The Litter Arcade
June 2022 – Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth
Our Litter Arcade invites playful conversations about recycling and litter… whilst also offering some arcade fun and encouragement to collect nearby litter. The arcade pilot was launched at events in 2022.
We want to create opportunities to create playful interactions around the idea of waste being precious. Given that our Great Yarmouth workshop is a short walk from an amusement arcade mecca… taking inspiration from the arcade machines of Yarmouth felt like the natural thing to explore.
We decided to spend 2022 piloting the idea and pondering potential plans for a proper Arcade offer in 2023. We launched the pilot of the arcade at First Light Festival in Lowestoft on 18-19 June 2022. This first appearance was a success and so we then did a public consultation at PRIMEYARC and a further pilot at East Point Pavilion’s beer festival.
Bottle Tree
December 2022 – Great Yarmouth
Exhibited at the newly reopened Marina Centre on Great Yarmouth seafront in December 2022. The piece stood over 6 feet in height and was constructed out of hundreds of empty clear plastic water bottles. The piece was a thing of beauty, particularly after dark when the green light made the piece glow. It was also designed to draw attention to the huge amount of waste associated with the festive season. Many of the bottles used were sourced from the Yarmouth Bottle Ships installed along the coast by the Interreg 2 Seas FACET Project. These Bottle Ships were installed to prevent plastic bottles from polluting the ocean and beach.
The Wastesmiths project Precious Plastic East works to explore plastic as a precious resource, abundant in our communities, while also delivering education on the impact of plastic when it ends up in the wrong place.
The Plastic Museum of the Future
February 2023 – Norwich Science Festival, Chantry Place
In 2023 Wastesmiths was invited to expand on previous pilot projects to offer Norwich Science Festival goers a full Plastic Museum of the Future experience. The piece explores the idea of visiting a museum brough back from 2050 when the plastic problem has been solved and invites people to make exhibits about how this incredible achievement was reached. The Plastic Museum of the Future opened its doors for 8 days during and was visited by over 4000 people.
Red Sky
May 2026 – The Guildhall, Norwich
A commission for the Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2026, this piece is installed in the festival box office at The Guildhall, Norwich. The piece was constructed by our Yarmouth volunteers out of hundreds of donated pieces of red plastic. The title ‘Red Sky’ is a reference to the delight and warning signalled by a red sky in the morning or at night. Plastic as a material can be a thing of delight, and with the growing research around the impact of plastic, a warning of the human impact in ecosystems too.
The Wastesmiths project Precious Plastic East works to explore plastic as a precious resource, abundant in our communities, while also delivering education on the impact of plastic when it ends up in the wrong place.
Wastesmiths C.I.C. 