The first 3 months of Plastic Fantastic are now completed and what a lot of work has been created!

All three classes worked exceptionally hard on their collaborative pieces, creating three distinct and vibrant outdoors pieces. Although the works have not been completely finished, the children all had a chance to try out different upcycling processes including hand dying fabric, weaving, painting, tissue paper collage and mosaic-ing with bottle tops – all with a few to creating works suitable for the outdoors in rainy Greenock! The RIG team will ensure that all work are finished ready for installation in our Broomy’s Bees and Broomy’s Bairns gardens.

Jeanette Sultan has been hard at work with the participants to the evening workshops at the Art Flat, working on a range of furniture items. We’ve had old-fashioned decorations and canvases punked-up and dull furniture made lively with a splash of colour. 

All in all, the team worked on approximately 75kg of furniture and so far we have also collected 42.41kg of textiles. This, combined with the domestic waste collected and either used or recycled by the children at the schools throughout the project has resulted in a carbon saving of 79.32kgCO2e. That’s the equivalent of powering one average family car for 217 miles, that’s the distance between Glasgow and Gloucester!

But it’s not just the figures and numbers that matter. We’ve had wonderful feedback from our participants, with those at the Art Flat commenting that they’ve found the classes to be therapuetic and relaxing and visitor numbers increasing, with 9 new participants to the workshops since Recycle Upcycle ended.

If you’d like to try your hand at any of the upcycling skills, come along on Thursday evening from 6-8pm at 12 Broomhill Court, Ann Street, PA15 4ET. Susan McInnes will now be leading workshops on clothes upcycling, sharing skills on repairing rips and stains and on turning old clothes into something new! The workshops are free and open to all (but children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult).

For more info, email info@rigarts.org, find us on Facebook @RIGArtsGreenock or ‘The Broomhill Project’, or call 01475 649359.