Sustainable Design Implementation in a Contemporary Mask Made of Paper Waste

The education sector has a significant contribution in producing paper waste, which is used as a document. Only a small part of the waste is reused through the 3R cycle (reduce, reuse, recycle). Shorter paper utilization cycles occur in documents that are private and confidential, after they are not used they will be destroyed using a paper shredder and then end up in the final disposal site. Although it has different material properties from plastic materials which are more difficult to decompose on the ground, paper is actually a material made from wood fibers that can be recycled to be reused as a sustainability cycle in an effort to reduce the use of new materials as a form of environmental conservation. One of the efforts is to process paper waste into functional object raw materials in the form of products made from recycled paper waste, including contemporary masks that are aesthetically pleasing and have a higher selling value than previous materials. Using research methods with an ethnographic approach with egocentric environmental theory and recycling and upcycling techniques, this study aims to maximize the use function of paper products as aesthetic products that are sustainable and environmentally friendly. This paper concludes that paper waste material that was previously less valuable can be transformed into various functional objects that are aesthetically pleasing and of sale value, in the form of contemporary masks that function as home decorations. Through a creative process with recycling and upcycling techniques, the creation of contemporary masks has become one of the eco-friendly commodity objects as the embodiment of sustainable design.