“Our planet is choking in plastic,” states the United Nations. While the man-made material has many valuable uses, our addiction to single-use plastic products has led to severe economic, health and environmental issues. Roughly one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute, and five trillion plastic bags are used every year worldwide –used just once, then thrown away. Plastics and microplastics have found their way into every corner of our natural environment, from the peaks of the highest mountains to the depths of the deepest oceans. So much so, that they have become part of the Earth’s fossil record and created an entirely new marine microbial habitat known as the “plastisphere.”
Threatening our ability to contain global temperature rise within the critical 1.5° threshold, plastic pollution is causing disastrous effects. These are especially evident across the Antarctic Peninsula, where temperatures have spiked five times faster than the global average over the last half-century. As a result, 75% of all glacial areas have melted, and if we breach the 1.5°C limit, glaciers will disappear entirely. Sea levels will rise, coral reefs will deteriorate and extreme weather events will become more frequent. So, how can we address this through design? Blending ingenuity and creativity with technological innovation, architects and designers can contribute with their own grain of sand. Nagami and Ecoalf, for instance, have done so in one of their latest projects: a fully 3D printed interior made with recycled plastics.
