Crisp packet

Crispy

Crispy is a collection of serving bowls crafted entirely from deconstructed post-consumer crisp packaging. The project showcases the potential of recycling complex plastics by giving a new life to non-recyclable crisp packets, transforming them into serving bowls that hold crisps once again.

Crisps are an integral part of British culture, with the UK being the third-highest consumer of salty snacks worldwide, consuming 6 billion packets of crisps annually. However, due to the high salt and oil content in crisps, the packaging requires a high-tech multilayered polymer structure that is difficult to recycle and is not currently accepted in home recycling. Instead, the current fate of this type of packaging is incineration, landfill, or littering the environment. In today's conscientious era, where the push is to minimise single-use plastics or increase recycling, this particular type of packaging tends to be overlooked, or its underlying issues remain largely unnoticed.

Crispy addresses these challenges by salvaging difficult-to-recycle plastic packaging and recycling each material used separately. Through a specialised separation process, each crisp packet is delaminated into four distinct materials: two PP films, a metallic PP film, and ink. This transformation not only prevents these packets from becoming environmental hazards but also demonstrates the potential for recycling this type of unreclaimed plastic.

Making process

The process used in this project involve multiple steps for efficient recycling and is a combination of chemical and mechanical recycling. After collection, all the crisp bags are washed to get rid of grease, any remaining food content and odour. The clean packaging is then left in an acetone bath overnight in an airtight container, and the different plastic films are peeled off from each other the next morning. The acetone used in this process is recycled each time for a new batch of packets. Ink extraction is also completed within the same solvent bath by scraping the pigments off the films with a brush. This process can also be completed with water as an alternative to acetone, to eliminate the need for a solvent. The PP films are shredded after separation and colour extraction. A water-based paint is made by the extracted pigments after they are ground and mixed with gum arabic. Any standard recycling method can be used for the plastics, as it is now a mono-plastic that is easy to recycle. For this project, remelting and casting was used to shape the bowls. The metallised PP is hand-made into threads by twisting and woven together. The metallic PP and the PP is used separately with a modular design so that the final object is 100% recyclable.

Text submitted by the maker and edited by the Future Materials Bank. For information about reproducing (a part of) this text, please contact the maker.