Meet Sam.
Sam and her friend Bex attended my most recent lip balm class, and we discovered we have a common interest. We share a passion for sustainability, and opportunities to create change. Sustainability is a topic that resonates with me and my resource saving philosophies, as a small scale manufacturer. I found her project interesting, and you might too.
Sam studies at Ara and for her course was asked to focus on sustainability, to encourage change. See in the picture above, her Coke bottle sculpture. It was inspired by the sculpture pictured below, seen on social media promoted by @greenpeacenz (instagram). This giant Toroa, Albatross, commissioned by Greenpeace, was made in honour of a manu, bird, which died in New Zealand. This manu who swallowed a plastic bottle, starved to death in a bird sanctuary near Napier. You may like to read the article. It goes into detail about the Albatross, the significance of plastic waste, and how that relates to us. Click to the article ‘Tears of the Albatross’ here https://greenpeace.nz/toroa. This link also takes you to sign the petition to ‘Ban The Bottle’.
“Kiwi drinks companies sell us an estimated 1 billion plastic bottles every year”
Greenpeace video ‘Tears of the Albatross’
If you watched the clip, you were probably shocked by the scale of marine plastic pollution. A billion plastic bottles every year is a lot of plastic! In the same article it says that the amount of plastic which winds up in the ocean is equivalent to a whole dump truck, every minute. So even though a lot of plastic is recyclable, we are not collectively recycling or safely containing it, to prevent it from causing environmental harm.
Sam’s Sustainability Sculpture at Ara.
Sam made the approximately two meter high coke bottle replica is from chicken wire. She is moving it around the Ara Canterbury City campus asking students to put their plastic bottles inside. Her hope is that people seeing their waste will bring home to students and staff just how much plastic we discard. In the end we need to reduce plastic consumption to move towards sustainability. We know the plastic we produce will not degrade in our life time. So why don’t we use the plastic we have produced over and over? Why don’t we find alternatives to the uses we have for plastic, and in general make do with what we have, for longer?
Using repurposed materials.
Sam put a lot of thought into the what materials she would use to make her sculpture. A broken plastic bucket lying in the garage made a great lid. Wooden pallets and chicken wire that had a prior use before the sculpture, were repurposed. Even the massive coke label, which was a TV screen from Creative Junk, shop in Christchurch, Sam painted herself. Sam indicated that of course, all the plastics collected by Ara patrons will be recycled. Even the lids which are too small to be recycled here by curbside recycling, will be utilized by a local artist.
That local artist is Sam’s mum Nicky of @upcycled_plastic (Instagram). Nicky takes number two plastic lids and turns them into into something beautiful, and useful. See an example of Nicky’s work below.
Inspired? Me too.
We don’t have to accept what is. We can change to reduce plastic use, and to educate about the importance of recovering all plastic we use in our throw away society. Why not put pressure on manufacturers to be more responsible about the way they supply their products? Can we make them take sustainability seriously?
Bring any number two lids that you would like recycle to Earthlove @ Prima Roastery, 387 Brougham Street. They open week days, 8am-4pm. Kim @Earthlove_nz (instagram) is passionate about a sustainable planet in her business. You will be surprised by how many everyday items are available that reduce the need to use plastic. And by how many local people who care there are, that make them. If you don’t think you can make it to Earthlove during Kim’s open hours, make a comment on this post to arrange drop off your lids to me in Opawa.
Here are Bex and Sam, and their lip balms. If you are interested in attending any upcoming class, hit this link. Classes. Purchase a class ticket, or sign up for the class newsletter.
