BIOPLASTICS

Since launching Precious Plastic in 2013, product designer Dave Hakkens has become the spearhead of a global recycling movement. A vast community of makers, hackers and entrepreneurs are now connected through the project, which develops and shares solutions for reducing plastic waste. Their latest research project takes things one step further. In their own words, the Beyond Plastic series is all about “trying to find out what the future of plastic could look like.”

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“Making stuff from recycled plastic is pretty cool, but we know we need to break up with plastic in the long run,” explains the team in a statement. That’s why they decided to learn more about biodegradable alternatives to plastic, and investigate different methods to process and produce them. The centrepiece of the project is the new Beyond Plastic Bio Press, a strong heat press that allows you to turn a lot of different organic materials into biodegradable products like plates, bowls or cups. From the team’s first experiments, it’s clear that you can get beautiful, surprising results from using food waste like wheat bran, coffee grounds and orange peels, or agricultural waste like leaves and pine needle

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The materials they used are organic materials derived from food waste such as orange peels, tea leaves, coffee grounds etc. Using their download kit, I am going to be trying this out myself and testing out different types of mother materials and hence test their durability, strength and might test how biodegradable they are and the factors that effect it, be it environment (living in Kenya) or the material itself.

THE PROCCESS