Think Tons not pounds : TONS!
60 minimum sheet order of plastic plywood @ .25" thick that comes to about 2.2 tons of material on a minimum order of 4X8 sheets! This changes my perspective on materials in general : When you order them in such large quantities to your shop, then work them and disseminate them back again to the public, when in the first place these were all milk jugs in your refrigerator! Its sort of mind blowing. The simple fact is more than anything our country needs to focus on biodiesel for distribution of materials! We'll never stop consuming and recycling, but the distribution is not recyclable. Distribution/transportation is where its at.
dl.v
Scrap…
I used three full sheets of 30" x 40"x 1/16" chip board, one sheet of 24" x 30" x 1/2" foam core, and one sheet of 24" x 30" x 1/4" foam core, with about 24 sheets of 8 1/2" x 11" paper. 76 Olfa high angle blades, about 2 oz. of Elmer's glue, a few pipes of brass, a few snips of piano wire, a few drops of Gorrilla glue, three blobs of Gel Crazy glue, a black Pilot pen, a pencil, and a Sharpie marker. After I created all the models, what was left over as scrap?
Here are the piles of every single scrap of chip board, paper, and foam core I collected during the build process. All of this stuff left over is recyclable, and it is important that you understand that because my designs are "curvaceous", there isn't always an efficient way to cut out a shape from the material that is manufactured in a rectangle. What I end up with is lots of crescent shaped scraps, specially given that I didn't study or purposefully maximize my use of the material (@ this stage). When building sketch models, you use what you need. Efficient use of the material isn't part of this phase. One is just focusing on being creative. But this scrap teaches me what can be left over when I "upscale" production, obviously this will be studied in depth. I will have a future posting on what I've learned from this very important issue: efficient/responsible use of materials and recycling of all wood scraps... So what am I going to do with all these scraps? I will keep parts of it for future use, but most will be recycled. I don't have the means to grind this material up or crush it and glue it to use again, I don't necessarily find profit in putting time into transforming this material into something else, maybe later. Its useful life to me was already served... That is the important part of understanding how far I can take a material from one Cradle to the other. I find that I still use materials for a short period of time, and not for its entire life span. I assume its a luxury to be able to use materials in this way, but I then have to make sure that the scraps don't end up in a landfill but rather routed into the proper channel... My responsibility doesn't end after extracting the "useful" part of the material, it continues! I have to make sure the material keeps moving down the pipeline, while extracting profit from the parts I will in turn place in the hands of the consuming public. This same awareness I will "upscale" into the larger operation model of making the furniture pieces.
heap of chip 2 lbs. worth (top and bottom)
This next pile (below) is of the foam core...
and this last pile (below) is of the sheets of plain paper with printer ink on them...
dl.v
Materials Part 2
Post consumer recycled materials should be used for non food packaging, I'll be making that choice: I think pre consumer recycled materials are good for more sterile applications, meaning for the interior of buildings, a kitchen cabinet, flooring, wall partitions, etc. Post consumer, who knows what is in that stuff. I figure even if they are washing it or treating it that would add chemicals to it (or activate some already dormant), and it would waste more resources, so I might as well use it only for boxing, shipping, and protecting... Debating against the millions of dollars put into the marketing of these recycled raw materials is beyond me, I'll consume as logic tells me. For example this image below is from the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers:
Yes, you can make a plastic bottle into Berber carpets, but Berber is a type of WEAVING: Berber can be made from an assorted group of materials. The industry would love for us to use materials as they like, using marketing like this I'm sure they'll continue to convince a few. But Berber weave is best felt on your feet when made of Wool (PETA doesn't like any use of Wool). What a dilemma: for everything you encourage, there is another group opposing.
With the intentions that what ever I use for wrapping will be made of Post Consumer Recycled Materials, the public will then take to the recycling bin where it will enter the cycle once again... We'll only use it for a little while...
to be continued...
dl.v
