Township Domestic Waste

Township Waste 

Figure 1 - Mbeje A. 2020 Township Domestic Waste Plastic. Plastic bottles

The reason why I chose to use domestic waste plastic as part of my research, I have always been affected by the environmental waste around my township area in sidewalks and river streams. My goal is to use domestic waste plastic that is found around communities and CDBs as a way of incorporating non-precious materials into my art-jewellery work.

Figure 2 - Mbeje A. 2020 Raw plastic. HDPE Plastic (coca-cola caps)

This is the raw plastic material coming from domestic waste plastic which I was cleaning and also melted in the oven.

Recycle

Domestic Waste Plastic

Figure 1 - Sieber-Fuchs. V, 2012. Garlic Collar Neckpiece, Garlic peel

Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into reusable objects. This can be applied in jewellery as a creative method of making non-precious contemporary jewellery. The method of recycling waste into jewellery has helped a lot of art-jewellers like Verena Sieber-Fuchs to be able to upcycle or manipulate all forms of domestic waste, from plastic sweet wrappers to garlic peel and film strip to form jewellery as seen in figure 1.

Figure 2 - Sieber-Fuchs. V. 2018, Eierkarton Neckpiece. Cardboard

Figure 3 - Sieber-Fuchs. V. 2018, CH-stamps (flowers), Iron wire and film strip

The interesting area of her work as seen in figure 2 and 3, shows how she uses the characteristics of dimension and proportion to build up the repetition, pattern, and texture. These characteristics can also be applied to my recycling research by using some of her methods, through the process of melting domestic waste plastic, such as ABS and HDPE plastic for jewellery pieces.