A workshop about plastic soup, knowledge of material and making your own soap bar.

Two designers from House of Design, Anne and Maureen, gave the workshop together with teacher Hannah Hariri from OSG Singelland, Surhuisterveen, the Netherlands.

First the pupils learned what exactly plastic is. What is it made of and why we call oceans and seas ‘plastic soup’?
Not only plastic objects pollute our oceans, but also the cloths we are wearing.
The pupils were asked to look into the labels of their cloths and define what it is made of.
What is nylon, polyester, polyamide? Where does it come from?

Does a t-shirt grow on a tree?

Every time we wash our synthetic cloths, micro-plastic comes free and ends up in our oceans.

What a waste!

The pupils were asked to find more plastic objects they have in their bags and find the triangle with numbers and check what it stands for. 1. PET 2. HDPE 5. PP etc, Is it harmful? Recyclable?
So what should we use?
What are bio plastics and which ones are good? What is the difference between biodegradable bio plastics and non-biodegradable bio plastics?

In our shampoo, toothpaste, face wash and scrubs a lot of plastic is used.
So we will make our own soap (shampoo) bars without plastic!

Teacher Hannah Hariri:

The workshop connects nicely with a pre-vocational secondary education student because of the visual language that the workshop providers spoke. For example, they explained that a plastic bottle that was put in the ground in the age of the dinosaurs could still be taken out of the ground today. That kind of language appeals to students, so you have their interest.
The workshop fits in nicely with the course physics/chemistry. You can make the workshop in such a way that every level can be connected. At a higher level, you can zoom in on the chemical compounds in, for example, plastic and soap making.
The subject is easy to make a whole series of lessons around it, that would be really great!
Movie made by Anne Varekamp.

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