Zixin Li

Trash matters Material Strategies for Prolonging the Life of Single-use Plastic

Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues. Communities worldwide have addressed the importance of facing the problem of plastic pollution control and issued relevant policies to effectively reduce the use of plastic products. 

The sudden outbreak of Covid-19 has made the urgency of the problem less significant. Nevertheless, the use of disposable plastics to comply with public health protocols has hugely increased, making plastic pollution more severe. The pandemic outbreak not only increased plastic waste but also negatively impacted the “slow violence” it exerts on the environment, such as marine litter pollution, destruction of animal habitats, and soil destruction caused by waste leakage. 

Landscape architects have a responsibility to participate in responses to the global plastic crisis. Through material experimentation, this thesis reappraises different types of single-use plastic waste and attempts to transform them into longer-lasting reused solutions. It focuses on finding alternative materials while, at the same time, proposing to find more efficient methods of decomposition methods.