Coke Can Factory

    For my final action project I was told to find a material that is frequently wasted or that is considered trash and to build an art installation out of it. The installation had to be tied to a statistic or fact that showed how much of this trash was being produced or wasted. I chose Diet Coke cans because I personally consume a lot of Diet Coke. I then decided to make a factory out of the cans. This project of collecting the cans and building the factory made me realize that 10 aluminum cans take up a lot more space than you realize and when you drink a lot of them like me you realize your impact on the environment. So what I have learned from this project is how such a small item that is used everyday can have such a large impact on the world.

    In 1960 aluminum cans were used for holding frozen juice concentrate and immediately they took off. They started to be used for beer and soft drinks only a couple years after they were invented. The business continued to grow and grow until 1990 when PET plastic bottles started to come into the market. Now in America they produce roughly 1x1011 cans a year. That is about 1 can per person in America a day. Even though two thirds of those cans are recycled there is still that one third that isn't and when a can is recycled it takes 95% less energy than making a new can from ore. This is what inspired my project. The fact that we are wasting all that energy is ridiculous and I felt that I should inspire people to start recycling more. To help people recycle more it is essential that we have recycling bins placed around for people.

    My project was a building that is a factory made out of 10 Diet Coke cans. The reason for this number is because each can represents 10 billion cans manufactured in America each year. The reason I chose Diet Coke cans is because I personally consume about 2-3 cans a day and thought that this was a way to also show me what I need to change. The reason my project is a factory is because I wanted to draw attention to the amount of energy that we waste on mining and producing new aluminum cans and I felt that a factory makes people think of the manufacturing process.

    The building process for the factory was a long one. I spent an hour figuring out the best way to cut the cans so that they would not tear or be mangled to oblivion. After figuring out how to cut them, which at the time I thought was going to be the most challenging part, we had to shape it to look like a factory. I wanted to be pure and only use aluminium but I soon realized that the building would need some sort of material to hold it together. I used hot glue, which worked pretty well but the pieces had to be held the whole time and would get very hot so it was very difficult to hold the pieces together. Once it was completed I felt very proud of my work and I think that this was the action project that I feel most proud of.

 

 (JC,2015)

(Runkel, Patrick. "Trashmaniacs")

 

 (JC, 2015)

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Runkel, Patrick. "Trashmaniacs! Plotting Against Waste (with Time Series, Pareto, and Pie Charts) | Minitab." Trashmaniacs! Plotting Against Waste (with Time Series, Pareto, and Pie Charts) | Minitab. 30 July 2012. Web. 6 Feb. 2015. <http://blog.minitab.com/blog/statistics-and-quality-data-analysis/trashmaniacs-plotting-against-waste-with-time-series-pareto-and-pie-charts>.

Woodword, Angela. "How Products Are Made." How Aluminum Beverage Can Is Made. Web. 6 Feb. 2015. <http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Aluminum-Beverage-Can.html>.