Toxic Legacies / Filtering the Truth

Leila
Wallisser
Filtering the truth

Words, Design, Photography:
Leila Wallisser
Typeface:
Aktiv Grotesk
Paper:
Munken Print White 115 g/m 2
Printing:
Druckwerkstatt
Kunsthochschule Weißensee
Cover:
Natural Linen 185 g/m 2
Cover title:
Screenprinted with
cigarette ashes
MA WS 22/23
Kunsthochschule Weißensee
Textile- and Surfacedesign
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Karola Dierichs
Prof. Dr. Lucy Norris

Leila
Wallisser
Filtering the truth

4

“
“ Out of sight out of mind ”
The cliché about garbage we’ve all heard is:
Yet even when it’s
in sight garbage somehow manages to remain
out of mind.
”
William Rathje, Rubbish!, 1992
5

Content

01 Introducing waste: Cigarette butts 10
02 How do we design with it? 16
03 Should we be designing with it? 26
04 Why can recycling be problematic? 28
05 Context:
1. Bioplastics 40
2. TerraCycle 44
3. rPET 46
4. Paper Bags 50
06 Examples of cigarette recycling 52
07 Material and object development 58
08 Final outcome 120
09 Discussion: Possible solutions 172
10 Outlook: What now? 178
11 Endnotes 184
References 190
Acknowledgements 198

01
02
03
Introducting waste
How do we design with it?
Should we be designing with it?

Introducing Waste
Cigarette Butts
“
Every day approximately 8 million pieces of plastic pollution
find their way into our oceans… One million plastic
bottles are bought every minute… The average time that
a plastic bag is used is just 12 minutes… There could be
more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050…
” 1 We have
all come in contact with alarming facts regarding plastic
waste, as its pollution has become one of the most
pressing environmental issues we are facing today. Being
just over a century old, the production of this synthetic
material has accelerated to such an extent that it has
transformed our society into a throw-away-culture and
modern life would be unrecognisable without it.
The most abundant form of plastic pollution, however,
is one that we tend to overlook. Wonderfully embodying
the notion of throwing away, cigarette butts have become
an often invisible form of waste, that are not only
part of a visual representation of life in the city, but are
10

painting all of our anthropocentric landscapes in specs
of brown and orange. According to the National Geographic,
a rough 6.5 trillion cigarette butts were littered
worldwide in the year 2019, 2 with no radical decline in
the years to follow. The material itself can take up to ten
years to degrade, yet chemicals such as arsenic, lead
and nicotine that are released into the environment long
outlast the life of a butt itself and posing a harmful threat
to our environment and that of our natural relatives. 3
“
The image or illusion of filtration is essential
to the selling of cigarettes, whereas the fact
of filtration is not.
”
Internal memo, Philip Morris, 1963
95% of cigarette filters, also known as filter tip, are
made from cellulose acetate fibres. First introduced in
the 1950s, and as a reaction to the emerging fears of
lung cancer, they intend to reduce harms of smoking
by absorbing vapours and filtering particulate accumulation.
Being categorised as a non-toxic, odourless,
tasteless and weakly flammable plastic, the acetate is
used by being spun into tow fibres that are thinner than
sewing thread, and packed tightly together – create
an illusion of a cotton-like material.
11

Though the extensive filter research and development
efforts in the 1950s suggest a phase of genuine optimism
among cigarette companies towards the reduction
of the health hazards, 4 by the 1960s cigarette companies
discovered what a study in the journal Tobacco
Control termed the ‘filter problem’: the impossibility of
creating a filter that reduced the harms imposed by
smoking to a measurable amount whilst simultaneously
providing the smoker with the same ‘satisfaction’ they
were used to. This realisation led to a transition away
from reducing hazards and towards using the filter as a
marketing tool designed to continue to keep and recruit
consumers. 5 Invented in 1953 by R. J. Reynolds’ chemist
Claude Teague, 6 additional chemicals were added to the
filter, allowing the colour of the filter to become darker
when exposed to smoke – giving the impression they
were filtering out harmful particles and contributing to
the illusion of the filtration being more effective than it
actually is. 7 In fact, recent studies even suggest the filter
to be an additional health risk to the smoker. 8
12

Despite public confusion, 9 the cellulose acetate from
the cigarette butts is not biodegradable under typical
circumstances, and only begins to disintegrate under
“severe biological circumstances” 10 – gradually passing
through stages of microplastics. 11 During the act of
smoking, the cellulose acetate fibres and tipping paper
absorb a range of chemicals from the tobacco smoke.
Once discarded, cigarette butts leach over 4000 chemicals
to the environment. Studies have found the chemicals
released from both filter tip and tobacco waste to
be toxic to marine life, including fish, 12 fleas and bacteria,
13 and latest research suggests these chemicals to
hamper or even inhibit plant growth. 14
13

Aim
So now that we know about this problematic form of
waste – how do we design our way out of it?
The concept of recycling has gained immense popularity
as a sustainable approach to waste pollution and is
embraced as a potential solution to our escalating environmental
crisis. However, not all recycling practices
– especially when it comes to plastic – are necessarily
environmentally friendly. In many cases, claims to recyclability
are merely greenwashing, a marketing strategy
used by companies to position themselves as environmentally
conscious without implementing actual changes
in their production practices.
My master project aims to investigate the greenwashing
behind recycling and how the concept of recycling can
tend to justify the production of waste in a consumerbased
system. By raising awareness, this project aims
to create a sense of transparency and encourage more
mindful consumption.
16

How can discarded cigarette butts be used
as a medium to confront us with the impossibility
of their recuperation?
17

Scope
Should we be designing with it?
Semester 1: Material Tests
In the first semester of my Masters degree, I explored
various possibilities to manipulate and transform the individual
components of a cigarette butt into something
new and possibly useful. I started by separating the cigarette
into its individual components which left me with
four initial elements; the filter, tobacco, ash and the paper
holding these elements together. The fifth element is incorporated
in the filter itself; a thermo-reactive dye that
causes the filter to turn darker when exposed to heat.
18

For my initial results, I not only expected to find a method
to reuse at least some part of the cigarette, but also
to find seductive qualities in this form of waste that is
otherwise often met with disgust. After extensive small
scale material testing, machine testing with the Textile
Prototyping Lab and several conversations with chemists
from the Fraunhofer Institut in Potsdam and the
textile company Nanolose in Melbourne, I started questioning
whether the extracted toxins, in addition to the
amount of chemicals I would need to actually clean and
reform a cigarette butt, outweighed the benefit of reusing
an overabundant waste product. Was it really a silver
bullet, or were there instances where it contributed
to a neglect of greater problems? Growing disillusioned,
I decided to shift the solution from an actual application
to the communication of precisely this issue.
Set-up for interim presentation
19

Personal Waste
Since the start of my studies, the amount of waste produced
in a university context has always been a large
debate. What to do with all the leftover material – the test
prints, the prototypes, the material experiments, the contaminated
moulds, the plastic boxes – or even the final
outcome after it has been exhibited? Initiatives such as
the re:lab at Kunsthochschule Weißensee make a great
effort to undermine these waste streams and make leftover
materials from one project available for the next.
For this project, I have reused an estimate of 1000 cigarette
butts in various forms, which make up about 200
grams. As for other materials, the waste I produced adds
up to the following numbers:
22

Materials needed for paper making and pressing
General Waste
Masks:
Gloves:
Plastic bags:
Water (Washing):
Glass:
Plastic (Storage):
50 g
200 g
1 kg
est. 30 l
5 kg
4 kg
23
Paper Making / Pressing
3D printed moulds (PLA):
Other Materials:
Water:
1.1 kg
745 g
est. 50 l

Materials needed for filling wax and soap
Dyeing Textiles / Yarn
Cloth:
Yarn
Water:
300 g
1.4 kg
est. 20 l
Filling Wax / Soap
Silicone moulds:
Plastic moulds:
Wax:
Soap mix:
1.4 kg
280 g
2 kg
3.9 kg
24
Total waste: 21.375 kg + 100 litres of water

Comparing the waste of this project to the amount of
waste I actually reused, I can roughly say I have created
105 grams of waste for every gram of cigarette butt.
I am aware of the shortcomings of this comparison, as
this is a small-scale production and the ratio of waste
to cigarette butt relies heavily on the amount of objects
I end up producing. What’s more is that in my case it
is difficult to compare the “price to pay” to the larger
positive impact, as I do not directly contribute a measurable,
product based solution. It does however reveal
the amount of waste behind the production of a project
that we often tend to forget and is mostly not made
visible to the outside.
25
Gloves and masks

Semester 2: Useless Objects / Campaign
The realisation that recycling might do more harm than
good, led me to bring back more of the visual communication
design that I had attained my Bachelor’s degree
in. I decided to not continue to try to recycle cigarette
butts and focus on the communication. The aim for my
second semester was now to find a way to use these
methods and seductive qualities from my initial material
tests, to develop an object that both communicates the
environmental problems of the waste product (cigarette
butts), as well as the impact that the promotion of recycling
(under false pretences) can have on both consumer
and environment. The end-result is a product line and
campaign advertising the materials reuse with a sense
of irony and humour, as the product is not usable and
the campaign arguably does not make sense.
26

I specifically chose not to create a more abstract piece
of work for my final outcome, as part of my aim was to
directly target marketing as a tool for false communication
or lack of transparency, and I felt the actual marketing
of a product was the correct way to do this. It should
ideally invoke the reaction “You can really sell anything,
no matter how shit the product”.
Overview of final objects
27

04 Why can recycling
be problematic?

Reduce,
Reuse,
Recycle
30

“
Within the sustainability cosmos, there are two
primary discourse motivations for using recycled
plastic alternatively to polyester. The first and most
obvious is that it turns garbage into something new.
Recycling by itself already has a positive character
intrinsic to it. The common understanding is that
recycling is always the best way out. Secondly, the
common knowledge is that by recycling we are no
longer extracting virgin raw material (..) to produce
new products.
”
Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle, 2002
31

In recent years, recycling and circular thinking have gained immense
popularity, and have become an essential part in the
effort to reduce the impact of human activities on this earth.
Recycling is widely regarded as a tool to combat our current climate
crisis and a sustainable solution to reduce waste and conserve
resources. However, there are a number of instances in
which the promotion of recycling can become problematic. Be
it that the environmental impact that this form of regeneration
has, does not outweigh the environmental benefits, or the effect
that false advertising of companies can have to justify the
production of more waste. I have summarised the main issues in
the following three points.
1. Many of the materials we produce are not made to be
recycled (with the result that they are downcycled at best)
Recycling often seems to be the immediate solution when talking
about a circular economy. However many of the materials
that we are currently producing, are not actually made with the
idea of recycling in mind. Plastic is a good example for this.
Though the materials name – derived from the word “plasticity”–
promises to be an ever-mouldable substance, it is neither capable
of being remoulded endlessly without losing quality, nor designed
with the intent to do so. 15 Plastic thoroughly contradicts itself
in that it promises a utopian vision of an eternal material that is
simultaneously designed for disposability and a linear system. 16
Plastics have a complex chemical composition, and when recycling
them, the process of reheating and mixing the material
causes the polymer chains to shorten, meaning more chemicals
and mineral additives are needed in an attempt to reverse
this process. The result is that this second plastic may
have more additives than the virgin plastic, as well as being
a hybrid of lower quality that now has to be moulded into an
amorphous or cheaper object. As the Biomimicry Institute
states in their paper The Nature of Fashion, moving towards a
regenerative system: “Most people believe that plastics can be
infinitely recycled, but each time plastic is heated it degenerates,
so the subsequent iteration of the polymer is degraded
and the plastic must be used to make lower quality products.”.
Currently, the only wide-scale adopted technology for plastic
treatment is mechanical recycling. The steps for this form of recycling
entail the removal of organic residue (washing), that is
then followed by shredding, melting and remoulding the polymer.
17 This is then often blended with virgin plastic of the same
type, to ensure the material has suitable properties for further
manufacturing. There are limitations to this form of recycling,
as the chemical make-up and thermal properties of the various
types of plastic respond differently to the process. Many of the
plastics cannot be processed mechanically, and as a consequence
only two types of plastic are recovered and recycled:
PET and other polyethylenes, which make up less than half of
the annual plastics produced. 17
32

Moreover, materials often lose quality and performance compared
to the original state, resulting in being downcycled into
lower-grade materials that are less durable or have fewer potential
applications. The term downcycling is used to describe a recycled
product, in which the recycled material is of lower quality
and functionality than the original material. In fact, most recycling
ends up being downcycling, in which the process tends
to to increase levels of chemical contamination, by needing to
add more chemicals to the original material in order to make it
useful again 18 and forcing a material into more lifetimes than it
was originally designed for. 19 In their book Cradle to Cradle, the
chemist Michael Braungart and architect William McDonough
convey how recycling and eco-efficiency often tends only to
make the old, destructive system a bit less so, not actually addressing
the main issues but causing a slow and invisible violence
over a longer amount of time.
Finally, materials can oftentimes only be downcycled a limited
number of times before they become unstable. Paper fibres, for
example, become shorter and weaker each time they are recycled
and eventually become unusable for further recycling, ending
up being disposed of in landfill or incineration with the rest
of the unfit materials.
We tend to think of recycling as sorting and separating materials.
Yet “Recycling has not occurred until the loop has closed:
that is, until someone buys (or gets paid to take) the sorted materials,
manufactures them into something else, and sells that
something back to the public.” (Rubbish!, 1992) This means
that for a truly circular system, the output needs to be just as
valuable and useful as the initial material or product – and it is
a whole lot easier when you get to the end, if you’ve thought
about the beginning.
“
The trouble with the circular economy is that you can’t
just design a circular product or service in isolation. The
whole system has to change with it. That circular product
will only go so far if you’ve still got a linear economic system
supporting it.
”
Maxine Perella, Closing the Loop, 2018
33

2. Recycling is often not profitable in our current economy
The documentary ‘Die Recyclinglüge’ addresses many issues
specifically regarding plastic waste. It conveys how the cost of
producing the virgin material in comparison to the astronomical
costs for a company to recycle the material it has already
produced, is not even close to being profitable in our current
capitalistic economy. “Oil is cheap, and as long as oil remains
cheap, making virgin plastic is cheap. Meanwhile, sorting, transporting
and melting down plastic is expensive.” (Sam Denby,
2020) Plastic is often worth less than nothing, resulting in many
waste recyclers having to be paid to take the material and reprocess
it. End-to-life treatment options are in practice quite
limited, 17 and the high costs of energy and transportation, that
can result from lack of local infrastructure, often do not make
recycling a profitable or attractive option. As the price of the
material is currently heavily affected by the market’s demand,
it is vulnerable to fluctuation and often does not provide a constant
profit in our current economic climate. 20
Besides the fact that many of the materials decrease in quality
after their original use, another major issue is contamination.
Contamination can occur at any point in the recycling process,
from collection, to sorting, to processing. Pre-sorting to be
both costly and time-consuming and recycling requiring large
amounts of energy and current technologies cannot be applied
to many of the polymeric materials. 17 When non-recyclable materials
are mixed in with recyclable, it can cause for a disruption
or even for the entire “batch” to end up incinerated or in landfill. 21
The highest and most profitable percentage of “recycled” waste
ends up incinerated and used as energy for other industries. 22
34

“
It’s pretty amazing that our society has reached a
point where the effort necessary to extract oil from
the ground, ship it to a refinery, turn it into plastic,
shape it appropriately, truck it to a store, but it, and
bring it home is considered to be less effort that
what it takes to just wash the spoon when you’re
done with it.
” N.A.
Studies suggesting plastic waste to be a missed economic opportunity,
actually saving energy compared to the production of
the virgin material 17 and estimating $8.3 billion dollars of plastic
waste being lost to the commodity market in the US alone 23 –
pose the question at what cost. Plastic as a material with all its
chemicals has been known to create both environmental and
public health problems, 24 and so does its recycling. The question
is really what to incorporate into the cost calculation and
what not, because including these secondary consequences as
an additional cost, would definitely change the calculated outcome.
Recycling can be one of the answers to avoid waste buildup and
decrease the dependence on finite resources. However for this
to effectively happen, the cost of recycling either has to come
down, the calculations have to be more comprehensive, and the
price of a raw recycled plastic has to go up to generate more
money than it costs.
35

“
Just because a material is recycled does not automatically
make it ecologically benign, especially if
it was not designed specifically for recycling, blindly
adopting superficial environmental approaches without
fully understanding their effects can be no better
– and perhaps even worse – than doing nothing.
”
Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle, 2002
3. Recycling materials tends to justify the production of waste
in a consumer-based system
Lastly, recycling has the potential to deflect the consumer
away from the actual problem. In the documentary ‘Die Recyclinglüge’,
the chemical engineer and sustainability consultant
Jan Dell makes her statement: Recycling is little more than a
seductive idea that allows the industry to keep producing more
disposable packaging and simultaneously relieves the consumer
of guilt. It’s not that recycling is bad. Though not every form
of recycling has the lower environmental footprint and the recycling
process from one material to another varies greatly in
cost and energy 17 – it is generally better for the environment
than landfilling or incineration and relies less on resource extraction.
25 However, there is a growing concern that it could be
promoting additional consumption, and additional waste.
36
Recycling can create a false sense of security, encouraging consumers
to continue exactly as before, whilst believing that their
waste is not adding to our current waste-problem. By taking the
guilt out of consumption, it undermines efforts to cut back on
waste, and becomes the alibi or even justification for single-use.
Not only does not solve the core of the problem of overconsumption,
but can also tend to be misleading as the term recyclable
merely implies that a material is able to be recycled, by
no means however stating that it actually will be. 26

Focusing too much on recycling can distract from other important
steps, such as reducing consumption and improving waste
management practices. In 2016, Mon Sun and Remi Strudel, professors
at Boston University, conducted a study on consumption
patterns and reactions to recycling-awareness campaigns.
The findings showed how the positive emotions connected
with recycling were able to overpower the negative emotions
connected to wasting – and as a result, consumers would use
a larger amount of resources when recycling was an option. 27
They concluded that current promotions of recycling may not
emphasise the cost of recycling enough and suggested future
promotions to highlight the economic and environmental cost
of recycling in an attempt to make a conscious effort to prioritise
reduce over recycle.
Whilst recycling and circular thinking are an important part of
reducing waste, conserving resources and protecting the environment,
it is by far not a perfect solution and definitely not to
be applied as a “one-shoe-fits-all” scenario. To improve recycling
rates and reduce waste, the focus needs to be on designing
products that are made to be recycled, as well as developing the
necessary infrastructure that is able to support these processes.
“ ..the word “ recycled ”
on a package generally means
not that a product has been made, at least in part, out
of something that a consumer once bought and then
turned in for recycling, but rather that it has been made
in part with scrap left over from the normal manufacturing
process..
”
William Rathje, Rubbish!, 1992
37

05 How is recycling contributing
to greenwashing?

Case Study 1:
Bioplastic
How misleading labels can
contribute to greenwashing
40

In conversation with a friend, I was talking about how I had just
found out cigarette filters were made from a bioplastic. The response
was: “Ah that’s a good thing right? So they are compostable?”
For precisely this reason, I feel the need to address how
the naming of the various categories of plastic can be misleading
in itself.
Cellulose acetate falls under the category of bioplastics. The
name itself does not sound very harmful. The word bios with its
origins in ancient Greek, meaning ‘human life’ has extended its
meaning in modern scientific usage to ‘organic life’ and is now
customarily associated with words such as ‘natural’ and ‘organic’.
28 According to an article in Environment International “The
term bioplastic implies similar favourable characteristics as their
petroleum-based counterparts but with the positive connotation
of “natural” materials,” and along the line are marketed as a
sustainable alternative to conventional plastics. However not all
bioplastics are immediately biodegradable and studies suggest
even toxic chemicals continue to be prevalent in most types of
both bio-based and biodegradable products. 29
“
Consumer goods made out of biodegradable plastic
enjoyed a brief vogue until many of them came to be
seen, correctly, as little more than products of a marketing
scheme designed to tap into a perceived increase in
“ green ”
sentiment in the country. Although biodegradable
plastic eventually can fall apart (but usually only with the
help of sunlight, a scarce commodity in landfills) its constituents
retain much of their bulk and hence take up as
much room in landfills as regular plastic.
”
William Rathje, Rubbish!, 1992
41
There are four different groups of plastic which can be divided
into those that are bio- and those that are petroleum-based.
These categories can then also be divided into a group of plastics
that are biodegradable and those that are not. 30 This means that
bio-based plastics are not immediately biodegradable – in fact
most often they are not. Below are several terms that can be added
to the list of misleading naming and in need of clarification.

Degradable
All plastics, even the conventional petroleum-based ones, are
technically degradable. Given the right amount of time and environmental
conditions, the material eventually will be broken
down into tiny fragments. This does not mean, however, that
the material will return to its “natural” organic state, and as we
know, this can take up to thousands of years, 31 thus still remaining
a source of pollution. There are additives to traditional
plastics that are able to make them degrade more quickly. 32 The
term photodegradable merely means the plastic will more readily
break down in sunlight, oxo-degradable plastics more readily
degrade when exposed to heat and light.
Biodegradable
A plastic termed biodegradable is completely able to break
down into its natural components. This can be done by water,
carbon dioxide, or – under the right conditions – in compost by
microorganisms. The term implies that the decomposition process
completely happens within a few weeks to months. There
is technically no limitation of time how long this process should
take. 33 In the case that it does take much longer than the implied
timeframe, the material is labelled “durable” and some
even fall back into the category of non-biodegradables.
Compostable
Compostable plastics have to be able to be broken down into
non-toxic components by natural processes / with the help of
microorganisms. However, under German TÜV standards this
implies that, under the conditions of 58 degrees in 84 days, 90
percent of the matter in the plastic must be smaller than two
millimetres. 34 Standards that are not natural in a home environment
and for which there are not yet facilities set in place to
actually do so. As a result, bioplastics often end up in landfills
along with the rest. Only plastics labelled home compostable
are to meet the requirements of breaking down at a minimum of
90 percent at 20 to 30 degrees in a matter of 365 days. 35
“One of the major problems connected to the development, use,
and disposal of degradable materials is that none are degraded
in all natural environments; a specific environment is needed,
and the conditions required depend on the type of plastic.”
(Science Magazine, 2017) Therefore claims of degradability and
environmental degradability should always be connected with a
specific environment. Variables in natural environments highly
differ, and plastics that rapidly degrade in compost might actually
contribute to plastic debris in marine environments, as conditions
in seawater are not ideal for its rapid breakdown. 36
42

With increasing attention towards the plastic pollution, corporates
have adopted plastic reduction plans and started looking
for more sustainable plastic packaging. According to a report
published by Greenpeace, corporate plastic plans are mainly
made up of four parts: Reducing virgin plastic use, increasing
recycling rate and recycled content, using alternative materials
and developing reuse and refill systems. In the case of “alternative
materials”, bioplastic (both degradable and non-degradable)
and paper are most commonly implemented. Companies
are quick to use terms such as “eco-friendly”, “green”, “made
from plants” and “sustainable” to describe their packaging
products, in an attempt to promote themselves as environmentally
and socially responsible. By taking a closer look at implementations
made by large corporations such as Coca Cola or
Danone however, it is easy to see how this does not change
anything on the degradability front – and generates the question
whether this is a tool for greenwashing more than anything else.
This is not to say that all bioplastics are overall “bad”. The innovation
of a material that is not dependent on fossil fuels and
even able to decompose – and do so in a drastically shorter
amount of time – is generally a positive. We need innovations
in packaging, and compostability is definitely a major step in
closing the loop of our waste streams. I would just like to use
this example to highlight that the wording around these plastics
can often be misleading and even problematic in regards
to consumer transparency. Making a significant impact requires
adequate labelling for both consumer and producer, as well as
the correct infrastructure to process the material post-use. Bioplastics
have the potential to be better than conventional plastics,
but they are not a panacea for the plastic pollution. 37
“
To a large extent, plastic is embedded in our daily
lives, thus any reduction of plastic requires behavioural
changes as much as technological solutions.
In order to significantly decrease the environmental
impacts, we will have to change and dematerialise our
consumption patterns, which can be achieved only
through transformational change across spheres
including policy, lifestyles, culture, technology, education,
research, and product design.
”
Arthur Huang, Going Circular, 2021
43

Case Study 2:
TerraCycle
Who is responsible
for what (waste)?
Image 01: TerraCycle’s office in Trenton, US
44

TerraCycle is a US-based company dedicated to eliminating
waste by providing services and solutions specifically for
hard-to-recycle refuse. Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, it is
a private business that partners with individuals, businesses
and organisations to collect and recycle materials that are
not typically accepted by municipal recycling programmes.
Their approach starts with a volunteer-based collection process
of pre- and post-consumer waste, that is then baled,
bulked and transported to processing partners who wash,
shred and separate the materials accordingly. TerraCycles’s
logo is a green infinity symbol with the arrows pointed toward
each other.
While the company is a valuable tool in showing that more
waste is technically recyclable than we tend to think, Terra-
Cycle’s approach has also often been subject to criticism and
debate. Whilst the company has been successful in collecting
hard-to-recycle materials, there is a lack of transparency
in what exactly happens to them after they are collected.
There have been instances in which sorted batches of waste
that were collected by volunteers and addressed to Terra-
Cycle were found in incineration centres in eastern Europe –
generating the question whether the company does actually
live up to its claim. 38 Moreover, focussing on hard-to-recycle
waste requires energy-intensive recycling processes that in
some cases may not actually reduce overall waste and environmental
impact.
TerraCycle has most recently been criticised for contributing
to the greenwashing of large corporations in making the
companies they partner with seem greener than they actually
are. 39 A lawsuit filed in 2021 by the California-based environmental
organisation The Last Beach Cleanup brought to
light one of the major issues in terms of labelling: Brands are
able to put TerraCycles logo on all of their packages, even
if they are only contracted to recycle a certain amount. By
making the consumer responsible to recycle and sort their
own waste, TerraCycles service allows for companies to take
no responsibility for their own waste, once again distracting
from the larger systemic issue by deflecting the externalities
onto the consumer and making it someone else’s problem.
This leaves us with the question: whose responsibility is it?
Image 02: Szaky at TerraCycle headquarters
45

Case Study 3:
PET to textile
rPET as a concrete example
of our recycling problem
46

Whilst the idea is not new, plastic bottles being recycled into
fibre has become increasingly popular in the textile industry,
as well as its promotion as a green alternative by clothing
brands. First manufactured for textiles by Polartec in 1993, 40
recycled PET is now spreading as a sustainable alternative to
polyester. By taking a closer look into the reality of this production
however, it becomes clear pretty quickly that turning
plastic waste into clothing is not as sustainable of an idea as
it might seem.
First off, when talking about sustainability in fashion – or in
many other areas of production – the discussion in itself is
conducted under false premises. The most sustainable action
is to increase the use and reuse of materials that already
exist, and to not buy anything at all. 41 However, removing this
premise from the discourse and taking a closer look at the
fashion industry and what it claims to offer with this particular
recycled material, a few key issues crystallise. I have categorised
these into quality, material, circularity, regulations
and comfort.
Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate, also known as rPET,
is gained through a process of melting down post-industrial
plastic waste and spinning it into fibre. For this process, an
average of eight soda bottles are needed for the production
of one shirt. 42 A comforting idea, right?
“
The creative use of down cycled materials for new
products can be misguided, despite good intentions.
For example, people may feel they are making an ecologically
sound choice by buying and wearing clothing
made from fibres from recycled plastic bottles.
But the fibres from plastic bottles contain toxins such
as antimony, catalytic residues, ultraviolet stabilisers,
plasticisers and antioxidants, which were never designed
to lie next to human skin.
”
Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle, 2002
47

Circularity As mentioned above, recycling can
Quality One of the first issues with this form
natural decomposition for them.” 42 life cycle assessments of clothing have major shortcoming
with reuse is one that is often the case with plastics.
PET as a material is not endlessly recyclable. In the
case of recycling rPET, toxic chemicals that are used
for the production of bottles are mixed together –
which include antimony, bleach and fire retardants
– that are not designed for prolonged exposure to
the skin. 42 Whilst there are various regulations set in
place for the chemicals used in the process of production,
certifications such as OEKO-TEX offer very
little regulations and data on the chemicals that are
present in the material itself. 43
only truly be seen as such if there is an endless cycle
of materials in which the final degradation product
must be of use for natural or industrial primary
production. 42 Currently, recycled PET is a cradle-tograve
system, in which “The link between decomposition
and primary production is broken, meaning that
nutrients that in a natural system would be “food”
for primary production instead become pollution.” 42
In this one-way street, the plastic bottles are turned
to textiles that end up in landfill or incineration as a
result of a lack of large-scale recycling technology
Material Secondly, and, to put it bluntly, rPET
for post-consumer textiles. 44 What’s more is that this
system interrupts the cycle of the PET bottle, diverting
is still a plastic. Currently – and with the highest
predicted growth rate 44 – 60% of textiles are made
from fossil fuel-based synthetic fibres, 41 releasing
an estimate of 640.000 – 1.500.000 microfibres per
wash. 42 Microplastics are not filtered at any stage of
from its own closed-loop system and deflecting
the responsibility from the waste of another (the soft
drink) industry 44 – causing the impression of solving
problem that is not their own to address: the food
industry’s neglect towards packaging.
sewage treatment and end up releasing an estimate
of 50 billion plastic bottles worth of microfibres into Regulations There is much discussion on the
the oceans yearly, 44 posing a serious threat to marine
ecosystems. Of the 8 billion metric tons of plastic
that we have produced since 1950, 42 91% have
never been recycled, and our plastic production has
been doubling every 15 years. 42 The average product
is to spend 200 years in landfill, incinerated at best.
In their paper, the Biomimicry Institute stresses that
to actually achieve a regenerative system, we need
to desperately reduce waste and a world in which
“durable” needs to coexist with “safely biodegradable”
– which as we know, is currently not the case
with plastics. They emphasise: “This means there is
no alternative to the phasing out of non-compostable
materials like polyester, and new fibres, however
“recyclable,” should not be developed if there is no
regulations of what is considered to be a sustainable
material. Arguments involve a lack of transparency
and a careful selection of facts without taking
a step back to look at the greater picture. In their
paper Ecolabelling of clothes has catastrophic consequences
for the environment, the consumption research
professor Irgun Grimstad Klepp explains how
comparisons of environmental impacts are carried
out through a life cycle assessment, LCA for short.
This assessment weighs the production stages in relation
to environmental impacts such as CO2 emissions,
water scarcity and resource depletion, and
divides them by the number of times a product is
assumed to be used. 41 Given there is little data on
this crucial division of the products life however, the
in both method and data.
41
48

This lack of transparency and reliable data about
how the clothes are actually produced results in
questionable results of what is considered to be a
sustainable textile. The Higg Index is the tool most
used in the industry, currently managed by the commercial
company Higg Co. The index provides tools
such as the Material Science Index (MSI) that measures
the fibres against each other, the Product Module
(PM) that measures the factories against each
other, and then measures a product sustainability
profile based on the first two. 41 This assessment,
however, addresses only the impact of fibres from
cradle to gate – production to sale – and does not
address the end of life stages. 44 The results are that
both elastane and polyester measure at an 82%
and 73% in comparison to other textiles, leaving a
questionable result of wool, cotton and silk at the
very other end of the spectrum. 44 The assessment
effectively avoids the topic of synthetic fibres, presenting
it as an environmentally friendly choice with
little comment on the overproduction of the fast
fashion industry and no accountability towards their
current business model. 43 These studies – alongside
of many other certification schemes – shape a vision
of sustainability that may not reflect reality, allowing
companies to patchwork certifications and distract
the consumer from a wider impact. 43 In their report
Licence to Greenwash, how certification schemes
and voluntary initiatives are fuelling fossil fashion, the
Changing Markets Foundation eloquently expresses:
“The results highlight that the majority of schemes
represent a false promise of certification for textiles
and represent a highly sophisticated form of greenwashing
as few have the time or inclination to look
beyond a certification or initiative’s stamp of approval.
At best they are a patchy promise of sustainability,
able to offer a degree of assurance on a small
production practice or section of the supply chain.
At worst, they are unambitious, opaque, unaccountable
and compromised talking-shops resulting in an
industry-wide smokescreen for the unsustainable
practices, enabling greenwashing on a vast scale.”
Comfort Lastly, this act of greenwashing creates
a comfort zone, in which the lack of pressure from
the consumer results in the ignorance of major environmental
issues and a lack of action or push for
continuous improvement from the fashion industry.
The Changing Markets Foundation identifies the tactics
employed by fashion brands, grouping them into
three broad categories: delay, distract and derail. 43
Delaying tactics describes the voluntary targets set
in the distant future, serving to ignore pressing environmental
issues whilst still appearing to be taking
action. Distract entails the promotion of end-of-pipe
false solutions such as focussing on plastic packaging
rather than plastic fibres, or recycling PET bottles
for clothing. Derail describes the image of positive
transformation by creating the illusion of progressive
action, and thereby encouraging people to buy
more clothes / justifying a continued consumption,
as technologies do little to reinvent linear, throwaway
business model. 44 Recycling has become a 200 billion
dollar industry 42 as the usage of recycled plastic
grows alongside the demand for virgin plastic clearly
presents how “[…] making garments out of plastic
waste will not even approach stemming the plastics
crisis, and does very little to stop the flow of plastics
into the environment in the first place.” 44
“
At best, projects like this should be seen as a communication
tool to raise public awareness of plastic
pollution in the oceans, but they can’t be considered
a serious step towards circularity.
”
Biomimicry Insititute, 2020
49

Case Study 4:
Paper Bags
The act of replacing in a
consumer-based society
“
Das größte Problem bei der Abschaffung der Tüte ist,
dass das Shoppen erfunden wurde. […] Beim Shoppen
will man zu einem sogenannten Impulskauf verführt
werden, es geht darum, Wünschen zu begegnen, Wünsche
zu erwecken und zu verspüren. Für den Impulskauf
kann ich mir keine Tasche mitnehmen, die Tüte muss in
der Sekunde des unerwarteten Impulses verfügbar sein.
”
Wolfgang Pauser, Fluter: Müll, 2012
It is estimated that 100 billion to 1 trillion single-use plastic
bags are produced per year worldwide. 45 Shopping bags
used by supermarkets are mostly produced out of high and
low density polyethylene, and are notoriously difficult to recycle.
46 With growing environmental distress, many countries
have dealt with plastic bag concerns by enforcing bans or
fees, resulting in a switch to paper. However, paper also has
its environmental issues. Whilst paper is made from a renewable
resource, it runs the risk of encouraging deforestation if
not sourced sustainably, and the paper-making process requires
tremendous amounts of energy. 47
50

There are many studies that have investigated the environmental
impacts of both paper and plastic bags. The findings
of a lot of these studies show how the production and transportation
of plastic requires significantly less energy than
paper. To those that conclude plastic to be the more environmentally
friendly option, I would argue that the durability
and concerns of plastic still outweigh those of paper, however
paper also comes with its costs.
To reduce the impact of any bag, the reuse of it is key. 48
However, paper being less durable makes it more susceptible
to be thrown away. Whilst paper can be recycled, its fibre is
not an indestructible resource, and can only be reprocessed
about five to seven times before the fibres come too short.
As a result, virgin paper and chemicals are added in addition
to the chemicals required for the de-inking process. To increase
papers durability, per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances
(PFAs) are added in a wide range of paper food packaging,
to prevent oil, grease and moisture from soaking into the paper
itself. 49 PFAs are neither recyclable, nor compostable and
also end up contaminating the environment. 50
Though paper is inherently biodegradable, it frequently gets
sent to landfill due to improper recycling or plastic coating.
26% of landfill waste is reported to be made up of paper, 51
remaining there in a state of mummification. 52 Worldwide,
420 millions tons of paper products are consumed every
year, and at our current rate, from 2010 to 2060 the global
consumption of pulp and paper – as well as its waste – is expected
to double. 51
“
The banned materials will have to be replaced
with other materials, which will still get
thrown away.
”
William Rathje, Rubbish!, 1992
Both paper and cardboard are used by many brands as the
quick solution to help them achieve their plastic reduction
targets. Yet replacing plastic with paper runs the risk of
burden shifting, or in greenwashing identified as the hidden
trade-off, in which it does little to address the single-use
mentality of the disposable product, yet relieves the consumer
of guilt, ultimately doing nothing to reduce consumption
or address the larger issue of waste. Instead of replacing
one problem with another, the conclusion needs to be how to
reduce the environmental impacts by both of them.
51

06 Examples of
cigarette recycling

Recycling
Cigarette butts
Image 03: from cigarette butts to down
54
Image 04: Depolluted cellulosic acetate fibres

1. TchaoMegot: cigarette butts to down
With the rise of alarming facts regarding cigarettes and their
waste, there have been a few interesting projects that focus
on the recycling of these toxic remnants. One of them is initiated
by the French start-up TchaoMegot, which was launched
in 2019 and has since gained recognition from the GreenTech
Innovation label. The objective of this company is to save cigarette
butts from their usual fate of being incinerated and recycle
them into an insulating material, which they claim is depolluted
and then able to be reused for the stuffing of down jackets.
Diagrams on their website show how once these cigarette
butts are collected, separated and cleaned, they are left with
15% compostable material (ashes, tobacco and paper), 84.7%
of clean fibres that can be reprocessed as insulation material
and 0.3% of extracted toxic concentrates that are correctly
disposed of in specialised laboratories. According to them, 30
litres of cleaned fibres generate only 100 millilitres of effluent
that is left to be treated. The toxicity of the fibre is extracted
without using water or toxic solvent, removing both odour and
toxicity of the material.
Whilst this is an innovative idea, and I by no means mean to
criticise the effort and technological process that has and is
going into this, the first question that arises for me is whether
the material they claim to be compostable really is as such,
or whether the toxins and pesticide remnants from the tobacco
and its smoke have leached into the paper – making them a
hazard when composted. The second, and in my opinion pressing
question, is what actually happens to the 0.3% of extracted
toxic concentrate once it is correctly disposed of, and what the
subsequent treatment actually entails. When confronted with
this question, TchaoMegot’s director Arnaud Paque’s response
was that even though there is interest to look into how to separate
and re-use these toxic components, they would need huge
quantities of these and a substantial amount of money to explore
this solution so it is currently not a priority.
55

2. Arthur Huang: Anything Butts
In April 2016, the Taiwanese structural engineer and architect
and founder of the company Miniwiz, launched a pavilion in collaboration
with Philip Morris International during the Milan Design
Week in which a new material was introduced which was
made with recycled filters of the IQOS heatsticks and applied to
Cesare Leonard’s furniture designs from the 60s. Miniwiz is an
internationally operating company dedicated to upcycling and
consumer trash and industrial waste, creating a range of highend
products in the attempt to recalibrate our idea of value.
Though there is little discussion about whether Miniwiz is greenwashing
or actually living up to their promises, it is a company
that is difficult to evaluate. On one hand, it is important to show
value in waste and create a platform to discuss and rethink what
we deem as worthless. On the other hand it conveys again how
recycling is an “end-all” solution for all current waste problems,
and even takes it a step further by promoting recycled items
as a luxury, high-end solution that is not available to everyone
– enforcing the view that you need to have money to be green.
56
Image 05: Anything Butts pavilion in Milan, 2016

Image 06: One step carbonisation process for batteries
3. Cigarette butts to batteries
An interesting technical development for cigarette waste is the
conversion of cigarette butts into batteries. In 2014, researchers
from Seoul National University in South Korea found a way
to convert used butts into a carbon-based material capable of
storing the energy required for high-performance batteries. The
study published in the journal Nanotechnology outlined how
used filters were transformed by a one-step burning process
and consequently converted into carbon. 53 Carbon conducts
electricity well, stays stable and is cheap making it a popular
material for making supercapacitors.
57

07 Material and Object
Development

Practical methods
As stated before, separating the cigarette butt in to its individual
components, leaves me with the following elements;
the filter, tobacco, ash and the paper holding these elements
together. The last element is incorporated in the filter itself;
a thermoactive dye that by reacting to a change in ph-scale,
causes the filter to turn darker when exposed to heat.
I started by separating the cigarette into its individual components
which left me with four initial elements; After separating
the cigarette butt into its individual components, I used
three methods of manipulation. The first I categorised as filling,
which involved using various binders such as resin, wax,
gelatine, plaster and glycerine as a base which then bound the
individual elements of the discarded cigarette butt together.
The second method involved reforming the cigarette itself,
using techniques such as paper making, felting, pressing with
heat and melting with acetone to create a transformation of the
material. For the last method, I explored using the cigarettes
components to extract colour and apply this to other materials.
This involved dyeing textiles and yarn, using traditional ways to
create pigments for canvases as well as screen-printing. These
methods allowed me to create unique and unexpected colour
palettes and patterns.
As far as object development goes, it took me a while to figure
out which direction exactly I wanted to go into. I had developed
all these methods that I now wanted to apply and preferably as
many as possible to a final piece – the question was to what
exactly. I started by using what I found the easiest method –
binding with wax – in combination with various moulds to form
sheets, book covers and buttons, until I finally got to candles.
Candles were the first step to creating a series of objects that
had no real function. The search for a second object that had a
similar form of “non-purpose” led me to the next, soap. Finally,
I decided to incorporate the already developed dying process
for the yarn.
Filling
01: Resin
02: Wax
03: Bioplastic
(Gelatine-based)
04: Plaster
Reforming
05: Paper
06: Heat Press
07: Film (Acetone)
60
Colouring
08: Dyeing Textile
09: Dying Yarn
10: Pigment Paper

Individual elements of cigarette butt from top to bottom; ashes, tobacco, filter, paper
Dissecting process
61

01 Filling: Resin
From left to right: resin filled with filter (clean), filter (used),
filter (used, course), whole cigarette, tobacco, ashes

63
Colour palette from resin filled with individual components from cigarette butt

02 Filling: Wax
From left to right: wax filled
with filter, dyed with filter, ashes
64
From left to right: wax filled
with filter, tobacco, ashes

65
Wax filled with ashes in shape of diamond

03 Filling: (Gelatine-based) Bioplastic
66

67
Gelatine-based bioplastic filled with filter, papers,
tobacco and ashes

04 Filling: Plaster
68

Plaster filled with ashes (left) and tobacco (right)
– changes in structural properties rather than visual

05 Reforming: Paper
Paper making process: (1) separate, (2) soak and grind, (3) shape, (4) hang to dry
70

20 x paper
(hand-rolled)
20 x paper
(ready-made)
15 x filter tip
1.2 g paper
(ready-made)
5 x filter tip
1.2 g paper
(ready-made)
10 x filter tip
1.2 g paper
71

72

73

Pressing paper tests of unused filter and paper (top/left) and used filter and paper (bottom/right)

Pressing paper into shape, tests of unused filter and paper in various ratios
75

06 Reforming: Heat Press
Heat press tests of (1) unused filters at 130°/30sec., (2) unused filters at 180°/30 sec.,
(3) used filters at 180°/30 sec., (4) used filters at 180°/60 sec.

77
Macroscopic images (x100) show acetate fibres (top)
melting under heat press (bottom)

07 Reforming: Film (Acetone)
Used cigarette filters made from cellulosic acetate (70%) melted with acetone (30%)
78

79

First tests of shaping cellulosic acetate with acetone from nail polish remover
– additional oils in the nail polish remover create a bone coloured texture

81

Further shaping tests of fibres melted with acetone, dried on bubble wrap
82

83
Filters first melted in heat press, then given a layer of acetone

08 Colouring: Dyeing Textile
84

Range of textiles dyed in ashes
using traditional dyeing methods
(water, vinegar, heat)
Textiles dyed in filter using traditional
dyeing methods (water,
vinegar, soy milk, heat)
Textiles dyed in remnant tobacco
using traditional dyeing methods
(water, vinegar, soy milk, heat)

Colour palette of textiles (cotton) dyed in ashes
86

Colour palette of textiles dyed in filter, pink colour from thermoreactive dye
Colour palette of textiles dyed in remnant tobacco
87

09 Colouring: Dyeing Yarn
88

Knit of cotton yarn
dyed in ashes
Knit of cotton yarn
dyed in filter
Knit of cotton yarn
dyed in tobacco

90

91

10 Colouring: Pigment (Paper)
Ground ashes (left) and tobacco (right)
mixed in arabic gum
Setup / following traditional methods for creating pigment for paintings

93

94

Colour palette from ground ashes and tobacco,
according to various binding methods
95

10 Colouring: Pigment (Screenprint)
Screen printing tests of tobacco plant with ashes on paper made from the outer layer of cigarette butts
96

97

10 Colouring: Pigment (Screenprint)
Screen printing tests of macroscopic images
of cellulose acetate fibres with ashes on textile

Screen printing tests of smoke with ashes on textile
99

MPI: testing levels of toxicity
The knowledge that the cigarette butt itself is very harmful
along with not having extracted any of the chemicals in my
production process, generates the question how many chemicals
are in fact still present in these new materials. Thanks
to Professor Dr. Karola Dierichs and her position at the Max
Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, I was
lucky enough to be able to apply the gas chromatography
mass spectrometry method to my materials in order to determine
the levels of toxicity still present after handling this
form of waste without the help of any preliminary extraction
processes. Mass spectrometry is an analytical technique
that is used to identify and quantify unknown compounds
by measuring the mass of a molecule and elucidating their
chemical identity or structure. 64 With the help of Mariella Gabler,
a PhD student in the department of biomaterials, I was
able to conduct a series of tests that took the dyed cotton,
paper and wax and compared the chemicals present in these
to the chemicals present in the individual elements of the unprocessed
cigarette butt itself. Cotton, paper and wax were
soaked in toluene, hexane or acetone over a time period of
two hours before being filtered and transferred to the GC-MS
Masshunter System.
Setup at lab (MPI)
100

Adding solvents to materials
GC-MS Masshunter System
Back: materials soaking in solvents,
Front: filtered solvent ready for mass-spectrometer
101

The output – visualised in the following graphs – immediately
shows the presence of many chemicals, to which comparatively,
nicotine is a small concern. In fact in contrast to the other
chemicals, there is so little nicotine present in the materials
that it would have to be specifically sought for, as the minimal
amounts do not make it clearly identifiable from the rest. What
does clearly show, are numerous other chemicals and additives,
intentionally added to cigarettes to enhance flavour and
properties of both tobacco and its smoke. 54 Chemicals such as
acetone, benzene, toluene and various alkanes are relatively
inexpensive and easily flammable – used to regulate and enhance
the combustion of tobacco. Derivatives of siloxane are
used to moisturise and soften the effects of smoke, and the
arsenic otherwise used in rat poison, finds its way into the
cigarette through pesticides used in tobacco farming. Working
with used cigarette butts from all kinds of companies,
makes it impossible to assign specific chemicals and their
amount to a specific brand and consequently also my further
processing of the material – however all of the chemicals listed
above were clearly identifiable in all of the results.
102

(a) Acetone 58 g/mol (b) Benzene 78 g/mol (c) Toluol (solvent)
(i) Cyclohexane, ethyl- 112 g/mol (n) Triacetin 218 g/mol
(d) Cyclohexane, 1,2-dimethyl-, trans- 112.2 g/mol (e) Octane
114,23 g/mol (f) Cyclohexane, 1,3-dimethyl-, trans- 112 g/mol (g)
Cyclopentane,1-ethyl-2-methyl-,cis- 112 g/mol (h) Cyclohexane,
1,2-dimethyl-, cis- 112 g/mol (i) Cyclohexane, ethyl- 112 g/mol (j)
1-benzylindole 127 g/mol (k) Ethylbenzene 106 g/mol (l) p-Xylene
106 g/mol (m) o-Xylene 106 g/mol
103

(a)Acetone 58 g/mol (b) Toluene 92 g/mol (c) All additional substances
were unidenifiable
No toluene traceable in ash-dyed cotton
104

(a) Molecular oxygen 32 g/mol (b) Acetone 58 g/mol (c) Pentane, 2-methyl- 86
g/mol (d) Pentane, 3-methyl- 86 g/mol (e) n-Hexane (solvent) 86 g/mol (f) Cyclopentane,
methyl- 84 g/mol (g) Cyclohexane 84 g/mol (h) Hexane, 2-methyl-
100 g/mol (i) Hexane, 3-methyl- (j) Heptane 100 g/mol (k) Toluene 92 g/mol (l)
Octane 114 g/mol
Conclusions that are possible to derive from the results are:
- Leaving the materials in the solvent for 2 hours was enough
to show many of the chemicals present, however the individual
elements of the cigarette that we left in a solvent for a greater
amount of time (2 months) showed much clearer results
- The three types of solvents used seem to desolve different
compounds to variating degrees, therefore, only samples treated
with the same solvent are comparable. In this case toluene
seemed to be the most effective.
- Production methods that enclosed the entire element of the
cigarette butt (filter or tobacco in wax) have higher traces of
chemicals than those that are merely submerged in elements
for a particular amount of time (dying yarn and textiles)
- All my material production processes have continued traces of
harmful chemicals such as benzene or even carcinogenic compounds
such as arsenic
The question is now – how best to convey this continued level
of toxicity?
105

Object Development
Tags
106

Test of tags on textile to convey
non-usability of product
107

Object Development
Packaging
108

109
Dyed yarn in selected plastic bags with various recycling labels

110

111
Printed plastic bags, conveying (non-)recyclability and toxicity of content

Object Development
Symbols
Printed plastic bags, conveying (non-)recyclability and
toxicity of content through symbols
112

113
Add second level of information through QR-code?

Object Development
Symbols
(Screen-)printed symbols conveying toxicity
of content directly on textile
114

115

Theoretical Methods
The theoretical methods that I started developing over the
course of the second semester, involve a series of products
and a campaign that ironically criticise problems that can
arise with the promotion of recycling. The campaign’s goal
is to raise awareness about the potential for greenwashing
by advertising recycling, and the importance of holding companies
accountable for their sustainability claims. It features
products made from recycled cigarette butts that are deliberately
useless and impractical, and encourages to look beyond
surface-level solutions when it comes to environmental
issues.
For the series of products I decided to work with objects that
tend to serve more of a decorative use, and then turn these
into products that no longer even serve this purpose. It was
important to me to involve as much of the tested methods as
possible, in this case using wax and soap as binders, reforming
through paper making and pressing paper, and extracting
colour by screen printing and dyeing textiles or yarn. The
series of objects consist of a range of soaps, candles and
knitting wool that are neither usable, burnable or touchable
due to their continued toxicity.
Image 07: Ecolo by Enzo Mari
116
Inspired by the artwork The conscience of design produced
by Enzo Mari for Alessi and first exhibited in 1965, the initial
aim of my work was to take on and question the beauty of
waste. The box set of decorative vases that are made from
discarded plastic household cleaning product bottles are set
in a playful and provocative manner, refer to the short-termism
of the design world and question the value of consumption
and beauty. 55 In an attempt to take on this form of playful
irony, my final objects aim to acknowledge this absurdity
of being a designed object that is intentionally useless.

Using humour or irony as a tool for communication is obviously
not new. One organisation that includes this in their
rhetorical protest is the activist magazine named Adbusters.
The network consists of artists and activists that create a
bi-monthly magazine and a series of campaigns and ads –
addressing issues regarding our current environmental, political
and social structures. Adbusters is known for their parodic
“subvertisements” that seek to reveal the “true logic”
of advertising, by adopting a practice termed culture jamming.
Culture jamming (also known as guerilla communication)
is a form of protest used by many anti-consumerist
social movements that “questions corporate and capitalist
ideologies and promotes changes in current consumer society.”
56 Adbusters visuals often refer to the corporate identities
of their target ad, prompting a double take when viewers
realise what they’re seeing is in fact the very opposite of
what they expected. Mimicking well- known brands such as
McDonalds, Marlboro and Balenciaga, these ads are primarily
aimed at the beauty, tobacco, fast-food and alcohol industry.
Images 08-10: “Spoof” ads from Adbusters
Though their use of irony in their words and imagery has
rhetorical value, the tactic can also be seen as problematic
for several reasons. First, the early 2000s showed a shift
in methods used by corporate marketers, in which parody
and irony have become dominant motifs of many successful
mass-marketing campaigns 57 and companies have incorporated
methods in which they mock themselves or latch onto
people’s need to “rebel against authority”. 56 What’s more, in
an article published in the Critical Studies in Media Communication
the professor Christine Harold argues that by being
the opposition or a saboteur, groups such as Adbusters positioning
themselves (resentfully) on the outside, constantly
only able to react and forcefully convey how “things are not
as they should be” without affirming possible alternatives.
According to Harold, “The frustration expressed by Adbusters’
readers implies that being told what is best for them
is no more welcome coming from Adbusters than it is coming
from advertisers.” In my more playful, subtle version of
a campaign, the aim is to move with the system rather than
against it, and address viewers at a time in which no preconceived
notions or defence mechanisms are set in place. My
aim is not to tell people what to do or what is wrong or right,
but rather use the subtle form of dissonance induced by presenting
seductive products that are not usable, to invoke interest
to the viewer to educate themselves on current issues
regarding greenwashing of recycling.
117

On the other end of the scale, a designer who uses a more
subtle version of humour in her creations – and who inspired
me greatly in terms of aesthetic – is the mixed media designer
Aimee Bollu. As part of her final graduation project at Nottingham
University, Aimee created a series of products by taking
litter found on the streets and integrating this into ceramics or
glassware. Though the primary aim of this product series is to
find new value in urban waste-scapes, and challenge this particular
form of hybrid aesthetic, not all of the vessels are usable
or practical in their form, making them solely decorative objects.
Fascinated and inspired by the subtle irony of creating useless
objects from objects that no further have a purpose – I started
to look into how to incorporate / apply this idea of uselessness
to my own project.
118

119
Images 11-13: Aimee Bollu’s waste-scapes

08 Final Outcome

Overview
For my final outcome, I produced a product
series consisting of soaps, candles and yarn.
These are then complimented by a piece of
clothing, likewise made from yarn and textiles
that were dyed in tobacco, ashes and filter tips.
122
Overview of packaging for product series dyed or filled with cigarette ashes

123
Product series overview

124

125

Soaps
The soaps are based on a mixture of glycerine
and lye, to which a minimal amount of ground
tobacco and ashes was added to the mould in
the beginning, creating a “stardust” effect. To
the final soap I added the entire cigarette butt,
for clarity reasons and based on the feedback
that the soaps almost look “too nice” – and it
may not be comprehensible enough what the
content actually is. The soaps are then packaged
in paper made from the outer paper of the
cigarette butt and the ground filter, and are labelled
with a screen printing from the cigarette
butts ashes. The soap stands are made from a
fifty-fifty ratio of paper to filter that are pressed
with a 3D printed mould and then left to dry.
126
Photo of final soaps filled with cigarette
ashes and remnant tobacco

01 02 03
Dyed with ashes (1 gram)
Dyed with ashes (0.5 grams)
Dyed with ashes (0.1 grams)
128

04 05 06
Dyed with tobacco (0.1 grams) Dyed with tobacco (1 grams) Dyed with tobacco (2 grams)
129

Searching for style of imagery to best display soaps:
grey background and hard light / shadows
130

131

132

Searching for style of imagery
to best display soaps
133

134

Adding colour from ashes to produce
more “dirty” or tainted bubbles

136

137

138

139
Initial shape tests
for soap packaging

Initial names: fume / tar
Chemicals in tobacco hidden in ingredients list on back
140
Initial packaging test, paper from cigarette
paper,labelling from screenprinted ashes

Candles
The wax base is a paraffin wax, to which
ground tobacco and ashes were added.
Adding other materials to liquid wax
causes the external material to fall to
the lowest point, creating a gradient effect
when hardened. The boxes for the
candles are equally made from the cigarette
paper and filter, and the labels
screen printed with the ashes. The candle
holders are pressed and pulp and
have a little weight incorporated to
them in the bottom of the object to be
stable enough to hold the length of the
candle.
142

Photo of candles filled with remnant tobacco (grey) and ashes (brown)

Candles filled with ashes and tobacco,
creating a gradient effect
146

Initial packaging tests
147

Photo of melted wax on
candle filled with cigarette
ashes
Photo of melted wax on candle filled with remaining tobacco
Burn test
148

149

Yarn
The three different yarns are 100% cotton,
felting yarns dyed in the ashes, tobacco and
filters, displaying the variety of colours that
are possible to achieve with the elements in
discarded cigarette butts. The yarn dyed in
tobacco was coloured through a cold process,
soaking in water and tobacco for a week.
For the ashes to properly stick to the material,
I dissolved the solution used for screen printing
on textiles in water and let the yarn sit in
that for a few days. For the yarn with the filter
to get a slightly reddish / pink tone, it was
heated for about an hour to release the colour
from the thermo-reactive dye into the material.
All yarns are then wrapped in handmade
paper and screen printed with the ashes.
150

Photo of yarn dyed in (1) tobacco, (2) ashes, (3) filter next to knitted piece

Photo of yarn dyed in (1) tobacco, (2) filter, (3) ashes
152

153
Photo of yarn dyed in (1) tobacco, (2) ashes, (3) filter next to knitted scarf

154

155

Knitted Piece
To see the yarns and colour of the textiles
in use, I decided to accompany these with
an actual knitted outcome. After much
contemplation as to what shape this knit
would take on, I felt that besides a scarf,
the piece of clothing that suited the rest of
the products the most, was one that was
closest to the skin to be able to invoke a
subtle sense of discomfort – underwear.
The design of the underwear is kept clean
and in a light yellow tone, and a scarf to
accompany it showcases the colours from
all elements of the cigarette butt. It was
important to me to photograph this on a
human / model, in a visual style that is kept
clean and rests on imagery from United
Colours of Benetton or H&M.
156

Photo of dyed and knitted clothing scarf hanging

Hanging underwear resembling the colour from dyed tobacco
158

Scarf folded. yarn from top to bottom dyed in filter, ashes, and tobacco
159
Knitted scarf

Campaign
The campaign consists of a corporate identity
for the products, and a series of posters and
moving images to accompany these. These
are then promoted on an instagram page. The
name Ciggle is a hint towards a cigarette butt,
yet otherwise sound relatively harmless, allowing
for the viewer to have little preconceived
notions about the product. The slogan making
waste out of waste is the second hint, starting
to clarify what the project is about without
giving too much away. The bright background
colours for the product images take inspiration
from the provocative imagery from Toilet
Paper Magazine and are in contrast to the otherwise
brown / yellow / grey colour palette created
by the elements of the butt, and should
highlight the toxicity of this particular form of
waste.
162

Example of poster for campaign

164

165
Overview of posters for campaign

166

167

168

169

09 Possible Solutions

Waste and Degrowth
“
Ten years ago it was widely taken for granted that garbage
tends to biodegrade inside a typical dry landfill.
Today a large portion of the public understands that,
in truth, garbage tends not to change very much at all
inside landfills. Ten years ago enlightened opinion held
that recycling was. Not only a good thing for waste
disposal and a good thing for the environment but was
also an enterprise that would pay for itself – maybe
even make money. Today most environmentalists and
many people in the general public understand that recycling
is still a very good thing but that it isn’t cheap,
and it isn’t the answer to all of our waste-disposal
problems.
”
William Rathje, Rubbish!, 1992
174
With the rise in concern of the environmental consequences of
our plastic waste, the question and discussion on how to manage
our current waste issues is becoming ever more prevalent.
There are four main principles when it comes to methods of
garbage disposal. These entail “dumping it, burning it, turning
it into something that can be useful (recycling), and minimising
the volume of material goods – future garbage – that comes
into existence in the first place (source reduction).” (Rubbish!,
1992) and take turns in their position in the hierarchy of waste
management solutions. Each approach has advantages, but
also comes with significant disadvantages. Landfills take up a
considerable amount of space, running the risk of discharging
toxic leachate and destroying land that can never be returned
to its pristine state. Incineration can cause hazardous waste to
be emitted through smokestacks, being an unquantifiable health
risk to their surroundings and creating toxic ash, which must
still be disposed of and ends up in ordinary landfill. Recycling
also results in the production of pollution and requires better infrastructure
and a more robust system as well as materials that
are made to be recycled. And source reduction on a corporate
level often leads to “burden shifting” or inflicting a smaller and
less visible amount of violence over a greater period of time.

Whilst watching the documentary Closing the Loop, I stumbled
across the quote by the environmental journalist Maxine Perlla,
who stated: “I tend to think that the circular economy represents
our best chance of being able to consume comfortably
and maintain our current lifestyles. The alternative would be
to go back to the dark ages, and no one wants to do that.” I
thoroughly disagree with this quote and find it directly addresses
what I see to be the issue at its core. Living “comfortably”
and maintaining our current lifestyles is precisely what got us
into this situation and an increase in source reduction might
actually be the only way out. As Annie Leonard, the executive
director of Greenpeace USA states: “For years, we’ve been
conned into thinking the problem of plastic packaging can be
solved through better individual action. (…) But the truth is that
we cannot recycle our way out of this mess.” In order to truly
address the problem of waste in our consumer-based system
and significantly decrease environmental impacts, it is of course
important to focus on increasing the lifespan of products and
their reuse and shift towards a circular economy that prioritises
the use of renewable resources. But it is just as important to
reduce consumption, and reset our values to incorporate larger
scale reduction on both a systemic and individual scale. A
shift which does require collective behavioural changes in consumption
patterns, more responsibility and regulations, however
does not require us to go back to the “dark ages” – it requires
methods such as degrowth.
Degrowth is an economic theory underpinning a growing political
movement, that directly challenges our present growth-centred
economic system and aims to develop new roots for an
economy that “works for all”. First coined („décroissance”)
by the French philosopher Andre Gorz in 1972, it questions
whether Earth’s natural capital is compatible with the survival
of a capitalist system and addresses the need to reduce global
consumption and production for a socially just and ecologically
sustainable society. 58 The main argument degrowth raises,
is that an infinite expansion of the economy is fundamentally
contradictory to finite planetary boundaries, and we need to
reset our standards in which social and environmental well-being
replace the current standard of GDP as the indicator of
prosperity. 58 Degrowth suggests a planned reduction of energy
and resource use to bring the economy back into balance
with the living world and questions our current definition of
and “need” for growth as an ideology of capitalism. The movement
calls for high income countries to scale down their energy
and use of resources by reducing their inequality through
measures such as job guarantees, shorter working weeks and
basic universal income, and low income countries to continue
to grow their economies in sustainable ways. 59
175

“
What eats at me all the time about recycling is we
just keep trying to solve it on the backend, to try
to solve the problems that are created upstream.
I wish we could take the word recycling out of this
equation and talk about consumption and waste as
if there were no recycling. Because it has enabled
some of the worst behaviour I have seen.
”
Kreigh Hampel, 2022
176

177
Currently, efforts to reduce waste are often directed towards
stakeholders that provide waste treatment and disposal instead
of those that generate the waste in the first place.
One crucial step towards sustainability would be to better
address the problems that occur in the early stages of the
system and shift the responsibility from government entities
to producers and make the actual polluter accountable. A
concept termed extended producer responsibility (EPR) was
first formally introduced in Sweden by Thomas Lindhqvist
in 1990 and defined as “an environmental protection strategy
to reach an environmental objective of a decreased total
environmental impact of a product, by making the manufacturer
of the product responsible for the entire life-cycle of
the product and especially for the take-back, recycling and
final disposal.” 60 It is suggested that enforcing recycling
rates, bans and taxation often fails to adequate reduce pollution,
and financial incentives need to be implemented to encourage
manufacturers to design with higher environmental
standards and reducing toxicity and waste. 60

10 What now?

My final master project is an investigation into forms
of greenwashing behind recycling and how it can tend
to not address or sometimes even deflect from the
core of the problem. The aim was to raise awareness
about this issue and do this through the power of seduction
that advertising is able to have. Bordering the
line between ironic and speculative design, my final
products contradict themselves in their purpose –
making little sense – aiming to bring a currently great
issue across through subtle humour.
Over the course of my degree, I often found myself
asking whether I was contributing enough to these
daunting environmental problems we are facing today –
desperately wanting to make an active change in my
little cosmos. In terms of design research I do believe
I have created a foundation for design possibilities
that would be possible once these toxins would
be extracted, through methods such the ones that
TchaoMegot created. Yet now, at the finishing line, I
see my strength and my form of problem solving to
be the communication and education of a current
problem. My final project is what I see as my contribution
to a larger sense of awareness of the possibility
of greenwashing behind recycling.
180

181
Set-up at interim presentation showing macroscopic image of cellulose
acetate on screen and individual components of a cigarette below

“
Saying no is itself an often satisfying alternative,
but it is hardly one on which to build a lasting political
movement.
”
Christine Harold, 2004
The limitations to the project are the fact that it is a lot
easier to find problems and be negative about an issue,
than to actively try to change it. We are facing great
challenges today, and there is often not one correct answer,
as many solutions offer new problems again. I realise
I do not offer a concrete solution, and definitely do
not want to criticise those who have the best of intentions
in trying to find a way out of this mess. I do intend
to criticise those that are solely trying to make a profit
from it. In my opinion, the line between greenwashing
and a genuine product that is not yet fully answering all
problems depends greatly on the intention of the person
behind it.
182

As for cigarette litter, an independent study by the
Environmental Research on Public Health from 2012
clearly shows a disconnect in the behaviour and beliefs
of smokers. Despite the fact that the majority of smokers
considered cigarette butts to be litter and acknowledged
the fact that it could have damaging effects to
the environment, about the same amount of smokers
reported disposing of them on the ground. This poses
the question, whether education is truly the missing
link. A current petition is proposing to distribute portable
ashtrays and give back a deposit of 20 cents per
cigarette butt to be collected at any place where cigarettes
are sold, 61 making the tobacco industry pay for
their waste and starting to enforce responsibility to
those producing it, as well as motivating the consumer
to collect their own waste. Seeing as the filter is however
openly is one of corporate tobaccos biggest marketing
scams, 5 and has meanwhile been proven to induce
additional health risks for the smoker in terms of
the inhalation of microfibres 62 and larger amounts of
toxins 63 – an even more radical approach could be to
eliminate the filter completely, questioning if we even
really need it in the first place.
183

11 Endnotes,
References
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Page 44-45
Image 01: Llorente, V. (2022) Szaky at TerraCycle headquarters
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Image 02: Llorente, V. (2022) The companies office in Trenton
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php?id=28&work=1
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Li, D., 2018. The recovery of the waste cigarette butts for
N-doped carbon anode in lithium ion battery. Frontiers in
Materials, 5, p.63. doi: 10.3389/fmats.2018.00063
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197

Acknowledgements
198

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Karola Dierichs
Prof. Dr. Lucy Norris
Daniela Burger
Dr. Mareike Stoll
Färbewerkstatt: Anne Hederer
Siebdruckwerkstatt: Louise Drubigny + Daniel Mecklenburg
Fotowerkstatt: Kristina Strauß + Heike Overberg
Rapid Prototyping Lab: Björn Bernt
Prof. Dr. Bernd Schmidt
Dr. rer.nat. Dipl.-Chem. André Lehmann
Dr. Wayne Best
Tina Seeman
Mariella Gabler
Dr. Michaela Eder
Dr. Franziska Jehle
Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten
Eva Becker
Tchaomegot: Arnod Paquet
Eva Bullerman
Franziska Siebenhaar
Elfi Wallisser
Marie Michael
Leo Lamprecht
199