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At the height of the pandemic, transparent, shatter-proof materials are the preferred solution for grocery stores, stadiums, restaurants, schools, hospitals, or any place where the SARS-CoV-2 virus may be infected from large droplets. Air. Plexiglass even played a leading role in the 2020 US Vice Presidential Debate.

The demand for plexiglass rose sharply last year, so that the manufacturing plant that works around the clock can hardly meet the demand. Perspex, a British plexiglass company with a plexiglass patent, announced last year that they would increase production by 300% in February and March to meet demand. An American manufacturer told NPR that they sold the equivalent of one year's acrylic sheet in two months.

As parts of the world return to normal, plastic partitions are being removed. Now, facility managers are considering how to deal with their plexiglass inventory. If there is no feasible plan, tons of non-degradable plastic partitions may eventually be landfilled.

Industrial design students at Iowa State University have been trying to solve this problem for the past semester. In the course taught by industrial design professor Daniel Neubauer, they have been proposing ideas for the afterlife of the acrylic partition they found around the university.

Plexiglass or polymethyl methacrylate is designed to be non-biodegradable and difficult to recycle. It is particularly important to find viable uses for Plexiglas after the pandemic, because large amounts of energy are already needed to produce them.

"Acrylic panels have a significant impact on the environment," Antonella Ilaria Totaro, a circular economy expert at the University of Turin, wrote in the blog Renewable Matter. "In addition to the fossil materials used in the production of plexiglass, sunlight on the panels will also release carbon dioxide particles into the atmosphere. Because of this, scientists have been emphasizing the need to reduce the use of acrylic panels as much as possible for many years."

What can plexiglass do? Almost anything, Neubauer said. "Plexiglas is currently the most transparent, cheapest, and most glass-like material," he explained. "We have done a lot of experiments with it. Can it be cut open? Can it be formed? Can it be modified? Can it be melted and used in a new way that we have traditionally stayed away from because it is difficult to do? It can be ground down. Is it? The answer to most questions is "yes, but". It's really interesting to see these possibilities."

His students made simple objects such as desk storage boxes, small shelves, and key chains. The most ambitious experiment is to grind and melt acrylic sheets to make graduation rings—a souvenir for students who lost their formal graduation ceremonies due to the pandemic.

Neubauer said that if handled properly, plexiglass can be used to make larger furniture, such as chairs or podiums, just like a student does.

Neubauer said the team learned that Plexiglas tends to lose its glass-like qualities when it is melted and recombined. "When you are doing certain processes, you have to lower your expectations of what you might get, but that doesn't mean you can't use it to make a hundred other things."

The search for creative uses of waste materials evokes a long tradition of designers focusing on consumption. Neubauer pointed out that fashion designers are particularly good at recycling goods sent to landfills. For example, the costume designer Daniel Silverstein, nicknamed "Zero Waste Daniel," looks for materials in the New York Fashion District and uses what he finds to create unique pieces.

Similarly, artist Nicole McLaughlin makes shorts out of old beanies or old Nike shoes and school bags. On a commercial scale, French sports shoe brand Veja uses plastic bottles to make running shoes, and Eileen Fisher uses discarded clothes to make beautiful tapestries.

However, Neubauer observed that most industrial designers did not spend too much energy on upgrading, because consumers still expect mass-produced products to have a certain degree of machine perfection and consistency. In fact, the projects in his class are reminiscent of a series of stylish plexiglass and polycarbonate design objects that design connoisseurs have dreamed of—despite the acrylic-cut seams.

"There is a high demand for this, Neubauer explained. "It's just that the aesthetic quality does not reach the ideal original level that we associate with new items," he said. Unlike polycarbonate cast and polished in a mold, plexiglass is used. Making things requires cutting the pieces like sewing patterns and then combining them with screws or glue, so it is more difficult to achieve a perfectly seamless and consistent product.

Neubauer said that solutions need to be designed to make irregularities a virtue. Instead of marking irregular products as defective or damaged, perhaps we can learn to appreciate or at least ignore subtle changes in surface, color, or shape, because they give mass merchandise unique qualities.

The upcoming surplus of plexiglass is a good starting point.

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