Waste turned into art

Recycling waste has long been a key aim of local councils and the government, with many schemes put in place to ensure that as much waste is recycled as possible.

One innovative scheme has been launched in San Francisco which invites artists to turn waste materials into art.

Indeed, employee-owned Recology San Francisco, which collects much of the Bay Area’s curbside waste and recycling, has long been running a programme which asks residents to turn waste products into their own creation.

The programme has been running since 1990, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

To celebrate the work, a group exhibition has opened which showcases the latest work of three residents.

The artist-in-residence scheme is funded by Recology.

One of the artists being showcased is Julia Goodman, who has created hand-made paper that she crafted from materials she found in the dump.

"In conversations with former employees, I learned that rags were gathered here until 1964," she told the Chronicle.

According to the paper, Ms Goodman wanted to celebrate the lives of these women, and she did so by using the names of seven of them in her work.

Another artist that is being shown is Michael Damm.

Mr Damm wants to look at urban life, and he has done so by using glasses taken from a nearby centre and transformed it into an ongoing series of commuter spaces, showing the busy pace of city life.

"The images are designed to be seen as a glimpse in passing by an audience in transit and to activate a process of re-perception of the surrounding urban space," he explained.

Finally, Jeff Hantman has used Recology’s found materials to make several sculptures.

One of the sculptures includes a disposed of tripod and patio umbrella.

"These pieces can be looked at as artifacts or devices which may or may not serve a function, perhaps they did at one time and are now obsolete," he told the Chronicle.