Toxic Legacies / Filtering the Truth
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 environ- mentally 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 consumer-based system.
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 environ- mentally 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 consumer-based system.
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
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.
Change language