Sustainable Systems final project

For my final project I had to make something new out of reclaimed materials. I got my materials from the sewing lab in the University Center. These small scraps may have seems like they were at the end of their lives, but I disagreed. I made a small pillow out of these scraps and I stuffed it with other fabrics. I felt this was a great thing to make because it meets the final requirements, but it also follows some of the guidelines for well made sustainable products as I read about in Okala. This product is not designed to be end of life, it is designed to use the life up of those small usable scraps. The pillow could be deconstructed and broken down again, and the small scraps could be broken down into threads and rewound into new fabrics. The fabrics can be separated by technological and biological so that they are not mixed. The pillow product can be made to be personalized and fit a certain color scheme, if one piece of fabric is worn down quicker than others, only those select scraps could be replaced. This product uses materials that were already in existence and didn’t require new materials. From multiple visits to the Healthy Materials library I learned that it’s better to use whats already made then to create something new. We need to use the stuff we have rather than making more.  I wanted to center my project and ideas around using whats already available. Some of the scraps on my pillow are fairly large and would probably end up in a landfill if I didn’t use them. Pillows are something everyone uses, and they can be made at zero cost except maybe labor. I really like the product I made and could envision myself doing more in different sizes as a apart of a collection. 

Scissors: Scissors can continue to be used after I used them so they are not an end of life product. But they were made up of rubber and metal.

 

Sewing Needle: This was made out of metal and could be reused so it is not an end of life product.

 

Cotton Thread: The Cotton thread was harvested from cotton plants, it was cleaned up and spun in a machine. The machine spun it into thread and it was spun into a spool of thread. The thread was then sold in stores where I bought it and used it. I did not use all of the thread, so it is still usable. This thread could be remade again into more thread if it is disposed of properly because it is 100% natural.

 

Fabrics: Reclaimed fabric was made biologically, technologically or a mix of both. If it was biological the start point came from natural materials and if it was technological it was manipulated and made into something else. The fabric was spun in warehouse and died most likely using dyes with chemicals. The fabric was then sent to stores who sold them to students at Parsons, they cut the fabric and then decided to get rid of their scraps, which I reclaimed and used for this project. And they can continue to be used because they can be broken down and reused rather than wasted.

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