I wanted to know what rubber alternatives are out there and are any of it seaweed based?

I came across this article which introduced me to this plant called Guayule. Apparently, there has been a lot of research done on this particular material. Because rubber is used to make medical supply, condoms, tires. The tire industry are particular interested in this plant.

It make sense that they put the efforts into revolutionizing the industry standard material because of its financial potential. I keep asking the question why do condoms needs to be made with the same material that make tires? Or even do we really need unbreakable food prep gloves? We need a new approach to product innovation. How about analyzing what kind of performance it is expected from this product when the end user actually use it? Not imposing the industry material standard to the end user. I would appreciate my condom does not break during sex but it does not necessary means I need it to withstand enormous amount of air pressure to say it is durable enough for safe sex.

(https://www.wired.com/2015/07/superplant-may-finally-topple-rubber-monopoly/)

For a really long time, we are focusing on innovating materials that have the widest range of applications like natural latex. What if we isolate or separate those individual applications from the materials such as condom and try to innovate the particular product. What if we set our goal as to create a better condom, not a better condom with latex by examining what are the attributes for this product when the end user use it and can we use more natural and environmental friendly material for it? If we don’t have such material, can we create something like that? There has been very less innovation in the condom making industry because natural latex works so well but does that mean there is no room for material innovation within the industry? I think this new rising wave in algae based biodegradable materials can be an interesting and exciting alternative to natural latex.

Also the cost of condom has a strong correlation with automotive industry as they share the same raw material-natural latex. Natural latex are used to produce tire in the automotive industry. Also, because the southeast asia’s monopoly on natural rubber, all the other country are very vulnerable to any change of international relationship and natural disaster.

Also the high price of condom is one of the factor that people will have unprotected sex, which increase the chance of STI. Especially in Africa, people are less likely to pay for condoms if they can’t get free ones and the big international brand such as Durex are like luxury goods for them. India’s Cupid is the brand that have successfully took the market in Africa for it consumer friendly price. Marketing and branding also play a big part in sales of condoms but my point is that there is a huge demand in affordable condom that can be produced all over the world that are also eco-friendly, biodegradable and comfortable. And so far, there is an absence of such product on the market, which is a huge opportunity.

Since latex condoms are regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as medical devices, FDA regulations govern latex condom manufacturing and testing in accordance with stringent national standards. … Both male latex and female polyurethane condoms can prevent the transmission of HIV and other STDs.

(https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-6000625/Durex-owner-thinks-love-making-worth-100-defends-cost-condoms.html)

(https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2009/dec/04/condoms-more-bang-for-your-buck)

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I am pleased to see that some of my wild experimentation surprisingly yield pretty interesting results. I have no idea what I can do with those. Hopefully, I will have more ideas tomorrow.

In this project, I systematically experimented with different bioplastic materials and explored a diverse range of potential applications. I explore the potentials of the materials in every stage from liquid-solidified-dried-and post consumption recycling. During this process, I was able to generate some interesting ideas, as a result, I ended up with many applications that I could potentially take to the next project and refine it into more resolved and finished work.

I really tried to exhaust my options and I found that it is the only way to make sure I do not miss anything from my experiments. When the material is in its liquid form, it could be used as a casting material, like liquid clay, resin, plaster. When the material started to solidify and become a rubbery jelly like substance, it could be used as a molding material, an alternative to its alginate or silicone alternative on the market. Once it is dried, depending on each of their own material properties, they could be used as textile, luminary, non-food packaging etc. After it has been used, some of it can be put back in boiling water and reused. Based on all these discoveries and experiments, I came up with 7 different applications in 3 categories. As raw materials, as product and as part of a service and system.

I received pretty positive feedback after my presentation today and my peers have helped me identify some of the good ideas from my project. So, I now have more ideas and a clear direction for the next phase of this project.

I had my tutorial with Ian. I showed him what I have been working on and he said that I should think about compartmentalizing my ideas and experiments. I totally agree!! I have been busy doing material experimentation and reading research papers. I did not even have time to think about it more systematically. I kind just pursued ideas as they emerge during my project and I think it is a good idea to reflect and look back at this point (the end of project) to think more about categorizing these ideas and tick off some boxes!

So I listed all my ideas and categorized them into three big categories based on their potential application: As raw materials, as finished products, as part of a service/system.

I had two approaches to generate ideas:

1. Looking for products that are made with synthetic plastic and see which new bioplastic can be a suitable replacement
2. Looking at the materials I have created and see what I can do with it

As a result, I was able to compartmentalize my creations and it helped to evaluate my current ideas within each category and to think about what other possibility this material has within that context so I was able to came up with more new ideas.

Cato is a working designer with professional industry experience. So he suggested me to structure my presentation better to communicate what I am trying to achieve with this project. It was very practical advice. He suggested that I start with bringing up my research about biodegradability of bioplastics and evidence that with stats and examples. Because my entire research and investigation of this project depends on the advantage of biodegradability of bioplastics. And then I will lay out my project objectives and what I have done in an organized and logical way. Also I did not have to worry about being too scatter brained during my presentation.

He told me in the industry, at this stage of the project, you only need to present a solid concept. People are not expecting a finished, refined ideas. And it is ok to present failures from experiments as long as you present the plans to improve or further develop them.

I wanted to create a dipping test—mimicking one of the process used in manufacturing condoms. Glass rods are dipped in latex liquid 3 times to make the condom in the industrial facilities. I decided to try that process with my material at home.

I made a batch of the material and dipped my vegetable molds in it. I used banana, carrots and cucumber. Initially, the liquid solution was too watery. The material just immediately slipped off the the surface of my mold. As the liquid cools down it starts to solidify, therefore, can adhere to the wall of the mold much better. When the temperature dropped from 90 to 40 degrees, it seems to be a good temperature for dipping as the solution is till liquid enough but also gelled up to a point that the molds are able to pick more materials to build thickness to the wall.

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I let them dry in the air overnight and tried to take them off the mold this morning. The banana mold and carrot mold did not manage to release the condom easily, but the cucumber release the mold very easily. I think carrots and bananas has a more textured surface and that surface has lots of moisture, therefore it does not help the liquid to dry and bond to each other.

I started to read more about condoms and trying to figure out who are the big players on the current market and who is the manufacturer for those brands.

Karex- A Malaysian Company Is The World’s Largest Condom-Maker.

Karex grew rapidly over almost three decades as a contract manufacturer for the world’s best-known brands, such as Durex, and by supplying bulk orders to global public health organizations. Analysts expect revenue to have reached $91.4 million for the year ending June 30, a 35% rise in two years. Net profit is seen totaling $18.1 million, a 69% jump since fiscal 2014.

Karex recently bought U.K. condom-maker Pasante, which supplies the National Health Service, Tesco and Costco; U.S. condom brand ONE, known for its hip, arty packaging and young customer profile; and a U.K. bespoke condom-maker called TheyFit. Its own Carex brand is already a leading mass-market condom brand in the Middle East.

A second condom-maker India’s Cupid, based in Nashik in the western state of Maharashtra. As with Karex, it supplies condoms to governments and nonprofits for AIDS prevention and family-planning programs. But it’s also one of the few global suppliers of female condoms, which are ten times more expensive than male condoms.

Cupid’s top market is Africa, where there’s a shortage of 445 million condoms a year. Africa has one of the lowest global condom usage rates, at 4%, compared with 7.4% for the Asia-Pacific region and 18.4% for developed markets. Global condom sales are projected to hit 38.2 billion units by 2019–notching a five-year compounded growth rate of 9%.

(https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesasia/2016/08/03/malaysias-karex-buys-innovative-new-condom-brands-landing-it-on-asias-bub-list/)

According to Market Research done by Arizton about Global Condom Market.

Latex condoms held the largest share in 2018 owing to safety and flexibility provided by natural rubber used to make condoms.

Market Segmentation by Material

• Latex
• Non-latex
• Polyurethane
• Polyisoprene
• Nitrile
• Lambskin

(https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-condom-market-to-reach-revenues-of-over-12-billion-during-the-period-20182024–market-research-by-arizton-300909053.html)

Major Vendors in the global market:

• Church & Dwight
• LifeStyles
• Reckitt Benckiser (Durex)
• Okamoto Industries

Other vendors include MAPA (BILLY BOY),Convex Latex, Cupid Limited, Fuji Latex, HBM Group, HLL Lifecare Ltd, Innova Quality, IXu, KarexBerhad, LELO, MTLC Latex, Sagami Rubber Industries, Shandong Ming Yuan Latex, Shanghai Dahua Medical Apparatus, Silk Parasol, StaySafe Condoms, STRATA Various Product Design, Thai Nippon Rubber Industry, Tianjin Condombao, Veru (The Female Health Company), Innolatex, Nulatex, and Tianjin Human Care Latex Corp.                

Inspired by my farmer’s market trip at NottingHill farmer’s market yesterday. I decided to hit another market this weekend-the columbia road flower market. I assume there will be a lot of waste related to flower sales at the market.

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It was so crowed because of the holiday. I can’t help but notice sooo much plastics are used in this market. Plastic pots and carts used for transportation and almost all potted flower have protective plastic film. People were given blue plastic bags for their purchase. I end up talking to a plant shop owner on Columbia Road and told her about my project idea about using waste material to create alternative materials to synthetic plastic. She was really supportive and gave me a bag of waste from the shop which are dried leaves and stems and ugly petals. I will try to use these materials to do some experiments on Monday.

Continuing my research for my “block mile” circular economy community, I started to think about what other community are always close to each other and produce food waste constantly? Farmer’s market came to my mind. So I decided to take a research trip to a farmer’s market near my apartment.

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The markets has everything from fish, flower, coffee, baked bread, milk, cheese, meat, chicken, eggs, honey, vegetables and fruits. I am going to make an info graph to illustrate what kind of food waste each stands produces and potential materials it can produce and what kind of exchange of materials and products can happen within this network. Because all the vendors come to the same market weekly on Saturdays, it is feasible for them to produce the product during the week and delivery each other with those goods weekly when they meet at the market together.

I also noticed that there are a lot of plastic packaging in this market, in particular, package used to vacuum seal meats at the meat stand, also plastic packaging at the bread stand, flower stand and the flower pot for transportation. So many things could be potentially replaced.

After today’s lecture, I keep thinking about how my past experience and practice have informed my current practice and what direction my current practice is headed.

My connection with the ceramic craft community trained me in a particular way to approach materials. Because craft is a material based practice. When I was reading Neri Oxman’s Phd thesis, she proposed that the future of design will be a more material-based instead of form-based. I can’t help but keep thinking, isn’t it what craft practice all about? How a basic principle or practice in craft community are praised in the design community as visionary and novel?

Because of that experience in ceramics, it really shaped my design practice as a material based and community centric practice. Also I was able to transfer my knowledge from developing glaze recipes to developing bioplastic recipes. Same methodology applies to different materials. It fostered the fluidity within my own practice and helped me to construct my design practice as cross-disciplinary and multi-medium. My own curiosity drove me to explore and experiment with the possibilities of a material and its potential application that may bring positive social impact.

As I develop more new materials with my crazy experiments with bioplastics. I started to think about possible applications of all the new materials that I created.

This recipe produces a material that looks like a flat condom and feels like a skin. Since natural latex is a unique biopolymer that cannot be substituted by synthetic alternatives in many of its most important applications, such as medical products, condoms, footwear or adhesives.  What if I can use biopolymer created with this experiment as a replacement for this material?

http://news.bio-based.eu/europe-seeks-alternatives-to-natural-latex-from-asia/

So I started looking for any products that might have already existed out there in world. The only eco-friendly condom brand that I found is a company called Sustain Condoms.(https://www.sustainnatural.com/products/condoms)

Even though their product is eco-friendly, it is still made of natural latex which does not biodegrade.

Then I looked up condom pollutions and found this article, which confirmed my concerns about the environmental impact of condoms- a disposable product that we don’t normally think about its environmental impact after use. The wrapper is made of plastic or plastic lined foil which does not biodegrade.

“While you’re nailing being environmentally friendly in terms of food, travel, and plastic use, the environmental impact of your sex life likely isn’t on your radar.”

https://metro.co.uk/2018/06/05/world-environment-day-sex-life-wrecking-environment-7606561/

So far, the idea seems promising, so I looked into how condoms are made. I went on youtube and searched for how to made a condom?

Surprisingly, the first video is called how to make a condom at home. I clicked and of course it was a teenage boy who made a DIY condom with ziploc bag and a rubber band.

I thought it was so stupid but a related video caught my attention. A prostitute in Congo actually uses plastic bag as a condom.

I was so surprised. If this indeed worked for her, even though it might have been very uncomfortable, that means bioplastic could be a viable alternative for condom.

Then I found the ACTUAL video of manufactural process of condom on Youtube.

Glass molds are dipped in liquid latex three times to create the “skin” like product, then was washed, dried, oiled and packaged.

I also found an article talking about algae gel to combat HIV, which could be an alternative to the silicone based lube most condom manufacturer uses.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6266527.stm

So my next step is to research more in depth about the potential market for this product and prototyping with my material so it is more flexible and soft. Also I can use natural dye from vegetables and fruits to create color and flavor as this recipe tend to capture the color the dye and the smell of the dye I use.

(https://jablogz.com/2013/10/students-using-plastic-bags-instead-of-condoms/)

Condoms