Bioplastic encourages people to mend, not replace, says designer

by | Aug 10, 2016 | Green Building , Pollution , Recycling | 0 comments

T here are incongruous dots of colour speckled around Peter Marigold’s kitchen in north London . Pots and pans hang from blue and yellow hooks while the edge of a shelf is rounded off and smoothed out with a distinct red material.

It is a live test environment for Marigold’s creation, a piece of plastic called FORMcard that can be manipulated like putty after it is dropped in hot water. It can be used to fix objects such as broken door handles, or to make new objects like mobile phone holders and makeshift tools.

Coming in pieces the size of a credit card, it is intended as a new and simple way to mend broken household items. It can be reshaped numerous times before it eventually hardens.

“We have entered this world where people are throwing things away all the time for a small thing that is broken,” Marigold said. “It is not their fault. They know that if you try to get something fixed by a manufacturer, it is disproportionately expensive so people buy new things all the time. They eventually just get sick of them and then get rid of it.”

Marigold, a designer who has worked on displays for galleries, installations and public art projects, developed the idea after becoming interested in plastics that melt at low temperatures and how they could be used in the home by consumers.

The FORMcard is made with a bioplastic that becomes pliable once it is placed in boiling water for 30 seconds.

Read full story: The Guardian

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