A study, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances in May, examines the pollution potential of plastic recycling facilities and investigates microplastic pollution in wastewater and in the air from a mixed plastics recycling facility in the UK.
According to the scientists who produced the research, even with a filter installed ,the facility could be releasing up to 75bn plastic particles in each cubic metre of wastewater (the plant was tested before and after the installation of the filtration system that allowed to record a reduction in the concentration of microplastics from 13% to 6%).
Microplastics have by now contaminated the entire planet, and can be found in the most unlikely places, from marine and freshwater bodies to soil; from food to drinking water, from the deepest oceans to the top of Mount Everest. Last year, microplastics were also found in the placentas of pregnant women and in human blood and lungs.
According to this study, the concept of recycling, initially introduced as a potential solution to address the escalating issue of plastic waste, is therefore revealing its limitations rather than providing a definitive resolution. In fact, recycling practices are inadvertently worsening the problem at hand. This point is also highlighted by Greenpeace in the recently released paper "Forever Toxic".
In this report, the organization states that plastics are inherently incompatible with a circular economy and that recycled plastics can be very dangerous for different reasons. When plastics are made with toxic chemicals and then recycled, the toxic chemicals can indeed transfer into the recycled plastics.
Besides, plastics can absorb contaminants via direct contact and through the absorption of volatile compounds, this means that plastic containers for pesticides, cleaning solvents, and other toxic chemicals can contaminate recycled plastic. Last but not least, when plastics are heated in the recycling process, this can generate new toxic chemicals that make their way into the recycled plastics.
Greenpeace's report coincides with the ongoing debates and efforts of 175 nations aiming to establish a potential international global plastics treaty by 2024.
But the lifecycle of plastic, its role in design, architecture and in our lives, is also explored at the US Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice (until 26th November 2023).
The pavilion - embracing Lesley Lokko's theme for this year's biennale, "The Laboratory of the Future" - is turned into a workshop to explore our complex relationship with plastic.
Curated by Tizziana Baldenebro, Executive Director of Cleveland-based nonprofit alternative art organization SPACES, and Lauren Leving, Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (moCa), the "Everlasting Plastics" exhibition at the pavilion presents the work of five artists and designers.
The pavilion is conceived as a sort of platform for the artists and designers involved to engage audiences in considering the role of plastic in our lives and the overabundance of plastic detritus in our waterways, landfills, and streets as a rich resource.
The exhibition opens in the courtyard of the pavilion, with Lauren Yeager's artworks. The Cleveland-based sculptor re-imagined commonplace objects and, using salvaged consumer materials, created a series of assemblages.
Referencing classical art and modernist architectural forms, Yeager's sculptures incorporate once-loved reclaimed items such as unaltered Coleman coolers and children's toys from the Ohio-based company Little Tikes.
The formal sculptures resulting from these domestic pieces end up incorporating relics of personal histories; they point at the ordinary routines of everyday life, but at the same time they are also elevated to art, fluctuating between different contexts.
Upon stepping into the pavilion, the first pieces visitors will see are the ones by Norman Teague. The designer and Assistant Professor of Industrial Design at the University of Illinois Chicago, works with common, locally sourced building materials and collaborates with local fabricators to create objects and spaces that explore simplicity and honesty.
Teague's past projects have included consumer products, public sculpture, performances, and specially designed retail spaces. His pieces for the pavilion are made with recycled plastics sourced from households and businesses in Chicago.
In these pieces the plastic is melted, extruded and used to create objects based on Bolga and Agaseke basket-weaving techniques. The resulting designs wouldn't look out of place at major design events such as Milan Design Week or in the window shop of a luxury boutique.
Traditional vessels are reinterpreted through recycled materials to hint at the importance of preserving the cultural memory. These designs also allow Teague to bridge the Global South and the Global North through a diasporic lens. Besides, the bright colors of these objects hint at commercial waste, while their earthy tones reference nature.
Two different rooms are dedicated to the work of Xavi L. Aguirre. The architectural designer, founder, and director of the architectural design practice stock-a-studio and Assistant Professor of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explores the relationship we have with plastic proofing materials employed to hermetically seal us from moisture, heat and other threatening elements.
Moving from theatrical sets and club cultures, Aguirre incorporated these materials in new environments and structures suspended between protection and endangerment.
Architect and Assistant Professor at Northeastern University, Ang Li explored instead the relationship between mass and volume, juxtaposing the properties of a seemingly weightless material with the densities of monumental form.
Hidden layers of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam form a universal membrane within our homes, landscapes and supply chains. Here EPS waste, diverted from landfills is compressed into dense, discrete building blocks that can be read as both commodity and material catalogue.
Borrowing building techniques from the unit systems of waste processing industries, Li established an architecture of accumulation that prompts us to reflect on our systems of valuation, resource and refuse.
Visually speaking, the pieces by Detroit-based multi-disciplinary artist, designer, and educator Simon Anton, are the most intriguing.
Anton collaborates across the fields of architecture, interior design, furniture, art, and jewelry. He is the co-founder of Thing Thing, a design collective that experiments in the transformation of post-consumer, hand-recycled polyethylene plastic sourced from surrounding communities and from industrial manufacturing. He also runs "Transforming Trash," where he works with youth in Detroit to transform community plastic waste into art.
From a distance Anton's works look like giant pretzels covered in multi-coloured topping sprinkles or decorated with millions of Murano glass splinters. Yet, when you get nearer to the pieces, you realise they are not made with any kind of edible or precious material.
Anton devised indeed a process to graft plastic waste onto armatures, and this system allowed the designer to cover urban structures like metal barriers with chips of coloured plastic waste and rethink in this way modern functional and political objects, turning them into ornamental critiques that also offer visitors a heightened tactile experience.
The technique represents a new possibility in a world in which waste plastics are inseparable from the built environment. While being visually striking, these pieces prompt us to consider a future in which architectural environments may end up being covered in plastic, but also at more dreadful possibilities, like our own bodies and in particular our internal organs being colonized by microplastics.
By exploring the cultural ubiquity of plastics and acknowledging that our toxic interdependency is now a global dependency, visitors at the US Pavilion will realise that Du Pont's late '40s slogan "Better Living…through chemistry" is not credible anymore and above all it is definitely not reassuring.
A publication produced in partnership with Columbia Books on Architecture and the City (CBAC) accompanies the exhibition.
The collection of essays, entitled "Sketches On Everlasting Plastics" (you can read them here), features articles with insights about the history of petrochemical polymers in the US, pieces about the disposability and single-usage of plastic and considerations about the toxicity levels of plastic in our everyday lives (think about how plastic is employed in the healthcare sector as well, so even the most virtuous amongst us end up producing waste materials…).
The essays also look at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and microplastics, reflect on the connections between fossil fuels with racist, classist and colonial practices and explore the denial of the capacity of plasticity (the capacity to change, to be molded, to transform while retaining self-sameness) to colonial subjects and non-white people.
There's also some food for thought for fashion designers in this anthology: one essay by Sky Cubacub, founder of Rebirth Garments, an activewear line for queer and trans disabled people of all sizes and ages, raises awareness about the challenges of seeking eco-friendly alternatives to petroleum-based fabrics.
In their feature, Sky Cubacub emphasizes the need to address the issue of plastic elimination in various industries, but highlights the scarcity of viable alternatives in the context of disabled accessibility, where viable solutions remain scarce, suggesting that, despite the necessity for change, for the time being such materials may still be necessary in this sector.
The essays serve as a means to enlighten ourselves regarding the toxic chemical association we have with plastic. It is indeed only by facing the paradoxes of plastic head-on that we can understand how to reduce its usage and envision a transformative future where plastics are utilized sparingly, responsibly, and with careful consideration of their associated impacts and advantages.
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