It's mostly many types of plastics and many types of metals.

Plastics have taken the place of many conventional materials.

And we make a drop in replacement for that plastic that's made from petrochemicals.

And the last material I'm going to talk about today is plastic, and, of course, my toaster had to have a plastic case.

I've been working with plastic bags, which I cut up and sew back together as my primary material for my artwork for the last 20 years.

(b) plastics drums and jerricans that

It is down cycled and turned into lesser things, while a glass bottle can be a glass bottle again or can be used again a plastic bottle can never be a plastic bottle again.

Plastik

At the end of this process, we have a mixed plastic composite many different types of plastics and many different grades of plastics.

It's a bad thing that plastic breaks down into smaller little bits, because it's always still plastic.

And these are just a few examples of companies that are buying our plastic, replacing virgin plastic, to make their new products.

It's plastic pollution.

Upon educating myself a little further about plastics, I actually realized this was a bad thing.

He's given a little bottle massage, a little bottle medal.

Whenever possible, refuse single use and disposable plastics.

I'm also concerned about the plastic in the refrigerator, and I'm concerned about the plastic and the toxins that leach from plastic into us and into our bodies.

Plastic just is not going to do it.

(b) plastics drums that

And if you really look into it, particularly when it comes to plastic bottles, most of it is only down cycled, or incinerated, or shipped to China.

It's not just that gyre of plastic that I'm concerned about it's the gyre of plastic in the supermarket.

Now because the plastics are so plentiful and by the way, those other methods don't lead to the recovery of plastics, obviously but people do try to recover the plastics.

Moreover, most plastic products are made from so called petroleum based commodity thermoplastics. Given that a non renewable resource forms the basis of many plastic products most of which will not last long current plastics usage patterns are not sustainable.

And both in the production of plastic, the use of plastic and the disposal of plastic, the people who have the bull's eye on their foreheads are poor people.

It's a plastic bag.

The Dirt on Plastic Waste

Recycling of plastic in many developing countries means the incineration of the plastic, the burning of the plastic, which releases incredible toxic chemicals and, once again, kills people.

And in the process, we started recreating how the plastics industry makes plastics.

Now look at that plastic chair.

51H flexible plastics large packagings

50H rigid plastics large packagings

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Soybeans, yeah.

glass, plastic, terry cloth.

I like drinking from a stein.

Because of that, waste is being put into plastic or metallic barrels, sealed by concrete mixture and buried deep in the ground.

Controls your 3D plastic printer

That bottle winds up getting burned.

This chair is made of plastic.

This plastic chair is very cheap.

You can also find, at your convenience, heights, ropes, ovens, even plastic bags.

But if we were to be able to follow that little bottle on its journey, we would be shocked to discover that, all too often, that bottle is going to be put on a boat, it's going to go all the way across the ocean at some expense, and it's going to wind up in a developing country often China.

We push that material to extruders where we melt it, push it through small die holes, make spaghetti like plastic strands.

It's a compound that's found in polycarbonate plastic, which is what baby bottles are made out of.

And in a plastic wrapped and packaged world, he doesn't hold out much hope for that, either.

So I came together with a group of other people who were all looking at this issue, and we created the Plastic Pollution Coalition.

Imagine if a group of sculptors could be inside of a lattice of atoms and sculpt with their material.