Turning plastic waste into art

These young people in Nigeria collect plastic waste and make it into art! Watch and see how they do it.

Instructions

Do the preparation task first. Then watch the video and do the exercises. Remember you can read the transcript at any time.

Nicole: Hey, guys. My name is Nicole and I'm a Greenfingers Changemaker. Today, we are going to use plastic to make things like wall murals, dresses, accessories and art. Now, the interesting thing is, we pick up plastic that you all have disposed on the ground. And we treasure them and we use them to make designs. Now, I'm about to show you how we can use plastic to make amazing things.

So we went on a plastic drive, meaning we collected plastic from the street and in our estates for recycling. The caps are not useless – we use them for projects like this, which is a wall mural.

So, we're mixing the cement and plastering it on the wall. Then we're taking the bottle caps and putting it on the cement on the wall, to make a beautiful flower mosaic.

Nicole: Hi, guys.

Greenfingers Changemakers: Hi.

Nicole: How far have you guys gone?

Greenfingers Changemakers: We're making progress. We've made some pairs of earrings, bracelets. And we're making necklaces right now.

Nicole: So we are making jewellery out of supposed plastic waste. Plastic that you guys have disposed, plastic like cups, bottles and so much more. These jewelleries are 95 per cent waste. We get plastic and cut them out into different shapes and patterns. And we use fishing line to secure the beads. And the fishing … and the hooks to the plastic.

Last Christmas, my friends and I made a Christmas tree out of plastic bottles. Now, we got green plastic bottles and poked holes in them, passed wire through them and wrapped it round the frame.

We made plastic dresses to protest against the use of single-use plastics. We are telling everyone out there to stop using single-use plastics, or, even if you do use them, learn to recycle them.