Join us for three days of hands-on plastic recycling in our Hove studio! Melt waste plastic, marble your own colours, and create something to take home with you.
As well as being a practical day, you’ll also learn how we've merged traditional crafts with modern materials, and what sustainable design and materials actually mean.
What you make over the 3 days is up to you: you could make multiple smaller pieces, including sets of coasters, vases or boards. Alternatively work on a larger scale to produce a piece of art for your wall, a tabletop or even a sculpture!
We want this fun and practical course to inspire you to see waste as a raw material, and to think creatively about its possibilities.
We’re so excited to meet some like-minded people who want to engage with solutions to some messy waste problems. We hope you can join us!
ADVANCED 3 DAY PLASTIC RECYCLING COURSE
Every day 10am start, late afternoon finish depending on group size.
Tea, coffee and water will be provided throughout the day, as well as some homemade snacks (vegan and gluten free) to keep you going through the afternoon.
We have a microwave and sofas if you want to bring lunch with you, alternatively there are some fab cafés just down the road, as well as supermarkets and other food shops on Western Road (1 minute walk).
DAY ONE
The first day starts with a meet and greet, and an informal talk with videos and Q&A, and then a kneading and cutting demonstration for you to get a feel for working with the plastic.
After this, it’s time to choose the colours of recycled plastic that you’ll use to make your first piece/s; we have prepared LDPE discs in a wide variety of colours, so there is plenty of choice! Once decided, we’ll take a 40 minute lunchbreak at around 12.30pm to give your plastic a chance to melt in our workshop ovens.
After lunch the plastic has melted, and we’ll begin exploring layering and marbling techniques. This process takes around 2 hours. When you’re happy with how the marbling looks within your plastic, we’ll either press your pieces or hand-shape them depending on the product type you are making.
DAY TWO
This day will have a similar structure to day one, however without the introduction/talk at the start, and kneading & cutting demo.
The day will start with a catch-up and discussing your ideas, and then we'll dive straight into choosing the plastic for your next piece. We'll have a lunch break to give your plastic a chance to melt, then when you return it's layering and marbling time!
In the afternoon you will apply techniques learned from the previous day, as well as learning some more advanced marbling styles. When the pieces are ready, they will be pressed or shaped depending on the product you have chosen to make.
DAY THREE
This day will be dedicated to learning traditional crafting techniques on your pressed/hand shaped pieces.
You will learn how to apply traditional woodworking techniques to the plastic, including cutting, sanding and hand carving. We will demonstrate these methods, and you will have a chance to practice before working on the pieces you created in the previous two days.
When we’re all done (4-5pm depending on group size), if anyone wants to stick around for a chat, we’ll have various drink options waiting in the fridge, and we can raise a glass to all your hard work and wonderful creations!