What to do with plastic waste?

What should we do with all the plastic waste that’s lying around our world? More and more organisations are taking measures to control out plastic output. UK music festival Glastonbury, for instance, is replacing plastic drinks bottles with metal ones, and one company can now turn plastic back into oil.

Still, there is a huge volume of plastic waste produced everyday. A group of artists, calling themselves Luzinterruptus (‘interrupted light’), has taken it upon themselves to illustrate this problem. With an installation in Poland, they show both how much plastic is produced daily and how pretty, as well as useful, the ‘waste’ material can be.

The team were given over 6,000 water bottles, made of PET, from a local supplier, whose production facility had discarded them for quality reasons.

This plastic waste, a blessing in disguise, was turned into a walled labyrinth that the designers hope will inspire people to think about wasteful practice, and to walk through too.

All the empty bottles were collected in transparent bags – another high-volume waste material – which were subsequently illuminated using LEDs. These bright plastic sacks were suspended from metal formwork that’s made of modular, reusable pieces.

The completed installation consists of 26m of 3,4m high plastic waste walls, arranged in a 7x5m box. The plastic reflects and refracts emitted light from the LEDs, as well as light from the sun, creating a bright and playful pavilion.

More information via: Luzinterruptus. Images by Gustavo Sanabria.