American University of Sharjah
IN-27: Innovation D

Driven by a call to fight the pollution from single-use plastic and start to see plastic as a precious resource with an extended lifecycle, AUS has launched a plastic recycling research lab under the guidance of Zlatan Filipovic, Associate Professor of Art and Design at AUS. The project is based on a series of blueprints and tutorials for building four basic plastic recycling machines, made available online by the “Precious Plastic" community. The shredder machine turns plastic waste into small flakes, which can be turned into plastic filament, or thread, via the extrusion machine. Alternatively, plastic flakes can be heated and injected into small molds using the injection machine, or injected into bigger molds using the compression machine. The project idea started during the Precious Plastic WANA Conference hosted at NYUAD in December 2018. In 2019, the Design Build Studio at the AUS College of Architecture, Art and Design (CAAD) enabled CAAD labs and its metal workshop to bring in two specialists who trained faculty and students to build the Injection Machine, one of the four machines from the Precious Plastic Machine Workflow. In 2020, the Design build Initiative Grant enabled the addition of a shredder machine, making it now possible to shred, melt and inject plastic at AUS. Before the equipment with a shredder machine at AUS we relied on collaboration with the Precious Plastic Lab from NYUAD. This inter-campus collaboration has run since the above mentioned WANA conference in 2018. The plastic recycling research lab is interdisciplinary in nature and aims to engage students from Architecture, Art & Design, Engineering, Business and Environmental Sciences in exploring new ways to extend the life cycle of plastic and offer solutions to the ongoing plastic pollution crisis right here on campus. Visibility of the plastic recycling research lab on campus and in local communities helps to educate students and raise awareness on the plastic recycling challenges and informs their decision making in their everyday professional life and practice.

https://preciousplastic.com/ https://www.aus.edu/media/events/precious-plastic-a-conversation-with-felix-beck-nyuad