Milk Jug Jewelry | sophiaqin

Milk Jug Jewelry Project

Background

As the President of the Recycling Club and student of AP Environmental Science in High School, I learned the importance of sustainability and the wastefulness of some commercially produced goods. With the health of our environment in speculation, I sought to discover ways to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Research

One of the main reasons why there are environmental problems such as climate change is because of businesses and industries*. Businesses grow by earning profit--meaning, they will do whatever it takes to get the material costs down and their profits up. Usually businesses succumb to using cheap labor and frugal, easy-to-use materials such as petroleum. Consequently, by burning fossil fuels and creating more waste, this will pollute the Earth and add to the perils of climate change. To mitigate this, businesses can create existing goods out of sustainable, recycled material. This will promote a zero-waste economy. Commercial industries such as fashion contributes mostly to externalities, so targeting less-vital goods (like fashion) can deeply lessen the future problems of climate change.

* Denyse, Gavin. "How Can We Get There?" The Role of Government and Businesses in Creating a Sustainable World given a Market Economy.

My Plan

I came up with the idea of creating beautiful jewelry that was made up of recycled milk jugs to help mitigate the problem of climate change because it would be zero-waste.

First, I looked up jewelry inspiration. I saw connections between the natural shapes and colors of our environment to the cloudy recycled milk jug material. I sketched out different forms, designs, and placements on the hands for aesthetics.

Ideation

Back

Prototyping

Then, I played with the milk plastic-- I folded it, cut into it, tabbed it. I also saw that the thicker plastic on the bottom of the milk jug was ideal for the armature of the jewelry piece because it would hold the form.

To make the jewelry comfortable, I rounded all the edges to where it would touch the skin and I created adjustable clasps.

Final Work