Plastic is everywhere, in bottles, packaging and many, many other everyday objects. This work is part of an ongoing project with the aim of compiling an overview of the plastic types pervasive in our daily lives, and thus providing reliable information to support consumers in their purchase decisions.
Starting point of this work is, on the one hand, the idea that it is by alienating everyday objects that things become tangible to the senses. On the other hand, a piece of information I came across while working on the recyclability of plastic packaging: Prerequisite to ensure efficient recycling of plastic packaging are transparent or light-coloured containers. For high-quality recycling, plastic containers must be sorted by colour. Dark and opaque colours interfere with the optical sorting process using near-infrared technology and reduce the quality of recycling fractions.
The fact, that sorting machines using near-infrared technology cannot detect dark and opaque plastic containers or distinguish them from transparent ones led me to the experimental approach of exploring plastic objects and their (physical) properties by exposing them to different optical processes and capturing procedures - here a series of macro images combined with an infrared filter.
