Sachiko Hirosue

A speculative art project that makes us have a good hard stare through the looking glass, this projects also has parallels with purifying sewage water for drinking, an unsavory but soon to become reality. To many, the concept itself (our waste as our nutrition) may be distasteful, but as a society, we have to admit that microplastics are already appearing in our food-chain and in our bodies.

The historical, socio-political and biotechnological aspects of the vanilla bean makes the choice of vanillin very appropriate, given the themes raised, "natural : artificial" intertwined with “mass produced : scarcely sourced”. The ubiquitous presence of vanillin has rendered the rare vanilla (bean-derived) to mean bland, common, basic. The petrochemically-derived vanillin as "vanilla" replaced the precious vanilla bean resulting in mass-consumption of vanilla aroma and flavours. Now people are trying to make biotechnological super-beans to make vanillin to swap out the petrochemicals.

If the PET-generated vanillin were super rare, only made in small quantities, will it have the preciousness of the original vanilla bean, even if the origins can be traced to petrochemicals? Or do we industrialize this process to produce the vanillin that has made the once precious vanilla, a common ingredient in our sweets? The fact that PET-derived vanillin can be industrialized raises philosophical questions and eybrows. Why does society always want to produce so much? To what extent do we want to pursue pleasures so that they become banal?

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Hair donations to make wigs has been much celebrated, but hair to absorbant mats! What a perspective, that is, of taking advantage of the unique properties of hair, which we have all seen while taking a bath. The fact that this can replace absorbents made with polypropylene is exciting (less petrochemical based products used), but also needs to be tested to be used as reinforcing fibers in concrete to truly bring things circular. This is a material to chemistry application, beyond or despite the aesthetic element. This is what makes this project special.

As a material for upcycling, it is very complex. Everyone and anyone can actively choose to donate and participate. It is democratic in this way. Culturally, hair means different things to different peoples. To adapt the concept to different locations, this part needs to be resolved, perhaps in collaboration with anthropologists, sociologists, artists. Hair is an emotional and physical extension of ourselves, with lots of symbolism and meaning. The spirit is thought to reside in hair in Japanese ghost stories. Would you trap an unrequited soul in a building material? Would you live in a building embedded with this material?

The hope is that after the Hair Recycle project, Dung-Dung asbl’s next line-ups take these ideas further.

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This project definitely has a seat at the dinner table.
It is also a great conversation starter.
The project addresses many questions on how we talk about what is good for the environment and embodies it in a playful functional kitchenware.
For one, consumption: using less, consuming less. Choosing well-made products made to last and to be tendered and fixed - contrasts to the models of limitless economic growth worship. Here, consumption has a ceiling. This reuse of glass jars stops us from consuming more storage containers, the mutli-mixer in-one reduces unidirectional e-waste.
Reduce, Reuse Recycle: The idea of adapting all jars around the house takes used jars back into the kitchen to reuse. When is reuse better than "recycling", by which measurements is it better than direct to landfill? The energy required to recycle the material is not always transparent to consumers, and not often in the public discourse, where only positive aspects of recycling is promoted.
Distributed: By making, adapting, and repairing an open and local process, knowing who makes the product, also makes it harder to throw away. It is a cultural shift (perhaps back in time), of how things and people interact. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if (outside of Europe) this mixer would be produced locally? Who will fix them? A community aspect to it would add to the pop / funky persona of the product. Would this be truly a distributed network and open-source? The business model would be nice if more elaborated.
Health: Avoiding health issues by using glass containers: chemical leaching from food touching plastics.
Plastic Mix: They also make the problem of "color" of recycled plastic waste into a design element, breaking the mold of how the "problem" of recycling mixed color plastics, is resolved in a playful way. (white is preferred, and sorting by color is an additional step in the recycling process. if not white, most recycled plastic uses dye to be turned gray/ black).
Attribution: finally, it would be nice to acknowledge the multi-headed, multi-purpose metal mixers found in many Indian (and perhaps other?) kitchens.

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Even if carrying water bottles, coffee mugs, or making deposits for cups at festivals to incentivize to return them, it is difficult to avoid encountering single use cups in our daily lives. What makes this project most impressive is implementation of the digital passport platform technology and the physical and social infrastructure. This, appropriately applied to the disposable, single use beverage cups is a great proof of concept – digital, material, social integration is possible to change behaviours! The project has proven this from Jeju Island and proven again in Seoul and Sejong. Sharing cups may generate different reactions in different cultures, but it has obviously been successful in Korea with 85K participants on the app. Now, let us expand to other items.

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Giving agency to the consumer to make choices beyond material desire, to affect cultural values, can affect the business models of the manufacturers to choose values in addition to profit. However, this is still a very underdeveloped part of the circular economy.

Early models to affect cultural change by directly addressing consumers, has commonality with the HIV/AIDS charity concerts. In this model, there was consumption of culture (initiated by artists) to send out the message to change culture (discrimination against the infected). When it comes to material things, the plastic shopping bag, polluting and harming life on land and sea, is another highly visible consumer awareness to cultural change movement. But is the alternative solution, replacement by every other organization giving out cotton shopping bags, a true solution? Is another form of consumption appeasing our guilt of consuming plastic bags? Who is looking at the entire life cycle when the cycle involves so many players? This project has the potential to address this - by making every step traceable.

Being seen is one of the best ways to involve diverse partners to come up with creative solutions, and ultimately changing social behaviours. The choice of the NFC tag brings the consumer closer to the product life cycle in an inexpensive way. Given, one has a smart phone, why not just a QR code? That Digglue has already made such a passport for EU and other projects is exciting.

CrQlr Awards entry No.80, which is submitted by the same group, digglue, completes the cycle. Why not take the consumer part and bring it full circle by connecting the waste to recycling, certifying the materials to be chosen by the manufacturer?

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