While plastic has many valuable uses, we have become addicted to single-use or disposable plastic — with severe environmental consequences. Around the world, one million plastic drinking bottles are purchased every minute, while up to 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are used worldwide every year. This is what stuck me this week and kept me motivated to explore. This week was about using Natural dyes and making your own Bio plastics.
"All our needs are catered by nature"
Nishtha Kaushik
Started this week with the following steps:
This week started by first searching and reading about Bioplastics, documentation by Saverio and Clara Davis : Secrets of Plasticwas very helpful initially to understand the week then i went too ahead with my research. Had to bring myself back to assignments :P but i will try Angela barbour's on Paper making too , if its succesful this could be first workshop to introduce people in my lab to Fabricademy.
This is one of my favourite videos:
Recipe as follow: Did not know what I am making till I had it dry, in this one I did three different ways: 
1. I took 2d design logo of textile academy, cut it on laser cutter,thermoformed to create its mold and put this recipe in it, in this process I spread glow in dark on inside corners of the mold so it glows after drying.
Then I used Vaccum chamber to degass the recipe and poured it in my mold which I made using thermoforming machine.
GLOW IN THE DARK!
2. I took orange dye color and added it to give some interesting color and then i spread it on plain plastic sheet, one side with bubbles, other side after removing bubbles with the help of vaccum chamber. For degassing, we kept bowl of te recipe inside the chamber , closed the lid and slowly took off air , when the recipe starts boiling and after it was done, I started releasing the blue knob very slowly...and following are the results.
1. I took 700 ml of Water with 100 ml of Vinegar, 50 ml of Glycerine and 150 ml of Corn Starch. I added glow in the dark powder while making this recipe to see if it will work but it didnt,it actually changed the colour and broke while drying, I wasnt very fond of this recipe as you need to ake diffeent ratios with more than 2 ingredients to get the best bioplastic out of it. This was oe of the trials with starch.
Image below:
The above video documents my process which i repeated for each recipe.
Below image is the failed result.
I totally forgot to take picture of the dried recipe and it was literally pieces so didnt even store it for display or lab.
BIODYES
Step 1: Selecting Fabrics- Cleaning- Scouring/Mordanting
Started this week with the following steps:
This week started by selecting Cotton and wool as my material wherein Wool belongs to Animal Fibre and cotton under Vegetable Fibre. Next step was to have small samples of these so i took cotton in the form of small squares and wool in form of small thread spools. Moving ahead cleaning Cotton in boiling water and wool in warm water to clean off any residues.
Weighing the pieces for dying : 50gms, In the image below i am washing wool with detergent and washing cotton in the boiling water.
Scouring includes: scour fibres: wash sizing off from commercial fabrics (strip of oils); with each option submerge fully your fabric and allow to simmer for 30 minutes to an hour, stir occasionally.
1. Use a 1tsp to 1L ratio of soda ash or sodium carbonate (vegetal)
2.Use 1 tsp for your whole water ratio (animal)
3.Use a ph neutral soap (hypoallergenic or soap for babies works).
Failure to clean wool properly is one of the main reasons for not getting good colours from your dyes. Wool needs to be well scoured before it is dipped in the dye pot even if it has just been bought and looks clean. Scouring is much more than washing; when you scour you remove grease and oils from the fibre as well as dirt. To scour wool, fill a bowl with warm water (between 50 and 60 C), add some soap or washing up liquid and leave the wool to soak for two hours or overnight.
Immediately shifting them towards mordanting in Alum solution Alum: 8% to WOF (weight of fabric) for mordanting. Basically to help colors stay and get on easily on samples.
1.Soak 100 grams of cotton fibres in warm water for at least two hours.
2.Half fill the dye pot with hot tap water.
3.Dissolve the alum in a small container with boiling water.
4.Add the dissolved alum to the dye pot and stir.
I further left my pieces for drying for about 2 hours, Beautiful Drying :)
Step 2: Dying
After mordanting, which was fun to do, I started experimenting with more than 2 natural dyes which was bit too much to manage, so Mahavir and I decided to divide natural dyes but do them simultaneously and learn about each dye.
I Started with
-Beetroot
-Mango
-Henna
-Coffee grounds
Finding Beetroot here was not tough, plus this was first thing on my list to use for dyeing besides turmeric. Crushing them, boiling and straining is the process used in every natural dye item.
Forgot straining in this one, so I after dying let it dry in sun and later removed small residues from that, it came out well.
In the above picture, you can see mango, heena and beetroot dye being prepared.
In the above image, its mango dyeing, which actually was very dark in colour at boiling but became lighter when I took out.
Step 3: Output
After dying and drying, they looked really calming and peaceful colors. They were so beautiful.
Step 4: Ph modifiers
After beautiful results, I did ph modification tests on Beetroot sample and Mango. i used their dying water and added Vinegar in one and Baking Soda in another. Following changes observed forboth
Above image shows ph value when dye was being prepared.This pictures explains difference in Ph value after adding vinegar as Acid and Baking Soda as Base.
There is also colour change, the image is actual.
Change in colour can be observed even with Beetroot.
Using Baking Soda in the above image, I am using just one teaspoon of baking soda
I have added an image wherein i am also showing change in colour in Charcoal dyeing after adding Acid and Base to it.
Below is the whole process of the dyeing with beetroot and Mango