The Worlds First Recycled Plastic Mural Trail

10 educational and creative packs were created for this project - 1 for each pollinator chosen.  These packs were aimed to educate the new generation of Stockport all about our pollinators, through research, crafts, colouring in and more.

Each pack contained pages on pollinators, the chosen pollinator, plastic waste and local recycling. All local Stockport schools were invited to take part - 60 schools signed up - nearly 20,000 children! 

The packs were created by Plastic Shed, designed by the incredible artist Flazzle - https://www.flazzle.co.uk/

​

10 participating schools were chosen at random to help us design our pollinators, every child from every year group was involved. 

We looked into colours, shading and styles. For example when you see a green beetle what colours do you see in the shading? What colours do you see where the light hits it? Small details from multiple drawings were taken and helped form the final designs.

After these we ran 'create your own recycled plastic pollinator' with 1 class per school and taught the children the process of transforming plastic bags in recycled plastic pollinators.

​

During this time we also had all the schools run a bottle lid collection for the murals, with the schools collecting 60,000 plastic lids across Stockport. Not to mention the thousand s of people who collect and donated their plastic lids to us every month! Together over the cause of this project hundreds of thousands of lids were collected to be reused. 

​

Now - the making begins! All the pollinators are made by Caitlin in Plastic Sheds space in Stockport, each one taking around 4 days each.

​

Once completed, 10 schools were chosen to help us create the background. These were chosen from the best educational packs that were returned to us - we wanted 'best' to have the potential to mean making things - best research, best colouring, some schools even created posters on the pollinator they learned about! All things were considered and 10 lucky schools were contacts. The pieces were transported to the schools and every single child and staff member were invited to come, select a handful of lids and place them on the piece. Working together as a school to complete the mural background.

​

Once completed it was now down to INSTALL! 10 green spaces were chosen across Stockport, some big council owned parks, some rooftop growing gardens, others small community run spaces. I wanted the choices to reflect the variety of what a green space can be and how big or small, every bit of greenery we have helps our natural world. 

​

Thank you to the installers who absolutely grafted to get the pieces up and installed in their new homes.

I can 't wait for you to see them all.

​

Want a recycled plastic mural trail in your town? Want to know more? Any questions email caitlin@plasticshed.org