'Product Design and Engineering'
To create 'Remade Materials' 
by using Plastic Waste as a resource

For the first time in history, urban waste is growing faster than the rate of urbanisation. According to the World Bank, by 2025 the urban population will have grown by 1.4 billion people, each one discarding an average of 1.42kg of waste per day, more than double the current amount.

To cope with the massive mountains of trash, future cities will need to embrace circular practices and convert waste into a resource. Aware that natural raw material resources are finite, designers and engineers are tapping into industrial and domestic waste streams for new resources. Ideas and initiatives are providing sustainable solutions turning today's trash into tomorrow's raw materials.

Through this report I am trying to highlight and introduce to this forum, some ingenious solutions to upcycle plastic waste that have come from innovation, research and development in 'Material and Product Engineering'.

Since plastic was invented in the 1950s, over 8 billion metric tons of virgin plastic has been produced worldwide. Every piece that hasn't been incinerated still exists today and only 9% has been recycled. Majority of plastic waste ends up in landfills or oceans.

While technology strives to render plastic redundant by developing environmentally responsible substitutes, many initiatives are tackling the immediate issue and finding purpose for today's enormous quantities of plastic waste.

I have compiled a few such solutions that use Post Consumer Plastic Waste as a resource. As a highly versatile material, through clever engineering, Plastic has been upcycled into quick fix joinery, composite panels and even spun into yarn for textiles.

Smile Plastics

Smile Plastics make unique panels from post consumer plastic waste such as yoghurt cartons and bottles, unlocking the potential of discarded plastic material and changing perceptions about waste. Materials used, range from mobile phones and confiscated cds to wellington boots and yoghurt pots. The panels are suitable for decorative architectural and design projects and have been used in a wide range of applications in high profile locations, shop fit outs, and in furniture and fittings.

For more details and information, please visit the website.

https://smile-plastics.com/

Weavers Green

Made entirely from recycled plastic bottles, Weaver Green rugs, bags and textiles look and feel like wool but are perfect for both indoor and outdoor use. They are incredibly easy to clean, machine washable, stain resistant, hard-wearing and completely waterproof. A result of forward thinking engineering, plastic has been turned into a safe and environment friendly yarn that is used to weave these products with each product using anywhere between 50 to 750 plastic PET bottles.

For more details and information, please visit the website.

https://www.weavergreen.com/

Joining Bottles 

Joining Bottles is an experimental wood-joining technique that converts shrunk plastic bottles into joints that hold wooden furniture together. By a heat-shrinking process, a simple plastic bottle is transformed into malleable rings, which could then be placed around pieces of wood as a versatile and abundantly available 'wood bonding material', thus offering a meaningful and accessible way to build functional structures. The process embraces the randomness of discarded materials wood and plastic to dictate the overall and final aesthetic- allowing waste to be engineered and crafted into unique products.

For more details and information, please visit the website.

http://joiningbottles.com/

Conclusion 

Advancement in technology and engineering is often blamed for many of the excesses that we have today and a great deal of waste that perhaps can be avoided. While we need to reduce waste generation, an integrated solid waste management plan is needed in cities to approach solid waste in a comprehensive manner. On the other hand, innovative engineering can turn a lot of this trash into a resource and yield low cost 'remade and repurposed materials'. Of course such products will need to be created with eco friendly processes and with minimal cost, in order to be viable.

It is time to use Engineering to the advantage of our environment, to our benefit, as was originally intended. I look forward to reports on this topic from various parts of the world on this forum and hope that we can all collaborate towards engineering an environmentally sustainable future.