A new shop that turns the public’s old plastic into useful items like flower pots has opened in the heart of Aberdeen City Centre.
Shoppers can take along a donation of certain kinds of plastic to the Origin Hub, on Schoolhill just outside the front door of the Bon Accord Centre, to give their unwanted rubbish a new lease of life.
It’s the brainchild of Gray’s School of Art designers Ben Durack and Daniel Sutherland, who want their new city centre site to help people learn more about the environmental impacts of plastics, and the importance of recycling properly.
The pair say the response from the public has so far been “really positive”.
How does the Origin Hub plastic recycling shop in Aberdeen work?
Ben and Daniel, the co-founders of the Origin initiative, take in donations of specific sorts of plastic from the public and turn them into products which they sell.
They only take in specific types of plastic which have a little number five on them surrounded by a triangle made of arrows, like this:
Right now, they have a big pile of donated plastic pieces, including old pot noodles, children’s toys and buckets which all bear the special number five mark.
They then use equipment based at Robert Gordon University to shred it down into a raw material, which can then be worked into all sorts of handy items, like the colourful flower planters they are currently selling from their Schoolhill pop-up shop.
Right now, they are only selling the planters, which start at £10 each.
‘We want to empower the public by putting plastic recycling on show’
Ben, who is also a 3D design lecturer at Gray’s School of Art, said they have deliberately taken advantage of the shopfront outside the Bon Accord centre in order to get as much visibility as possible for their project.
He said: “We want to empower members of the public to impact change on waste plastic, by putting plastic recycling on show.
“Plastic is a great resource.
“It’s durable, strong, lightweight, water resistant and relatively easy to manufacture.
“However, we have a global waste challenge.
“Society currently has a ‘take-make-discard’ attitude, and much of our plastics end up in landfill at the end of its short lifetime, which usually lasts for less than 15 minutes.”
Daniel said he wants the project to help the Aberdeen public come face-to-face with recycling, to better understand the process, start to finish.
He said: “When you put your plastic drinks bottle into the recycling bin, do you actually know what happens to it?
“The answer to that for most people is no.
“So what we try to do is show exactly what the process is behind the use of plastic, and the design that sits behind that.”
He added: “We take local plastic waste, and we make cool stuff out of it.
“Visibility in a place like this for us is massive.
“People have to be able to see first-hand that action is being taken, and they can actually buy into it and be part of it.”
Helping Aberdeen residents learn about recycling
The Origin Hub pair plan to host a number of workshops in the future about how their process works, which will be designed to educate both schoolchildren and interested members of the public alike.
And they are also intending to expand their product range by asking the public what they think they should be making with recycled plastic next.
In the shop right now, they have four displays of potential new products, and visiting shoppers can let them know what they want them to focus on creating with recycled plastic next — a pet bowl, an A for Aberdeen badge, a desk tidy, or soap dishes.
Ultimately, Ben and Daniel want to run and operate an Origin facility that has both a shop to sell its products, and the manufacturing side of things, “all under one roof”, and the designer duo hope their new shop will help them eventually achieve that dream.
They are also looking for further business partnerships, after a successful scheme working with Historic Environment Scotland to create fridge magnets from their recycled products for sale at Edinburgh Castle.
When can I go and see the Origin Hub shop for myself?
The Origin Hub on Schoolhill will be in place as a pop-up shop until March, and has been brought about thanks to the Gray’s School of Art creative unit Look Again, as well as the organisation Culture Aberdeen.
Ben added: “We’ll be manning the shop from tomorrow until Christmas Eve, it’s been a really positive experience so far, people are really energised and happy to see it.”
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