar and oil), see image on the right below, but because of the fact that it needed such a long time to dry, my coach Yuri attended me on ‘thinking outside the box’. Lets make a spork without the mould because you just have one of it (it’s limitting my experiment opportunities) and it would be awesome if the spork doesn’t have that basic shape like all the sporks do. With this insight, I made two different sporks as you can see on the next page.
(Anoush Mazloumian, 2020)
Research zine
THE PROCESS
The last step Here you can see at one glance all the sporks I’ve made during the process. The last spork on the right, turned out to be the best in usability and is the basis for a better, healthier and innovative future for us, the animals and our eco-system.
With a suggestion of Loes Bogers, I decided to call this project ‘Hyperdisposables’. I called it like that because these disposable sporks are degrading faster than the common disposable plastic knives and forks that we know.
On the next pages there are more photos of this end-product. Also, I will tell you more about how to make this material yourself, the detialed material properties that I tested with a user and as final: the future possibilities.
-015
Research zine
Hyperdisposables
Hyperdisposables The alternative of hard plastic: focussing on one of the most harmful plastic waste in the ocean: a spork
FINAL OUTCOME
-017
Material properties
The material properties are based on a usability test with the spork and a common disposable cutlery user. I also tested the material on weather, water and heat.
Sensorial Glossyness Medium Translucence 10% Structure Closed Texture Firm Hardness High Temperature Normal Acoustics Hard Odour None Taste Normal
Technical Fire resistant Pretty good UV resistance Unclear Water recistance It gets soft Scratch resistance No Weight Light Chemical resistance Unclear Renewable No Reusable Yes Breakable Almost not
Research zine
How to:
How to: Make tapioca-based plastic You can easily make this bioplastic with 12 tablespoons vinegar, 12 tablespoons of water, 6 tablespoons of tapioca starch and 6 theespoons of glycerine.
You can find tapioca starch in a chinese or mediterainen supermarket or just at your local nature shop.
Throw all these ingredients together in a pan, mix it and cook it while stiring continuesly. When the liquid starts to get thick, pour it in a mall of your choice. Let it dry for a few days, A week would be perfect, and your bioplastic is ready.
-019
Future: the next steps of the hyperdisposable spork This final bio-spork still needs a lot of iterations, but the basis is here.
I want to tell you about the vision, future
possibilities and questions that still needs to be answered.
Vision If we take the plastic problem in our ocean and my step to the solution seriously, we can ensure that the lives of protected ocean animals are spared. All we need is support, money, good marketing and a comprehensive plan to continue this on a large scale.
Future possibilities After the user test and some research, I thought it would be fun to make this spork more useful by focussing on picnics. In my Trail of Evidence you can find some sketches about how this picnic spork can be designed. Questions The indication of the degrading time of this material is not yet known. This, because it takes time to test. What I mentioned earlier, the material slowly softens after a few hours in water. From this, you can make your own indication. I think that it will last a month or so till the material will fully degrade, but please note, I’m not a specialist and this has to be tested.
Research zine
References
References Inspiration Tableware as sensorial stimuli by Jin Hyun Jeon
https://trendland.com/tableware-as-sensorial-stimuli-by-jinhyun-jeon/
Top List Picnic Foods
https://www.ranker.com/list/best-picnic-foods/ranker-food
Weird eating utensils
https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/tools-test-kitchen/ article/13-weird-eating-utensils-from-sporks-to-trongs
Different cutlery for different food
http://dmrfinefoods.blogspot.com/2013/01/stick-fork-in-itright-fork-for-every.html?spref=pi
Target group cutlery
https://www.toyboxtech.com/the-chork-chopsticks-andfork-in-one-12-pack/
Target group cutlery
https://www.especialneeds.com/melaware-adaptive-eating-utensils.html
Information Recipes for Material Archivism by Miriam Ribul
https://issuu.com/miriamribul/docs/miriam_ribul_recipes_ for_material_a
Tapioca bioplastic recipe by the seattle 5 project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qMyuG3XrUA
Bioplastic cookbook by Anastasia Pistofidou
https://issuu.com/nat_arc/docs/bioplastic_cook_book_3
-021
Trail of Evidence A FEW REFRAMING MOMENTS
On the next pages you can find a selection of my Trail of Evidence. I chose these pages because they where my main reframing moments or results I built upon.
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-023
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-025
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-027
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-029
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-031
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-033
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-035
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-037
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-039
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-041
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-043
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-045
Research zine
Trail of Evidence
-047
Research zine
Trail of Evidence