(re)Purposed Plastics
An exploration in creative uses of plastic waste generated from manufacturing exhibit parts at the Exploration (a science museum in San Francisco, California). This approach uses the Precious Plastics recycling process. Guacamole Airplane graciously hosted the museum staff by showcasing this process at their studio in Sausalito, California.
YEAR: 2022
ROLE: Mediator
STATE: Finished Product
COLLABORATORS:
Exploratorium [Client]
Guacamole Airplane [Host]
Photo: A sample piece of recycled plastic stock made from bottle caps.
Brief
Every two weeks the Exploratorium would generate approximately 140 gallons of plastic waste from exhibit production. Typically this plastic waste would be mixed with contaminants from other machining processes including wood and metal chips. This waste would finish its lifecycle journey in the landfill as a burden to our natural environment.
Ideally, the plastic waste could be recycled and placed back into the production floor, thus reducing environmental and fiscal impact.
Photo: A filled collection bag containing chips of Starboard (HDPE plastic) from a CNC router operation.
Strategy
The opportunity comes from the fact that the majority of the plastic waste generated by exhibit production at the museum contained thermoplastics, including: UHMW Polyethylene, HDPE, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). This means that the waste could be recycled using the methods established by Precious Plastics.
In order to get the best results, a homogeneous bag of HDPE chips was used in testing this process.
This process should be:
1) Efficient; allows quick turnover rate that keeps up with waste being generated
2) Environmentally Conscious; recycled sheets should require less resources than virgin material
3) Aesthetically Pleasing; recycled sheets fit the aesthetics of the museum exhibits
Photo: The desired lifecycle flow of plastic chip waste as set by the Precious Plastics manufacturing method
Production
The recycled plastic stock was made over the course of an afternoon at Guacamole Airplane’s studio.
Photo (left): Chips that are too big to be melted down are grounded into a manageable size.
Photo (right): The plastic chips are then place onto a tray destined to the oven where they are heated and later pressurized. A square mold is used in this example.
Photo (left): After an hour-long heating process, the tray containing the plastic chips is moved to the pressure plate.
Photo (right): Pressure is applied to tray. The ambient air cools the melted plastic so that it hardens within the square mold.
Photo (left): After an additional hour of waiting, the plastic removed from its square mold.
Photo (right): Excess flashing is cut away from the piece. The flashing can be reused in future recycling projects. A fresh stock of recycled plastic is brought into this world!!! ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶
Final Design
The final outcome is a marbled sheet of recycled plastic✨. The piece was able to be reused in the Exploratorium machine shop in a variety of machining methods (Wood Mill, Band Saw, Table Saw). Small imperfections can be seen in the form of sawdust speckles as remnants of the mix-use shop environment that the waste-chips came from.
This process shows a high potential of being incorporated into the exhibit development workflow. Additional experimentation around cook time and pressure could be done to seek out desirable material qualities based on the use-case.
Many thanks to Guacamole Airplane for hosting me and the rest of the Exploratorium crew!
