Plastic is revolutionizing today’s products, prompted developments in technological products and has modernized the world. Some of the most common products made from the process of blow molding are plastic bottles. Formed from polypropylene, polyethylene and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) (http://www.hero.ac.uk/uk/business/archives/2003/plastic_productions3846.cfm) it’s produced very easily and therefore consumers assume it is disposed of even easier, which can harm our environment if done incorrectly. Can designers help sustainability by becoming more involved in a products end of use cycle, employing environmental and recyclable materials, using and promoting different production methods, and prolonging the useful life of the finished product?

In my essay I propose to justify the designer’s role in the plastic bottles end use cycle and that designers can make a difference by investigating the current situation of the consumption of plastic bottles, using statistics and facts to inform, even shock people of the situation, discover the current role of the designer, and the effect consumers are having and uncover any room for change.

Secondly how does the process of “Reduce, reuse, recycle”, affect the plastic bottle and its life cycle. What are its benefits and downfalls? Does it affect our behavior; will changed recycling patterns help a solution? Some different strategies being taken to entice and convince people to recycle. What is the designer involved in and how can they help more?

Thirdly, the full life cycle of the plastic bottle and learning about what happens at each stage, concentrating on the end phase. What part do the designers play a role in, justifying their input, and how can they make the end phase of plastic bottles beneficial?

And lastly, find out what today’s designers are doing to help, look at the products they produce and the ideas behind them. Finding designers who are concentrating on the disposal stage when designing products and have an active role the end of life phase for a plastic bottle and recycling, contributing to a solution of better disposal. Looking at current and active designers will justify their specific input towards a solution and their overall role. What is the next step for the designer and the bottle?

Twelve percent of bottles are recycled, leaving nearly forty million bottles, eight in every ten that end up in the rubbish and in landfills (Rich Pedro celli, Plastic bottles pile up as mountains of waste)[1]. It takes 700 years before they start to decompose so they just stay there. If everyone in New York gave up water bottles for one week they would save 24 million bottles from being land filled, one month would save 112 million bottles and one year would save 1.328 billion bottles. We would also save money. In 2007 we spent $16 billion on water bottles, 90 percent of the cost is in the bottle, lid and label.

Bottled water is the single largest growth area among all beverages and according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation it’s gone from 3.3 billion in 1997 to 15 billion in 2002 and 1976 the average American consumed 1.6 gallons of bottled water but today that number has jumped to 28.3 gallons (Plastic Recycling Facts

http://earth911.org/recycling/plastic-bottle-recycling/plastic-bottle-recycling-facts/)

The designer’s current role ranges in importance from issues such as developing different shapes and conventional uses for plastic bottles (http://www.packagedesignmag.com/issues/2005.03/spotlight-product-bottle.shtml), making custom designed bottles and their packaging (http://www.linkplas.com/) and also designing easy pour handles. Which extend to more involved issues such as designing disposable items to decompose in the presence of air, water and common soil organisms when disposed.

The current challenge in this area is to design such items in attractive colors, at costs as low as competing items. Since most such items end up in landfills, protected from air and water, the utility of such disposable products is debated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_design#Organizations).

Reduce Reuse recycle. Not only are plastic bottles indispensable in industries, but can be formed into a multitude of other products.

Recycling enables more possibility with the product. Plastics should be recycled so that less petroleum, a finite commodity is consumed and leaving less litter. Plastics makes waste such a good fuel, non-renewable raw materials are conserved, it reduces landfill requirements and costs, it provides new opportunities creating new products and it increases employment opportunities ( http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/education/spd_lgov_benefitrecycling.htm ).

The Container Recycling Institute thinks a nationwide bottle deposit law would create incentive to recycle and ease the burden on taxpayers paying for cleaning up litter. It should cover containers that didn't exist 20 years ago, e.g. Plastic water bottles.

Another strategy is to make it personally beneficial, like the Boy Scout Troops that turns one person's trash into their income.

Also campaigns like think outside the bottle, changing the way people think about water. Improving recycling technology, the industry is optimistic that such technologies will provide a route to increased rates of resource recovery (http://www.plastics.org.nz/page.asp?id=512).

Plastic is made, then molded into a bottle, filled with beverage, sold, and purchased. After its use either reused, thrown away or recycled. There are many different phases and each certain behavior at each phase makes a difference. It starts out as a bunch of pellets, sometimes "regrind" is added and gets put into a grinder and these plastic pieces get melted and pushed out of an extruder into a set of molds. A long piece called a blow pin goes into the mold and blows air into the plastic to give it its shape, an inspector will look the finished bottles over for defects which go back into the grinder becoming regrind, the good ones are sent to companies (http://nz.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080309203800AA696GR).

There are four options available at the end of a plastic product's life: mechanical recycling, chemical recycling, energy recovery and landfill. In New Zealand, landfill is the prevalent destination for plastic products, with 18% of plastic packaging now being diverted through private and public recycling operations. The reuse of bottles has recently been discussed as having possible health risks. There are two main concerns; potential for the presence and growth of bacteria and the release of chemicals' into the water from the plastic.

Source reduction, "waste prevention" is defined as "activities to reduce the amount of material in products and packaging before that material enters the municipal solid waste management system." Source reduction activities reduce the consumption of resources at the point of generation (http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastics/doc.asp?CID=1571&DID=5972#top).

Today’s designers active in Life cycle thinking produce places, products and services in a way that reduces use of non-renewable resources, minimizes environmental impact, and relates people with the natural environment.

Richard Liddle, of Cohda Design has patented a technique to mould and laminate the recycled plastic to create curves an innovation making a wide range of new uses. “The material in furniture state lasts for around 100 years, but can be endlessly recycled and costs much less.” (www.cohda.co.uk).

Design: Green is focused on sustainable product design, transforming business by helping to catalyze the development of products and packaging (http://www.greenmarketing.com/designgreen/).

Good Water project aims to help reduce the overwhelming amount of plastic bottles being sent to landfill each year. Twenty-one recycling stations located throughout Wellington’s Vodafone Homegrown event, help punters to dispose of their bottles correctly. Bottles collected will be shredded and converted into underground cable covers. Good Water is sold in New Zealand’s first environmentally sustainable water bottle that is made entirely from vegetable matter. When the water bottle has reached the end of its useful life cycle and is disposed of and will break down not harming the environment (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0804/S00263.htm).

Smile Plastics is committed to sourcing recycled materials and scrap, concentrating on transforming plastics waste into multi-coloured sheets (http://www.smile-plastics.co.uk/special.htm).

To conclude designers play an active role in the end use of the plastic bottle but more can be done to slow consumption and reduce the amount of material before it becomes waste. Recycling is a major force in this change and is capable of more but the designer can also help by redesigning products or packages to reduce the quantity of the materials used, substituting lighter materials for heavier ones or lengthening product-life to postpone disposal and Reusing products or packages already manufactured.

The current situation is in need of a change, people are being informed and becoming aware of the situation and the designer’s role is justified in the end use of plastic bottles because of new campaigns and methods to make this happen which ends in reduced waste, more recycling and better awareness.

Investigating the life cycle of the bottle identified the designers input, current role and future role.

The designer now has incentive to become green, use more innovative methods that benefit the environment and become more involved in a solution for correct disposal. Ecologically conscious designs are favored in design competitions. The IDEA criteria specify 'ecologically responsible use of materials and processes throughout product lifecycle, including resource and waste reduction, energy efficiency and repair/reuse/recyclability (http://www.idsa.org/whatsnew/sections/ecosection/selectedlinks.html).

Many designers are making a difference by using certain innovative processes in their products. Some can be applied to the end use of plastic bottles which justifies the designer’s role and strengthens the relationship between bottle, designer and reducing waste in the future.

BIBLOGRAPHY

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5279230/

http://www.hero.ac.uk/uk/business/archives/2003/plastic_productions3846.cfm

http://www.iqsdirectory.com/plastic-bottles/

www.cohda.co.uk

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/326907_plastic09.html

http://www.nzfsa.govt.nz/consumers/food-safety-topics/chemicals-in-food/waterbottles/index.htm

http://www.recyclenow.com/what_more_can_i_do/can_it_be_recycled/index.html

http://www.recycleitnow.net

http://filterforgood.com

http://www.plasticsresource.com

http://www.pbs.org/pov/borders/2004/water/water_disposable.html