Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
110th CAA Annual Conference, Illinois, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri, 3 - 05 Mart 2022, ss.158
This paper revisits histories of plastics and presents the recent
history of Bioplastics. From examples of the first industrially
produced plastics, which had bio-origins, through to the crisis
of the petrochemical plasticene, to a ‘fresh’ start in bioplastics,
we follow oscillations in the valuation of materials and their
significance that are closely tied to understandings of nature.
Although the first industrially produced plastics, Cellophane
and Celluloid, were bio-sourced it is only recently that plastics
have become ‘bio’, following their condemnation as
environmental hazards. We focus on the interface between
materials and products to offer a material based social-history.
In these tales of material development, certain aspects of
bioplastics are made visible or invisible, they are recursively
made in provisional and temporally specific material-product
relationships, that emphasise and obscure various moral and
ethical elements. We show this by discussing four example
products to show different modes ofmaterial-product making
that we name redefining, positioning-repositioning, and
dispositioning. A 2012 waste bag made for the municipality of
Milan mobilises ‘compostability’ to define bioplastic round new
social and material relations. A coffee pod positions
‘compostability’ in a ‘issuefied’ material-product combination.
A‘biobased’ bottle shifts the focus to the attachment of
qualities to the source material, repositioning the object
through the concerns that the material invokes. A salad bowl
by Zuperzozial visually emphasises the ‘bio’ qualities of the
material configuring a distinct identity and iconography for
biobased-ness. Other applications of ‘bio’ plastic construct the
material as invisible, ‘dispositioning’ them from a ‘bio’ identity.