Sunday, October 24, 2010

Assignment 2- UPCYCLING: Rationale

Crude latex rubber has very few uses but for those which it is suitable, it often boasts many qualities which allow. Primarily you will find it used as car tyres, conveyer belts, shock absorbers and anti-vibration mountings in pipes and hoses. However rubber is not recyclable, has infinite uses and is very resilient. The material is a major source of waste in developing countries that could be put to better use. This is why for my “Upcycling” project I chose to look into the reusing of scrap tyres and their inner tubing material.

Recovering rubber is quite a process but is worth the effort. Recovering rubber is half the cost of having to use the virgin material, and most thrown away tires only have a few faults which render them unusable for vehicles, such as punctures of any size or loss of grip from years of use. Also, promoting recycling activities in exchange for basic needs such as food and clothing are effective for minimising needless waste and environmental degradation in developing countries.

95% of disposed jeans and other basic textiles are reusable, but also end their life cycle in landfill.
“If each person bought one recycled garment each year, it would save an average of 371 million gallons of water and 480 tons of chemical dyestuffs.” This is a quote from Antur Waunfawr, who founded a recycling service and recognises the amount of perfectly usable material that we are wasting. In recycling we reduce the need for sheer landfill space, reduces pressure on virgin resources as well as reducing the amount of pollution and waste of energy (estimated 50%) and resources in manufacturing a material from scratch. I also chose to make use of discarded fabrics, as its infinite variety contrasted the jet black look of the rubber mat.

Out of all the wallets I’ve ever owned only a few include a coin purse, which I feel is essential for purchasing train tickets etc. Almost none of these wallets were even vaguely appealing to me in aesthetics, being solid jet black leather or a single colour with little variation. As I have adopted an appreciation of the grungy punk culture look the mix of textiles and fabrics (tartan, checkers and ripped denim) I gathered seemed mostly appropriate to uphold this. My redesign of the wallet upcycles some rubber matting and includes a Velcro sealed coin purse made from the inner pocket of a pair of jeans, and two card pockets from various materials.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Design for Life