When is garbage art? Thoughts on plastic found while running.
Hi friends,
Well, it certainly has been a while, hasn’t it? While I have lots of stories in the works, today I would like to pose a simple question related to garbage art:
What would you make with the plastic bits in the above photo?
Garbage art
You’ve surely at this point seen an article, Facebook post, Instagram reel, or YouTube compilation of artists creating beautiful works out of recovered trash. There’s probably a phrase that’s been coined but garbage art feels sort of ok (it’s also not great…certainly it isn’t a very “pretty” descriptor despite how beautiful the art can be). Indeed, I’ve written about several of these artists in previous Wednesday Wins posts! It’s actually quite astounding what people can make with plastic garbage.
I guess that’s why they say, “trash into treasure,” right?
Running into garbage
On my morning run today, I literally ran into a puddle of plastic cappy-thingy bits*. At first, I accidentally kicked one into the bushes, thinking it was a rock (I was hot, sweaty, and not really paying attention). Oops. Then I stopped and realized they were all over the ground!! Ack! I have no idea how they got there but my best guess is that an electrician accidentally dumped them as he was leaving a job site. They had that scattered, accidentally dumped look about them, ya know?
But also, they were kinda pretty: all blue and yellow and bright. On the return trip, I thought: “OK Ryan, you’re gonna collect those cappy-thingys.”
Why pick up the plastic?
Two reasons, really:
1) I can’t unsee plastic pollution. True, it would have been very easy to just keep on shuffling by, pretending like I didn’t see this pile of plastic. I could have also excused myself from picking them up because I didn’t have a bag. But with my conscious yelling at me, “You know a bird is gonna eat that!” I realized: I have a shirt.
2) They immediately made me think of all the other garbage art I’ve seen over the years: like, what could you make with them that is beautiful and fun? Recently I’ve been following along with this wonderful human as she documents making delightful, whimsical creations with recovered plastic trash (although we’ve never met IRL, I think she’s wonderful) and it always makes me wonder about this: there are so many creative people in this world making art out of the most surprising ingredients. I thought either someone could help me make art out of these bits, or I could give them to someone to make art out of.
So, I collected all these yellow and blue bits in my running shirt (looking like some kinda weirdo) and plodded on home. Now, I have all these screw terminal cappy-thingys and I don’t know what to do with them.
Identifying the plastic for garbage art
As it turns out, these plastic bits are not entirely 100% plastic! I learned from Jan that there is actually a bit of metal on the inside, which means this plastic is more complicated than I had originally assumed. And – although I hope this is painfully obvious – “cappy-thingy bits” is not a technical term. I believe these are usually referred to as…twist-on wire connectors (are there any electricians in the audience who would care to fact-check me on this?). Because of their mixed materials, I would wager that they’re almost impossible to really recycle.
Today I gained two things while running: physical exercise and mental exercise learning about a new type of plastic pollution: oh, joy!
What would you make with these?
If you have any electrifying ideas for how to turn this trash into treasure (get it? because these are for electrical wiring 😂) I would love to hear about them. Leave a comment with your brilliant garbage art suggestions! Maybe I’ll be able to execute them. Or we can work together.
(If you’re really ex-static, I will pack these up into a lil’ recycled box and mail them to you for you to create something energizing with.) /electricity puns. 😉
