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.
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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.
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Photo of final soaps filled with cigarette
ashes and remnant tobacco