Blog

The other week we welcomed a local Fun photography U3A group to the museum. We put together three sets of objects, which we hoped would inspire them. We chose objects that had colour, texture, reflection and interesting shapes. The three groupings included objects designed by Tom Dixon, objects used...

One of the most widely used, and therefore recycled, item of packaging is probably the drinks bottle. The purpose of such a bottle is to, first and foremost, contain a liquid. It acts as a barrier between the drink and the outside world, as such, it prevents contamination and ensures that the drink...

As we have mentioned previously in various blog posts we are making our way through a series of trade journals that we have in the collection. They are proving to be invaluable in our understanding of some of the objects that we own. One of our latest discoveries relates to a vacuum jug which is not...

Our current exhibition, Reuse , has been inspired by legislation which has changed the way products are designed and materials are used. For example, i n 2019, the European Union published a directive that aimed to promote circular approaches to manufacturing giving priority to sustainable and non...

At the end of June, I attended a fascinating conference held at the University of Portsmouth. PlasticsFuture 2023 was convened over three days and brought together speakers from across the world to present their research around, and experiences of, plastics pollution. The team behind the conference...

Once again flicking through the trade journals in our collection and recognising an object that we own has enriched our record with a wealth of information. This time I was looking through an edition of British Plastics from February 1955 and I stumbled across a fabulous article about the...

Decarbonisation is a theme in our current exhibition, Reuse . Carbon footprints are a measure of the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released over the full life cycle of a product. They are notoriously difficult to assess because there are many factors that need to be considered...

At the end of last year, an MA Architecture student, Jemma Chapman came in to the museum to explore the use of waste plastics. We talked about a variety of concepts and objects including Greenbrick's building blocks. Large blue brick, Greenbrick, AIBDC : 008795.3 Since meeting with Jemma, she has...

Earlier in the year I had the most fabulous ‘school trip’ to Dundee to visit the Plastic: remaking our world exhibition at V&A Dundee. To get the most out of the journey I had a look at some other museums that I could visit on the way. The best fit was another university collection focusing on a...

The concept of Design for Disassembly was first introduced in the early 1990s. It advocates for the environment by recommending products be designed in such a way that they can be easily taken apart at the end of their useful life, with parts then either reused or recycled. In practice this could...