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Mar 29, 2023

Bioplastic encourages people to mend, not replace, says designer

UK-based Peter Marigold has developed FORMcard, which becomes malleable in hot

UK-based Peter Marigold has developed FORMcard, which becomes malleable in hot water and can bond to other plastics

There are incongruous dots of colour speckled around Peter Marigold's kitchen in north London. Pots and pans hang from blue and yellow hooks while the edge of a shelf is rounded off and smoothed out with a distinct red material.

It is a live test environment for Marigold's creation, a piece of plastic called FORMcard that can be manipulated like putty after it is dropped in hot water. It can be used to fix objects such as broken door handles, or to make new objects like mobile phone holders and makeshift tools.

Coming in pieces the size of a credit card, it is intended as a new and simple way to mend broken household items. It can be reshaped numerous times before it eventually hardens.

"We have entered this world where people are throwing things away all the time for a small thing that is broken," Marigold said. "It is not their fault. They know that if you try to get something fixed by a manufacturer, it is disproportionately expensive so people buy new things all the time. They eventually just get sick of them and then get rid of it."

Marigold, a designer who has worked on displays for galleries, installations and public art projects, developed the idea after becoming interested in plastics that melt at low temperatures and how they could be used in the home by consumers.

The FORMcard is made with a bioplastic that becomes pliable once it is placed in boiling water for 30 seconds.

"When it is floppy it is ready for you to use," Marigold said. Once it is lifted out of the water with a spoon it can be moulded in a similar way to Blu-Tack or putty. It then hardens and becomes as strong as nylon."

The strength of a piece of the hardened plastic is illustrated in a video where a 10kg weight is shown hanging from a hook made from a FORMcard.

"I really want people to have this in their kitchen drawer. I want them to have it in their back pocket when they need it," Marigold said. "It is all about accessibility. You can get the raw granules but people don't carry around the raw granules on holiday."

The amount of time it takes for the substance to become solid after it has been taken out of the water can vary, so Marigold urges users to trust their own intuition and take safety precautions.

"Don't put your fingers into hot water, use a spoon. Imagine you are working with a hot tea bag – just be sensible. If in doubt, let the water and the FORMcard cool down a bit. You can always reheat," he said.

When hot and pliable the FORMcard sticks to polyester and other plastics such as PVC, polycarbonates and ABS, which is used to make car bumpers.

Since it went on sale in December, 60,000 of the cards have been sold. A packet of three costs £5 and a Canadian company is now pairing them with snow shovels to repair cracks.

There has been renewed interest in fixing items instead of replacing them, especially among the "maker" community. Sugru, a malleable silicone rubber, is a similar product that has become popular.

Marigold said he is aiming his product at the everyday person. "It is about making it as accessible to normal people as possible – so that my mum would have some," he said.

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