Food Scrap Sorting System
The second life project is a food design project that focusses on preventing food waste. By giving food scraps a new purpose, they can be kept from going directly to the landfill or compost, which can be a waste of resources we can still benefit from. This concept was completed with my project partner, Nancy Tseng.
To begin with, my project partner and I looked at different methods of reusing food waste. We started looking at using squeezed out lemons to refresh a fridge - but we then moved on to the idea of food dyes, as there is a wider range of material to be reused, and the results can be consumed at the benefit of the user.
In our initial ideation, we thought perhaps a small, redesigned strainer would help encourage this activity, as a strainer that prevents spillage and removes the solid pieces would make the activity easier - but we then realized that the sorting of the colours is a more tedious aspect, as it may be a hassle to sort through their compost pile, or find their own way to store the fruit and vegetable bits. We decided a containing system would make it easier for users to sort their produce scraps.
We used acrylic for the containers, and wood for the bases. Once the main parts were cut and assembled, we refined them, and used more wood to make the lids. The containers are held together using pressure, so that no chemicals from adhesives would get into the dyes.
We then made the wooden holder, to keep the containers together. We also printed and cut out sticker labels, so it would be clear to users how to make each food dye according to the food type.
The end result is a set of clear containers that can help the user reuse their fruit and vegetable scraps before composting them.